She Wolves (6 page)
If this is what Edith hoped for, she was to be proved very wrong. Rather than pacifying the north, Gospatric’s death stirred the Northumbrians into rebellion against Tostig in 1065.
20
Edith was probably infuriated by the news of the rebellion and she may have petitioned her eldest brother, Harold, to support Tostig. Harold, however, apparently realising that Tostig’s position in Northumbria was unsustainable, refused to support his brother, to the chagrin of both Edith and Tostig.
21
At court, Edith must have listened to news of the rebellion with increasing anger but she would have been powerless to act. She must have been deeply angry with her brother Harold when Tostig was forced into exile in Flanders and she may not have supported Harold when he succeeded her husband, Edward the Confessor, on his death in 1066. Certainly, she came to terms quickly with William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings and Edith managed to sustain her position as queen dowager and live in some style until her death in 1075.
22
Edith Godwine was implicated in the political murder of a rival and, in spite of her attempts to portray herself in a positive way, she retained a slightly unsavoury reputation until the end of her life. Whether or not she was involved in the murder is impossible now to say and, it is possible that attempts to place the blame on her were part of a wider campaign against her unpopular family. If she was involved however, it is interesting that the blames falls squarely on her rather than the equally guilty Tostig. Rumours of misconduct tend to stick more firmly to any queen or other woman involved than they do to men. Thanks partly to her own propaganda efforts, and also to the Normans’ efforts to honour the widow of Edward the Confessor, Edith never gained the reputation of Eadburh and the murder of Gospatric remains something of a footnote to her life. Edith Godwine certainly had a dubious reputation, but that reputation was nothing compared to the reputation of her own husband’s grandmother, Queen Aelfthryth.
Aelfthryth is one of the most notorious of any queen of England and this centres mainly on the murder of her stepson, King Edward the Martyr. Edward’s murder was not the only one in which Aelfthryth’s name was implicated however, and throughout her lifetime sources claim that she was involved in a number of murders designed to further her ambition. The stories surrounding her rival even those of Eadburh in their wickedness.
Aelfthryth was the daughter of a powerful thegn, Ordgar, who later became earldorman of Devon.
23
She appears to have been ambitious from an early age and a grand marriage was arranged for her to Aethelwold, the son and heir of the famous Athelstan Half-King, ruler of much of eastern England. The first murder in which Aelfthryth was implicated was that of her first husband. A number of sources suggest that Aelfthryth quickly became disaffected with her life as a nobleman’s wife. According to William of Malmesbury, Aelfthryth and her parents were tricked into sanctioning the match with Aethelwold:
The king had commissioned [Aethelwold] to visit Elfrida [Aelfthryth], daughter of Ordgar, duke of Devonshire, (whose charms had so fascinated the eyes of some persons that they commended her to the king,) and to offer her marriage if her beauty were really equal to report. Hastening on his embassy, and finding every thing consonant to the general estimation, he concealed his mission from her parents, and procured the damsel for himself. Returning to the king, he told a tale which made for his own purpose, that she was a girl of vulgar and common-place appearance, and by no means worthy of such transcendent dignity.
24
Aethelwold must have been relieved that the king appeared to have accepted his story and he and Aelfthryth settled down together. Whilst she was pregnant with her first child, however, Aelfthryth apparently learned the truth of the story behind her marriage from her husband’s own mouth.
25
For an ambitious woman like Aelfthryth, this news must have been devastating and she apparently ceased to love her husband from that point. Edgar had also become suspicious of Aethelwold as reports of Aelfthryth’s beauty had continued to reach him and he resolved to visit her, to see the truth for himself. News of the royal visit threw Aethelwold in a panic and he begged Aelfthryth to disguise her beauty in her ugliest clothes.
26
Aelfthryth, however, apparently deceived her husband and appeared before the king in her finest garments. Aelfthryth and Edgar quickly fell in love, in spite of the fact that both were married. The pair came to an understanding to marry and, soon after their meeting, Aethelwold was invited on a hunting expedition by Edgar.
27
William of Malmesbury narrates how Edgar whilst out hunting ran Aethelwold through with a javelin.
28
Soon afterwards, Edgar divorced his wife and the couple were able to marry.
The stories surrounding Aelfthryth’s first marriage and her husband’s death portray Aelfthryth as a dishonest, adulterous and murderous woman and one entirely unsuited to the position of queen. However, as with so many stories concerning medieval queens, there is more to the evidence than meets the eye. The story of Aelfthryth’s first marriage is recorded by William of Malmesbury and Gaimar, both of whom were writing several centuries after Aelfthryth died and therefore unlikely to have had first hand evidence of her conduct. It is therefore debatable that events actually happened in that way at all and it seems more likely that stories of Aelfthryth were coloured by the later murder of Edward the Martyr. Also, even if these stories can be accepted as true, which seems doubtful, Aelfthryth cannot be entirely blamed for Aethelwold’s murder. He apparently tricked her into marriage, something for which she had a right to be grieved. Aelfthryth is also not named as the murderer in either account although she receives the blame for it. The true murderer is Edgar, who escapes all blame and censure in the accounts. Edgar, unlike Aelfthryth, enjoys a good reputation despite his alleged involvement in the murder of Aelfthryth’s first husband and the rebellion which led him to take the throne from his brother Eadwig. The major difference between him and Aelfthryth is that, as a man, he was expected by his contemporaries and those following to be politically active and to sometimes act with dubious morality to further his political ambition. Aelfthryth, as a woman, was not.
Aethelwold’s murder was not the only accusation to be made against Aelfthryth. Chroniclers recorded a number of stories in an attempt to prove her wickedness. Aelfthryth had apparently not been faithful to her first husband, beginning an affair with the king during Aethelwold’s lifetime, and, according to a number of sources, she was also not faithful to Edgar. One story in particular claims to testify both to her reputation as a murderess and an adulteress, found in the
Historia Eliensis
:
It happened at a certain time, therefore, that the holy Abbot Byrhtnoth set out for the king’s court on church business; as he was journeying on this side of “Geldedune” through the wood called the New Forest, as it is said, he sought some more secluded spot to satisfy the needs of nature; as he was a modest man and of great integrity he took care to look round on every side. By chance under a certain tree he surprised the queen, Aelfthryth, engaged in the preparation of magic potions (for, transformed, by her caprice and magic art into an equine animal, she wished to appear as a horse and not as a woman to onlookers, so that she might satisfy the unrestrainable excess of her burning lust, running and leaping hither and thither with horses and showing herself shamelessly to them, regardless of the fear of God and the honour of the royal dignity, she thus contemptibly brought reproach upon her fame).
29
This account suggests that even a king as notoriously licentious as Edgar could not satisfy Aelfthryth’s lust and, although it is likely to have been considerably embellished, shows something of the unsavoury reputation had by Aelfthryth. The story continues to relate how Aelfthryth’s wickedness did not end there and, upon her return to court, she attempted to seduce the Abbot in order to ensure his silence.
30
When the Abbot refused, Aelfthryth, desperate not to be unmasked as a witch and an adulteress, summoned her ladies and, together they heated up sword thongs on the fire and murdered the Abbot by inserting them into his bowels.
31
This was a particularly horrible death and, interestingly, one that a later queen of England, and Aelfthryth’s own descendant, would be accused of inflicting on her husband. This story is clearly an invention of the writer. However it does demonstrate Aelfthryth’s notoriety and there was a third murder that she was almost certainly complicit in.
Although rumours of adultery and the murders of Aethelwold and the Abbot of Ely have dogged Aelfthryth’s reputation for over 1,000 years, it is the murder of her stepson, Edward the Martyr, with which she is most famously associated. Edgar had been married twice before his marriage to Aelfthryth and his first marriage had produced a son, Edward.
32
Aelfthryth, however, had ambitions for her own sons by Edgar, Edmund and Aethelred, and there is some evidence that she was able to persuade Edgar to make Edmund his heir over the older Edward.
33
However any tacit agreement to make Aelfthryth’s son heir to the throne died with Edmund in 970 and there is no indication that the much younger Aethelred was ever similarly designated.
34
Aelfthryth was probably not unduly concerned at Edgar’s failure to nominate Aethelred as his heir. In 971, Edgar was only in his late twenties and she must have reasoned that there was plenty of time for Aethelred to grow up.
If this was Aelfthryth’s plan, it was to be thrown into disarray in 975 with the sudden death of Edgar.
35
Neither of Edgar’s surviving sons were adults but Aethelred, who was only about seven years old, was at a distinct disadvantage. Nonetheless, Aelfthryth and her allies appear to have made a credible case for the succession of Aethelred, as the legitimate son of Edgar, over that of his half-brother, who was born of a more dubious marriage. According to the
Life of St Oswald
, the whole country was thrown into confusion by Edgar’s death and there was a great deal of debate over who would succeed him:
36
Certain of the chief men of this land wished to elect as king the king’s elder son, Edward by name; some of the nobles wanted the younger; because he appeared to all gentler in speech and deeds. The elder, in fact, inspired in all not only fear but even terror, for [he scourged them] not only with words but truly with dire blows, and especially his own men dwelling with him.
37
Even in his early teens, Edward apparently had an unsavoury reputation and this may have increased support for Aethelred. Dunstan, who had been made Edgar’s Archbishop of Canterbury early in his reign, proved to be as opposed to Aelfthryth as queen as he had been to Aelfgifu of the House of Wessex and, as England’s leading churchman, he was able to insist upon Edward’s accession in preference to that of Aethelred. This would have been a great blow for Aelfthryth and her supporters and it must have been doubly hard for Aelfthryth that it was her enemy, Dunstan, who was able to ensure that her son was not proclaimed king. She clearly did not abandon Aethelred’s cause, however, and over the next three years both Aelfthryth and her supporters continued to scheme for Aethelred’s accession to the throne.
Aelfthryth apparently saw her chance to act against Edward in 978 when he decided to pay a visit to her and Aethelred at her house at Corfe. Accounts differ as to exactly what happened but even the earliest detailed account places the murder at Aelfthryth’s home and blames the men of her household for it.
38
Later accounts, such as William of Malmesbury, lay the blame for plotting the murder with Aelfthryth, and some even place Aelfthryth as one of the king’s assailants. According to William of Malmesbury:
The woman, however, with a stepmother’s hatred, began to mediate a subtle strategem, in order that not even the title of king might be wanting to her child, and to lay a treacherous snare for her son-in-law, which she accomplished in the following manner. He was returning home, tired with the chase, and gasping with thirst from the exercise, while his companions were following the dogs in different directions as it happened, when hearing that they dwelt in a neighbouring mansion, the youth proceeded thither at full speed, unattended and unsuspecting, as he judged of others by his own feelings. On his arrival, alluring him to her with female blandishments, she made him fix his attention upon herself, and after saluting him while he was eagerly drinking from the cup which had been presented, the dagger of an attendant pierced him through. Dreadfully wounded, with all his remaining strength he spurred his horse in order to join his companions; when one foot slipping he was dragged by the other through the winding paths, while the steaming blood gave evidence of his death to his followers.
39
Aelfthryth may not actually have gone out to meet the king or plunged the dagger in herself, but she was certainly nearby at the time of the murder and it is inconceivable that her followers would have acted on anything other than her orders. Aelfthryth, along with the young Aethelred, also had the most to gain from the murder and so she is an obvious suspect. She appears to have considered her actions to be natural for an ambitious mother and it has been claimed that she beat Aethelred with a candlestick on seeing him mourn for the brother who had blocked his path to the throne.
40
The memory of this beating apparently stayed with Aethelred for the rest of his life, giving him a terror of candlelight. Later accounts of the murder are certainly embellished to give Aelfthryth a more prominent and crueller role but there is little doubt that she was in the vicinity and aware of what was to happen.
By helping to plot the murder of Edward the Martyr, Aelfthryth was able to secure her greatest desire and Aethelred was quickly accepted as king and crowned. She probably ignored Dunstan’s prophecies of disaster at the coronation as the mutterings of a bad loser and she may well have also ignored the strange clouds seen after the coronation that were held to auger doom for Aethelred’s reign.
41
However, Aelfthryth may have quickly come to regret her actions on behalf of her child and perhaps she saw the reappearance of the Vikings a few years after the murder as a judgement on both her and her son. According to a number of reports, Aelfthryth became increasingly penitent both for the murder of Edward and that of Aethelwold and she apparently founded a nunnery at Wherwell, the site of her first husband’s death.
42
Legend states that Aelfthryth also retired to that nunnery in an attempt to win forgiveness for her crimes and, whilst there, wore hair-cloth and slept on the ground in her penance.
43
This is certainly an exaggeration and Aelfthryth remained an important figure at court until almost the end of her life. However her last years cannot have been easy and she would have watched Aethelred’s increasing troubles with concern. Perhaps she came to regret her ambition in the years before her death in either 1000 or 1001.