The Battle of Carham Read online




  THE BATTLE OF CARHAM

  By

  H A CULLEY

  Book two about the Earls of Northumbria

  Published by

  Orchard House Publishing

  First Kindle Edition 2019

  Text copyright © 2019 H A Culley

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events portrayed in it, which sticking as closely to the recorded history of the time and featuring a number of historical figures, are largely the product of the author’s imagination.

  It is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author or the publisher’s prior consent, electronically or in any form of binding or cover other than the form in which it is published and without this condition being imposed on any subsequent purchaser or owner.

  Replication or distribution of any part is strictly prohibited without the written permission of the copyright holder.

  All Rights Reserved

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  List of Earls of Northumbria & Bernicia

  List of Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Flight to Normandy

  Chapter Two – The Mêlée at Caen

  Chapter Three – Return to England

  Chapter Four – The Mormaer of Moray

  Chapter Five – York

  Chapter Six – Bebbanburg

  Chapter Seven – The War Council at Duns

  Chapter Eight – Scouts and Skirmishes

  Chapter Nine – A Game of Cat and Mouse

  Chapter Ten – The Peace Envoys

  Chapter Eleven – Defeat of the Norse

  Chapter Twelve – Macbeth the Red

  Chapter Thirteen – Aldred’s Stand

  Chapter Fourteen – Prelude to Battle

  Chapter Fifteen – The Comet

  Chapter Sixteen – The Battle

  Chapter Seventeen - The Peace Treaty

  Chapter Eighteen – Aftermath

  Historical Note

  Author’s Note

  This book is set in a period when Northumbria encompassed a large part of Northern England. In addition to today’s Northumberland, Bernicia covered the Borders Region and Lothian in Scotland as well as County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Cleveland in England. Deira, the southern part of Northumbria, corresponded roughly to the three counties that make up modern Yorkshire.

  In the last book of the series ‘The Kings of Northumbria’ I said in the historical note that Uhtred the Bold died at the Battle of Carham and, indeed, several sources reflect this account of his death. However, further research on my part leads me to believe that Uhtred was killed two years before the battle by Thurbrand the Hold, possibly on the orders of King Cnut (also spelt Canute). As a blood feud evidently followed his murder this makes it the more likely of the two versions of Uhtred’s death.

  In past books about the Anglo-Saxon period I have used the ancient names for places, where known, to add authenticity to the story. However several reviewers have said that this is confusing, especially when the reader has also had to cope with the unfamiliar names of the characters. I have therefore used the modern names for places with two notable exceptions. I have retained the Anglo-Saxon name for Bamburgh – Bebbanburg - as that will be more familiar to readers who like this period, and I have used the Saxon name for what is now Yorkshire - Deira. As this would have been divided up into a number of administrative shires at this time, to call it Yorkshire would be confusing.

  I have also used Aldred instead of Ealdred for Uhtred’s eldest son. This is to save confusion when so many characters have names beginning Ea.

  I have used the term knights for the Norman mounted warriors but the word itself first appeared in common usage in the late eleventh century. It derives from the German knecht, meaning servant, bondsman or vassal and cniht meaning boy or servant in Old English. Gradually the meaning changed to household retainer and then to military follower of a king or lord.

  I felt it would be wrong to use the word for Aldred’s mounted warriors and the Anglo-Saxons didn’t have knights. I have therefore opted for the word ‘milites’ which is a Latin term and preceded knight as the term for a horse warrior.

  The idea of using heavy cavalry had been introduced into Europe by Charlemagne in the eight century. The French and the Normans developed the concept until these mounted warriors became minor nobility, partially because only the upper class could afford the horses, armour, weapons and servants required to maintain themselves as milites.

  Heavy cavalrymen needed attendants and the Franks, later the French and the Normans, employed boys and youths of noble birth in this role. At the same time they learned to become mounted warriors themselves. The Medieval term squire derives from the French word escuier, which derives from the Latin scutifer (shield bearer). An alternative word in Latin was armiger (armour bearer) and this is the term I have opted to use.

  At the time that this novel begins Northumbria, or what remained of the ancient northern kingdom, was divided into two; Deira in the south centred on York; and Bernicia between the River Tees and the Firth of Forth. Although absorbed by Bernicia in the seventh century, the northern part of Bernicia between the River Tweed and the Firth of Forth was still known as Lothian.

  The inhabitants of Lothian were mainly descended from the Goddodin, a tribe of Britons who had more in common with the Welsh and the people of Strathclyde than they did with their conquerors – the Angles from Bernicia. Over the centuries three peoples – the Picts, the Scots of Dalraida and eventually the Britons of Strathclyde –united to become the Kingdom of Alba. However, again to save confusion, I have used the modern name of Scotland and the Scots for the inhabitants.

  Although the first King of the English, Æthelstan, had subjugated the Danes of Yorvik – the Danish name for York – and brought them under his rule, they had retained their Viking identity and their relationship with a king who lived in Wessex was a fragile one. Since Æthelstan’s time the differences between the Danes and the Angles – the occupants of Deira before the time of the Danelaw – had been somewhat eroded by the passing of the years, inter-marriage and conversion to Christianity; nevertheless Deira stood out as a largely Danish ghetto in the midst of an Anglo-Saxon England. Although people of Danish descent lived in other parts of England as well, they were in the minority.

  Since the demise of Northumbria as a separate kingdom it had been split in two, the Danes ruling the former Saxon Kingdom of Deira, centred on York, in the south and the hereditary lords of Bebbanburg governing Bernicia (including Lothian) in the north. However, Lothian became disputed territory between Scotland and England in the second half of the tenth and early eleventh centuries. Views are mixed on whether the Battle of Carham was the decisive battle that sealed the fate of Lothian. Some maintain that it was de facto a part of Scotland before that, but certainly the region was never claimed by England after that event.

  Æthelred (King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death in 1016) had re-united Northumbria under Earl Uhtred the Bold but, shortly after Cnut invaded England, Uhtred was ambushed and killed. Once more Northumbria was split in two. Uhtred was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Eadwulf Cudel and the Norwegian, Erik of Hlathir, became Earl of York (i.e. Deira). It isn’t clear whether Erik was in fact Earl of Northumbria with Eadwulf as his junior or whether there were two quite distinct earldoms.

  List of Earls of Northumbria & Bernicia

  Northumbria

  Uhtred the Bold 1006 - 1016

  Erik Håkonsson1016 – 1023

  Siward Bjornsson1023(?) – 1055

  Tostig Godwinson1055 – 1065

  Morcar1065 – 1066

  Copsi1066

  Osulf1067

  Gospatric1067 – 1068

  Robert de Comines1068 – 1069 [Norman]

  Gospatric(restored)1070 -1072

  Waltheof1072 – 1075 [last Anglo-Saxon earl]

  Bernicia

  Eadwulf Cudel1016 – 1020

  Aldred1020 – 1038

  Eadulf1038 – 1041

  Under Northumbria 1041 – 1065

  Osulf1065 – 1067

  Under Northumbria 1067 onwards

  NOTE: Names in bold are members of the Bebbanburg dynasty

  List of Characters

  In alphabetical order, historical characters are shown in bold:

  Ælfflæd - Uhtred’s posthumous daughter, later wife of Sigurd, Earl of Northumbria

  Ælfgifu – Daughter of King Æthelred and Emma of Normandy, Uhtred’s third wife

  Aldhun – Bishop of Durham

  Aldred – Uhtred’s eldest son

  Aodghan – Eadwulf’s body servant and Sigfreda’s lover

  Beda – Elder son of Leofwine, Ealdorman of Durham

  Bjorn – A Danish noble, father of Siward who was later Earl of Northumbria

  Ceadda – Captain of Aldred’s warriors

  Ceolfrith – Son of Ulfric, Thane of Norham

  Cnut – King of England, later also King of Denmark and Norway

  Colby – One of Aldred’s scouts

  Eadulf – Uhtred’s second son

  Eadwulf – Earl of Bernicia, nicknamed Cudel (cuttlefish – an invertebrate) because he lacked backbone

  Ealdgyth – Uhtred’s eld
er daughter, later married Maldred of Dunbar, brother of King Duncan of Scotland

  Edgar – An agent in Findlay’s service

  Edith – Aldred’s daughter

  Emma – His sister. Former wife of Æthelred, King of England who died in 1016; later Cnut’s queen

  Erik Håkonsson – Earl of Northumbria

  Findlay mac Ruairi - Mormaer of Moray

  Fiske – A Norse boy, body servant to Eadulf

  Gillecomgan - Máel Coluim’s younger brother, who succeeded him as mormaer

  Gosric - Ealdorman of Selkirkshire in Lothian

  Gunwald – Illegitimate son of Cnut; fostered by Bjorn

  Gytha – Cnut’s sister; married to Erik Håkonsson

  Hacca – Ealdorman of Edinburgh, later Earl of Lothian

  Iuwine – Ealdorman of Berwickshire in Lothian

  Kætilbiǫrn – A wealthy goldsmith in York

  Kjetil and Hakon – Captured Norse ship’s boys, later warriors in Aldred’s warband

  Leofwine –Ealdorman of Durham

  Macbeth – His son, later King of Scots

  Máel Coluim mac Máel Brigti – Findlay of Moray’s nephew, later Mormaer of Moray

  Malcolm - Nicknamed Forranach (the destroyer), King of Scots

  Oeric – The son of a tenant farmer who later became one of Aldred’s warband

  Osric – A novice at Melrose Monastery

  Owain ap Dyfnwal – Nicknamed the Bald, King of Strathclyde

  Regnwald – One of King Cnut’s senior housecarls

  Richard - Duke of Normandy

  Sigfrida – Aldred’s half-sister and Eadwulf’s wife

  Synne – A street urchin in York, later Aldred’s wife

  Thurbrand – A wealthy Danish Jarl who conspired with Eadwulf to kill Uhtred

  Uuen – Body servant to Aldred

  Wictred – One of Aldred’s warriors

  Wulfstan Lupus – Archbishop of York and Bishop of Worcester

  Prologue

  April 1000 to June 1003

  Uuen stood up to stretch his aching back. He was eight years old and, along with the other children in the village, he was busy picking weeds from the fields of oats and barley. He looked around him, at the cold blue of the sea below the hillside where he was working, at the other children, and then back towards the Pictish settlement which was home.

  Suddenly he stiffened in alarm. Three Norse longships had appeared over the horizon from the north and were rowing towards the beach below where he stood.

  ‘Vikings!’ he yelled to warn the others and then he was off, sprinting towards the gates in the palisade that surrounded the village to warn his mother.

  As he sprinted through the gates he ran into the headman, a man called Durst, coming the other way to see what all the shouting was about. He grabbed Uuen by the collar of his filthy flea ridden homespun tunic and brought his face close to the boy’s.

  ‘What’s all this shouting about? Why have you stopped work in the fields? You’d better have a good excuse…’

  ‘Vikings, Durst, three longships heading for the beach down there.’

  Durst stood there, indecisive for a moment. He was tempted to go and see if Uuen was telling the truth. If he was, he needed to organise the men to defend the settlement and get the women and children away into the low hills to the south. On the other hand he didn’t trust small children to tell the truth. This could be a ploy to make him look stupid. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Uuen had never forgiven Durst for killing his father, the previous headman, and he tried to undermine him whenever he could. Durst had beaten the boy nearly to death the last time and it had taken him months to recover. However, judging by the desperate look in Uuen’s eyes, Durst thought that he was telling the truth this time. It was confirmed when he saw that all the others who’d been weeding were running towards him. He let go of Uuen’s tunic.

  ‘Go and spread the word for the men to arm themselves and for the women and children to head into the hills. You know the drill.’

  Uuen nodded and ran through the jumble of huts yelling his message on his way to the hovel where he lived with his mother, three brothers and two sisters. His brothers were all older than him and they grabbed their weapons and headed for the gates, including the youngest, Brac, who was only just twelve. Uuen was about to join them but his mother hustled him and his sisters out of the hut and they headed for the small gate in the southern section of the palisade. However, the boy did manage to grab a hunting spear on his way out.

  Once out in the open he led his family along a stream bed which concealed them from view until he judged that they were safe. Other families trailed along behind them and Uuen felt important as if he was the leader now. There were other boys his age and a little older behind him but he ignored that. An hour later they reached the source of the stream and the ground became very boggy.

  He led everyone up onto the higher ground. From there he could look back towards the settlement in the distance. He cursed in fury as he saw the black smoke rising into the still air. The Vikings must have captured the place, pillaged it and were now burning it to the ground. He worried that his three brothers were either dead or captives.

  He had foolishly assumed that, as they were now a good three miles away, they would be safe, but, as he turned back with tears in his eyes to continue on his way to the valley where they kept the livestock, safe from thieves and raiders, he saw a group of men coming over the moorland towards him.

  Vikings! They had a captive with them and Uuen realised with shame that it was his brother, Brac. He must be leading them to the hidden valley. As they hadn’t had to bother about keeping out of sight, they had reached the same place in half the time. He was furious with Brac for betraying his people and, without conscious thought, he drew back his arm and threw his hunting spear as hard as he could towards his brother.

  It was a long shot – almost fifty yards – but anger lent him strength. The spear flew up in a curve and came down to hit Brac. Uuen was barely conscious of his mother screaming ‘no’ at him as Brac fell backwards and lay still with the spear sticking up from the centre of his chest.

  The Vikings stopped for an instant, then started to move towards the group of women and children emerging from the stream bed. The rest of the Picts ran away from the Vikings but Uuen stood rooted to the spot. He’d been livid with Brac for his treachery, but he’d never meant to kill him. Now he was filled with remorse. As the Vikings came towards him he found he didn’t care enough to try and run; he waited there, head hanging in shame, for them to reach him and kill him.

  But they didn’t. The Norse leader was Sigurd the Stout, Jarl of Orkney, and he had been impressed by Uuen’s throw. Instead of slitting the boy’s throat he decided to keep him as a thrall.

  Sigurd had had enough of traipsing over the rough moorland for one day and so he let his men do the chasing whilst he headed back to his ships, leading Uuen by a rope halter around his neck.

  Uuen later learned that the Vikings, weighed down by their heavy byrnies - a short sleeved coat made of chain mail which came down to the upper thigh - had only managed to capture a few of the older women and younger children. The rest, including his own family, had escaped. The old women were raped and killed and the children joined Uuen in the bottom of the longships to be taken back to Orkney.

  ϮϮϮ

  Three years later Uuen was called from his usual work looking after Sigurd’s pigs by one of the jarl’s sons and taken to the hall where he was stripped of all his clothes. The blacksmith came and removed the iron collar from around his neck – the mark of a thrall – and he wondered if he was being set free.

  Some attempt was made to clean him up but he fought so violently with the women who tried to give him a bath that they settled for washing him with a wet cloth as best they could. The new clothes he was given were finer than anything the boy had ever seen and he found wearing shoes strange after spending most of his life going barefoot, even in winter.

  ‘You are to play a role soon,’ Sigurd told him. ‘You are to pretend to be my son. Do you understand?’