Murder in Anglo-Saxon England

Records from Anglo-Saxon England are filled with stories of murder, witchcraft and betrayals of the worst kind, giving the impression that this period was one of lawlessness and rebellion. But how many of these tales are true? How do they square with a period known to have had lengthy, detailed law codes and harsh punishments for unlawful killing? Dr. Eleanor Janega meets historian and author Annie Whitehead who has collated some 100 cases from regicides to robberies gone wrong, to ask what, if anything, they can tell us about the motives of those who recorded them and about Anglo-Saxon governance and society? Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Edited by Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

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• 1:51Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 2:31Eleanor Janega?

  Who doesn't love a good murder story? From the gruesome tales that have fascinated people for centuries, to the intricate details of historical crimes that shaped whole societies. Today, we're going to explore a realm where bloodshed and betrayal were a part of everyday life. Author Annie Whitehead has meticulously researched almost 100 murder cases spanning five centuries in early medieval England. They include shocking accounts of mass murder, poisonings, even decapitations, all set against the backdrop of time when law and order were still taking shape.

• 3:11Eleanor Janega?

  The stories in Annie's book Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wargold, Revenge might give the impression that this was a time of lawlessness and rebellion. But how many of these tales are true? And how do they square with the period known for having had lengthy, detailed law codes and harsh punishment for unlawful killing? Why were certain murders deemed newsworthy? And what do these accounts reveal about justice and societal norms in a warrior society? Annie, welcome to Gone Medieval.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for inviting me.

• 3:48Eleanor Janega?

  I am absolutely delighted, because fundamentally, this is the most podcast bait you could ever have, because not only have we got medieval history, which is obviously everyone's favorite subject in the world, but we have got murder. It's medieval true crime, baby.

• 4:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 4:06Eleanor Janega?

  And we are here for it. So, I mean, I wanted to start us off, though, just by kind of digging into some of the stories, because what's really interesting about these early medieval English stories is this is a time that we don't usually have a ton of sources for, right? So here we are in the 7th century, and looking at murder cases can really tell us a lot about... Power grabs, how the kingdoms are working against each other, who is able to exercise power over who. And this kind of really starts off with an assassination attempt on King Edwin. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that story.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. And when I first had the idea for the book, I was so aware of all these really, sometimes literally fantastical murder stories. And a lot of them, I think everyone's familiar with. But I thought, I know that these in the main aren't true. So let's just dial right back and have a look at the sources. And you're right, there aren't that many. But what we've got really do tell us quite a lot. So the assassination attempt on Edwin's life, this is at a time when there's no such thing as England. There are Anglo Saxons, Dukes, Fresians, whoever. How they got here is a bit of a contentious issue at the moment. Historians are arguing about it. How peaceful, how violent was it?

• 5:27Speaker 04

  We gloss over that. We get, we get to the point where there are several, what we might term English kingdoms, as opposed to British kingdoms that were there before these Angles and Saxons and all the rest came over. And up in Northumbria, before it was even Northumbria, which most people might recognize now as a term, there were two parts to Northumbria. There was the north, which was centered around Banra, which was Benicia, and then the south, centered around York, which was Deira. And Edwin is a classic case. His family ruled Deira in the south, and the king from the north in Benicia killed the king, exiled the family. And Edwin spent many, many years in exile in various kingdoms. At one point,

• 6:10Speaker 04

  he was down in East Anglia with the Redwald, who we think was the Sutton Hoo very old king. And Edwin managed to claw his way back, got rid of his rivals. And then we're told by Bede, who is one of our major sources for this period and for this area, because Bede was a Northumbrian monk writing an ecclesiastical history. We must bear that in mind. So Bede is all about the religion and the conversion. But Edwin apparently was just sitting down, having a feast one night. His wife was in labor. An assassin was sent, received to kill him with a poisoned blade. So we love that detail. Hmm. And what's really unusual about this story is that we actually have the name, not only of the assassin,

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Ayma, but the thane, the servant, the man who saved Edwin, who actually took the brunt of the poison. And his name was Leela. So we have all this lovely detail. We're told the assassin was sent by the King of the West Saxons. And straight away, I start asking questions. But that's a long way to go. Yeah. Even in these days, you know, to drive from Wessex down and southwest of England, right up to Northumbria. That's a long way. So straight away, why an assassin? Why are they not having pitched battles? So that was something that intrigued me. Edwin survived. And he promised then, essentially what Bede says is after this, you know, brush with death,

• 7:38Speaker 04

  Edwin agreed to convert to Christianity. And this is Bede's main reason for telling us the story. But I started that with, you know, a book about murder and I start with a failed murder, essentially. But it does illustrate the point that a lot of these earlier murder stories, we are looking at kings fighting to establish their own kingdoms. We can forget about the idea of dynasty at this time. It's very, very rare that a son will succeed a father. You know, it's about who has the most power, the most strength. And a story of kings in exile is a recurring theme, not just in Northumbria. Famously in Mercia, the king who preceded King Ophir, who I'm sure everyone's heard of,

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Athabold, reign for almost as long, a similar time to Ophir. But we first hear about him in exile. I think Ophir might well have been in exile before he became king because we have no documentary evidence really of his existence before he became king. So, you know, you have to wonder what's going on there. So the early part of the book is a story of kings essentially killing kings or trying to kill them. And particularly in the north. In the eighth century in Northumbria, we've got, I think it's something like fourteen reigns by thirteen kings, one of them reigned twice. And it's just a litany of, I mean, I've got a little list here. The earliest king in the eighth century, killed.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  Two kings later, the next one was forcibly tortured. Now, this was another thing. If you took a king or a would be king and had him forcibly tortured, he then becomes a member of the clergy essentially, and then cannot claim the kingship. So that's a good way of getting rid of your rivals. Then we've got the next king violated sanctuary to kill his rival's sons.

• 9:27Eleanor Janega?

  Oh.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  The next one was killed by his own household. Yeah, it's, the next one was driven out, the next one was also exiled. Then we've got one who was exiled, came back, bless him, then was betrayed and killed. Next one was killed, the next one was deposed, and the next one managed to survive for a while, but was accused of murder. That's the Northumbrian kings in the eighth century.

• 9:50Eleanor Janega?

  We need some kind of rhyme about this, like the Henry the Eighth.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  I mean, to be honest, if you asked me to list off the names, I can't do it because it's so, it's almost like one, you know, sits down on the throne and then gets booted off, one only lasted twenty seven days. See, and we don't have that much documentary evidence for this period in Northumbria, apart from Bede and another Northumbrian who was living in Shalane's call Alcoin, who was a serial letter writer amongst other things. And the distress that these two are portraying, you know, and actually the famous, probably not the first, but what we think of as the first Viking raid in Lindostan in seven nine three. These scholars claim that this was all the fault of the sinful kings. You know, they brought it upon themselves.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  And as I say, we don't have a lot of documentary evidence for what's going on, so it's quite hard to sort of get around behind it and see what's happening. But it's basically, it's the birth of nations, they are establishing their kingship, and some of them are doing it substantially better than others.

• 11:00Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's incredibly clear, right? And we see all this turmoil in Northumbria, and it's such an incredibly wealthy place. You know, the Northumbrian kings have quite a lot of money comparatively to, you know, even other places in what is now England, you know, they've got such great cattle grazing and things of this nature. But you know, when we look at sources like this, you're right, they're so limited. You know, it's either Alcuin, which God bless him, you know, I love that he's he's down in Arhen, but he's still kind of riding home all the time, you know, a man after my own heart. But there's also Bede, obviously, which is where we get the story. And Bede doesn't do anything for no reason, right?

• 11:42Eleanor Janega?

  You know, every single thing that he writes down is incredibly calculated. So I find this story of Edwin so interesting because of all the little details he includes. Like, I mean, I guess at first, the first question that I have regarding this then is, knowing that Bede is trying to tell us something with this story, why do you think we're talking about Yomar looking at assassination as opposed to a battlefield confrontation? Like, is this a reflection of Bede trying to say, oh, there's these non-Christian elements that do dodgy things like send assassins?

• 12:21Eleanor Janega?

  Or is this supposed to be kind of showing that there, you know, is some kind of divine protection coming?

• 12:28Speaker 04

  I suspect it might be a little bit of both. That's a really interesting question. And you're right, Bede, we have to take what he says, not with a pinch of salt, because he is our major source for this period. And I don't think anyone's saying that what he says happened didn't happen. But you're right, he picks and he chooses. And what's interesting is that although this assassin comes to Northumbria, Edwin were then told presumably takes an army. That's not said, but you know, we have to assume that's implicit.

• 12:58Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, I would personally.

• 13:00Speaker 04

  And then he kills five West Saxon kings. So again, this story is really demonstrating that, you know, this Northumbrian is writing about a Northumbrian king whom he greatly admired. And he's saying, you don't, you don't mess with us. You know, you send one man with a knife, we're going to send an army and we're not going to just kill one king, we're going to kill five. So there is that sort of, you know, very pro Northumbrian element. I think also, you're right, the religious aspect that, you know, Edwin has been protected.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  And as you say, by divine intervention, this is what causes him, according to Bede, to agree to convert to Christianity. So this is a huge element, and you will see this throughout Bede's writing, you know, and it's very interesting because you can turn it the other way, you know, the famous mercy and King Pender, resolutely pagan to the end of his days, Bede actually compliments him, you know, Pender spent his life fighting the Northumbrians, I like to say fighting off the Northumbrians because I'm very pro mercy and I would just put that out there.

• 14:08Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, I love a girl with a team, fantastic.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  But, you know, Bede, when he compliments Pender, we have to take it seriously because he is not predisposed to say nice things about an enemy of Northumbria. So although we know that Bede has this bias, it doesn't mean that it's not incredibly helpful to us because if you know the angle that someone's coming from, then it makes what they say more interesting in a way for me, you know, it's, yes, he's Christian, yes, he's going to champion the Northumbrians, of course he is, why wouldn't he? But also, you know, you can read between the lines and you get this information, five West Saxon kings, it doesn't name them, but at least we know that there were similar struggles presumably

• 14:54Speaker 04

  going on in the other kingdoms, because there's not just one king. This is a time, as I say, these are burgeoning kingdoms, people jostling for control. An interesting point you made about the riches of Northumbria, a lot of that was at this time down to gaining tribute from other conquered territories. And it did seem to me that the kings who survived the best were the ones who were strong enough to have this foreign policy as well. It's a kind of a chicken and egg, you know, does a king with a strong foreign policy hang on to his own kingdom better? Or does a king who's established his own reign better? Does that give him the freedom and the strength to then go and attack other countries, other

• 15:38Speaker 04

  kingdoms? But it does seem that the most successful ones are the ones that managed to put other kingdoms. Kingdoms under tribute. So again, that's interesting.

• 15:47Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. And I mean, it's within this, we're thinking about all of these layers of success and who is scrapping with who. I think that one of my favorite things about this particular story is that we have this named servant. You know, we know about Lila, which is so unusual, you know, to get a name of a normal person who is involved in anything. I mean, what do we think Bede is doing here, right? Because we have this incredible sacrifice from an ordinary person. Is this just supposed to be like, you see servants, you see regular people, Lila, you see what Lila did for the boss? Or is this supposed to be a call to shape Edwin's

• 16:32Eleanor Janega?

  further actions, further legacy, you know, really kind of characterize him as a person? Or am I just, you know, wanting to read things into generalized description of a guy?

• 16:41Speaker 04

  I mean, it could just be that we've got his name because Bede happened to know it. I mean, there is that. I love it because there are so many characters during this period that the sources neglect to name. I mean, Athelflad Lady of the Mercians, in one part, the Angotaxian Chronicle, she's just known as King Edward of Wessex's sister. They don't even name her. So, you know, where we've got this detail, it's great. But there is a theme that runs throughout Bede's history where he does name. And obviously, Lila is a servant, but he's not, I think, just, you know, handing out the bread and ale. I think he's, he's a thane. He's one of Edwin's half troop.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  And we do have other instances where Bede will tell us a story. There's quite a famous one about a thane who is captured during a battle and decides not to say his status because he thinks, you know, this will protect him. And actually, it's the other way around. And he's eventually he's set free and he goes back to Kent where he came from. But again, he is named, and I think it's where Bede really wants to tell a story, that he will furnish us with as much detail as he's got. Because as you say, he then goes on, you know, Edwin. According to Bede, there was then so much peace in his reign that, take as a woman with a child, actually can walk from coast to coast, i.e. from the east to

• 18:04Speaker 04

  the west. Can't remember the phrase, but basically unmolested, unharmed, because, you know, there's no trouble on the roads, there's no robbers, there's no bandits, and this is something that Edwin has done. So Bede loved the Northumbrian kings, with the possible exception of one, it was the so king on King Oswe who came a few kings later, and I don't blame him, I don't blame him. But yeah, it's lovely that we've got that detail, because, you know, everyone thinks, oh, the Dark Ages, oh, there's not much. And yes, there isn't much compared with some other periods, but we have got an awful lot, I think a lot more than people might realise. And the detail is just incredible. You know, you can picture

• 18:48Speaker 04

  it, and I actually did, in one of my novels, you know, that this idea, you can set the scene, you've got the characters there, you can see this assassin diving forward and Leela jumping in the way, and, you know, it's just great. And we've got this from the 8th century about the 7th century, which is, it's just incredible. We're so lucky to have it. And we would, for all, you know, Bede's biases, and possibly his faults and his prejudices, we wouldn't know half of what we know without him. So it's just so lucky that it survived.

• 19:25Eleanor Janega?

  I couldn't agree more. And fundamentally also, it makes it more fun, that Bede is picking sides, you know, when you're a historian, this is what you wish to be presented with, right? An opportunity to do the unpicking, the unfurling of all these stories and try to understand what it is that someone is trying to get across. And there's so much detail to these, as you're saying, you know, like, in particular, I guess, just backing right up, as you've already mentioned, you know, we have all of these kingdoms at the time, and they're really at each other's throats. Is there a reason why we are getting assassins from Wessex all the way up in Northumbria? Is there a particular Northumbria/Wessex issue that's going on?

• 20:08Speaker 04

  No, that's the strange thing. We don't have a lot of context for this. I mean, Edwin went into exile. He wasn't a king at the time. It was his family that was forced into exile and scattered. His sister married willingly or unwillingly the man who ousted the family. And the next Northumbrian kings came from that marriage. But Edwin spent time in Mercia, trying to gather support there. When it wasn't forthcoming, he then went over to East Anglia and finally got the support that he needed. And then we're told that he and the East Anglian king fought. Edwin then became what Bede calls the Bretwalder, which seems to be some kind of over king. I'm not sure how true that is, but this was Bede's assessment.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  And it's very interesting that on that list, there are notable missing kings. For example, King Offa, who clearly was over king of all the English kingdoms at his height. So again, you know, a bit of Northumbrian bias. But there doesn't seem to be much grief between the Northumbrians and the West Saxons at this time. And with good reason, because there's an awful lot of other kingdoms in between them. So, yeah, it makes it a bit harder for us in a way to unpick what's going on in Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons at the time. But yeah, no, there must have been some aggravation. It may just have been Edwin's.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Because I mean, I would describe Edwin as an expansionist. Again, you know, I tell by hand, I am a Mercian apologist, but I feel that they were defending themselves against Northumbrian aggression and expansion during this period. Because the Northumbrians were definitely, they have the supremacy at that point. But what was actually going on between Edwin and the West Saxons? Not a lot of information and we don't have the same kind of written sources for this period for the other kingdoms, unfortunately. The sources come slightly later. So, yeah, it's an interesting one. And so sometimes Bede is helpful to the point where he just makes it worse.

• 22:15Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I mean, I completely agree with you on your characterization of Edwin, right? Because this expansionist policy, Bede might be cheerleading it. But we know from other sources, like chronicles that happened around this time, that

• 22:32Eleanor Janega?

  Other people don't necessarily see Edwin as a hero. They don't really like this kind of absorption of other kingdoms into his realm. So it is interesting because we do very occasionally get these other glimpses into things. So I guess it makes sense from Bede's standpoint to really be cheerleading Edwin in these cases. Because there are other people who are like, I don't know about all this. He's in my backyard right now. I don't approve of it, right? So you see people kind of being annoyed with Edwin at the same time as you see chroniclers saying, oh, yeah, here is an interesting murder that happened to a Spanish astrologer. Here's this, here's that, you know? So this is kind of in the gossip that is seen as worthy of recording at the time.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  I do actually have my doubts about Edwin because there were some slightly shady goings on. Say, his family, as I said, were scattered, but they weren't killed. And one of his cousins took refuge in the British kingdom of Elmet, which is not too far away from Leeds. So, you know, he didn't go that far. But this was still controlled by the Britons who'd been living there before. Now, this cousin met a rather sticky end. And the way Bede describes it is that it was the British king who'd been harboring him, who killed him or ordered him killed. Now, it's interesting because why would he do that?

• 23:59Speaker 04

  This is what I started to think when I was writing the book. Why would he do that? Who actually stood to gain from this cousin? This atheling, so a throne-worthy man, an atheling of Deira. You know, Edwin's just recently back home. He's trying to establish his credentials as king of all of Northumbria. And yet, there's a cousin really close by who's got a good claim. And then suddenly that cousin is dead.

• 24:27Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, how convenient.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  But you know, again, when you start to think, who's got the most to gain? And we have to constantly think this about the sources, you know, as you were saying, what does Bede get out of it by writing what he does? But if it's true that this contender for the Dayaran throne, and they were still essentially two kingdoms for a long time after that, Edwin might have been king of both, but he didn't sort of unite them as such. And suddenly this contender is no more. Yeah, I mean, I hate to argue with the venerable Bede, but I do wonder if there's, you know, something else going on, because it seems to me that it was Edwin who had the most to gain. And throughout the period, you see this time and time again, how conveniently people are dying at quite young ages.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Now, I get that there was illness, I get that there was disease, but if anyone's going to live to a ripe old age, it's somebody in the higher echelons of society, because they're getting the best diet, they're getting the best medicine. And yet, it's really interesting how often these young men, these brothers of kings, or eldest sons of kings, or even sons of kings but by another mother. Suddenly, when they're just about, you know, their hands out, and they're about to grab this metaphorical crown, because they didn't actually wear crowns, suddenly they're conveniently dead. And we're not told how they died. Sometimes we're not even told where they died, but they're just very timely how they disappear from the picture.

• 26:01Eleanor Janega?

  Let's see, look, here's one thing where we are different, Annie, is that I love to argue with the venerable Bede.

• 26:09Eleanor Janega?

  And I think it's, you know, not only is it's a very convenient loss of cousin, but it's also a very convenient causa bella, right? Like a very convenient reason to go to war with Elmet for a guy who is incredibly proks matches. So A, well, not only is my cousin, who in theory make a claim for part of Northumbria, gone, but also I've got a reason to go and expand into another kingdom, because, oh, they killed my cousin and I'm really sad and mad about it, right?

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Exactly. And who knows what deal, you know, I mean, the king who was harboring this cousin, who knows what deal they struck? You know, you give me sanctuary, you give me safe haven, and when I'm king, I'll leave your kingdom alone. You know, I mean, this, all sorts of treaties and alliances have been going on that we don't know about. But yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, it's all circumstantial evidence and a lot of it is throughout the book. You know, I can't prove this stuff. But yeah, Edwin had the most to gain and as you say, had a reason. You know, oh, you've killed my cousin. Yeah, I'm going to take your kingdom. End of. Yeah, it stacks up to me, but this is not the history that Bede A wanted to write and

• 27:23Speaker 04

  B would have wanted other people to read. So, you know, I understand why Bede slants the things the way he does, but it's still great, as I say, that we got it because without it, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You know, because there is very little else that covers this period. And, you know, and even Bede's not contemporary for this, you know, he's still writing almost a hundred years later, but it's as close as we've got. For me, it's always a starting point. Look at what the sources say, the primary sources, get as close as you can to the event and then go from there and always ask him the question, why?

• 28:04Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  And then follow it up with who?

• 28:07Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 28:19Matt Lewis?

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• 29:53Speaker 01

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• 30:27Speaker 05

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• 31:10Speaker 05

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• 31:27Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I mean, absolutely, because I think that what the sources are doing, you know, people like Bede or indeed Geoffrey of Monmouth, you know, people of this caliber who are writing for us have a narrative that they're going to give us. And it usually involves things that actually happened, but they're going to put it out in a particular way. And, you know, Bede loves the Northumbrians, you know, because of the conversions and, you know, the relative peace, quote unquote, within their own lands. But he also wants you to know that he loves Christians. Yay, like number one, right? So there's a reason to put that out there. Now, that doesn't mean that these things didn't happen, right? It doesn't mean that he wasn't attacked by an assassin.

• 32:09Eleanor Janega?

  It doesn't mean that his cousin wasn't killed. But just by whom? That's exactly why, why you might have assassins coming along to your court to get you. That's another question, right? Which I suppose gives me one more question for you. When we look at kings like Edwin and how he's attracted all these enemies, is this one of the defining things about his reign? Or are we looking at an expansionist reign, which is kind of inventing enemies to justify what he's done?

• 32:41Speaker 04

  Oh, that's an interesting one. Edwin certainly had his enemies and he was killed on the battlefield. It's interesting what you say. The thing about Bede is he does pick and choose. He doesn't tell us what was going on between Edwin and the West Saxons because he's not interested. You know, that is the point. It doesn't add to his particular narrative, which is about Edwin's strong leadership and his kingship. So Bede, either he didn't know or he wasn't interested or wasn't interested enough to find out. So we don't know what's going on between Edwin and the South. But what you get from reading Bede is that Edwin is a strong king who's overcome adversity.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  He's been exiled and everything is cloaked in this sort of, there's a justification for what he does. You know, killing the king of Elmet because he killed his cousin. That's the way Bede spins it. I have my doubts. But he was killed on the battlefield by Pender. Now, again, I say, I think that Pender was in more of a defensive mode. But at this point, Pender was not King of Mercia. And the interesting thing here, and I think it's a crucial point, and even Bede concedes it, Pender was the junior partner in an alliance with a Welsh British king who had been forced

• 34:07Speaker 04

  out of his lands by Edwin. And there is a clear distinction that this British king, I'll say it slowly, Cadwarchyn, is a Christian. And Bede considers his crimes the worst because, well, he's a Christian and he should know better and he should behave better, you know? We can expect, you know, the heathen Pender to be on the warpath, as it were, but Cadwarchyn should know better. And actually, he is the more savage at this point, because Pender does what he has to do. Edwin's killed on the battlefield, Pender goes home, Cadwarchyn

• 34:47Speaker 04

  doesn't, he stays. And he makes a menace of himself in Northumberland. And now he has clearly got something that he wants to avenge. And so this gives us an idea. And again, the way Bede tells it is it's disgraceful that this Christian king should be attacking another Christian king. But, as I say, Cadwarchyn really had, he was angry and he wanted to get his own back. And, you know, even Edwin's death wasn't enough for him. And that gives us an idea of what Edwin's been up to, that he is stamping his boots right across the north of what we now know as England. And, you know, taking their prisoners, really.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  I have got very mixed feelings about Edwin, because he is one of these kings that, you know, spends a lot of his time in exile. And he was very, very strong and you know, it was a great comeback. But the other thing to remember is that his family, his sister, who was married, as I say, I suspect unwillingly to the man who ousted Edwin. By the time Edwin became king, had several young children. We're not entirely sure exactly how many because the sources differ. But two of them were very important because they then became kings after Edwin, not immediately after there were a few other contenders that Carholion saw too.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  But these nephews went into hiding. So although they were family of Edwin's and Edwin had sons by this point from a Mercian wife. But these sons and his sister obviously felt that they had something to fear. And this is also a recurring theme of queens, ex queens, taking their young children and getting as far away as possible. So you get this idea that, you know, there's not a lot of family love going on. Especially if we think about, you know, what might have happened to Edwin's cousin. So these kings are brutal. They're successful because they are brutal.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  And as we said at the beginning, what I find interesting is that we're not always talking about pitched battles. The pitched battles tend to be, if anything, between neighbouring kingdoms or more. But there's an awful lot of skullduggery going on and people literally running for their lives. So, yeah, Edwin obviously had what it took to be king, as did so many others during this period. And he survived because of this brutality, I think, which is an awful thing to say because I don't want to leave the impression that, you know, Anglo-Saxon England was an awful brutal place. I mean, it was, but I do make the point in the book that no more so than any other place at this time.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  And it does get a little bit more civilised as the kingdoms get established and things calm down a bit. But then, you know, we get these other murder stories. So, you know, as I said at the very beginning of the book, we all love a good murder story.

• 37:46Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I wanted to move us on to one of our favorites, speaking of. So let's crawl forward to the eighth century, because I want to talk about two queens, King Offa's wife and his daughter, who have a number of murder accusations made against them. I'm wondering if you can tell us the story of Offa's wife and daughter?

• 38:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I love these stories because they exemplify the problem we've got between the more contemporary sources and the later ones, mainly the Anglo Norman chroniclers. He just embellished the stories. Unfortunately, those are the ones we tend to remember because we do all love a good murder story. But King Offa is great. He's a warrior king. He's not afraid of a pitched battle. He's also very canny. He's got four daughters, makes three good marriage alliances. At the height of his powers, he was king from the Humber down, you know, incredible achievement. His wife, we think she might have been a West Saxon.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  In fact, her name kind of suggests it. It's very similar to the names of the West Saxon royal family at that time. What we've got in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle is just a short line saying that in a certain year, which escapes me, King Offa had the King of East Anglia beheaded. That's it. No context. So we do find this with the Anglo Saxon Chronicles. Sometimes we get pages and pages. Sometimes we get a line. Sometimes they just tell us that in that year, marvelous adders were seen in Sussex. You know, it's again, it just depends what interested the chroniclers. But that's all we've got. And we know that this East Anglian king, Athelbert, was killed by Offa. All the sources agree with that. But some

• 39:32Speaker 04

  of the sources, one in particular, also tell us that it was all the Queen's fault. Queen Canothriff. So the story is that the King of East Anglia had come because he wanted to woo one of Offa's daughters and fix a marriage alliance. And we know that Offa wouldn't have had any quarrel with that because all his daughters bar one were married to kings. So he comes and he, you know, woos the daughter. And according to this source, the Queen then whispers poison in Offa's ear and says, you know, you've now got the chance to get rid of your enemy. God has delivered into your hands, your enemy. I think she is, she's actually supposed to have said. And she concocts this vile plan.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  A pit is dug under the chair where their guest is going to sit. And then he's going to fall into this pit and her executioners are waiting there. And the king of East Anglia is killed. And Offer goes into a terrible state. He won't eat or drink for three days and he's absolutely mortified by what she's done. It doesn't stop him then going into East Anglia and taking control of it. So he's nothing if not an opportunist.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  We spoke about Alcuin earlier. Now, Alcuin was very much a contemporary of this queen. A queen who is the only Anglo-Saxon queen that we know of, until archaeology proves otherwise, who had coins minted in her own name. And there's an idea that this was because she was actually ruling some of Offer's dominions for him. Because he had a vast area that he was in control of at this point. Alcuin wrote letters to their son, actually. Another one who only managed five months on the throne and then mysteriously died, but that's another story. But Alcuin wrote to, and I'm not saying he would write to the queen, but he knew that the king's business took up too much of her time to read letters.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  So we know she was involved in government. We know that she was presumably literate if she could read his letters. Alcuin also told her son that he must learn something from his father. I can't remember exactly what, but learn compassion from his mother. And that's interesting enough in itself. But what struck me was, had this woman been responsible for the death of another king? Alcuin, who blamed kings for the Viking incursions. I'm pretty sure he would have had something to say. So we've got a contemporary who knows the family, knows this woman and doesn't say anything.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  You know, there's all sorts of talk about how much blood was shed by Offer in order to get his son on the throne. There's no mention that his wife was involved in any of that. Offer was remembered very, very favourably by certain religious houses, including St Albans, because he founded St Albans.

• 42:29Speaker 04

  The main source of this terrible story of this conniving queen who tries to persuade her husband to kill this king and then when he's having none of it, she goes ahead and does it herself. This comes to us from a monk called Roger of Wendover. And that's how he's known to us, Roger of Wendover. He was actually a monk at St Albans.

• 42:50Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, come on.

• 42:51Speaker 04

  And suddenly it all starts to make a little bit of sense. And there's another chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, who was very effusive about offer. He thought he was a fantastic guy. And Huntingdon is also not very far away. So you have to again think, not only who are these people who are writing? What have they got to gain? And it's very interesting. It was in a Matt Lewis book, actually.

• 43:18Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, that guy. I love that guy.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  You know, Matt made the point that in the 12th century, church attitudes towards women, particularly royal women, were really starting to change. And in the Anglo-Saxon era, in the 7th century, almost all of the religious houses were actually founded by women. There were royal abesses, they were in charge. We've got St Hilde of Whitby, he was responsible for the education of, I think it was five future bishops. You know, the women were in charge of the monasteries. The attitudes started to change. So where we've got these later Anglo-Norman chroniclers talking about these women, there's a slightly different viewpoint. Queen Cunitha also got into a huge dispute with the Archdiocese of Canterbury about her

• 44:05Speaker 04

  monasteries. And another kinswoman of hers had a similar reputation, in that case for supposedly killing her younger brother because she didn't want him to become king. And again, had a huge dispute with the church at Canterbury. Because not only were these women abesses, but they also actually owned the abbies and land, which is hugely important because they're vast estates, they're very lucrative. And I do wonder whether there's an element here of Cunitha being remembered by later chroniclers who A, wanted to extol the virtues of offer, not that he had that many, let's be honest, but founding St Albans was one of them. And also his wife, who had temerity to lock horns with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  So I do wonder, and it's a classic case of, you know, you look at the later sources and they are demonising these women and the contemporary sources have got virtually nothing to say. What is interesting about Offa's daughter, and again, it's a fantastic story, but the source is slightly more contemporary because it comes from the biographer of King Alfred, who was writing in sort of late ninth century and Offa's daughter was, it wouldn't have been within a lifetime's memory, but a lot closer. So Offa's daughter was one of the ones who was married to another king, and in this case, the king of the West Saxons. And between them, those two kings had driven out one of the contenders for the West Saxon

• 45:38Speaker 04

  throne. So again, this is another case of a king being driven into exile. Now, this lady, Ebra, was apparently so jealous of her husband's advisers that she contrived to poison one of them and accidentally poisoned the king as well. And the story as it comes to us is that, well, she took all the treasures she could find and went to King Charlemagne's court, or the Emperor Charlemagne's court. We get this weird story where Charlemagne then says, if you could choose me or my son, which would you choose? And because she chooses the son, he said, oh, if you'd chosen me, I would have given you my son. But because it's a weird story. Okay. That has no bearing on anything. Ultimately, Emperor Charlemagne sets her up in her own

• 46:22Speaker 04

  abbey, where she's then caught in debauchery and eventually dies in poverty. And Assa, King Alfred's biographer, tells us that because of the shameful way she behaved, this is why, from his time on, the wives of the kings of Wessex were not given the title queen, because she had disgraced the name and the role so much. It's not true. We have charters after that, but during Assa's lifetime, where a queen consort was styled Regina or Regina in a charter. And so we know it's not true. Again, when you drill down into the sources

• 47:05Speaker 04

  and you have a look, going back to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was a battle. This exiled West Saxon contender, King Edgburt, who was King Alfred's grandfather. So again, Asser, who's writing the history of King Alfred and his family, is going to want to emphasise this.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  There's a battle. King Edgburt is victorious. He then becomes the King of Wessex, the King of the West Saxons, and founds the dynasty that then ruled virtually until the 11th century. It looks as if, when you read between the lines, that this king of the West Saxons, whose offer's daughter was married to, his name was Beatrix. This is a very un-West Saxon sounding name. My contention is that this King Beatrix was, in fact, a Mercian. And he was a Mercian puppet, ruling for and on behalf and with the support of offer. Edgburt comes back. There's a battle. Beatrix is killed on the battlefield. He's not poisoned.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  And if we take this as a line, then suddenly Edgburt is facing the prospect of still being in situ when the man who was driven out by her father and her husband comes back. If this is very, you know, similar to Edwin's situation, comes back. What's she going to do? I think she gathers up all the treasure she can find and she flees for her life, not because she's a murderer, but because she is terrified of what this new king, who's got a bone to pick, is going to do in retribution. We aren't told whether she had any children.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  If she did, then that would make her flight, you know, even more compelling. So again, it's really interesting. I don't think that Asser, when he's writing the biography of King Alfred, wants to really make people notice that, at the very least, even if Beatrix wasn't a Mercian, that the Mercians were still really in charge of Wessex at that point. He's going to want to play that down. He's also going to make the point that Queen Consort weren't given the title of Queen because that charter that I referred to, this is from another branch of Alfred's

• 49:34Speaker 04

  family, the descendants of his elder brother. Again, we don't want to highlight the fact that there might be other contenders for Alfred's throne.

• 49:42Eleanor Janega?

  Uh-uh.

• 49:43Speaker 04

  So again, even though it is a more contemporary source, I think we can dry the coach and horses right through it.

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• 51:18Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, it's so much easier, isn't it, to set this up as like, here are these shameful women. Here, this one is a murderess. This one is an adulteress. They are down flirting with Charlemagne Sun, question mark. They're doing all of these terrible things. That is a Really easy story to sell.

• 51:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 51:36Eleanor Janega?

  As opposed to there's a very like complex situation with regicide happening kind of all over the shop.

• 51:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:43Eleanor Janega?

  And you know, what is easier to put across in a chronicle, you know?

• 51:47Speaker 04

  It's, as you say, it's so much easier to deflect and sadly, you know, people love to believe these stories. You know, these are the ones that we remember. As I said, there was a, you know, a kinswoman of Queen Cana Thrith, who was also a powerful abbess of three abbeys. She was the one who also ran into a dispute with Canterbury, accused of killing her little brother. We have no evidence that this little brother even existed.

• 52:15Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, great. Yeah, yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 04

  But you know, it's a great story. He's a little child. She's jealous of him. She wants rid of him. She gets a henchman to take him into the woods and dispose of him. And that would have been the end of the story. And all of this comes to us from William of Marnesbury, who's another Anglo Norman chronicler, who you have to say is an absolutely incorrigible gossip. There's one story in the book where he says, the king put out the order that this story must not spread. And they, well, it got to your ears, William, and you're spreading it.

• 52:48Eleanor Janega?

  Great work, William.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. But this, this particular story said, the murder would never have been discovered. Were it not for the fact that a dove flew over the altar of a church in Rome and dropped a message saying what had happened and where the body could be found. And it was, and it was brought back to this woman's abbey at Winchcombe for burial. When she saw the funeral procession, she started chanting a psalm backwards as a kind of a spell so that she wouldn't be discovered, whereupon her eyes promptly fell out. And William of Marnesbury said that even in his day, when he was writing, you could still see the blood spatters all over the altar that she'd been reading from.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  And it's a fantastic story. It's great. And when you go and you dig through the records and you find all the witness lists from all the charters from their father, the previous king, it doesn't look as if this young lad ever existed, or if he did, he simply predeceased his father, you know, because we do have a lot of written records for this period and you can trace the name. And there's possibly one man who stands out who may have been a kinsman. It's not even clear if he was the king's son, but he disappears from the records. Chances are he was an adult. If he was the king's son, he predeceased the king. End of story. But that's no fun, is it?

• 54:13Eleanor Janega?

  Like, Annie, are you trying to tell me that the magic dove story where a witch's eyes pop out in front of an altar isn't real? Because I am really disappointed in you.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I've got some news about the tooth fairy as well.

• 54:29Eleanor Janega?

  So in your book, these are two, like, two of my favorite stories are kind of like the so-called child murders, right? So you've got this Kenelm one, but you've also got Wigstad in here. Because for some reason, they just go so hardcore on the gore.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 54:44Eleanor Janega?

  When the children are involved, it's like the minute there's a kid, they're like, let's go. Eyeballs are popping out. Grisly bodies are being found. And it's just so above and beyond. When, you know, I would argue you already have the horror of child murder.

• 54:58Speaker 04

  Well, exactly. That's more than enough. Yeah. I think it's partly that a lot of these stories build up because of the sainthood, because these murder victims do become saints. Although I have to say, in the Saxon period, it is quite easy to be sanctified.

• 55:12Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 55:13Speaker 04

  You know, you don't have to wait for a decision from the pope. You just basically, you've got to die. If you're royal and you're dead, that's fine. You don't even have to have died for your religion necessarily.

• 55:23Eleanor Janega?

  It's completely good enough. You know, like, you give a monk a fiver one time and you're in. That's it, you know?

• 55:28Speaker 04

  But with these, I mean, and there is also a thing that it's great for the royal families to have a murdered saint amongst their relatives because it's good PR.

• 55:39Speaker 04

  It's great for revenue, it's fantastic. And yeah, so Wixton or Wiston is an interesting one because it's all the classics. He was betrayed by someone he knew and trusted and then they'd slice the top of his head off. And so many times with these stories immediately, or when the body is discovered, there's a column of white light. And I don't want to disparage religious beliefs, absolutely not. But these stories do have certain similar elements time and again. But Wixton's really interesting because the story that we get is that he was a very petulant young lad who just didn't want his mother remarrying.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  You know, and it comes across as a very sort of family oriented story. He's just jealous of his potential new stepfather. But it's more than that because his mother, the proposal was that there's a contender to the throne who did become king for sure, wanted his son to marry Wixton's mother. And Wixton objects. And actually, I think he had good reason. I think the reason Wixton himself was killed was not much to do with his objections to the marriage, but the fact that he, as it turned out, was the grandson of two kings. So both his grandfathers had been kings of Mercia. And again, straight away, what you've

• 57:05Speaker 04

  got during Mercia in the ninth century, I mean, I'm not even going to go there because the list of kings makes Northumbria just look like a tea party. You know, what happened in Northumbria in the eighth century happened with bells on in Mercia in the ninth century. And what you've basically got is a struggle by this point between various branches of the royal family, whose names either begin with C or B or W. And they're all so similar that even if I read them out, it wouldn't be helpful. But Wixton, obviously, he was a W. But one of his grandfathers was a C and the other one was a W. But you've got

• 57:45Speaker 04

  these B kings as well. And the B kings are not necessarily getting the same kind of foothold that they would like. And it was a B king who was in charge and wanted his son, who was also had a name beginning with B, to marry Wixton's mother. And that would have given them a bit more pure blood, as it were.

• 58:06Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  But Wigstan's blood was so blue, it was incredible. And I think that's the reason he had to go. He had to go. I mean, sure, he might have objected to the marriage because he could probably see what was going on. But yeah, he's the grandson of two kings. He was then laid to rest, or certainly his bones were laid to rest at Recton, which is like the sort of royal family mausoleum. If you've got a murdered saint in your family, I mean, yes, it's sad, obviously, but it's good business as well. It's good P R. You get the pilgrims flocking to the site. So, you know, it's very, very sad, but also, oh, yeah, we could do something with this.

• 58:46Speaker 04

  What's interesting is that through his mother, we think the very, very last king of Mercia, who was actually described as a foolish king's thane by the West Saxons. Again, they would say that, you know. Um, but he was actually another sea king and we think he was probably descended from her. So she was important and whether or not all the details of the murder are true, I suspect they're not. I don't think there necessarily needed to be that much, shall we say, drama and excitement. You know, if you're going to kill someone, you're going to do it quietly

• 59:26Speaker 04

  or as quietly as you can and probably not necessarily announce that you're the one that did it. So as I said, we have to take a lot of these later stories with a pinch of salt, but I think in Wigstan's case, the elements are true and he was a huge potential threat to the B kings because, as I say, he was descended from kings on both sides of his family. And that would have been more than enough to make him, you know, a contender for the throne and somebody that any rivals would absolutely feel compelled to get rid of.

• 1:00:03Eleanor Janega?

  That's really interesting because, you know, in both these cases, you have, well, I mean, a theoretical child and one that we know existed. But in both of them, we have these feminized elements brought in. You know, it's someone's sister gets them killed, or someone is killed because of objections involving their mother. And I find this kind of gender dynamic really interesting, because the moment that children are involved, so are women. And these could just be kind of stories about the way that power is meted out and how things are passed down. But you get this really potent mix of women and children in what could just be stories about men, really, ultimately?

• 1:00:46Speaker 04

  Yes. I mean, it's good that the women are being featured. It's a shame that they're being portrayed so badly in a lot of the cases. And again, what's interesting is what I was saying before, really about the differences in the way these women are portrayed, depending on whether these sources are basically pre or post 1066. Apart from the one about poor Ed Bo is supposed to poison her son and then try to run off with the Emperor Shaleh, which is slightly earlier. But on the whole, the actual, what we might call Anglo-Saxon sources, tend to say very little about the women at all, which in itself is a bit of

• 1:01:25Speaker 04

  a paradox, because we know that women in this era were incredibly powerful, had a lot of rights. I would contend, in a way, more rights than their post 1066 counterparts. In a way, it's a lot more of an equal society than later medieval England. Women can own land in their own right. We have classic case of one ruling a kingdom in her own name. She might not ever have been called a queen. That's by the by, as far as I'm concerned. After Flatlady of Mercians, she's ruling a kingdom in a time of war. She succeeded, albeit briefly, by her daughter. Woman ruler didn't succeed a woman ruler again until Tudor times.

• 1:02:09Speaker 04

  And the Anglo Saxons generally, the the chroniclers all seem to be quite relaxed about this. And yet, they say very, very little about the women. You know, as I said, one of the chroniclers doesn't even call Apofat by her name. So it's almost on the one hand, it's like, we we have no problem with women, but also, we're not going to talk about them.

• 1:02:31Eleanor Janega?

  So they're just there. They're kind of like pot plants or something, you know?

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  They have got so many rights, so many freedoms, in a lot of cases, so much power. But it's the Anglo Norman chroniclers that seem to get a bit fixated on the women. And again, we have to wonder why. But I think it does boil down to this slight shifting in attitude by this stage, obviously, in the Anglo Saxony, a lot of the abbeys and the monasteries were founded by women, but they were double houses. So you had female abboties in charge of both monks and nuns. This was something that died off eighth ninth century, and clearly was not a thing at all by the time these Anglo Norman chroniclers were writing. But it is this notion that the women and children are causing trouble, and they're

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  either doing something very despicable, or they're just the cause of it. And it's not actually anything to do with these beastly men just flexing their muscles and fighting each other.

• 1:03:29Eleanor Janega?

  No, it's got to be the dove witch woman. That's this is the more logical.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  And we see this throughout, you know, some of the later stories. I mean, Queen Althyr, who was King Edgar's queen, first consecrated queen of England, did wonderful things. She spoke in legal cases for and on behalf of women who were bringing these lawsuits. But that didn't stop the chroniclers also accusing her of murdering an abbot because he caught her out in witchcraft.

• 1:04:01Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, normal.

• 1:04:02Speaker 04

  Yes, yes. And again, the brutal detail that she ordered him to be stabbed under his armpits where the wounds would not show. You know, it's

• 1:04:11Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, all right.

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  And obviously, famously, she was then accused of conniving with the murder of her stepson, Edward the Martyr. But yeah, again, if you look at just the documentation, she was, you know, a speaker for women. She was named as the Sentinel of Nuns in a very, very famous sort of a guidebook for nuns and monks that was dedicated to her. So yeah, we just wonder why these later chroniclers had an issue, I think, with the women.

• 1:04:43Eleanor Janega?

  Look, I am completely ready to stan every woman who stabbed a guy in the armpit. I support women's rights and wrongs. Annie, I could talk to you about this all day. This has been absolutely fascinating and I just want to thank you one more time for coming on to talk to us about this.

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. As you could probably get, I just love talking about this era.

• 1:05:05Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely the same.

• 1:05:11Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks to Annie Whitehead and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent series, Meet the Normans, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Everybody, listen up.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

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