• Edgar the Ætheling-  The Boy Who Wasn’t King

    England in the 11th century was not always a great place to be if you were royalty. Young Edgar was the grandson of Edmund Ironside, king of England, and great grandson of the infamous Æthelred the Unready, also king of England.  So you would think Edgar would be next in line?  Well, not exactly.  There was a little problem named Cnut the Great. Cnut was the son of Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark.  In the summer of 1015, Cnut mounted an invasion of England and fought with Edmund for the throne of England.  It was a year or so of battles, and ultimately Edmund lost and ceded all of England north…

  • The Battle of Maldon

    “Here in this year Olaf came with ninety-three ships to Folkestone, and raided round about it, and then went from there to Sandwich, and so from there to Ipswich, and overran all that, and so to Maldon. And Ealdorman Byrhtnoth came against them there with his army and fought with them; and they killed the ealdorman there and had possession of the place of slaughter.” — Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Once again, Merry Old England was in a right old mess. In 978, King Edward was murdered to clear the way for his ten year old brother Æthelred. This was described in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle as such: “No worse deed for…

  • The Search for Alfred the Great’s Tomb

    The only monarch in English history to bestowed the title “the Great” was Alfred of Wessex. Born to King Aethelwulf and his wife Osburh at Wantage in 849 CE, Alfred as the fifth and youngest son, was never intended to be king. His intelligence and love of learning was well documented. There is story in Bishop Asser’s biography of Alfred of his mother offering a book of Saxon poetry to the first of her children to memorize it. Despite being the youngest, Alfred won. He placed much importance on education, setting up schools and promoting literacy despite more pressing concerns. However, Alfred was born into tumultuous times. Viking raids were…

  • ANGLO SAXON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

    We still hold a lot of the same laws that existed in Anglo-Saxon times, however, the punishments have thankfully moved on. Here are a few facts about the punishments you would have expected had you committed a crime back then. If you committed a crime it would almost certainly be dealt with within your village by your fellow villages in a court called a moot. It would have been overseen by the ‘Thane’ of that village. A Thane was the main man of the village, he lived in a big house and made sure everyone obeyed the law and paid their taxes to him. He would also be involved in…

  • KING CANUTE THE GREAT

    King Canute was an accidental king. If it wasn’t for another of our infamous kings he probably would never have even come to our shores. That King was Aethelred or Ethelred the Unready. Of course his name is not exactly what it seems, Unready meaning more ill-advised than unprepared and ill-advised he certainly was. For many Saxon kings before Ethelred, Vikings had been a constant threat and so when Ethelred married Emma, the sister of the Duke of Normandy, he felt more secure on the throne having the Normans as allies. Shortly after his marriage, however, Ethelred made a huge mistake. He had ALL the Danish men left in England…