When Archbishop Oda (or Odo) died around AD 961, there were a few candidates to replace him, but Dunstan was not senior enough. The bishop of Winchester was put forward to receive a pallium in Rome and it is true he froze to death on the journey, somewhere high in the Alps.
King Edgar married twice. His first wife was Æthelflæda, or Ethelfleda, which was just too close to many other names. I changed that to ‘Fæltha’, which at least does not begin with Aethel or Ethel. She was mother to the boy king known as Edward the Martyr. She then drops out of the historical record so quickly there are some who still think Edward was illegitimate and Edgar never married her. Such things are possible, though Dunstan supported the boy to be king. The exact truth, however, is unlikely ever to be known. Edgar’s second wife was a real find – an extraordinary character for any century. Her name was Ælfthryth. I used ‘Audrey’ because that actually is the short form. The story of her first marriage to one of Edgar’s lords has a chequered history, denied or embraced through the centuries as true or apocryphal. I believe it to be true as it matches the lady’s ruthlessness rather well. Audrey/Aelfthryth was mother to the last king of this book – Ethelred.
King Edgar’s long-delayed coronation actually took place at Bath, though the pageants and celebrations of that event included the river scene at Chester as I described it. The imperial style of the ceremony devised by Dunstan is said to form the heart of the modern event in Westminster Abbey in London – which would make it Dunstan’s longest-lasting achievement. Even cathedrals and abbeys do not last as long as some traditions.
This is not a well-known period of history, in England or anywhere else. It is pleasing, however, to be able to begin and end with the only two names that have a claim to being part of general knowledge: Æthelstan, first king of England, and Ethelred the Unready. In the end, Ethelred ruled to 1016 and is famous mostly for trying to pay the Vikings to leave his kingdom alone. It was not a successful tactic and King Cnut, son of Swein Forkbeard of Sweden, took the throne from him in that year.
The facts are that Æthelstan to Ethelred is a period of eighty years in which the idea of ‘England’ was created, with Edgar’s peaceful reign the high point that allowed the idea to settle and become real. The Vikings were constantly prowling the edges for all that time, with a dozen different attempts to break it up and establish their own fiefdoms. Kings were required to fight for the people then, over and over, in what was a losing cause. The Vikings came in the end. Yet the idea had settled and an island kingdom had become real.
Dunstan’s work on the cathedral of Canterbury did involve design aspects that were similar to St Peter’s in Rome, no doubt because of his experiences there. Yet it had a square tower, as I have said. The ingredients and proportions of ancient Roman mortar, which included volcanic ash and lime, were lost for centuries, before being rediscovered. Roman mortar was incredibly strong and had the peculiar property of being able to set even underwater. It is used today. Dunstan’s tower and church in Canterbury were taken down and rebuilt completely in the eleventh century and later.
On a final note, the fact that the name of Ethelred the Unready actually meant ‘Nobel counsel’ (Æthel-ræd) the ‘Ill-counselled’ (Un-ræd) must be one of the earliest jokes, if not the earliest, in the English language. ‘Old Good-Advice, the badly advised’ is a fair approximation.
In 1066, a vast invasion of Viking Norse launched from France. To some extent, the modern age began in that century, but the torch was lit on the bones of great kings, at least in Wessex. The people remained and endured and suffered and worked and thrived – and in 1497 sent a ship under John Cabot to Newfoundland and began the largest empire the world has ever seen. All such empires fall away, leaving stories behind: from Plato’s men staring at shadows in a cave or Horatius on the Bridge, to Sir Francis Drake playing bowls and a thousand more. It has been my privilege to tell just one.
Conn Iggulden
London, 2016
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Shelagh Broughton, who did a vast amount of research on this one. Also to Mauraid Moran, who was kind enough to check the manuscript for matters monastic. Any remaining errors are all my own. I should also thank Clive Room, who asked questions in obscure churches and came back with some extraordinarily useful information, surprising us both.
Finally, I must thank my agent, Victoria Hobbs, and both Louise Moore and Jillian Taylor of Michael Joseph. I do love to tell stories like this. Thank you all for making it possible.
THE BEGINNING
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MICHAEL JOSEPH
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Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 2017
Copyright © Conn Iggulden, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover images: © Getty Images and © Bridgeman Images
ISBN: 978-1-405-92150-3
Conn Iggulden, Dunstan
(Series: # )
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