No no, yes yes

#OTD in 1422 Henry V died of dysentery in France, aged just 35, leaving the infant Henry VI to enjoy a long and glorious reign (hmm). Immortalised as England's golden boy by Shakespeare, Henry is regarded as one of the great English warrior-kings. 

Which means, of course, that he also comes in for a torrid storm of criticism: no no, he was really a vicious sod with a horrid scar on his face who trashed France and left an impossible legacy. No no, yes yes, hee hee, ho ho. 

Whatever. The real Henry was clearly a competent soldier and administrator, though it is doubtful he would have imposed a permanent conquest of France. If he had lived another 20-30 years, I suspect England would have held onto Aquitaine and parts of northern France, and there would have been no Wars of the Roses.

Heirs to the Princes

 Dr David Stephenson has a new book out, available from 15 September. Quote: 

"A new history of medieval Wales, where survival meant adapting, not defeat. The Edwardian conquest of Wales is often seen as a final blow to Welsh autonomy, but Heirs to the Princes challenges this narrative, revealing a different story—one of adaptation and resurgence. 

This study depicts the rise of a Welsh administrative and military elite in the generations following 1277 to 88 and traces how native leaders navigated shifting power structures to secure influence within the English Crown’s rule. 

 The book recontextualizes Edward I’s later reign through close documentary analysis, showing him not merely as a ruthless conqueror but as a ruler who came to rely on Welsh support, addressed grievances, and fostered a new governing class. It also details Edward II’s complex relationship with Welsh magnates, leading to the crises that shaped his rule. Through profiling key figures of the emerging Welsh gentry, Heirs to the Princes revises our understanding of post-conquest Wales and highlights the resilience of its leaders and their pivotal role in the road to the Glyn Dŵr rising of 1400.” 

David is one of the best historians of medieval Wales, imo, and anyone with a genuine interest in the subject should get a copy of this. He doesn’t need me to speak for him, but I’ll add a bit of context. The reign of Edward I is kaleidoscopic - the subject is massive, which is why it still generates so much heat centuries after his death (and why I keep bleating on about him). 

Nobody can deny the oppression and exploitation of Edward’s conquest of Wales. However, after the major Welsh revolt of 1295 Edward was flexible enough to adapt his policy. This involved promoting the Welsh gentry, who formed the backbone of the Plantagenet administration of Wales for the next century. Nobody has to like that, or dislike it, it just is. This is historical reality, not polemic or one-eyed narrative. If that sounds interesting, get the book. If not, do something else.

Get 'em in a church...

My pics of the Golden Gate at Yedikule in Istanbul, from a visit in 2022. Here, on 15 August 1261, Michael VIII entered the ancient Roman capital and was crowned in Hagia Sophia, marking the restoration of the Empire after 57 years of Latin/Western rule. 

Michael was the head of the 'aristocratic' party within the empire of Nicaea, which became the most powerful of the Roman successor states after the fall of Constantinople in 1204. As such he clashed with Theodore II Laskaris, emperor of Nicaea, who tried to downgrade the old aristocratic families in favour of new men. 

Talented as he was, Theodore showed signs of mental instability towards the end of his short life. Most unwisely, he started to inflict ever more cruel and random punishments on his nobles; this included having Michael's sister, Maria, arrested on charges of witchcraft, sewn up in a sack and beaten with sticks. She survived, but this was hardly going to endear Michael and his family to the emperor. 

If Theodore had lived much longer (he died young in 1258) there might have been yet another civil war. As it was, Michael usurped the throne from Theodore's heir, John IV, butchered his supporters in a church and had the boy blinded on his eleventh birthday. Efficient chap. 

(Again, note the whole "get 'em in a church, slaughter the lot" vibe. A tried and honourable strategy, used everywhere from Scotland to the Byzantine Empire).

The buck stops with Edward II

 #OTD in 1325 peace was declared between England and France. This was the end of the War of St-Sardos in Gascony; a disaster for Edward II and the English, in which the territorial gains of his father were wiped out in a few months. 

The English war effort had been dismal, and Edward might have lost the entire duchy. He was saved by the Gascon gentry, who rallied to the failing Plantagenet cause. Thanks to them, Edward held onto Bordeaux and the hinterland, though he had to surrender the Agenais, acquired by Edward I via the Treaty of Amiens in 1279. Even this limited gain came at the price of relinquishing Gascony to his son, the future Edward III, who now stood in his father's place as duke. 

Edward now had to respond to petitions from dispossessed Gascons. It may seem unreasonable to make comparisons with his father, but the contrast is glaring. After the previous French ended in 1303, Edward I had responded generously to pleas from his Gascon subjects. Edward II's responses in 1325, in similar circumstances, have been characterised as “excessively mean-spirited and parsimonious” (Dr Malcolm Vale). 

His policy is difficult to understand. Edward II had become very rich by this point, after dispossessing the forfeit estates of the Contrariants in England. He could afford to be generous to the Gascons who had stood by him, when they might have easily defected to the French. When he failed, some of the more powerful families abandoned him and switched sides anyway. These included the lord of d'Albret, who had personally funded the war efforts against France and served Edward I in Scotland. Without him, the English lost their chief financier in Gascony, while the French gained one. That is not good policy, however you choose to look at it. 

Edward II has been caricatured (usually in bad fiction) as weak, unintelligent, cowardly, and a bad husband and father. He was none of these things. As king, it is impossible to defend his record unless you simply ignore all the defeats and failings. Pinning all the blame on his father, Longshanks, a currently unpopular historical figure, is a cheap get-out. 

Certainly, Edward II inherited heavy debts and an unfinished war in Scotland. Those debts had no obvious practical effect on his capacity to raise armies and wage war (what he did with those armies is another matter) and after 1315 he became one of the wealthiest kings in Europe. Lack of money was not the cause of his downfall. 

As for the Scottish war, Edward junior chose to press it with the same brutality and persistence as his old man, minus the competence. Nobody forced him to. When you look at his policies and decision-making elsewhere, such as the affairs of Gascony, it is the same pattern of bungling and misjudgement. Perhaps it was all someone else’s fault - the laundrywoman? His dog? - but Edward was the king: the buck stopped with him.

All to the sword

#OTD in 1121 King David IV of Georgia defeated the Seljuk Turks at the battle of Didgori, still celebrated in modern Georgia. 

David was up against a large Islamic coalition led by Najm al-Din Ilghazi, who had formerly ruled the Armenian principality of Mayafariquin on the upper Tigris. The sources are conflicting, but it is clear that David's army was heavily outnumbered. He did, however, have a large number of heavy cavalry. These included his personal retinue, the 'mona-spa', and several hundred Frankish knights. 

On the day of battle, the Georgians lured the much larger Seljuk host into a mountainous and wooded area near the Didgori mountain range, west of Tbilisi. At David's signal, his men sprung the trap and charged down from the mountain sides, catching the Seljuks in a pincer movement. After heavy fighting, many of the Seljuk leaders were killed or captured, triggering the collapse of their demoralised army. 

Thousands were slaughtered in the rout. A Georgian chronicler said that David's men pursued the Seljuks for three days, "putting all of them to the sword and leaving them to the carnivorous beasts and birds of the mountains and plains” of the Manglisi Valley. A Frankish chronicler, Matthew of Edessa, wrote that:  

"...terrible and savage slaughter of the enemy troops ensued and the [enemy] corpses filled up the rivers and covered all valleys and cliffs." 

Allowing for exaggeration, this was clearly a disastrous defeat for the Seljuks. A triumph for the Georgians, it was also splendid news for the Roman Emperor, John II, who was allied to David. Between them, the allies were rolling back the Seljuks on two fronts at once.

A ghost story for Sunday

I wouldn't usually get all ghostly and metaphysical, but I had an interesting experience yesterday.  I was in the Vale of Llangollen, doing my last round of guided tours of Valle Crucis abbey for CADW. At lunch I went to look at the Pillar of Eliseg. This lies just a stone's throw from the abbey, an ancient Christian monument put up by Cyngen, a 9th century King of Powys in honour of his ancestor Elisedd or Eliseg. 

Recent archaeology has found the mound is significantly older, probably Bronze Age, and was used as a burial site circa 2000 BC. It was a blustery day, with dramatic bruised skies overhead. After eating my diabetic-friendly nuts (some of which were scattered by a mysterious gust of wind...) I lay back on the mound and closed my eyes.

Quite unbidden, I started to visualise a battlefield, with shadowy warriors hacking at each other in the murk. One of them was a king; he stood out from the rest in a red cloak and a golden coronet on his head. He was flung onto his back by another warrior, who raised his spear to drive it down into the fallen king's face.The spear flashed down and pierced my eye - suddenly I was the king, lying helpless on my back in the mud. Then the images vanished. 

Now, this was probably a symptom of my overactive imagination, combined with lack of sleep, too much caffeine and an overdose of researching the medieval history of Powys. But it was weird how the scene just flashed into my head, all the same.  

God knows who the fallen king was supposed to be: Cyngen did not die a violent death (he died in Rome in 854) but his ancestor Eliseg is described on the pillar as a warrior who 'drove out the power of the Angles with fire and sword'. Perhaps his luck ran out and he eventually died fighting the English, or in a muddy skirmish with a rival Welsh king. 

Anyway. There is your ghost story for Sunday evening.

One king to rule them all (or not)

 #OTD in 1316 the Second Battle of Athenry was fought in Ireland (the first was in 1249), inside the kingdom of Connacht, modern-day Galway. I’m a complete amateur when it comes to the internal politics of medieval Ireland, so bear with me. 

Second Athenry was a shattering defeat for the Connacht Gaels, who were allied to Edward Bruce, brother of Robert I King of Scots. They were defeated by an Anglo-Irish army led by Richard de Bermingham (Rickard Mac Fheorais), lord of Athenry. Very little is known of the course or precise location of the battle. However, the Irish annals agree that it was an appalling defeat for the Gaels. Among the casualties was Feidhlimid mac Aedh Ó Conchobair, King of Connacht from 1310-1316. According to the Annals of Connacht, his inauguration as king had witnessed a revival in ancient Irish custom and practice. Quote:  

“…and he, Fedlimid mac Aeda meic Eogain, was proclaimed in a style as royal, as lordly and as public as any of his race from the time of Brian son of Eochu Muigmedoin till that day. And when Fedlimid mac Aeda meic Eogain had married the Province of Connacht his foster-father waited upon him during the night in the manner remembered by the old men and recorded in the old books; and this was the most splendid kingship-marriage ever celebrated in Connacht down to that day.'‘ 

The battle was also a devastating blow to the Bruce cause in Connacht, even though Edward Bruce himself never went west of the Shannon. While Edward had proclaimed himself High King of Ireland, he could only draw upon support from central and east Ulster. He needed Fedlimid, who was able to raise support from at least three of the five provinces. 

The outcome was not a disaster for all the Gaels. to Quote Adrian Martyn, an expert on the Irish wars of this period: 

“The real winners at Athenry included the Uí Cellaigh and the Uí Briain, who were able to keep their respective kingdoms free from Anglo-Irish and English interference for over two hundred years. In both Ui Mhaine and Tuadmuma, Gaelic culture and arts would flourish, all as a direct and indirect result of the events at Athenry.” 

(Third pic is of Athenry Castle)

Fine sentiments

 #OTD in 1503 Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, married James IV of Scotland. Via her line, the royal house of Stuart eventually acceded to the throne of England (good word, 'acceded', never used that before) and Ireland as well as Scotland. 

When Henry's advisers warned him against bringing the Stuarts into the line of English succession, he allegedly replied: 

"What then? Should anything of the kind happen (and God avert the omen), I foresee that our realm would suffer no harm, since England would not be absorbed by Scotland, but rather Scotland by England, being the noblest head of the entire island, since there is always less glory and honour in being joined to that which is far the greater, just as Normandy once came under the rule and power of our ancestors the English." 

Well. That's a fine sentiment coming from a Welshman.

One-Eyed Jan (3)

Recap: in the 1380s Jan Zizka, the famous Hussite commander, sold off his poor estate and moved to Prague. There he became a royal huntsman for the King of Bohemia, Wenceslaus IV, an idle drunken sot who was briefly imprisoned by his own nobility. Civil war followed. Zizka joined one of the many armed gangs tearing up Bohemia. 

As it happens, the archives of the Rosenberg estate contain plentiful information on the activities of his company, led by one Matthew the Leader. They targeted the lands of the lord of Rosenberg, head of the rebel faction in Bohemia. The details are grim. Zizka and his companions camped near farms and mills, so they could rob the locals, hold people for ransom and attack small towns. They remind me of the Border Reivers, who rampaged up and down the Anglo-Scots border in the 16th century, hitting soft targets. 

 Zizka is known to have committed at least one murder; a man belonging to the lord of Rosenberg’s household. He and his comrades used the money they extorted to pay local lords to give them refuge, and hire spies. Zizka took part in many raids, and was involved in the capture of the castle of Hus in southern Bohemia. Various nobles started to hire his services, asking for Zizka’s advice in conquering towns and strongholds. 

The one-eyed gangster was making a name for himself. Among those aristocrats who took notice of him was Jan Sokol of Lamberg, a Moravian nobleman. Sokol was a familiar face in the courts of Europe, and may have met Zizka while the latter was still a royal huntsman. The two men remained in contact when Zizka joined Matthew the Leader’s guerillas. Zizka also made connections with the Kunstats, a powerful family throughout Bohemia and Moravia. Two of them, Victorin and Hynek, became close friends of Zizka, while he is said to have become godfather to Victorin’s son George, destined to become the first and only Hussite king. 

Even so, Zizka was lucky to survive. The archives describe how Lord Rosenberg and his followers dealt with the guerrillas, if any of them were captured. It was straightforward: first they were horribly tortured for information, then executed after confessing their guilt. 

After several years of this mayhem, the civil war in Bohemia started to fragment. King Wenceslaus made peace with some of his enemies, including Lord Rosenberg, while the factions were distracted by a Turkish invasion of neighbouring Hungary and a civil war in Austria. 

For reasons that I don’t entirely understand, one of the Austrian factions started attacking Rosenberg’s lands in Bohemia. Whatever the political context, this was a disaster for everyone concerned: Lord Rosenberg’s already ravaged territory went up in flames, while Matthew the Leader’s gang was virtually wiped out. Matthew himself was captured in 1409, tortured and executed, while one of Zizka’s brothers was brutally killed at Budweis. 

Zizka himself might have gone the same way, but he was saved by his old master, Wenceslaus. In two letters dated April and July 1409, the king ordered the town of Budweis to make peace with Zizka. Part of the second letter reads: 

“We have received in grace our faithful, dear Jan Zizka of Trucnov, forgiving him all single excesses against the King and the Crown of the Bohemian Kingdom.” 

Thanks to friends in high places, Zizka breathed again.

The lands I ought to hold

 #OTD in 1274 Edward I paid homage to Philip III in Paris for the duchy of Gascony. He used this form of words: 

 "Lord king, I do you homage for all the lands which I ought to hold of you". The conditional statement is significant. Via the Treaty of Paris in 1259, the French kings were supposed to hand over the lands of Agenais, Quercy and Saintonge to the English, as well as the three dioceses of Limoges, Cahors and Périgeuex. When Philip came to the throne, he set aside his father's promises and ignored Henry III's repeated requests for the land to be handed over. 

The new king of England, Edward I, used more forceful methods. On 8 August, just two days after swearing homage, his seneschal of Gascony took an army into Limousin and attacked Philip's vassal in the region, the Viscomtesse of Limoges. The chronicle of Limoges describes what followed: 

"The king of England's seneschal, who had come to the aid of the citizens of Limoges against the viscountess of Limoges, had a great victory over her army, between Aixe and the town of Limoges. He wounded and captured many of them, killing a nobleman and many others, without loss to him or his allies, at which the townsfolk rejoiced greatly. Moreover, they captured the banner of Gilbert de Tamines." 

Edward had been invited in by the citizens of Limoges, who wished to throw off Philip and have the King of England for overlord instead. The Gascon army was nominally led by Edward's wife, Eleanor of Castile. However, the seneschal, Luke de Tany, commanded the army on the battlefield, while Eleanor stayed in the monastery at Limoges. 

The little-known war of Limoges dwindled away into a compromise, whereby Edward was allowed to retain the homage of those citizens who wished to be English subjects. However, he was obliged to pay war damages to Philip, his overlord. This was just one of many conflicts and disputes arising from the Paris agreement, which sowed the seeds of the Hundred Years War. 

(First pic is of the remains of the Viscountess's castle at Aixe, near Limoges; second is of a psalter believed to have been commissioned by Eleanor for her favourite son, Alphonso).

One-eyed Jan (2)

Recap: Jan Zizka, the famous Bohemian general, was born c.1360 to a poor estate in Trocnov, which he gradually sold off. He moved to Prague and at some point married a woman named Catherine, about whom little is known except she probably died young. 

Now Zizka started to rise in the world. An entry in royal accounts dated 1392 records a payment to ‘Siska, venitor domini regus’, which means that Zizka had become a royal huntsman. The payment, of one year’s salary, was made in a small town 65 kilometres south of Prague near the royal castle of Orlik.  

Unless I have my kings mixed up, this means that Zizka had entered the service of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, nicknamed ‘the Idle’. The king was a drunken, pleasure-loving lout (sounds good) noted for his cruelty (not so good), and for holding grand hunting parties (better). We don’t know Zizka got the job of huntsman, although he and Wenceslaus were close in age, and the king liked to mix with the lower orders. Perhaps he caught Wenceslaus’s eye at some boozy revel or other. 

 After a year or so of this jolly life, Bohemia collapsed into civil war. The final straw was the murder of John of Nepomuk, a high-ranking clergyman, whom Wenceslaus had drowned in a river. A group of Bohemian nobles, wishing to regain the independence they had lost under Wenceslaus’s father Charles IV, went into revolt. They were led by Henry of Rosenberg and several of the king’s relatives, including his younger half-brother Sigismund and cousin Jobst. 

Although Wenceslaus was arrested and imprisoned, several powerful nobles supported him. The Czech nobility split into factions, and soon a murderous war was in progress. Both sides recruited mercenaries, led by knights and squires of the lesser nobility. 

 These bands of freebooters were little more than thugs, roving about the countryside, killing and robbing at will. Sometimes they remembered to attack the enemy, more often they simply went for soft targets - crops, livestock, isolated castles and villages. They were protected by powerful lords, so could pretty much do as they liked. 

 This was Zizka’s training in warfare. He left his comfortable post as royal huntsman and joined one of the armed gangs that supported the king. His company was led by a man named - appropriately enough - Matthew the Leader, and sponsored by the royalist lords of Lichtenburg. They targeted the lands of Henry of Rosenberg, leader of the rebel faction. 

We have lots of information on Matthew the Leader and his gang, thanks to detailed records kept in the Rosenberg archives and the town of Jihlava in western Moravia. Zizka is frequently mentioned in the ominous-sounding ‘Black Book’ of the Rosenberg estate, so we shall look at that next. 

First pic is the Martyrdom of St. John Nepomuk by Szymon Czechowicz.

One-eyed Jan (1)

We're back!

To freshen things up a bit, let’s take a look at the blind genius general of Bohemia, Jan Zizka. I had a bit of a Hussite phase several years ago and wrote a novel about them (plug, plug). Most of the information on these posts comes from Victor Verney’s book on Zizka, a couple of old textbooks I have lying around and the bargain bucket of my memory. Also, I am typing Zizka’s name without accents because I don’t know how to do them on a Mac. So there. 

We don’t know much about Zizka’s early life. He may (or may not) have been born circa 1360 in Trocnov, now part of the town of Borovany in the Czech Republic. I used to live in CZ, incidentally, teaching English. This may (or may not) explain the poor standard of English.* A document dated 3 April 1378 mentions one ‘Johannes dictus Zizka de Trocnov; (Jan called Zizka of Trocnov) as a witness on a marriage contract. Another, dated 10 July of that year, confirms a loan incurred by the same man and two friends. 

There is, apparently, no direct evidence that this Jan Zizka is identical to the famous general. However, it seems very likely: ‘Zizka’ means ‘one-eyed’ in Czech, and it defies belief that there were two one-eyed men named Jan Zizka from Trocnov at the same time. According to legend, Zizka lost his first eye during the Battle of Grunnenberg-Tannenberg in 1410. That is probably a later myth, one of the many that swirl about his name. He could just as easily have lost it in a pub brawl when he was young, or any one of a thousand reasons. Furthermore, ‘Zizka’ was not a family name, but a nickname applied to a specific individual. 

In order to secure loans, Zizka must have held property. The family estate in Trocnov was small, with poor quality soil, and its prosperity depended on crops and livestock. Either Zizka was unlucky, or a bad estate manager, but by 1384 he had sold off the last of his ancestral estate. He was in Prague in 1381, perhaps inspiring a later tale that he was educated at the Prague royal court. A document from 1384 mentions one Catherine, wife of Johannes dictus Zizka, who seems to have died young. 

As you can tell, it is very difficult to piece together Zizka’s early life. The evidence, such as it is, indicates that he was the heir to an impoverished country estate, which he gradually sold off. Zizka then moved to Prague and got married at some point in the 1380s. 

He wasn’t a particularly good catch. In this era, property defined a man’s status. After selling off his inheritance, poor as it was, Zizka was reduced to a mere squire, and a landless one at that. Oh, and he was half-blind. Not a very promising start, then. *I’m joking, of course. I expect the standard is very good.

Dog-like teeth

A little extract from my current WIP (Work in Progress, to use a not-at-all pompous writer's term). Here, my hero gets creeped out travelling through Cappadocia.

'I started to sweat. Perhaps they dwelled here still. Perhaps they were watching us, that very moment, from their nasty little holes. When the light faded, they would come creeping out, hungry for fresh meat, and fall upon us while we slept. More beasts than men, I could almost feel their sharp, dog-like teeth closing on my flesh, the clutching hands and long, monstrously powerful fingers with broken nails wrapped about my neck, squeezing the very life from me...'

What is he on about, exactly? Ah, you will have to wait to find out.

You can pre-order Axe Lord on Amazon US and Amazon UK

Discover a lost prince - get your free biography of Prince Dafydd!

Roll up! Roll up! Santa has come early this year - or late - and is offering freebies.

Specifically, I am offering a free download of my short biography of Prince Dafydd ap Gruffudd, published a couple of years ago. It is now available to subscribers on my Substack - free or paid, so I'm not trying to milk you - so just click the link and it will take you there. Choose a subscription and the download will be made available.

Dafydd is one of the most controversial figures in the history of medieval Wales. A prince of Gwynedd, he fought for and against Edward I, and finally met a hideous end on the scaffold at Shrewsbury. Perhaps surprisingly, for such a pivotal figure, he had no proper biography until I decided to I write one.

Was Dafydd a traitor to his country, a misunderstood patriot, or simply a medieval princeling who ran plumb out of luck? Or none of the above? Have a read, if you fancy, and decide for yourself! 😁

Prince Dafydd free download on Substack

Guest post by Cathie Dunn

Who was Poppa of Bayeux?

“Who was she?”

When you research history, you often ask yourself that question. History is, usually, about men – their wars, their politics, their influence.

Chroniclers used to share the achievements of male rulers, and their challenges, successes, and failures. We read about their marriages, their sons, and occasionally their daughters (where they made suitable marriages or founded religious houses, for example). But we rarely hear about their wives, especially earlier in the Middle Ages.

Where were the wives? Did they not contribute anything of note at all?

Historical accounts are sadly often filled with the dismissive attitudes of the chroniclers. Apparently, it must have been a rare feat that a woman achieved something great out of her own ability, and not due to the largesse, cunning, or support of her male relatives…

Yet more and more details slowly emerge of the power women yielded, and not only behind the scenes. I believe we’re only now starting to see a wider picture. One such lady is Poppa of Bayeux.

Very little is known about her. Sources aren’t even certain about her father’s origins, but it makes much sense, historically, that her father was a man of some influence in Neustria. Otherwise, an invader like Rollo (Hrólfr in my novel, Ascent) would not have considered marriage to her. He had lofty ambitions, and Poppa provided a certain legitimacy, as the daughter of a Frankish noble.

They were married ‘in more danico’ – in the Danish handfasting manner, so not in the eyes of the Church. Whether that fact mattered to her or not, is up to speculation. As a Frankish woman, she would have been a Catholic, whilst her husband was still Pagan.

We know she was around fourteen years old when they met around 886 / 889, possibly even younger, but her children were born later. Their birth dates are uncertain, though, so we won’t know how old she was when she had her first child.

At the end of the 890s, Poppa accompanied Rollo to East Anglia, as he’d fallen out with the then Frankish king. There, some sources claim, her son William was born, and possibly her daughter, Gerloc, too. 

In the early 900s, they were back in Neustria, and Rollo’s star was on the rise as he gathered control over large swathes of the region. He was always on the move, consolidating his growing power, so Poppa was left to coordinate their manor. She likely spent her time between Bayeux and of course, Rouen, the fast-growing town he chose as his seat, and where Rollo would have welcomed many Frankish nobles.

Whether he married Gisela, an apparently illegitimate daughter of King Charles of the West Franks in 911 as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, is debatable, as no proof of her exist. If indeed they wed, with a Church blessing, they had no children, or those would have become his heirs. It was Poppa’s son, William, who inherited Rollo’s lands and title as ‘lord of the Normands’, originally granted by Frankish kings.

I loved plotting Poppa’s life in Ascent as I envisaged it: a lady of minor nobility, loyal, quietly powerful, who plays a vital role in the foundation of what was to become the powerful House of Normandy. Poppa is the ultimate matriarch – the ancestor of dukes of Normandy and Kings of England, and beyond. 

Surely, a remarkable woman who should not have been forgotten…

Links to Ascent by Cathie Dunn on Amazon US and Amazon UK

An invitation to dinner

The tomb of Richard 'Strongbow' de Clare

In 1282 Art and Murtaugh Mac Murrough, two Irish lords of Leinster, went back into revolt. This was despite the best efforts of their kinsman Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, who had tried to negotiate with them on behalf of the king, Edward I.

The reasons for this latest revolt are unclear, but the response of the English government at Dublin was drastic. The justiciar hired a man named Henry Pencoyt, also called Henry FitzRhys, to assassinate the brothers.

Henry was lord of Killahurler, descended from one of the Welsh settler families that had come over to Ireland during Strongbow's invasion in 1171. He was paid £300 in English sterling to do the deed, a very handsome fee, and we also know how he did it.

Art and Murtaugh were invited to dinner at Henry's house in Arklow, a port town south of Dublin. During the night, while they were sleeping, they were killed in their beds. Then their heads were cut off and paraded about Leinster.

This provoked an unseemly squabble. Head-taking was a common practice in Ireland (and, to an extent, in Wales), and part of legal process. The justiciar, Stephen Fulbourne, got himself into trouble by levying a customary fine of 'head-money' on the men of Leinster: this was due for the heads of convicted felons, but Art and Murtaugh had been in the king's peace when they were killed.

Their kinsman, Norfolk – by now thoroughly embarrassed by the whole affair – refused to pay on the grounds that the heads had not been 'approved' by the lord and men of his liberty of Carlow. This meant they had not been viewed and identified by the community.

Attached is a pic of Strongbow's tomb.

Lightning as a hurricane

1137. After his conquest of Armenian Cilicia, John II marched on Antioch in northern Syria. First he sent his son, Alexios, to secure the gateway to Syria by capturing the fortress of Baghras, known as Gaston Castle during the Crusader era.

Baghras (Gaston) castle today

Alexios apparently succeeded, which was no mean feat. Probably built by the Romans in the tenth century, Gaston sits on a rocky peak with steep slopes in an isolated valley. It guards the main route to Antioch through the Belen Pass (also called the Syrian Gates) and the flat plains of Syria beyond the Nur Mountains. 

By the early 12th century the castle was in the hands of the Crusader principality of Antioch. Sometime before 1153 it was transferred to the Templars, who may well have been in possession when Alexis marched up with one part of his father's army. Not much is known of how the young co-emperor took the castle; the poet Italikos praises him for capturing it from the 'Kelts', by which he presumably meant Franks.

The capture of Gaston enabled the emperor to advance on Antioch, and by early summer his forces were blockading the city. Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch, was absent campaigning against Imad ad-Din Zengi, the Seljuk Turkish ruler or atabeg, who had besieged the King of Jerusalem and his followers at the castle of Montferrand. While Raymond hurried off with a relief army to rescue his king, the Roman emperor descended upon his city.

A ruler in Turkic military dress

As soon as Raymond heard of John's arrival, he turned about and dashed back to Antioch with all speed. Along the way he blundered into some Roman scouts, who almost captured or killed him. More bitter skirmishing followed between imperial troops and the Antiochenes, who barred their gates against the emperor. 

These fights provided some colourful anecdotes. On one occasion, John's men were picking from fruit in the orchards outside Antioch, when the defenders suddenly attacked them. When Roman reinforcements arrived, the Franks fled back inside the city, leaving the Romans to begin siege operations. John's war engines, which had battered down so many Armenian fortresses, hammered the walls with giant stones. At the same time his archers and slingers scoured the walls with missiles as they looked for places to undermine the walls.

John II besieging a city

This barrage was terrifying; Italikos said that John did 'throw lightning as a hurricane' against the Franks, causing them to run and hide. As the storm of missiles rained down, Raymond went to the emperor and begged for a compromise. 

Barbarians and mountains

Tell Hamdun (Topprakale) fortress today

After the capture of Anazarbos, John II set about mopping up the last remaining fortresses in Cilician Armenia. The emperor was now in a hurry to secure his conquest and march on to Antioch in the Holy Land, his main objective. 

Along the way he conquered the strong fortress of Tell Hamdun (modern Toprakkale), a fortified hilltop surrounded by rich, flat farmland, at the confluence of routes between all the major Armenian cities. As such, it was essential for John to capture the fortress before he left Armenia.

An Arabic chronicler, Ibn al-Athir, describes this last stage of John's triumphant campaign:

"He [John] then went to Adana and Masisa, both in the possession of Leo the Armenian, lord of the castles of the Passes. He besieged and took both places. He then moved to 'Ayn Zarba, which he took by assault, and also seized Tell Hamdun. He transferred the population to the island of Cyprus."

From this, it appears the emperor moved the inhabitants of Tell Hamdun to Cyprus, presumably replacing them with a Greek garrison. The island already had an Armenian population, which was to grow further as the century went on; this may indicate that John transferred an entire community to Cyprus, rather than just a garrison. This is consistent with his policy of relocating Serb and Turkic peoples after defeating them in war.

The emperor now began his advance on Antioch. His conquest of Armenia was not quite complete, since he left at least one hostile fortress at his back, as well as recently conquered cities where the loyalty of the inhabitants was fragile. John did at least make some effort to win the population over, restoring order to the war-torn territory and showing tolerance towards Armenian and Syriac churches. 

Armenia had not enjoyed a stable government for over fifty years. Two Roman writers, Italikos and Choniates, praise John as having 'moved barbarians and mountains,' and clearing the roads of bandits. His capture of fortified points created centres of imperial authority, from which his men could bring order to the surrounding countryside. Some evidence is provided by the significant increase in the number of coins minted during this period. 

Another instance of John's merciful attitude is given by Matthew of Edessa, a 12th century Armenian chronicler. Matthew describes how the emperor's father, Alexios I, had forced Armenian Christians to be re-baptised. John reversed this policy, thus earning the goodwill of all Armenians. 

Matilda Maketh Joy

The Dance of Salome by Bennozzo Gozzoli, 1461-2

Matilda Makejoy was a professional acrobatic dancer, also called a salatrix, who performed at the courts of Edward I and Edward II. Very little is known of her background, except she must have been trained from an early age: she first danced before Prince Edward of Caernarfon at Ipswich in 1296, aged thirteen. The prince rewarded her with two shillings.

In early 1298 Matilda was part of a troop of dancers and musicians shipped over to Flanders, in the wake of the truce between Edward I and his rival, Philip the Fair of France. The entertainers performed before Edward and his allies, Count Guy of Flanders and Duke Jan II of Brabant, at the Christmas feast at Ghent. 

A Flemish poet, Lodewijk van Velthem, described the merry-making:

"...that these three rich lords held large feasts, with dinners and plays."

According to van Velthem, the allies competed to see who could hold the most magnificent feast. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Edward won first prize: he was a king, after all, and richer than any count or duke.

As a salatrix, Matilda would have 'made vaults' i.e. performed rhythmic movements to music, interspersed with spectacular gymnastic displays. These would have included jumps, leaps and somersaults, cartwheels, splits, handstands and walkovers. She would sometimes make use of props such as balls, bells, sticks or even knives and swords.

Matilda's companions were no less interesting. They included a 'citharist' supplied by Hugh Cressingham, Edward's treasurer of Scotland: Hugh was sadly absent from the party, since he had been (allegedly) flayed and turned into a belt by William Wallace. A cither was a type of necked string instrument; the pic below shows a man playing a cythara, from the Stuttgart Psalter. The Welsh variant was called a crwth. 

Other players are listed as Grease-Coat, Maggot and Pearl in the Eye, the latter possibly signifying blindness. They were probably sent home soon after the Christmas festivities, although Matilda remained in royal service until at least 1311, when she and two musicians, Richard Pilke and his wife, performed at Ipswich and Framingham Castle. Afterwards she vanishes from the record, perhaps (we may hope) into a comfortable retirement. 

Flashman at the charge!

 

Let's spice it up with a bit of Harry Flashman. Here is his description of Lord Cardigan:

"...his lordship looked over me in his high-nosed damn-you way which I remembered so well. He would be in his mid-fifties by now, and it showed; the whiskers were greying, the gooseberry eyes were watery, and the legions of bottles he had consumed had cracked the veins in that fine nose of his. But he still rode straight as a lance, and if his voice was wheezy it had lost nothing of its plunger drawl."

I read all of these novels over and over, and they are the reason I became a writer. The author, George MacDonald Fraser, was a genius with a knack for combining historical accuracy with vivid, eloquent, funny prose; Patrick O'Brian is his only rival, in my opinion.

His character, Harry Flashman, is a self-confessed coward who lies and cheats and fornicates his way around the British Empire, from the Crimea to the Indian Mutiny. The novels were initially hailed as a vicious satire on British imperialism, something Fraser always hotly denied. A former soldier, who had served in Burma during World War II, he made a point of declaring himself a proud imperialist, and didn't care who knew it.

Equally, he knew an idiot when he saw one - such as Lord Cardigan - and wasn't afraid to attack sacred cows. To judge from Flashman's accounts, many of the British military victories in this period were won more by luck than design, and achieved in spite of our glorious generals.

The novels are extremely un-PC by modern standards, not least Flashman's frequent use of racist language. If he popped into existence in 2025, he would be cancelled in a little under five seconds - and care not a jot, damn your eyes.

However, these stories are written from the first-person perspective of a 19th century British army officer, and you would expect no less. When I worked in archives I read the journals of some real-life British officers of the period; believe me, Flashman is tame by comparison. We can cope with the reality of our history, or we can stop up our eyes and ears and turn it into something more pleasing. I know what I prefer.

The Hammer of Cilicia

The spectacular ruins of Anavarza, seen from below

1137. John II continued to march through eastern Anatolia, taking city after city. News of his successes reached the ears of Raymond of Antioch, who became seriously alarmed. It looked like the triumphant Roman emperor would batter his way across the continent to the Holy Land,  then set about reconquering the long-lost Roman provinces of the East.

In desperation, Raymond made a bargain with Leon, ruler of Cilicia, whom he had recently captured. Leon agreed to hand over his recent conquests to Raymond, along with a sum of cash, and leave his sons as hostages. As a result of this somewhat one-sided treaty, Raymond and Leon then allied against the emperor.

Meanwhile John marched on Anazarbos, the chief city of Armenian Cilicia. This was guarded by Anavarza castle, the spectacular ruins of which can still be seen today (pictured). They were were protected by high walls on a hill, mounted with siege engines and crammed with soldiers, well-armed and trained. 

The emperor was typically cautious. First he sent forward a band of Turks, who had recently taken part in his conquest of Gangra, to discover if the Armenians would agree to surrender the city without resistance. Unfortunately this ended in disaster, as the Turks were attacked by the garrison, heavily defeated and chased all the way back to the main Roman army.

John then brought up his heavy siege weapons. However, unlike other cities, the defenders returned fire with their own missile throwers; these included burning pellets which set fire to the Roman artillery. More soldiers charged out to inflict further damage, while their comrades taunted John from the walls.  

In contrast to his earlier conquests, Anazarbos was proving a tough nut to crack. John started to lose heart, until his son Alexios suggested the siege weapons should be covered by brick hoardings, to prevent them being set alight. This worked well, and the Romans were able to smash open breaches in the city walls. Some of the defenders begged for mercy, while others retreated to the citadel, where they were prised out after two determined assaults.

Among those taken prisoner were Leon's wife and children. Leon himself may have also been present, but if so he escaped just before the city fell. 

After securing Anazarbos, John now set about reducing the last Armenian strongholds in Cilicia.