The application form has just arrived. That was an amazingly prompt response.

Continuing my series of posts from the Companions' Facebook page, here is the most popular post from the past week - the death of Edward the Elder. Honourable mentions also go to posts about Eorcenberht and St Swithun.

This is one of our longer reads, so it's interesting that it was so popular! You can read our daily articles at https://www.facebook.com/yorkshiregesithas/ and this should be accessible even without a Facebook account.

So, back to Edward - here's what we said.

Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, died on 17 July 924 AD.
Edward was the second of five legitimate children born to Alfred and Ealhswiþ; two boys and three girls. His arguably more famous sister Æþeflæd was the eldest child by. He was born around 875 AD, the precise date not being known making him still a toddler when Guðrum and his Danes came to Wessex in the winter of 875-6 AD and took Wareham. He was also still very young when the family had to hide at Athelnet  in the Somerset Levels from January-May 878 AD.
Edward grew up in a time of constant Viking incursions and battles. Like his elder sister he would have learned from his father’s victories and mistakes. He was noticeably less lenient or trusting in his negotiations when he was King, and developed the system of burhs (fortified settlements located at strategic points around the kingdom) to great strategic advantage.
As he grew, throughout the 880s and 890s, he would have been surrounded by the scholars and churchmen at his father’s cosmopolitan court where Alfred’s educational and cultural reforms were being realised, and the security brought by the burhs and the new standing army made apparent. Alfred’s early warships would also have contributed to the king’s ability to resist attack. Some of the scholars at this time later served Edward as King, such as Plegmund, the Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Asser in his Life of Alfred, Edward and his younger sister Ælfþryþ learned the Psalms and made use of books under the care of tutors and nurse at the court.
As an æþeling Edward would have followed his father around the kingdom and attended court when he was old enough, learning the skills he would need as king and witnessing charters. He was given military command In 893 AD Edward led a force against the Viking raiding army at Farnham, joining the local fyrd (militia) and driving the Vikings off. According the Chronicle of Æþelweard Edward had been leading a force elsewhere and then arrived to join the attack at Farnham, turning the course of the battle. Edward pursued the Vikings back to Thorney, in Mercian territory, and was joined by Æþelred, ealdorman of Mercia and his brother-in-law through marriage to Æþelflæd. The Vikings were then under siege until the Anglo-Saxons had to withdraw because the fyrd had reached the end of its term of service, leaving Edward with only his personal retinue behind – another valuable lesson for the future king about logistics and planning.
It is possible that later in the decade Edward acted as a sub-king in Kent; he certainly had strong support from Kent in later years.
Edward’s marriages are not entirely clear. There were three women in his life: Ecgwynn, Ælfflæd and Eadgifu. His relationship with Ecgwynn may not have been an approved marriage by the Church, and the lack of clarity may be related to the politics around the succession of their son, Æþelstan. Alfred seems to have seen Æþelstan as a potential future heir, and this may have been related ot his fosterage in the Merican Court in preparation for a role there.
When Alfred died in 899 AD Edward succeeded to the throne and was crowned on 8th June 900 AD in a service conducted by Plegmund, probably at Kingston-upon-Thames on the borers of Wessex and Mercia.
Although Alfred had tried to make the transition to his son’s rule as smooth as possible, Edward faced rebellion from his cousin Æþelwold on the basis that Alfred had stolen his right to succession when Æþelred had died in 871 AD. Alfred’s succession had been based on the fact the Æþelred’s sons were both very young children and not suitable to rule; Æþelred’s elder son had died by 899 AD.
Æþelwold seized the royal manors at Wimborne (where his father Æþelred was buried) and Twynham. He also abducted a nun. It is possible this was actually Edward’s sister Æþelfgifu who was Abbess at Shaftesbury as marriage to her would strengthen Æþelwold’s claim to the throne; if not she would have been important in some way to help his claim. However, he had misjudged his case, no one came to join him and Edward pursued him in force perhaps more quickly than anticipated. This was to be typical of Edward; he was quick and decisive in his actions. Æþelwold escaped under the cover of night, while the nun set off in a different direction but was arrested. Meanwhile Æþelwold went to Northumbria where he built up strong support in the kingdom, becoming supposedly (according to the Annals of St Neots) “King of the Danes” in less than two years. It is possible that the coins of this date with the name “Alwaldus” may be his.
In 902 AD Æþelwold was back, landing in Essex, presumably with the support of the Eohric, the king of East Anglia in return for reward in Mercia. They moved into Merica first heading west towards Dorset, pillaged in Wiltshire and then withdrew back to East Anglia. This may have been due to lack of support in the surrounding country or better information about relative troop sizes. Edward pursued them deep into Danish territory but then had t call off the pursuit. The Kentish fyrd was separated from the main body of Edward’s forces and Æþelwold took his chance to attack them. This became known as the Battle of the Holme, on 13th December 902 AD, late in the fighting season. Edward is said to have sent seven messages to the Kentish fyrd to re-join the main troop but this did not happen. The Kentish men were outnumbered but fought hard; in the end they were all slaughtered, but Æþelwold himself was also killed along with Eohric and a number of Anglo-Danish warlords.
With the threat to his regime now removed Edward finished his father’s project of building the New Minster at Winchester. His mother Ealhswiþ died on 5th December 902 AD and eventually she and Alfred were moved from their resting places to the New Minster after its completion around 903 AD.Relations with the Old Minster were frosty for some time until Friþustan became Bishop.
The key aspect of Edward’s alter reign was his relationship with Mercia and his campaign against the Danelaw to unite the various kingdoms under Wessex.
In 906 AD Edward agreed the Peace of Tiddingford with a number of Danish warlords, updating the agreement between Alfred and Guðrum. This peace held for three years before the Mercian raid on Bardney.
Æþelred and Æþelflæd had been transferring their power base away from Tamworth to Gloucester, where they built a new Minster. This removed their primary power base from the border with the Danelaw. However, the new foundation at Gloucester clearly need an important relic to attract pilgrims and enhance its status. They decided they needed the relics of Oswald held at Bardney, formerly in Mercia but now in the Danelaw. So in 909 AD they went and got them in a raid violating the Peace of Tiddingford. The Danes retaliated, aware that Edward was preoccupied with his fleet in Kent. Like Æþelwold before them, they under-estimated the speed and decisiveness of his reaction.
Sometime on the 5th or 6th August 910 AD they met at the Battle of Tettenhall. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records:
“In this year the Angles and the Danes fought at Teotanheal on the 'eighth of the ides of August [6th Aug.], and the Angles obtained the victory. And that same year Aethelflaed built the fortress at Bremesbyrig.”
Æþelred had been suffering ill-health for some years and he died in 910 AD. From this time on Æþelflæd is the “Lady of the Mercians” and leads her people until her death in 918 AD.
Æþelflæd and Edward now constructed a series of burhs across England as defence against the Vikings. Although seemingly acting independently their activities complement each other with devastating effect. Edward’s strategic mind and organisational ability made him a force to be reckoned with, and he developed the strategies used by his father. Edward’s burhs were not just defensive fortifications; they became an offensive technique for establishing a presence in enemy territory and consolidating his hold upon it. He also adapted continental practice of building twin burhs across a river to control traffic. Building a burh would have required an army of labourers to create the fortification, and he would then have needed to garrison it before he moved on.
In 918 Æþelflæd died, and the partnership ended. Uniquely, Ælfwynn, the only child of Æþelred and Æþelflæd, became the first English woman to inherit a throne from her mother.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle record the events around the death of Æþelflæd:
“918 AD: This year, in the early part of the year, by God's help, she peacefully got into her power the fortress at Leicester, and the greater part of the army which owed obedience thereto became subject to her ; and the people of York had also covenanted with her, some having given a pledge, and some having bound themselves by oath, that they would be at her command. But very shortly after they had become so, she died at Tamworth, twelve days before Midsummer [12th JuneJ the eighth year of her having rule and right lordship over the Mercians ; and her body lies at Gloucester, within the east porch of St.Peter's church.
AD. 919. This year also the daughter of Aethelred, lord of the Mercians, was deprived of all dominion over the Mercians, and carried into Wessex, three weeks before mid-winter: she was called Aelfwyn.”
Edward removed his niece from Mercia and she disappears from the record. From that time he is King of both kingdoms, and continued to expand into the Danelaw. It is perhaps surprising that Æþelstan did not at this time become lord of Mercia.
In 919 AD Edward also separated from his second wife, Ælfflæd and married Eadgifu of Kent, daughter of Sigehelm, ealdorman of Kent, killed at the Battle of Holme. He may have wished to secure the succession, despite having two sons by Ælfflæd already, as well as six daughters. However, he had a further three or four children with his third wife, including Edmund and Eadred who later succeeded Æþelstan. He also gained the submission of the Welsh kings and fortified his western borders, presumably against the greater threat of the Irish Vikings. The he fortified the border to the north-east against the Vikings in York, followed by the submission of all the major leaders in the north, including the Scots, Northumbria and Strathclyde.
And so in 924 AD he was in Chester dealing with a rebellion, and on 17th July, having completed his task, he died at Farndon-on-Dee south of Chester. It is not clear if it was related to an injury form the fighting at Chester or in pursuing the Welsh back across the border.
His heir, Ælfweard, then died on 1st August and eventually Æþelstan gained the throne.
Edward is called "Elder" to distinguish him from Edward the Martyr and Edward the Confessor. Today Edward he is a somewhat overlooked King of that name compared to the Confessor and the Martyr, but the leadership he showed during the Viking incursions helped forge the vision of England. It was not inevitable that he should have succeeded as he did; things were still very much in the balance. Sir Frank Stenton was of the opinion that he led “one of the best sustained and most decisive campaigns in the whole of the Dark Ages.”

This week's most popular post was about Godgifu, wife of Leofric, alleged to have ridden naked through the streets of Coverntry in 1040. To be fair most of the comments were humerous remarks about the accompanying image, that of Lady Godiva by John Collier, c. 1897.
A copy of that can be seen here as well as on the Facebook post, and obviously readers were mostly concerned about the authenticity of the stone buildings....
https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-collier/lady-godiva-1897

Here's the post itself, which is rather lengthy -

It is alleged by Roger of Wendover in the 13th century that on 10th July 1040 Godgifu (Godiva) rode naked through the streets of Coventry to persuade her husband, Earl Leofric, to stop taxing the poor so heavily. We may at least celebrate the generous intention even if we do not accept the historical accuracy! Tennyson wrote a poem about her:
“Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardy breathed for fear.”
Little is known about her background or early life. It is possible she was a widow when she married Leofric, Earl of Mercia; she and Leofric seem to have had at least one son, Ælfgar. He had been, in the words of the Chronicle, unjustly overlooked in favour of Tostig Godwinson for the earldom of Northumbria after the death of Siward in 1055, and had been outlawed. However, despite his support for Gruffydd ap Llewellyn he had been restored to the earldom of East Anglia later that year and when his father died in 1057 he succeeded to Leofric’s earldom of Mercia. His sons include Morcar and Edwin, who were important in the later story of England. Ælfgar also had a sister, Ealdgyth, who married Gruffydd.
Godgifu appears on a charter with her husband in the 1050s endowing a monastery in Coventry, built to replace the once destroyed by Vikings in 1016.
She gave Coventry a number of works by the famous goldsmith Mannig and as well as a silver necklace valued at 100 marks. She also gave a necklace to Evesham, to be hung around the figure of the Virgin and a gold-fringed chasuble to St Paul's Cathedral in London.
The manor of Woolhope in Herefordshire, along with four others, was given to the cathedral at Hereford before 1066 by Wulviva and Godiva, and this is generally held to be the same Godgifu and her sister. It is also possible that Thorold, who appears in the Domesday Book as sheriff of Lincolnshire, was her brother.
Following Leofric’s death in 1057 Godgifu seems to have survived until some time between 1066-1086. She is mentioned in Domesday as one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder following the Norman invasion in 1066. However, by 1086 when the Domesday was published Godiva had died and her former lands are listed, but now held by others. It is believed she was buried at Coverntry with Leofric, although Evesham Abbey also claimed that she was buried there.
Despite the early lack of record, later chroniclers become much more effusive about Godgifu. John of Worcester, writing in the 12th century, recorded that in 1057 Leofric died and:
“was buried with great pomp at Coventry; which monastery, among the other good deeds of his life, he and his wife, the noble countess Godiva, a worshipper of God, and devoted friend of St. Mary, Ever-a-Virgin, had founded, and amply endowing it with lands on their own patrimony, had so enriched with all kinds of ornament, that no monastery could be found in England possessed of such abundance of gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones as it contained at that time. They also enriched, with valuable ornaments, the monasteries of Leominster and Wenlock, and those at Chester dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. Werburgh, the virgin, and the church which Eadnoth, bishop of Lincoln, had built on a remarkable spot, called in English St. Mary's Stow, which means in Latin St. Mary's place. They also gave lands to the monastery at Worcester, and added to the buildings, ornaments, and endowments of Evesham abbey.”
At this point in the evolution of the Godiva legend, the Earl and his wife are both viewed positively as benefactors of the Church. John’s text is repeated by Simeon of Durham in his Historia regum Anglorum et Dacorum.
Then in Roger of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum, written at St Albans in the early 13th century, the story suddenly takes on a new life and the entry for 2017 reporting Leofric’s death now includes the familiar legend:
“in the same year died Leofric earl of Chester, a man of praise-worthy life; he was buried in the monastery which he had founded at Coventry. Having founded this monastery by the advice of his wife the noble countess Godiva, he, at the prayer of a religious woman, placed monks therein, and so enriched them with lands, woods, and ornaments, that there was not found in all England a monastery with such an abundance of gold and silver, gems and costly garments. The countess Godiva, who was a great lover of God's mother, longing to free the town of Coventry from the oppression of a heavy toll, often with urgent prayers besought her husband, that from regard to Jesus Christ and his mother, he would free the town from that service, and from all other heavy burdens ; and when the earl sharply rebuked her for foolishly asking what was so much to his damage, and always forbade her ever more to speak to him on the subject ; and while she, on the other hand, with a woman's pertinacity, never ceased to exasperate her husband on that matter, he at last made her this answer, " Mount your horse, and ride naked, before all the people, through the market of the town, from one end to the other, and on your return you shall have your request." On which Godiva replied, "But will you give me permission, if I am willing to do it?" "I will," said he. Whereupon the countess, beloved of God, loosed her hair and let down her tresses, which covered the whole of her body like a veil, and then mounting her horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the market-place, without being seen, except her fair legs ; and having completed the journey, she returned with gladness to her astonished husband, and obtained of him what she had asked ; for earl Leofric freed the town of Coventry and its inhabitants from the aforesaid service, and confirmed what he had done by a charter. The said earl also, at the instigation of his countess, munificently enriched with lands, buildings, and various ornaments the churches of Worcester, St. Mary of Stone, and St. Wereburg, with the monasteries of Evesham, Wenloc, and Lenton.”
Later writers added some more embellishments, such as Peeping Tom (first recorded by name in 1773, but in relation to an effigy based on an earlier tradition), and dropped the two knights who accompanied her, but the essence of the story remained albeit with Leofric receiving an increasingly hard press.
The reason for the legend is unclear and may be a founding story for the city of Coventry. It may originally have been derived from a pagan tradition of a fertility goddess celebrating spring. The naked woman with long hair, riding in a springtime procession, is the one constant factor in all variations of those legends. The Peeping Tom story may in this case be a part of the original myth, recalling similar examples of those who intruded on the forbidden rites of other fertility goddesses. Godgifu’s horse would therefore be an important element of the story, probably replacing the more traditional male victim of the rites. So in the end the story may be another example of pagan tradition being subverted by or for Christian audiences.

In an unrelated incident, the Emperor Hadrian, wall builder extraordinaire, died on 10th July 138 AD, probably of heart failure. This is believed to be purely coincidental.

Looks excellent. I've saved a copy.
Thank you.
Wayne