Murder in Anglo-Saxon England
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Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga, 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.

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. The stories in Annie's book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England, Justice, Wehrgeld, 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 a 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. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am absolutely delighted because, you know, 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. And we are here for it. Absolutely.

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 seventh century and looking at murder cases can really tell us a lot about history.

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. Yeah. 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

But I thought, I know that these in the mail 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 anymore.

There are Anglo-Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, 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? We gloss over that. 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. Yeah.

And up in Northumbria, before it was even Northumbria, which most people might recognise now as a term, there were two parts to Northumbria. There was the north, which was centred around Bambra, which was Benicia, and then the south centred around York, which was Daera. And Edwin is a classic case. His family ruled Daera 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, he was down in East Anglia with the Redwald, who we think was the Sutton Hoo burial 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 labour. An assassin was sent.

received to kill him with a poisoned blade. So we love that detail. And what's really unusual about this story is that we actually have the name, not only of the assassin, Eema, but the thane, the servant, the man who saved Edwin, who actually took the brunt of the poison. And his name was Lila. 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. Oh,

But that's a long way to go. Even in these days, you know, to drive from Wessex down in 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, Edwin agreed to convert to Christianity. And this is Bede's main reason for telling us a story. But I started that with 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 King's

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 Offa, who I'm sure everyone's heard of, Athelbold reigned for almost as long, a

But we first hear about him in exile. I think Offa 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 8th century in Northumbria, we've got, I think it's something like 14 reigns by 13 kings. One of them reigned twice. And it's just a listening of, I mean, I've got a little list here. The earliest king in the 8th century killed kings.

Two kings later, the next one was forcibly tonsured. Now, this was another thing. If you took a king or a would-be king and had him forcibly tonsured, he then becomes a member of the clergy, essentially, and men 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.

The next one was killed by his own household. Yeah, the next one was driven out. The next one was also exiled. Then we've got one who was exiled, came back, blessing, 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 8th century.

We need some kind of rhyme about this, like the Henry VIII's. I mean, to be honest, if you asked me to list off the notes, I can't do it because it's so, it's almost like one sits down on the throne and then gets booted off. One only lasted 27 days. And we don't have that much documentary evidence for this period in Northumbria, apart from Bede and another Northumbrian who was living in Sharlano's call, Alcuin, who was

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 Lindesbarn in 793. These scholars claim that this was all the fault of the sinful kings. You know, they brought it upon themselves. And,

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 the birth of nations. They are establishing their kingship and some of them are doing it substantially better than others.

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. And 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 down in Aachen, 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, right?

For no reason, right? 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 the story. Why do you think we're talking about Yilmer looking at assassination as opposed to a battlefield confrontation? Like, is this a reflection of B trying to say, oh, there's these non-Christian elements that do dodgy things like send assassins? Or is this supposed to be kind of showing that there, you know, is some kind of divine protection coming?

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, we're then told, presumably takes an army. That's not said, but you know, we have to assume that's implicit. I would, personally. And then he kills five West Saxon kings simultaneously.

So again, this story is really demonstrating that, you know, this Northumbrian is writing about a Northumbrian king whom he greatly admired. And he said, 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 elements. I think also, you're right, the religious aspect that, you know, Edwin has been protected.

And as you say, by divine intervention. And 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. And it's very interesting because you can turn it the other way. 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. Oh, I love a girl with a team. Fantastic. But, you know, Bede, when he compliments Pender, we have to take it seriously because he's not predisposed to

saying 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.

that there were similar struggles presumably 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

and attack other countries, other kingdoms. But it does seem that the most successful ones are the ones that manage to put other kingdoms under tribute. So again, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. And I mean, 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 character

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, do you see servants? Do you see regular people? Lila, let's see what Lila did for the boss. Or is this supposed to be a call to shape Edwin's life?

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 a generalized description of a guy? 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, Ahterflade Lady of the Mercians in one part of the Anglo-Saxon 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 Leela Laine is a servant, but he's not, I think, just, you know, handing out the bread and ale. I think he's a thane. He's one of Edwin's hearth troop. Yeah.

And we do have other instances where Bede will tell us a story. There's quite a famous one about a fane who's 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 I think it's a woman with a child actually can walk from coast to coast, i.e. from the east to the west. I 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 Lothambrian kings, with the possible exception of one, it was the

so keen on King Osry 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 all the dark ages, all this, 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 realize. And the detail is just incredible. You know, you can picture 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. I couldn't agree more. And fundamentally also, it makes it more fun. Yes. That beat is picking sides. You know, when you're a historian, this is what you wish to be presented with, right? The opportunity to do the unpicking, the unfurling of all these stories and trying to understand what it is that someone is trying to get across. And there's so much detail

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

why we are getting assassins from Wessex all the way up in Northumbria? Is there a particular Northumbria-Wessex issue that's going on? 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

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 Brettwalder, which seems to be some kind of

over-king. I'm not sure how true that is, but this was Bede's assessment. 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... Because I mean, I would describe Edwin as an expansionist.

Again, you know, I am a mercy and apologist, but I feel that they were defending themselves against Northumbrian aggression and expansion during this period because the Northumbrians would 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. I'd say sometimes Bede is helpful to the point where he just makes it worse. Well, I mean...

Yeah, 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 happen around this time, that people don't necessarily see Edwin as a hero. They don't really like this kind of absorption policy.

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, God, here's 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, right?

that is seen as worthy of recording at the time. 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? 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 Daera? 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. Oh, how convenient. 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 say, what does Bede get out of it by writing what he does? But if it's true,

that this contender for the Daeran 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'd 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 Edwin

People are dying at quite young ages. 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. Look, here's one thing where we are different, Annie, is that I love to argue with Venerable Beat. And I think it's, you know, not only is this 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 pro-Expansionist. 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? Exactly. And who knows what deal, you know, I mean,

the king who was harbouring 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, there's 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 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 said, that we've 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 100 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 asking the question, why? And then follow it up with who?

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Atlantic Union Bank. Any way you bank. Absolutely, because I think that what the sources are doing, you know, people like Bede or indeed Jeffrey 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. It doesn't mean that his cousin wasn't killed. But

But just by whom? And exactly 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? 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 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. 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...

Pendon was not King of Mercia. And the interesting thing here, and I think it's a crucial point, and even Bede concedes it, Pendon was the junior partner in an alliance with a Welsh British king who had been forced out of his lands by Edwin.

And there is a clear distinction that this British king, I'll say it slowly, Cadwalchian, 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. We can expect the heathen pender to be on the warpath, as it were, but Cadwalchian 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. Cadwachian doesn't. He stays and he makes a menace of himself in Northumbria. 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 that it's disgraceful.

This Christian king should be attacking another Christian king. But, you know, say Catwalyan 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. Yeah.

And, you know, taking their prisoners, really. I've 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

But two of them were very important because they then became kings after Edwin, not immediately after. There were a few other contenders that Catrwalyon saw to. 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.

brutal. 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 neighboring 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. And it does get a little bit more civilized as the kingdoms get established and things calm down a bit. But then, you know, we get these other murder stories. So,

So, you know, as I said at the beginning of the book, we all love a good murder story. Well, I wanted to move us on to one of our favorites, speaking of. So let's crawl forward to the 8th 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. 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...

to embellish 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. 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, no context. So we do find this with the Agnus Saxon Chronicles. Sometimes we get pages and pages. Sometimes we get a line. Sometimes they just tell us that in that year, marvellous adders were seen in Sussex. You know, 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 of the sources, one in particular,

also tell us that it was all the Queen's fault. Queen can a thrift. 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 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's actually supposed to have said,

And she concocts this vile plan. 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 Offa 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. 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 Offa's dominions for him because he had a vast area that he was in control of at this point. Alcuin wrote letters to Alcuin.

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 a nun 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. 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. You know, there's all sorts of talk about how much blood was shed by Offa in order to get his son on the throne, but

There's no mention that his wife was involved in any of that. Offa was remembered very, very favourably by certain religious houses, including St Albans because he founded St Albans. 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. Holborn's. Oh, come on. 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 Offa. 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. Oh, that guy. I love that guy. 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. They were royal abbesses. 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 there.

Queen Cunothrith also got into a huge dispute with the Archdiocese of Canterbury about her monasteries. And another kinswoman of hers had a similar reputation, in that case, 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 abbesses, but they also actually owned the

the abbeys and land, which is hugely important because vast estates are very lucrative. And I do wonder whether there's an element here of Cunythrith being remembered by later chroniclers who, A, wanted to extol the virtues of Offa. 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. 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 to

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 throne. So again, this is another case of a king being driven into exile. Now, this lady, Ebbra, was apparently so jealous of her husband's advisors 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. It has no bearing on anything. Ultimately, Emperor Charlemagne sets her up in her own abbey.

where she's then caught in debauchery and eventually dies in poverty. And Asser, 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 Nasser'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 and you have a look, going back to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, there was a battle

This exiled West Saxon contender, King Edgbert, who was King Alfred's grandfather. So again, Asa, who's writing the history of King Alfred and his family, is going to want to emphasize this. There's a battle going

King Edgbert 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 office daughter was married to, his name was Beatrice. This is a very un-West Saxon sounding name.

My contention is that this King Beatrice was in fact a Mercian and he was a Mercian puppet ruling for and on behalf and with the support of Offa. Edgebert comes back. There's a battle. Beatrice is killed on the battlefield. He's not poisoned.

And if we take this as a line, then suddenly Edva is facing the prospect of still being in situ when the man who was driven out by her father and her husband comes back. This is very 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

And she flees for her life, not because she's a murderess, 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. If she did, then that would make her flight 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 Beatrice 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 consorts weren't given the title of queen because that charter that I referred to, this is from another branch of Alfred's 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. So again, even though it is a more contemporary source, I think we can dry the coaching horses right through it.

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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's son, question mark. They're doing all of these terrible things. That is a really easy story to sell.

Yes, absolutely. As opposed to there's a very complex situation with regicide happening kind of all over the shop. Yeah. And what is easier to put across in Chronicle? As you say, it's so much easier to deflect. And sadly, people love to believe these stories. These are the ones that we remember. Yeah.

As I said, there was a kinswoman of Queen Connethryth 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. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah. 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 Malmesbury, 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. Great work, William. But 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

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 Mansbury said that even in his day when he was writing, you could still see the blood spatters all over the Psalter that she'd been reading from.

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 pre-deceased his father.

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 pre-deceased the king.

End of story. But that's no fun, is it? 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. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I've got some news about the tooth fairy as well. 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 Ken Elm one, but you've also got

wig stand in here because for some reason they just go so hardcore on the gore yes when the children are involved it's like the minute there's a kid they're like let's go eyeballs are popping out grizzly bodies are being proud and it's just so above and beyond when you know i would argue you already have the horror of child murder and they're like 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 Anglo-Saxon period, it is quite easy to be sanctified. Oh God, yeah. You don't have to wait for a decision from the Pope. 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.

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. 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.

It's great for revenue. It's fantastic. And yeah, so Wigstan 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 coming

And I don't want to disparage religious beliefs, absolutely not. But these stories do have certain similar elements time and again. But Wigstan'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. 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 Wigstan,

His mother, the proposal was that there's a contender to the throne who did become king for sure, wanted his son to marry Wigstan's mother. And Wigstan objects. And actually, I think he had good reason. I think the reason Wigstan 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 got during Mercia in the 9th 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 8th century happened with bells on in Mercia in the 9th century. And what you 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 are so similar that even if I read them out, it wouldn't be helpful. But Wigstan, obviously he was a W, but one of his grandfathers was a C and the other one was a W. But you've got 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 also had a name beginning with B, to marry Wigstan's mother.

And that would have given them a bit more pure blood, as it were. 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 Repton, which is like the sort of royal family place.

the 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 PR. You get the pilgrims flocking to the site. So, you know, it's very, very sad, but also, well, yeah, we could do something with this. But 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. 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 detail

shall we say drama and excitement. You know, if you're going to kill someone, you're going to do it quietly or as quietly as you can and probably not necessarily announce that you're the one that did it.

So 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 beacons because he was descended from kings on both sides of his family. And that would have been more than enough to make him a contender for the throne and somebody that any rivals would absolutely feel compelled to get rid of.

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 works.

is meted out and how things are passed down. But you get this really potent mix of

of women and children in what could just be stories about men, really, ultimately? 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 women.

Apart from the one about poor Ed Bow, supposed to have poisoned her son and then tried to run off with the Emperor Charles, 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 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 ancestors.

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 the flat lady, the 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 and the Anglo-Saxons generally the chroniclers all seem to be quite relaxed about this and yet they say very very little about the women you

You know, as I said, one of the chronicles doesn't even call Apophad by her name. So it's almost on the one hand, it's like, we have no problem with women, but also we're not going to talk about them. So they're just there. They're kind of like pot plants or something. 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-Saxon era, a lot of the abbeys and the monasteries were founded by women, but they were double houses. So you had female abbesses in charge of both monks and nuns. This was something that died off 8th, 9th 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 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. No, it's got to be the dove witch woman. This is the more logic. And we see this throughout, you know, some of the later stories. I mean, Queen Alfrith, 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. Oh, yeah, normal. 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...

Okay. All right.

So, yeah, we just wonder why these later chroniclers had an issue, I think, with the women. Look, I am completely ready to stan every woman who stabbed a guy in the armpits.

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. Oh, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. As you can probably get, I just love talking about this era. Absolutely the same. 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 forward slash 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.

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