Chapter 1: Scores to Settle
I am Osulf, son of Eadulf, son of Uhtred the Bold of the House of Bamburgh. For centuries, my kin had been the most powerful clan in all Northumbria, first as Kings of Bernicia and Northumbria and later as high-reeves of Bamburgh. Now, however, dark days and calamity have befallen us, and we find ourselves in a desperate struggle to retain our old way of life. Our present troubles have their roots in the life of my illustrious grandfather, Uhtred the Bold. In recognition of my grandfather's mighty and heroic deeds against the Scots, King Aethelred appointed him Earl of all Northumbria. This, however, angered the Anglo-Norse population of Eoferwic, and they seethed at the thought that a native son of Britain should rule over them.
Their opportunity to strike at my noble family came in that terrible year of 1016, when Cnut the Great, Cnut the Terrible, Cnut the Conqueror took to his longships and assailed our King Aethelred. And while men now find it fashionable to mock him and call him
Unraed, the late King Aethelred had been good to our clan, God rest his soul, and for this we stood by his side and fought for him against the Danish invader. Even after King Aethelred died in London we stood by his brave and noble son, King Edmund Ironsides, who so confounded the Danish invader that they were forced to assassinate him as he relieved himself in the privy, like the cowardly dogs that they were.
A similar fate awaited my illustrious grandfather for the crime of having stood by the rightful King of England. For while the House of Bamburgh stood by their king, the treacherous Danes who have populated Eoferwic since the days of the Great Heathen Army did not, and they turned to their kinsman Cnut and promised him the loyalty of all the north, if only he would rid them of their native overlord, my most noble grandfather. And so it was on that fateful day in 1016, that my grandfather made his way south to parlay with the foreign invader. Suddenly a party of the invader's troops, led by Thorbrand the Hold (a prominent man of Eoferwic), sprang out of the woods and slew all his party. My grandfather fought like a lion, but alas, such are the times we live in that a pack of cowardly dogs can slay even the noblest king of the beasts. And so it happened that the men of Eoferwic made their pact with the invader and we, the rightful overlords of Bamburgh, were left to rule over the northern reaches of England - Lothian, Bamburgh, Westmoreland, and Cumberland.
Uhtred the Bold left behind him a brother, Eadulf Cudel; and three sons: Ealdred, Eadulf (my esteemed father, rest his soul), and Gospatric. Since the three sons were not of sufficient age to govern our family's lands, that burden fell to Eadulf Cudel, a timid and unworthy man. Out of cowardice, he ceded our lands in Lothian - held by our family since the days of Ida 500 years ago - to the Scots, and it was indeed a blessing to our house when he finally expired in the early 1020s.
Eadulf Cudel was succeeded by Earl Uhtred's son, my uncle Ealdred. Ealdred was a man of stouter heart than Eadulf Cudel, and he avenged my grandfather's blood by slaying his murderer, Thorbrand the Hold. Alas and alack, the Earl Ealdred was insufficiently zealous in his vengeance, and he left Thorbrand's son Carl alive. For several years a vicious feud of raid and counter-raid raged between Eadulf and Carl, with Ealdred supported by the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria and Carl supported by the Danes in York. In 1038, Carl proposed that the nobles of Northumbria and York agree to a perpetual peace between themselves, and he invited my uncle Ealdred to join him on a pilgrimage to Rome to solidify the peace between them. Unfortunately, my uncle trusted that viper, and once in the forest, Carl treacherously turned upon my uncle and slew him.
Following Ealdred's murder, my father Eadulf succeeded him as Earl of Northumbria. He performed mighty deeds against the Scots and the Galwegians, and he lay waste to the lands of England's enemies to the north. In a just world, the crown would have favored him and showered him with glory for the deeds he had done, but instead, the spawn of the invader, Harthacnut, betrayed my father and delivered him into the hands of his enemies. This mortal enemy, this terrible foe, was the mighty Siward, another Scandinavian who had come over to our England in the days of Cnut. This Siward ambushed and slew my father, God rest his soul, and the treacherous King Harthacnut gave Siward overlordship over both Eoferwic and Northumbria, which he wielded to the end of his days.
In truth, had I been in my uncle Gospatric's place I would have continued the fight, but Gospatric accepted that Siward was too mighty and our family was to weak, and so he submitted to Siward's rule. And as difficult as it is for me to utter these words about my father's killer, Earl Siward's rule was good for Northumbria. He shattered the power of the Scots and kept our frontiers safe. He made sure to keep both my house and the men of Eoferwic happy - in the case of our house he gave my uncle Gospatric effective control over Northumbria, and in the case of the men of Eoferwic he gave them security and kept their taxes low.
All that changed in 1055, when Earl Siward died of dysentery. Lord be praised, the foe of my house did not obtain the honorable death on the battlefield, but instead died of dysentery in painful indignity, lowing like a cow in childbirth as his innards spilled out in a bloody flux.
With Earl Siward dead, the question arose as to who King Edward would appoint to replace him. Siward left a young son, Waltheof, who was insufficiently mature to take the helm in as dangerous a region as Northumbria, and so he was passed over by Edward, although the King granted him the Earldom of Northamptonshire as compensation. We had high hopes of our family being restored to its rightful place at the head of Northumbrian society, but the king's advisor and brother-in-law, the damnable Harold Godwinson, saw an opportunity to further his family's interests. Instead of appointing my uncle Gospatric to his rightful position as earl, Harold sent his idiot brother Tostig to rule over us.
That Tostig Godwinson was a unique species of idiot can be gleaned from the fact that he managed to unite both Northumbria and Eoferwic in opposition to his rule. He managed to lose Cumberland to the Scots, which infuriated both my family, who held those lands, and the Bishop of Durham, whose lands were now open to Scottish raiders, and he levied oppressive taxes. When my uncle Gospatric tried to rally the men of Northumbria to protest against Tostig's monstrosities in 1065, Tostig and his sister Edith (wife of our late King Edward) had Gospatric and two close kinsmen murdered in the royal palace!
When news of this outrage reached me in Bernicia, I gathered my kin and we marched on Eoferwic. We joined forces with the disgruntled Danes and together we slew Tostig's men-at-arms, down to the last man. We would have slain that wicked Earl himself, had he not been down south with the king at that time. Our uprising was a complete success, and we completely cleared Northumbria and Eoferwic of those southern interlopers in short order. Tostig himself was forced to flee England after his brother Harold refused to go to war with us to restore Tostig to his earldom. The question then arose as to who would be the new earl. My men, of course, wished me to be Earl of Northumbria, but the men of Eoferwic refused to hear of it. They, in turn, tried to suggest Waltheof, son of Siward (who had by now grown up) as earl, but my men justifiably refused to serve under the kin of the man who had murdered my father. Thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. We needed a compromise candidate.
Eventually, we settled on an appropriate candidate - Morcar, the younger brother of Duke Eadwine of Mercia. He is a brave and ambitious warrior, and we agreed to give him the position of Duke of Northumbria, provided that he leave the House of Bamburgh in charge of our ancestral lands in Bernicia and Westmoreland (and God willing Cumberland when we recapture it from the Scots). King Edward was greatly distressed by our demand that Morcar be installed as our new earl, but without the support of his nobles to put down our uprising, he was forced to agree. A few weeks later the king fell ill, and before long he was gone, dead, many said, of a broken heart.
And so we find ourselves in the position we are in today. Three mighty rulers contend for the throne in England. To the south, Harold Godwinson has been elected by the witan and sits on the throne in Winchester, while across the sea, both Duke William of Normandy and King Harald Hardrada of Norway prepare to invade. Word is that the despicable Tostig Godwinson accompanies Harald Hardrada's host, which makes it critical to both my house and my lord Duke Morcar that the Norwegians are defeated. As far as the conflict between King Harold and Duke William, we have little vested interest, although Duke Morcar's sister is married to King Harold. Personally, I would like to see young Edgar Aetheling, grandson of Edmund Ironsides and the last surviving male of the House of Wessex, become king when he comes of age, but I dare not voice such treason until the time is right.
I shall lead my people through this time of violence and tribulation. I shall uphold our local Anglo-Saxon culture in the face of all invaders. And most importantly, I shall avenge the blood of my kin. Not a soul from the families of Waltheof Siwardson and Tostig Godwinson shall escape the bloody vengeance of the House of Bamburgh!
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