The Bloodied Sword, the Precious Pearl and the Black Cross; Chronicles of the Royal House of Wessex – III.

Episode Three – Rebels and Outlaws Scene Thirty; 1070-71 – The Legendary Outlaws of the Fens: Many of the stories of Hereward the Outlaw that follow these events were written down several generations after his own day, by which time they had already followed a legendary turn of phrase. But the twelfth-century Gesta Herewardi containsContinue reading “The Bloodied Sword, the Precious Pearl and the Black Cross; Chronicles of the Royal House of Wessex – III.”

The Bloodied Sword, the Precious Pearl and the Black Cross; Chronicles of the Royal House of Wessex – II.

Episode Two: Conquest, Flight and Resistance, 1066-70 Scene Twenty; 1066 – The Norman Invasion: After Hardrada’s defeat at Stamford Bridge, Harold was holding a celebratory feast at York, when news arrived of the Norman landing on the beach at Pevensey, 270 miles away.  Harold’s army made the journey in under a fortnight, while Harold, onContinue reading “The Bloodied Sword, the Precious Pearl and the Black Cross; Chronicles of the Royal House of Wessex – II.”

The False Dawn: Saxons, Celts and Britons, 616-839 – From Edwin of Northumbria to Egbert of Wessex.

The (no-longer-so-dark) Dark Ages: Since the discovery of the Sutton Hoo burial in Suffolk in 1939, archaeology has continued to shed light on the ‘Dark Ages’, where documentary evidence is lacking. The distribution of pagan fifth-century Anglo-Saxon burials indicates the probable areas of earliest English settlement in Britain. The English ‘advance’ continued throughout the periodContinue reading “The False Dawn: Saxons, Celts and Britons, 616-839 – From Edwin of Northumbria to Egbert of Wessex.”