Hoodsman: Ely Wakes Read online

  THE HOODSMAN

  Ely Wakes

  (Book Six of the Series)

  By Skye Smith

  Copyright (C) 2010-2013 Skye Smith

  All rights reserved including all rights of authorship.

  Cover Illustration

  "Hereward cutting his way through the Norman host"

  by Conrad Martens (1865)

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  Revision 4 . . . . . ISBN: 978-1-927699-05-8

  Cover Flap

  In 1070 the Danes and the Anglo-Danes sought vengeance against the Normans for the Harrowing of the North. A gruesome murder turned young Raynar into a Berserker, and he organizes the Anglo-Danish bowmen who had nothing left to loose, into Wolfpacks. The Wolfpacks grew in number and they hunted down and slaughtered any Normans they found.

  This rebellion reaching out from the Fens was not led by lords. It was the monster that the Pope and every king and nobleman in Christendom feared the most. A peasant revolt.

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  It was 1101 when Edit, Queen of the English found a husband for her sister the Princess Mary of Scotland. He was Count Eustace of Boulogne. A prior suitor, an enraged rapist pig of a Norman, William Mortain, the Earl of Cornwall, abducts Mary and to use as bait to capture King Henry.

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  The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

  About The Author

  Skye Smith is my pen name. My ancestors were miners and shepherds near Castleton in the Peaks District of Derbyshire. I have been told by some readers that this series reminds them of Bernard Cornwell’s historical novels, and have always been delighted by the comparison.

  This is the sixth of my Hoodsman series of books, and you should read the first “Killing Kings” before you read this book. All of the books contain two timelines linked by characters and places. The “current” story is set in the era of King Henry I in the 1100’s, while the longer “flashback” story is set in the era of King William I after 1066.

  I have self-published twelve "The Hoodsman ..." books and they are:

  # - SubTitle

  . . . . . . . . . . . . William I Timeline

  . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry I Timeline

  1. Killing Kings

  . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066 killing King Harald of Norway (Battle of Stamford Bridge)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100 killing King William II of England. Henry claims the throne.

  2. Hunting Kings

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066 hunting the Conqueror (Battle of Hastings Road)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100 hunting Henry I (Coronation Charter)

  3. Frisians of the Fens

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067/68 rebellions. Edgar Aetheling flees north with Margaret.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100 amnesty and peace. Henry recuits English bowmen.

  4. Saving Princesses

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1068/69 rebellions. Margaret weds Scotland (Battle of Durham)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100/01 Edith of Scotland weds Henry (Battle of Alton)

  5. Blackstone Edge

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1069/70 rebellions (The Harrowing of the North)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101 peace while the economy is saved from the bankers

  6. Ely Wakes

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070/71 Frisian rebellion (Battles of Ely and Cassel)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101 Henry collects allies. Mary of Scotland weds Boulogne.

  7. Courtesans and Exiles

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1072/74 English lords flee abroad (Battle of Montreuil, Edgar surrenders)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102 Henry collects allies (the Honor of Boulogne)

  8. The Revolt of the Earls

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1075/76 Earls revolt (Battles of Worchester and Fagaduna)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102 Earls revolt (Battles of Arundel, Bridgnorth, Shropshire)

  9. Forest Law

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076/79 fighting Normans in France (London Burned, Battle of Gerberoi)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103 fighting Normans in Cornwall (Battle of Tamara Sound)

  10. Queens and Widows

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1079/81 rebellions (Gateshead, Judith of Lens)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103 Edith made Regent (Force 5 Hurricane)

  11. Popes and Emperors

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081 Normans slaughter English exiles (Battle of Dyrrhachium)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104 Henry visits Normandy (Duchy run by warlords)

  12. The Second Invasion

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082/85 power vacuum, peaceful anarchy (Regent Odo arrested enroute to Rome)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085/87 Re-invasion and Harrowing of all England (Battle of Mantes, Conqueror dies)

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104/05 Henry invades Normandy twice (Battle of Tinchebray)

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  The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

  Prologue

  Writing historical novels about the twenty year conquest of England by a culture of vicious slave masters, means that I must describe England as it was before the era of the Anglo-Normans. It is difficult to separate reality from all of the popular misconceptions about the era. For example, think of all of the connotations and misconceptions attached to just one phrase: Anglo-Saxon.

  Pre-Norman England was very much an Anglo-Danish kingdom. Not only were most of the nobles and lords Anglo-Danes, but also half of all the villages in the kingdom were Anglo-Danish. York was the second largest Danish city in the world, after London, and was a wealthy place because of the wealth of the Anglo-Dane farms of the Danelaw. The Danelaw was more Danish than Denmark, and larger, and wealthier, and more populated.

  I must also piece together the politics the pre-1066 North Sea. Denmark was a great power, but King Sweyn was fully busy defending it from attacks by the Byzantine trained King Harald of Norway. Flanders was a great power, but the aging Count Baldwin was sick and dying. Baldwin was also the co-regent of France because King Philip was under age, so France was being carved up by vicious Dukes such as William of Normandy.

  In 1066, not only did the balance of power begin to shift in Byzantium and the Mediterranean, but also in the North Sea. Harald of Norway lost his life, his army, and his ships near York. While this battle weakened King Harold of England, it gave King Sweyn of Denmark control of the North Sea. After the English and Norman armies savaged each other at Hastings, Sweyn's army was still intact.

  By 1071 William was cursing that he ever invaded England. It had been enormously costly in Norman warriors. If he had not invaded, by now he would have used his army and his wife's claim on Flanders to make himself the Count of Flanders, and then have moved on to Paris and made himself Regent of France, until a convenient fatal accident could be arranged for little King Philip.

  If not for his invasion of England, by 1071 he would have been the Duke of a strong Normandy, the Count of a strong Flanders, and King of a strong France. He could have used that strength to expand his empire eastward, to where the Byzantine Empire was falling apart.

  Instead his very weak army was stuck on the wrong side of the Channel and he was
the Duke of a weakened Normandy, and sort of King of sort of half of England. Worse, he had made a mortal enemy of King Sweyn of Denmark by Harrowing the Danelaw. Sweyn set up a naval base in Ely and the Wash so that he could control the southern entrance to the North Sea, which was now definitely a Danish Sea.

  The balance of power was yet again about to change around the North Sea, but this time due to Flanders. Sweyn did not want France or Normandy to take over control of Flanders, so he supported Robert, Regent of Holland and Frisia, in his claim to be the next Count of Flanders. Since Robert's biggest supporters were the Frisians of the North Sea, he was called Robert the Frisian, but actually he was the son of one dead Count of Flanders, and brother to the latest dead Count.

  Flanders was won at the Battle of Cassel because the French and Norman heavy cavalry who had gathered there, were surprised and slaughtered by the Frisians. The French and the Normans withdrew, and so the fortress hill town of Cassel surrendered to Robert, and he became Count.

  This was hugely bad news for the Normans, because Flanders ceased to be their ally, and instead allied themselves to the Danes and the Frisians. Sweyn now truly controlled the North Sea, and Norman ships sailed it at their own risk.

  Worse news for William the Conqueror was that he was having trouble finding more Norman warriors to reinforce his battered army. Not just because he had been so careless with Norman lives, but because there were richer pickings to be had from joining the Norman Duke of southern Italy in his attacks on the border lands of the Byzantine Empire.

  The Pope and Church were convinced that the peasant rebellions in Maine, Brittany, and the Danelaw of England had been caused by the harrowings, and they wanted those peasants calmed without more harrowings. Meanwhile, France was no longer under a Regent and young King Philip was beginning to take back the lands that had been taken from his father by William of Normandy.

  William could not possibly hold onto Northern England with Hereward the Wake and his rebels ranging in Cambridgeshire, and with the Danish fleet using Ely and the Wash as their base in the southern North Sea. Cambridgeshire was just too close to London. He had no choice but to do something about Ely, and soon.

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  In 1101 there was a usurper on England's throne, the conqueror's youngest son Henry. The rightful king, according to treaty, was the eldest son Robert, who was just back from the Holy Land. Robert had the support of the Norman barons and the Norman church so he landed with an army in England and marched towards London to claim his throne.

  The only way that Henry could keep his throne was to win the English over to his side. His Coronation Charter, which was enacted as the Charter of Liberties, and was later rewritten into the Magna Carta, promised the English a general amnesty and pardons and the return to Knut's 'in-common' law, and rule by law, and the moot courts. He then married Princess Edith of Scotland, who was of English royal blood.

  When Henry and Robert met near Alton, Henry's army was smaller and less likely to be loyal in battle, and yet Robert signed a treaty which accepted Henry as the king. Why? History ignores peasants and is vague on why Robert would just give up the throne without a battle, a battle he was sure to win. The only realistic answer is the English fyrd. No king since Harold in 1066 had been able to call out the English militia, but at Alton they must have come out to make sure that Edith remained their queen.

  Though Robert accepted Henry as king, the Norman barons did not. Henry would spend the next five years subduing them. The Barons that gave him the most trouble were also the richest and most powerful. William Mortain was the Earl of Cornwall. Robert Belleme was the Earl of Shrewsbury.

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  The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Cover Flap

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - The boar hunt with the Duke in the New Forest in October 1101

  Chapter 2 - Stealing a golden angel from Peterburgh in May 1070

  Chapter 3 - A possible husband for Mary in the New Forest in October 1101

  Chapter 4 - An Angel dies near Peterburgh in May 1070

  Chapter 5 - The funeral pyre of a Valkyrie in the Fens in May 1070

  Chapter 6 - With Mary and Eustace in London in October 1101

  Chapter 7 - The knights of Kingscliff in Northamptonshire in May 1070

  Chapter 8 - A ruse on the Danish Jarl in Ely, The Fens in June 1070

  Chapter 9 - Ambushed by a Wolfpack in Bedfordshire in June 1070

  Chapter 10 - The taking of Bedford Bailey in June 1070

  Chapter 11 - The Sherwood Hood on a bow run to Wales in July 1070

  Chapter 12 - Saving the Welsh refugees in Shropshire in July 1070

  Chapter 13 - At the palace at Mathrafal, Powys, Wales in July 1070

  Chapter 14 - Transporting bows in the hills of Shropshire in July 1070

  Chapter 15 - Transporting bows in the Wyre Forest, Shropshire in July 1070

  Chapter 16 - More trouble at Peterburgh Abbey in July 1070

  Chapter 17 - Waltheof arrives in Huntingdon in August 1070

  Chapter 18 - The countesses in Huntingdon in August 1070

  Chapter 19 - The fate of Flanders decided in Ely in August 1070

  Chapter 20 - Yet another widow arrives in Ely in August 1070

  Chapter 21 - Princess Mary does the town, in London in October 1101

  Chapter 22 - With the Frisians near Cassel, Flanders in January 1071

  Chapter 23 - The taking of Cassel, Flanders in February 1071

  Chapter 24 - The murder of a Count in Cassel in February 1071

  Chapter 25 - Meeting Philip of France near Cassel in February 1071

  Chapter 26 - A trollop on the run in London in October 1101

  Chapter 27 - A common law wedding for a princess in October 1101

  Chapter 28 - Returning to Ely from Flanders in April 1071

  Chapter 29 - Feasting in Ely, Cambridgeshire in April 1071

  Chapter 30 - Keeping the Conqueror out of Ely in May 1071

  Chapter 31 - Burning Frisian witches near Ely in June 1071

  Chapter 32 - The betrayal of Ely in July 1071

  Chapter 33 - On the road to Winchester in October 1101

  Chapter 34 - At the palace in Winchester in October 1101

  Chapter 35 - Mortain takes Mary to Cornwall in October 1101

  Chapter 36 - Tracking Mary on the road to Cornwall in October 1101

  Chapter 37 - Mary with a knife at her throat in October 1101

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  The Hoodsman - Ely Wakes by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

  Chapter 1 - The boar hunt with the Duke in the New Forest in October 1101

  His old knees ached and he was bored. As usual when he was bored, his mind wandered. He had no problems guiding his charges to this clearing in the Yten Forest. It had only been a year and two months since Raynar had stood in this clearing and put an arrow through William Rufus, King of the English. So much had happened and changed in his life, and this kingdom since then that it was strange to be here again. Here in the forest where nothing had changed.

  William's younger brother, Henry was now confirmed as the King of the English and his older brother Robert was equally confirmed as the Duke of Normandy. Dearest Margaret's daughter Edith was now Matilda, Queen consort to King Henry. To the English, of course, Edith was the Queen and Henry was her King consort. Personally, it meant that he now had the ear of a king through his queen.

  More important than the intricacies of Kings and Queens and Dukes, was Henry's Coronation Charter. It had now passed into law as the Charter of Liberties and it was taking effect in fits and starts across the kingdom. To Raynar's folk and friends, Henry's charter had offered a general amnesty, which had allowed the crown to recruit an army of English bowmen from the men who had lived as outlaws in the forest
s for years.

  Also more important, was the housecleaning and revision of the Crown's Treasury which had undone the corrupt hold of minters and bankers on the crown. The Exchequer responsible for overhauling the Treasury was his old Greek friend from Cordoba, Gregos Demetrious. Slowly but surely life was improving for the English folk, after thirty five long years of suffering the yoke of Norman misrule and terror under the reign of the two King Williams.

  His knees were getting stiff. Robert had forced the entire hunting party to kneel in prayer for his eldest son Richard, and for his two brothers Rufus and Richard, all of whom had died in this forest. All of them officially by hunting accidents, but all of them murdered.

  No one other than small children believed the official explanations, when there were so many more interesting rumours to be believed. He, Raynar of the Peaks, was the only person in the world who could bear witness that all of these claims of accidental death were false. Everyone else was just speculating on gossip.

  The creed and the simple wisdom of the Brotherhood was that you kept such knowledge a secret until the grave. That was the hardest part of the creed, keeping quiet when you wanted to yell out to the world that you knew the truth. Although he was witness to all three slayings, he himself had only committed one of them; King William Rufus.

  Rufus had been a monster, just like his father William the Conqueror. They had dispossessed the English lords and replaced them with Norman parasites, who then forced the English freemen into slavery. For over thirty years, enforced poverty had been used as the military weapon that completed the conquest of a once well off and free people.

  Robert was finally finished praying and was making to stand. The other five of the hunting party got off their knees. Raynar's knees pained him and he used his long bow to help himself up. He was over fifty now and each new year he felt an age older than the last. The other men in the hunting party were younger than he, but not by much.

  Of the two nobles, Duke Robert of Normandy was the eldest, perhaps pushing fifty, while Count Eustace of Boulogne was perhaps pushing forty. Both still had all their limbs and still discussed young women with lust in their voices.