I'm going on vacation for a week and won't be posting at all. Here's a longer installment for you to pore over if you like.
In Times Past
To gather us up kenship, whyfore in 1066 each of three
kings’ claims upon the throne of pretty England lay, let cast us back to
eldentime and also mark the structure of the throne and England’s goodly kine.
The structure of the Realm in Anglo-Saxon time placed king
above all others hierarchical. The King Himself ruled over all Estates: the
Clergy, the Nobility, and then of course the Peasantry. While drawn from ranks
of Nobles, kings are sovereign: they be subject naught to stricture of our
three Estates. The Monarch doth insist
upon itself from long Antiquity, and not from any other Law or Rule; and
therefore kings be subject to no other power there within their Realm (but,
likened up to other Men, perhaps to God, who sees the Truth, but waits.)
Below the king are three Estates as you know well. They are
like so:
The leader of the First Estate, we call him the
Archbishop. Perches he within the pretty
little Church at Canterbury. Under this, the Bishops and the Priests, the abbot
and the abby-matroness, the nuns and monks, and laymen of the Church abide his
counsel, be it foolish or it wise.
The Second of our three Estates be led here in this Saxon’s
land by patriarchs of families be they four. They are called Earls and each
rules up above a realm we call an Earldom. Each these Earls hath several
Thegns, who mind the lands of Earls and sometimes hold some lands themselves by
royal-granted charter. Thegns then
manage Bailiffs, Shire Reeves and Ealdormen, who they themselves administer
demesnes of lesser bigness still.
Then the Third Estate; the swiveful,[1] shendful[2]
hogs and shrews upon the Earth, who plough and rend and rise our succulence
from up the ground and bring to us our food. Mouthbreathing whilst alive,
beowing up their lives to better men; and then with dull irregularity, they
die.
Even at this time, there were some Freemen left about:
skilled craftswrights and some owlers[3]
out withacht their rookeries with liberties betrothed by keenest skill. Also bad
there cities, which by royal charter or historical tradition, had they some
self-sovereignty.
During these gay eldentimes of weal, that Island Realm of Anglestad were stout and nigh-unshakable. Kings would mint the coin for all to
trade. Upon the Spring of every year in five, the king would call to him from
every corner of the Realm these precious coins, and mint from them again new
coins for every man to use. And as he did this thing, his Chequerman would
minister the levy with precision on the sundry population for to fund the
mightful nation.
But marry up: this stable and nigh-wealful hierearchy
wrought this Anglish wære, this Island, ere to men who seek enrichment by their
sword-craft, well a valued destination!
Unready King
The year examined now is that 978. Æthelred II rose he up
unto the throne of Saxon realm from on the House of Wessex in the
south-by-west. He married up a maid named Emma, she of Normandy; the daughter
of the Duke of Upper Normandy, aunthouð.[4]
Issued they together several children. Of these kids, the boys they Christened
Edmund, Edward and then Ælfred. All of these had in them a direct blood claim
to England’s throne and to the throne of Wessex: that the petty kingdom wrought
with valor on this Island; there enpeopled by the knights and freemen who had
fought the Vikings off a century before.
The Men and Ladies there at Court who served this Æthelred
direct spoke beskimpingly[5]
of him, their words inhewed with dere.[6]
Callow, youthful, green and flawed was Æthelred by all accounts! Judged he others’ character with stupidness,
and acted he with overhaste. History remembers Æthelred as The Unready (though
was never called he this whilst still he stood instate.)
What means this, Æthelred, in the Old Anglish moot? It means
the phrase “wise council” or, say, “noble council,” forso wisdom is ennobling.
And Unræd, what means this and so? Unræd means “he, poorly counseled” or “he,
poorly was prepared.” So let the whole be both an apt entitlement but also
played by silver-tonguèd bard: “Wise Council, Poorly Counseled” doth the whole
of this name say!
He failed to deal with Viking raids against his Eastern
shores. These forays, were they not so base as merely for the plunder, but
coordinated assaults from armies regular. These armies were they general’d in
the main by Olaf, King of Norway; and Swein Forkbeard, King of Danes. But
rather use his stable levy coin to fortify and fight, King Æthelred chose
foolishly to pay these brutes to yield. Since these stern Vikings were the
Danes, the money he so paid was known as Dane-geld, and the name of it persists
to modern days.
In one the years at raiding-time, King Æthelred set back his
treasury to well insure the service of some Viking men to fight for England’s
side: these mercenary men! They well betrayed our kingdom as these craven men
might do. So Æthelred declared the penalty of death across our land upon each
Danish head that rested here. This were in anno domini 1010. Aghastly were the
slaughter.
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