Brunhilda of Austrasia

Where, you might ask, is Austrasia? The answer is that it no longer exists, but back in the 6^th to 8^th centuries it formed part of the area of western Europe ruled by the Franks, comprising lands currently occupied by north-eastern France, Belgium and western Germany.

The name Brunhilda might be familiar from the Ring Cycle of operas by Richard Wagner, which were based on Norse and Germanic mythology. In the legends she was a Valkyrie who snatched the bodies of slain warriors from the battlefield and took them to Valhalla.

However, there really was a woman named Brunhilda who was a powerful ruler, but not quite as imagined in the stories told by Icelandic bards and Richard Wagner.

The real Brunhilda was born in what is now central Spain in around the year 543. She belonged to the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks, who had taken control of much of what had formerly been the western Roman Empire.

She married Sigebert, whose grandfather had been Clovis, the first king to unite all the Franks. Sigebert ruled the eastern part of the Frankish realm (i.e. Austrasia) while his half-brother Chilperic ruled the western part (Neustria).

Sigebert was assassinated in 575, after which Brunhilda ruled as regent for her young son Childebert. When he became a teenager he ruled in his own right, but on his death aged only 26 Brunhilda once again became regent, this time for her grandsons, Theudebert and Theuderic.

As regent, Brunhilda ruled well. Under her administration many old roads were repaired, troublemakers were kept quiet and the religious life of the province was supported with the commission of new churches and abbeys.

However, in order to stay in charge it was important that neither grandson achieved enough power to challenge her authority, and she managed this by setting them at war with each other. She also arranged for one of the grandsons to be supplied with concubines so that he would not marry and bring a wife into Court who might oppose her.

Brunhilda was in her 60s when she acted as regent for the final time, this being for her great-grandson Sigebert II after the death of Theudebert.

However, Brunhilda’s hold on power could not last for ever, and her end came as a result of a long-standing feud with Fredegund, who had been the wife of her brother-in law Chilperic, the King of Neustria, many years before. Chilperic had been married to Brunhilda’s sister Galswintha, but when Galswintha died in mysterious circumstances, Chilperic married Fredegund. Brunhilda had long suspected that Fredegund had had a hand in Galswintha’s death.

By 613 Fredegund was dead, but her son Chlotar took up the cudgels on his mother’s behalf. He accused Brunhilda of having been responsible for a number of murders, including those of her husband Sigebert and her brother-in-law Chilperic. Chlotar defeated Brunhilda in battle and then had her executed by being torn apart by wild horses.

The real Brunhilda had a life filled with drama and intrigue, ending in a particularly violent and unpleasant way. It is no surprise that she was the inspiration for later myths and legends, however much they may have strayed from the real story.

Wu Zetian: Emperor of China

Wu Zetian was the most powerful woman in the history of China, having made herself Emperor and then ruling a vast territory for 15 years. She was ruthless and cruel, when necessary, but also highly efficient and able to rule a contented populace with justice and benevolence.

Wu Zetian was born into a non-aristocratic family in 624 AD and entered the royal household as a serving maid, her job including changing the Emperor's bedsheets. When the Emperor died she was sent to a Buddhist nunnery, but she escaped and returned to the palace as a concubine of Gaozong, the new Emperor.

She now began to develop the notion of reaching the very top, and had no compunctions about the methods she would use to get there. She started by killing the child she had given birth to, courtesy of the Emperor, and framed the Empress for the murder. The Empress was promptly exiled, leaving Wu Zetian in prime position.

There were other concubines, however, but these were disposed of by having their limbs cut off and their bodies drowned in a vat of wine. That - at least - is the story that has come down through history, but one also has to bear in mind that such stories are often told by people who wish to blacken reputations.

Be that as it may, Wu Zetian was now unrivalled, and she only had to wait for the Emperor and his sons to die before she declared herself to be Emperor, at the age of 65.

Her 15 year reign was not marked by any outstanding events, although she was able to counter threats from external forces and thus strengthen the Tang Dynasty.

Wu Zetian's reputation, as mentioned above, suffered from criticism by others who resented her presence as a woman wielding supreme power. One cause of her unpopularity was that she encouraged the spread of Buddhism, which was a foreign import from India and was also more attuned to the spiritual needs of women.

However, the denigration went much further than that and included a decision by the Court not to mark her tomb with any record of her achievements, which is unlikely to have been the case had she been male.

Wu Zetian certainly appears to been a ruler one would not wish to get on the wrong side of, but that was also true of many Emperors throughout Chinese history who did not get such a bad posthumous press. The history of misogyny is extremely lengthy.

© John Welford

Albert Norman: a watchmaker who tricked the Japanese

Albert Norman was one of thousands of British soldiers in World War Two who became prisoners of war during the campaign against Japan in southeast Asia. Life for POWs was extremely harsh, and around a quarter of the men who were captured did not survive the war. 

However, Albert Norman had a particular skill that he used to his advantage, not only to ensure his survival but also to fight back aganist his captors, even if only in a very minor way. 

Before the War, Albert had been a watchmaker in his home city of Ely, in Cambridgeshire. Watches did not always work well in the tropical conditions of the Malay Peninsula, and the prison camp guards were glad to have found somebody who could mend their watches when they broke down. They were happy to send extra rations in Albert's direction when their watches were repaired. 

However, Albert, who had the nickname of Tick-Tock, not only knew how to make watches work properly, he also know how to do the opposite. He therefore fixed some of the watches so that they ran slightly slowly. It must have caused him and his fellow soldiers considerable amusement to see junior camp guards being shouted at by their superior officers for turning up late for duty. 

It was a good job that none of the Japanese ever worked out that Albert Norman was the cause of their timekeeping problems. Had they done so, things might have turned out very differently for the watchmaker from Ely.

 © John Welford

King Louis XI: The Universal Spider

The “Universal Spider” was the nickname given to King Louis XI of France, based on his ability to spin plots and entrap his enemies.

He was born on 3^rd July 1423 in the town of Bourges and became the French king on 22^nd July 1461, succeeding his father King Charles VII. He reigned for 22 years.

He was never going to be a popular monarch, being fat and ugly, and he was a devious and suspicious man, despite being shrewd and intelligent. He managed to make enemies of just about everyone in sight, which might have sounded like a recipe for an ultra-short reign, but he was able to worm his way out of trouble on every occasion.

King Edward IV of England invaded France in 1475, but instead of facing the English on the battlefield, Louis invited Edward and his army captains to a meeting that consisted of three days of sumptuous banquets and entertainment. He then proposed a peace treaty that offered Edward a pension in exchange for recognizing Louis’s claim to the whole of France.

Louis later said that he had chased the English out of France more easily than his father had been able to do, but instead of force of arms his weapons had been venison pies and good wine.

Louis thus made the French monarchy more powerful than it had been for around 150 years, and told his barons “I am France”. He once expressed this by saying “When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself”.
< br /> © John Welford

King Harold at Chester

A small building on top of a sandstone outcrop in Chester has an interesting – if unlikely – legend attached to it. This is known as the “Anchorite’s Cell” or “The Hermitage”, and it has that name because it was once occupied by reclusive monks who lived there cut off from the outside world so that they could devote their lives entirely to prayer.

The building seen today probably dates from the mid-14^th century, although there is no definite information about this. It is, however, certain that if there was an anchorite cell here any earlier than this, it could not have been the current building.

There is a legend that the cell was occupied in the 11^th century by a very well-known person. This was the former King Harold II, whom history relates lost his life at the Battle of Hastings, being replaced on the throne of England by William the Conqueror who then reigned, from 1066 to 1087, as King William I. Tradition has it that Harold died after being struck in the eye by an arrow that then pierced his brain

So how could Harold have been a hermit living in Chester after apparently being killed at Hastings? You may well ask!

The legend was originally put about by Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) who lived from 1146 to 1223 (or thereabouts). It also appears in a document entitled “Vita Haroldi” from roughly the same time. There are real doubts over the trustworthiness of both sources, which flatly contradict accounts from much closer to the date of the Battle of Hastings.

The legend relates that Harold, despite being seriously wounded – including the loss of an eye! – was taken in by the monks of Waltham Abbey, healed of his injuries and allowed to wander far and wide until he ended up at Chester.

It is quite possible that that an elderly monk turned up much later at the same abbey and claimed to be the long-lost Anglo-Saxon king. The abbey authorities, being no friends of the Norman succession, might have welcomed the chance to spread some “fake news” and gleefully committed the hermit’s story to paper. The same might well be true of Gerald of Wales.

After Hastings, the Normans swept north in a brutal campaign to eliminate all opposition. This included building castles to show the locals that resistance was futile. One such castle was built in 1070 less than a mile from where – apparently – the former King Harold was living as a hermit. If this were so, could he really have escaped detection?

It does sound like a very tall story!

© John Welford

John Hardyng: King Henry's V's spy

The name John Hardyng might perhaps be better known if one of his employers, King Henry V, had not died at the age of 35 and thus rendered much of Hardyng’s hard work useless.

John Hardyng was born in 1378 and educated in the Northumberland household of Sir Henry Percy, who was nicknamed “Hotspur”. This gave him plenty of experience of warfare, given the closeness of the Scottish border and the frequent raids that took place across it.

In 1399 the Percys supported the successful campaign of Henry Bolingbroke against the reigning King Richard II, and John Hardyng played a full part in the rebellion. However, relationships between the new king (Henry IV) and the Percys later broke down, leading to the Battle of Shrewsbury of 1403. Hotspur was killed but John Hardyng survived and was pardoned by King Henry.

Henry IV died in 1413 and was succeeded by his son, who reigned as King Henry V. John Hardyng served the new king faithfully in the latter’s campaign against France.

Henry planned to turn his attention to Scotland once he had finished with France, and in 1418 John Hardyng was given a special mission, namely to travel round Scotland and gather information that would be useful in a future invasion. He was also tasked with finding proof that Scotland’s claim to independence was without foundation.

Hardyng’s mission lasted for three and a half years. During that time he surveyed the routes into Scotland, the places on the coast that could be used by an invasion fleet, the strengths and weaknesses of various castles, and the agricultural resources that could be exploited by an invading army. He also acquired documents that supported England’s claims over Scotland.

In 1421 John Hardyng was forced to flee from Scotland, having made too many enemies, but the information he was able to present to King Henry would have been invaluable had an invasion ever taken place.

However, Henry’s early death put paid to any such ambition, and the new king, Henry VI, was never in any position to make use of John Hardyng’s work.

Hardyng was now in the unfortunate position of having done exactly what had been asked of him but without any reward for his efforts. He became a pensioner at an Augustinian Priory and continued to press King Henry VI to honour the promise made by his father. This eventually led, in 1440, to Hardyng being granted an annuity worth ten pounds a year.

Hardyng spent the next twenty years writing a history of Britain that made good use of his earlier career as a spy, as well as continuing to claim that England had every right to conquer Scotland.

He died in 1465 aged 87, which was a remarkably advanced age at that time. He would probably have made a much larger impact on British history had England actually subdued Scotland as a result of his work.

© John Welford

Sir Walter Raleigh and the over-zealous servant

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) is widely credited for having introduced tobacco to England, having played a leading role in establishing colonies in North America that were particularly suitable for growing the crop, despite the fact that he never set foot on North American soil himself.

Whether Raleigh was directly responsible for bringing tobacco to England is open to doubt, but it is certainly true that he popularized pipe-smoking and was a keen smoker himself.

On one occasion this habit appears to have led to Raleigh having an unpleasant shock. It is not entirely clear where the incident took place, but one strong candidate is Raleigh’s Dorset Home of Sherborne Castle.

One of Sir Walter’s man-servants – so it is said – saw smoke arising from behind a bush. Knowing that Sir Walter was there, he deduced that something terrible had happened and that his master must be on fire. He therefore poured of jug of ale over the bush to quench the flames. This certainly did the trick as far as extinguishing the fire was concerned, but was the servant “fired” for soaking Sir Walter in ale?

Your guess is as good as mine!

© John Welford