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What's New OR: 'Yo, ladies ... What's happenin ? Whatever Next ? [ Downs Lord Triptych / The Two Confessions / Amy-Faith & the Stronghold] |
LOOKING FOR NEW ENGLAND
Published in
'3SF
Magazine’.
No 1. October
2002.
How
about this as the plot for a fantasy-tinged historical novel ? A
huge fleet of English ships flees William the Conqueror’s genocidal ravaging
of their country. They raid and
trade their way through the Mediterranean on an epic voyage to glittering ‘Micklegarth’,
‘the great city’ of Constantinople, centre of the surviving Eastern Roman
Empire. Arriving to find the city
under desperate siege, they fall upon its enemies and utterly destroy them. Richly
rewarded by the Emperor, some take service with his axe-bearing elite unit of
‘Varangians’, transforming it ever after into an English formation.
The rest sail north to land granted them ‘if they can take it’.
They do, and found cities called New London and New York, rebuilding
their lost homeland anew in the Russian steppes. Quite
a story. If I were a commissioning
editor I’d certainly fling a contract at it. If
only it were true ( I mean the English fleet thing, not the commissioning editor
bit – I wouldn’t want to risk my immortal soul )
. Well,
it is. The
story has been sitting there awaiting attention in the Icelandic ‘Saga of
Edward the Confessor’ since at least medieval times.
The earliest known version is 14th
century - itself a copy of an
earlier and now lost Latin text. Historians
presume it was knocking about in oral form long before that. So how come most people don’t know about it ? Might it just possibly have something to do with the pro-Norman version of ‘our’ history peddled from right after the Conquest almost to the present day ? I’ll
supply a modern example. The Sussex
coast is promoted as ‘1066 Country – the birthplace of England’.
Well, yes, true – but six centuries earlier than the tourist people
mean ! So that’s half a millennia
plus of English experience swept away and buried under the charge of being
‘Anglo-Saxon’ – nothing to do with us modern chaps you understand. No,
apparently we emerged, miraculously fully formed, out of the mist one day in
October 1066, and via one in ten of the population dying through fire, famine or
sword in the course of William’s reign, and another 1% emigrating ( as we
shall see ). If that’s a
‘birth’ I’m glad my children weren’t born in that hospital. Nevertheless,
doubtless duly gratefully, England was ‘born’ at the Battle of Hastings and
we became a new nation – just as a stopgap until we could become British of
course. Protests
have led to ( some of ) that Sussex publicity being changed to ‘transformation
of a nation’, so things are on the move.
Yet even today most text books would have you believe resistance to the
Normans stopped at sunset 14/10/1066. That
was certainly the story related in my school books and it took me a long while
to find out different. ( For an
invigorating antidote to that have a look at Geoff Boxall’s brilliant
‘Conquest & Resistance’ on: http://www.britannia.com/history/hastings.html
English
people thereby lose sight of centuries of bitter resistance to foreign conquest.
It’s swept under the carpet. Yet
the Anglo-Norman chronicler, Ordericus Vitalis, applauds continued English
resistance in the 12th
century ! Likewise, advanced
elements in Cromwell’s ‘New Model Army’ dubbed the English Civil War, and
the battle of Naseby ( 1645 ) in particular, as ‘Hastings refought’.
They explicitly termed the abolition of the House of Lords and Monarchy
as the throwing off of ‘the Norman yoke’.
If you wanted to be a bit controversial ( and to Hell with it, I do
) you could say that until we ditch the resurrected House of Lords and get our
own English Parliament, the aftermath of Hastings is still being fought. And
another thing …. – but I digress. The
spirit of the Conquest lives on. It
leads to, amongst many other things, a neglect and disparagement of specifically
English history. For instance,
until the latter part of the last century who but hard-core academics would have
heard of ‘the Malfosse incident’ which nearly altered the outcome of the
Battle of Hastings ? The Normans
lost as many men there, including most of their high-born casualties, as they
did in all the earlier battle. Yet
to this day there’s no monument to the ‘Malfosse’ ( = ‘evil ditch’ )
where an inspired last stand turned the tables on the pursuing Normans and
almost won the day. On the
contrary, there’s talk of putting a road right through it and sod the modern
day Saxon peasants’ protests. Likewise,
there’s no celebration of the unnamed Englishman at Hastings who played dead
and then rose in a suicide axe-smiting of two Norman leaders in conference
beside him. One was William himself
but, typical rotten luck, our hero chose to hack the other one.
But it was that close. Not
that you’d learn so from anything published pre-1980s. In
the same way we’ve lost sight of other heroes of the resistance, like Hereward
the Wake, and Eadric the Wild and Earl Waltheof.
Hereward’s had some revival, thanks to Victorian ‘Anglo-Saxonists’,
but what of Eadric who allied himself with the Welsh and the elves ( he married
one ) to fight the invaders ? Or of
Waltheof who single-handedly (or single-axedly ) killed a hundred Normans, one
by one, as they rushed from the burning gates of York ? Lost
to us they are - and deliberately so I think.
They survive in folklore ( where do you think Robin Hood comes from other
than folk-memories of English resistance ? ) but only as the mocked oral
tradition of the defeated. History
is written by the victors. Likewise
with our fleet of English exiles – England’s own ‘Wild Geese’.
In reality, they sailed off to a new life replete with adventure, carving
out a life-story worthy of remembrance, but as far as mainstream history is
concerned, they might as well have sailed off the edge of the world. In
its own small way this article is designed to drag them back to the
contemplation of their countrymen. So
why did they go ? Let
William the Bastard ( don’t blame me – that’s what contempories called him
) tell us in his own deathbed words: ‘I
have persecuted the natives of England beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple I have cruelly oppressed them; many
I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes perished through me by famine or
the sword … I took revenge on multitudes of both sexes by subjecting them to
the calamity of a cruel famine, and so became the barbarous murderer of many
thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people.’ Ordericus
Vitalis. ‘Ecclesiastical history
( circa 1130 AD ) And,
from the same source; ‘Meanwhile
the English were groaning under the Norman yoke and suffering oppressions from
the proud lords … the petty lords who were guarding the castles
oppressed all the native inhabitants of high and low degree and heaped
shameful burdens on them. … when their men-at-arms were guilty of plunder and
rape, they protected them by force and wreaked their wrath all the more
violently on those who complained … …
and so the English groaned loudly for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly
to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable and unaccustomed.
… Some of them, who still had the flower of youth, travelled into remote lands
and bravely offered their arms to Alexius, emperor of Constantinople …’ The
precious survival of Edward the Confessor’s saga offers some detail.
It says a large body of the English sold their lands and possessions to
buy a fleet of 350 ships ( one version says ‘only’ 235 ) with which to sail
to ‘the Empire of the East’. Their
leader was ‘Earl Sigurd’ ( or Siward ) of Gloucester - and it may be
more than coincidence that a Siward is attested in Hereward’s Fenland
resistance forces. Anyhow, in 1075 he and 2 other ‘earls’ and 8 or 12 thegns
( again depending on which version you read ) and their families and folk set
sail – maybe 10,000 people in all, taking the lower figure for the fleet and a
conservative estimate of 40 people per vessel. The
exile fleet then sailed down along the French and Iberian coasts, making
landings from Galicia to Gibraltar. Passing
through the Straits they sacked the city of ‘Septem’ ( Ceuta in Morocco ? ),
captured Majorca and Minorca ( prequels to much later English 18-30 raids ? )
and docked in Sicily and Sardinia. Finally
arriving at Constantinople, they fell upon besieging Seljuk Turks in a night
attack, destroying their fleet and scattering the land army. Feeling
a twinge of gratitude for this salvation, the Emperor of ‘the Greeks’ (
maybe Michael VII, 1071-8 or his
successor Alexis I ) offered them honoured service in his Varangian guard of
‘axe-bearers’, previously the preserve of Scandinavians and ‘Russ’. Although
over 4,000 chose to stay, the Saga says most declined: ‘Sigurd
and the earls thought it not enough to grow old thus: they must have some realm
to rule over’. Therefore
they were granted the rights to certain territories lost by the Empire and
sailed on to ‘the north and east for six days’ till they came to ‘the
beginning of the Scythian country’ and a land called ‘Domapia’. This they re-christened New England. Driving
out the invaders the English reclaimed Domapia for Constantinople and founded
towns called New-London and New-York, amongst others recalled from their lost
land. It become their settled new
home. They were still there in the
13th century. Yet
can all this really be true ? Apparently
so. Earlier scholars found the tale
so fantastical as to cast doubt upon it, but modern research validates the Saga.
In support, modern Romanian scholars discern linguistic connections
between ‘Domapia’ and ‘Domavici’ in their country.
Conversely, Bulgarians have located the English settlement in their own
Danubian delta ( Domapia = Danube ? ) and found archaeological indications of
northern influence. Meanwhile,
historians note the Empire’s sudden regaining of the lands around the Sea of
Azov and the Crimea ( ‘north and east’ of Constantinople ) around 1100.
They find an explanation for this in Medieval and 15/16th
century maps of the Black sea region containing six town names suggesting
English influence. One appears
variously as ‘Londia’, ‘Londin’ or ‘Londina’.
Similarly, a 12th
century Syrian map calls the Sea of Azov the ‘Varang’ Sea, probably from
‘Varangian’ – by then the Byzantine term both for the Emperor’s guard
and the English nation in general. Similarly,
in the 13th century a
Christian people called the ‘Saxi’ ( = Saxon ? ) are attested in the
Azov area, speaking a language very similar to English and serving in the
Georgian army. There’s
more, but all in all it adds up. For
those who would see there’s the evidence. And
afterwards ? What was their fate ?
No one can say – at present. A
mysterious historical mist descends. Gradual
assimilation by the local population – just like the Normans were absorbed and
‘vanished’ by the English – seem most likely.
Deprived of regular reinforcements from home, it could hardly be
otherwise. However,
absorbed or not, the upshot is that New York isn’t really New York – it’s
New-New York. Ditto America’s New
England. There’s a corner - and
more than just a corner – of a foreign field that is forever England.
An England, moreover, savagely oppressed into quitting its homeland and
now tragically forgotten. Unless we
chose otherwise. And
finally, what of those English who chose to stay in Constantinople ?
What of them ? Well, their fate is almost as interesting and romantic as
that of their New-England brethren. They
did get to fight the Normans again, albeit far from home. They stayed put in ‘Micklegarth’ and served
loyally for centuries. When
Crusaders ( Englishmen amongst them ) attacked Constantinople in 1204 they had
to fight axe-wielding English on the walls.
When their envoys went to discuss terms with the Emperor a double line of
English Varangians lined the way from gate to palace.
They had their own churches and priests and they were the best and most
trusted of the shrinking Empire’s troops.
Imperial recruiting agents travelled all the way to England to maintain
their numbers. The
Varangians are last mentioned in a document dated to 1329.
Sadly, it seems unlikely they survived as a unit right to the Turkish
capture of the City in 1453. By
then the Empire barely had an army at all and Constantinople probably held no
more than 100 professional soldiers in all - so far had once mighty Rome fallen.
If Varangians were around it is almost inconceivable that the many
records of that epic struggle should fail to mention them. At
the same time it is … fine to speculate that, just maybe, some few of the very
last soldiers of Rome were English. Far
from home and at the end of things – but English. Even
after the Turkish conquest, a tower incorporating Varangian tombstones survived
in renamed Istanbul. It lingered
until destroyed in 1865 through the malice of a Turkish official seeking to
spite the British envoy studying them. A
questing archaeologist in 1974 found that no trace remained. However,
even today one area of Istanbul perpetuates the English presence.
‘Vlanga’, a part of the city by the coast of the Marmora, derives
from ‘Varangian’ – some spectral reminder of an ancient tale. And
since I don’t wish to conclude on a melancholy note, it can be revealed that
there were incidents of English success and revenge.
Consider, for example, the devastation of Maine in Normandy in 1073.
William the Conqueror was unwise enough to import an English army to
settle a revolt in Normandy - and chroniclers say they took ample
advantage of the occasion. Likewise
with the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106. Fifty
years after Hastings, English soldiers defeated a Norman army on Norman soil and
justifiably chanted ‘Hastings avenged ! Hastings
avenged !’ This
story has been written in that same celebratory spirit. However,
telling the tales of Tinchebrai, the Varangians, Eadric-the-Wild’s elf-wife,
and Waltheof-of-the-hundred-Normans, must await another day.
They’ve waited patiently through a thousand years of neglect for their
countrymen to take notice: a little longer won’t hurt them. Mind you, should anyone care to show due respect ( and also avenge Hastings in a micro way ), they could always consult the internet this very day … **********
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