Den of Spies

By Lucy la Zouche

This is Lucy la Zouche’s first work of faction - a mix of fact and fiction. It covers one of the most fundamental periods of change in English History.This was nothing short of dynastic change where Edward the Confessor, the last King from the House of Wessex, was succeeded initially by Harold Godwinson and then by William of Normandy both of whom had absolutely no legitimate claim to the throne of England except force of arms.The book is written in the form of a narrative by a Norman who really existed, Robert of the Dene or Robert de Dene. He is recorded as being, for a time, Pincerna or Cup Bearer to King Edward the Confessor. For most of his adult life he lived at what is now Buckhurst Park at Withyham in Sussex. He and his brother and their descendants became some of the most significant landowners in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. Robert’s descendants, the Denne family, left their mark as there are still three geographic locations in England called Denne Hill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326395056

Book preview

Den of Spies

DEN OF SPIES

By Lucy la Zouche

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

© Lucy la Zouche 2015

Lucy la Zouche has asserted the

right to be identified as the author of

this work in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

(as amended)

ISBN 978-1-326-39505-6

CHAPTER 1 - Introduction

I think I am a lucky man. At a time when the country is still in upheaval, even three years after the decisive battle at Senlac, I and my wife Ela, live in an oasis of calm here at Buckhurst in north Sussex.

At a time when so many families, Norman, Saxon and Dane, have lost loved ones, I still have two healthy sons to run my estates after I have gone.

At a time when established landowners from Saxon families are being deprived of their estates I, who lived amongst the Saxons and served a Saxon King, am secure in my tenure of thousands of acres of woodland in Surrey, Sussex and Kent.

Admittedly, my brother, Hamo, who is in the service of King William, has great influence at court and has already acquired estates in Essex. But, I have the good fortune to have the tenure over my estates guaranteed in writing over the seals and signatures of two Kings.

Yes, I am notionally a tenant in Surrey and Sussex of Robert, Count of Mortain, and in Kent of Odo, the Earl of Kent; but that was designed by Edward of Wessex and William of Normandy to protect me. As brothers of King William, Robert and Odo have sworn oaths to respect my tenure and, if necessary, to come to my aid.

I never fought for either Edward or William as Kings but I placed my life in great danger on their behalf countless times. And, I and my brother protected both of them from death by poisoning or force of arms over the years.

You see, for some time I held the post of Household Steward with Edward of Wessex whilst my brother Hamo had the same role with William of Normandy. In England my role was entitled Pincerna; in Normandy Hamo was called Dapifer.

But, it is the work I have done over the last 20 or so years that has earned my greatest reward, the land for my family in perpetuity. In Kent, Sussex and Surrey I have been the woodreve to two Kings.

Whilst my home at Buckhurst is an oasis of calm, it is adjacent to the great Forest of Andred stretching from Farnham in the west to Canterbury in the east. With my sons, Robert and Ralph, I manage the cultivation of and production from the forest.

There are workshops throughout and around the forest producing panels for the outer fortifications of new castles, timbers for buildings and ships, woven and wooden fencing, wagons, swords, spears, axes, long bows, crossbows, arrows, quarrels and shields.

Then there are the charcoal pits producing fuel for the smiths and filters for drinking water.

We do not have to hide these activities from the outside world now but, for some time, we did have to conceal the sheer quantity of materials and weapons we were producing and storing.

In his last years, King Edward had lost the will and the ability to rule; he became forgetful and his mind wandered. And, gradually his physical health deteriorated until a succession of strokes killed him.

But, before that he was a determined man with a very clear understanding of what he wanted for England and who should succeed him as King. He continued to focus on that until the day he died

Edward hated the Danes but, even more, he hated the Godwinson family which had gained such great power under the Danish King Cnut and his sons. He blamed the Danes for turning his mother against him and the family of Earl Godwin for the murder of his older brother Alfred.

The only legitimate Wessex successor was Edgar Æthling. His father, Edward, had been exiled first to Sweden and then to Kiev in Rus. Edward had married Agatha, a daughter of Yaroslav, the Grand Prince of Rus; and then, he followed another Kievan exile, Andrew of Hungary, on a mission to reclaim his throne.

Harold Godwinson had brought Edward back to England but had then murdered him. Edgar, his son, was a puny teenage boy who spoke with a pronounced foreign accent and he received no respect from the English Earls. Edward was convinced that the throne would end up being taken by force of arms.

And, even if he had not made a vow of celibacy, he knew that a child of his own would have been likely to fall victim to an accident or an unfortunate ‘illness’. As the younger son, his calling had been the church and he had only agreed to become King because of a promise he made to his brother, Alfred; but, he had no intention of breaking his vow of celibacy.

There would be claimants from Scandanavia although none of them had a right of direct descent from Cnut. But, the claim he feared most was one from the Godwinson family based on leadership of the South Saxons, a tenuous relationship to Danish royalty and sheer force of arms.

William of Normandy had no more legitimate claim being a nephew of Edward’s mother but nothing more. Indeed, William’s wife, Matilda, had a better claim being in direct descent from the great King Alfred.

But, Edward had been William’s friend and mentor. In fact, Edward acted as one of William’s guardians during his early years ruling the Duchy of Normandy and was regarded as a favourite uncle.

They had often talked about stronger links between England and Normandy and when Edward gained the English throne he quickly realised that he wanted William to succeed him. He could have waited and left things to chance but that was not his way.

He worked hard to marginalise Earl Godwin’s family and to alienate his sons from each other. He even married their sister and used her as a conduit to feed poisonous rumours to her three older brothers.

At the official level he eventually forced his nobles to swear an oath to support William’s claim. He even put Harold Godwinson in a position where he had to swear an oath of loyalty to William in Normandy.

But, he was realistic and he believed that William would have to invade. And, recognising the fighting prowess of the Godwinsons, Edward knew that William might have to fight a number of battles before he finally gained the throne of England.

So, he put me and a small handful of trusted courtiers and churchmen in charge of a project to ensure William’s success. Some of us were Normans, some with brothers at William’s court; others were men of Wessex who despaired at the ascendency of the Godwinsons and would rather have any King than what they called ‘a Danish/South Saxon mongrel’.

Gradually we put in place a network of spies and couriers, efficient communication channels through abbeys and churches on each side of the Channel and, of course, the capacity to supply an invading army with fortifications, weapons, horses, wagons and, above all, information.

Each of us probably had different reasons for choosing to support Edward and William’s plan. My reasons were quite simple. Edward had been a friend and mentor for most of my years as well as my master. William had been a friend from my childhood. And, I knew from personal experience that William was a natural leader; from an early age his talent for inspiring people shone out.

CHAPTER 2 - William’s Army

Talking about William in this way takes my mind back many years to a field of battle in Normandy.

After carefully and quietly working our way through the undergrowth we were approaching our target. Then the enemy came into sight; but, these were no ordinary warriors, they were giants with the look of Viking berserkers and they were brandishing massive clubs.

They saw the glint of the sun on our helmets and, with a spine chilling shout, they charged. Our leader did not panic; quietly but firmly he told us to follow his plan, to fall back as they approached until we reached the clearing between trees, and then to turn and stand firm.

It seemed like an age and, although we were running as fast as we could, the enemy soldiers were gaining on us all the time. But, we reached the clearing ahead of them, turned, put up our shields and brandished our swords.

They were very close but, in their surprise, they looked worried and hesitated. And, they were right to worry because, at that moment, the rest of our force fell upon them from the rear and the flanks. Then we charged at top speed with a blood curdling cry.

The enemy force was routed; all around us their bodies lay on the ground immobile. None of our soldiers had been felled and yet an entire army had been destroyed thanks to a strategic feigned retreat.

A voice boomed across the battlefield asking us to get off our enemies and let them go and fetch and carry for lunch. Osbern of Crepon told our leader that he obviously needed to find us a tougher enemy.

I am sure you will have realised by now that these were the games of children, but no ordinary ones. Our leader was William of Normandy, aged 7 at the time; our army was a band of young aristocrats, none more than 12 years old but many of whom would gain great fame in the years to come.

Even though William was among the younger members of our band, he was such a natural leader and could develop such a rapport with other boys that no one ever challenged him. Some of their parents might, in secret, call him William the Bastard, because he was the son of Duke Robert’s mistress Herleva, but to us he was already a hero.

This was July 1031 and our battlefield was the grounds of Falaise castle in Lower Normandy, at the time the preferred home of Robert, Duke of Normandy. Our enemy was a band of young pages from the castle; they actually enjoyed these battles because they were a break from drudgery. Their average age was 14.

Osbern, the Dapifer or Steward of Duke Robert’s household, was called Uncle Osbern by William. In fact, he was not his uncle but a second cousin. He was the son of Herfast of Crepon, brother of William’s great-grandmother Gunnora, the widow of Richard I Duke of Normandy. Emma, Osbern’s wife, was the daughter of Rodolf of Ivry, a step-brother of Richard I who had acted as Regent for Richard II.

The Duchess Gunnora had, in fact, died only two months before. The men of the House of Normandy had had very short life spans but she had reached the age of 95, almost unheard of then as now.

William ran up to Osbern who picked him up, placed him on his shoulders and carried him as victor into the castle. Amid much laughter, we all fell in behind him and made our way into the kitchens where the pages were already standing holding drinks and sweetmeats for us. Of course, they were also allowed to share these rewards.

I should introduce myself properly and formally. I am Robert, son of Hamon, Lord of Torigny, Creully, Mezy and Evrecy. My mother was Adele, sister of Dreux the Count of Valois, the Vexin and Amiens (usually known as Drogo of Mantes), a personal friend of Duke Robert.

Mother had died four years before when I was 7 and the Duke had offered a place for me and Hamo, my brother who is a year older than me, at his court. We were to live and be educated there and provide some companionship for his son William.

Later, I learned that my father was regarded as a trouble maker and our stay at court was as much to keep him in line as to provide a home for us. When we left home, I heard my father say that even though we would be in the Duke’s hands it would not change the way he thought or acted.

He did not hug us when we left but then he never had; he had always told our mother that he would only start to take an interest in us once we were big enough to pick up a sword. Not once did he visit us and I am sad to say that, after a couple of years, both of us had forgotten that we had a father.

Since Duke Robert’s brother Richard had died in 1027, less than a year after becoming Duke himself, the nobility of Normandy had been at each other’s throats. The supporters of Richard blamed Robert for his death and called him Robert the Devil.

Many lesser nobles decided to join their compatriots who had emigrated with their families to Southern Italy and Sicily some twenty five years before. Others, like my father, grumbled and criticised but waited to see what would happen next.

Luckily the fighting men of Normandy had been kept busy anyway. Early on, Duke Robert had come into conflict with the church in the form of his uncle, Robert, Count of Evreux and Archbishop of Rouen. But, they were now reconciled and seemed to be working in harmony.

Next, Robert took an army to help Count Baldwin of Flanders bring his rebellious son, also named Baldwin, back into line. They captured and burned a castle at a place called Choques in Flanders. This persuaded the nervous nobles to abandon the son rather than see their own homes burned to the ground. Baldwin, the son, had no alternative but to submit to his father.

Duke Robert was also a great friend of the exiled Princes Alfred and Edward of England. In 1030, he had started to send a fleet to England with an invasion force to try to force King Cnut to restore their family, the House of Wessex, to the throne. Bad weather forced the invasion fleet to anchor off the island of Jersey.

With no change in the weather likely, Duke Robert decided to abandon his original plan and solve another problem. Alan III, Duke of Brittany had, unlike his predecessor, refused to swear allegiance to the Duke of Normandy. So, with the fleet poised to the north of the Brittany coast, Robert ordered it to attack the Breton city of Dol.

In a predictable retaliation, Alan invaded the Avranchin in Lower Normandy; but, Robert was prepared for this and the Breton army was crushed. Archbishop Robert brokered a truce between them and Alan swore allegiance to Duke Robert at Mont Saint Michel; in fact, having once met in person, they quickly became great friends.

Good relations with Archbishop Robert and Alan of Brittany were going to prove very important for our friend William in the years to come.

Two other members of William’s army were victims of the emigration to Sicily. They were Richard FitzScrope and Osbern Pentecost (I