Guest Blogger Nancy Bilyeau

Please welcome debut author Nancy Bilyeau. Nancy s a longtime magazine editor and writer who has worked on the staffs of "Rolling Stone," "Entertainment Weekly," "Ladies' Home Journal" and "InStyle." Born in Chicago, she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and has lived in Canada as well as the United States. "The Crown," her first novel, took five years to research and write. It was sold in auction to Touchstone/Simon & Schuster and seven foreign publishers. She now lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

 

Probing the Mysteries of a Dark Ages King

By Nancy Bilyeau

My historical thriller “The Crown” takes place in Tudor England, mostly in a Dominican Priory in Kent. But my protagonist, Sister Joanna Stafford, struggles to find a crown that belonged to a Saxon king, a crown with mystical powers.

I love reading about medieval and Dark Ages history almost as much as the Tudor period. The minute I saw the name “Athelstan,” I thought, “Wait, I don’t know much about him.” After I dove in, I realized he is cloaked in mystery.

In his own lifetime, Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred of Great, was praised as  “the English Charlemagne.” By defeating the combined armies of Danes, Scots and Welsh in the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 AD, Athelstan could rightly claim the title of “King of all Britain.” In his 15-year reign, he also established laws, financed Catholic monasteries, and made key alliances with European royalty.

Yet today, Athelstan is mostly forgotten.

This king’s obscurity is not all attributable to the time in which he lived—those ill-documented, striving, brutish yet sporadically dazzling centuries between the Roman Occupation and the Norman Conquest. Everyone has heard of Alfred the Great. Why not Athelstan, who arguably accomplished just as much?

I concluded that it was the mysteries surrounding Athelstan—ones that the most determined historians have not been able to solve—that made him too blurry for easy familiarity. His secrets make him tantalizing. But they also prevent his life from hardening into the simple outlines that propel a legend through time.

1.)   Was Athelstan’s mother a concubine?

This is hotly disputed, with biographer Sarah Foot convinced that Athelstan’s mother was an obscure but highly born young woman who had a child or two and died. Sort of a Dark Ages version of a starter wife.  Yet the story persists that Athelstan’s father, Prince Edward, fell in love with a beautiful young shepherdess while visiting his former wet nurse and conceived Athelstan that very night. It’s quite the erotic tale, putting to rest that stereotype of10th century men only caring for their swords. More practically, if there were any truth to Athelstan being illegitimate, it would explain why he did not have strong support when he succeeded his father to the throne at age 30—and it would also explain a serious problem he had with one of his half-brothers…

2.)   Did Athelstan have a half-brother killed?

The story goes that Athelstan suspected young Edwin, the son of his father’s undoubted queen, of conspiring against him with disaffected nobles. As punishment, Edwin was put in an oarless boat without food or water and set out to sea. He threw himself overboard rather than continue to suffer. Later Athelstan is said to have expressed remorse and performed penance. This whole story is far from confirmed but it’s persistent—and historians believe that it flung a shadow across the character of Athelstan.

3.)   Why did Athelstan never marry or have any children?

Thanks to chronicler William of Malmesbury, we know what Athelstan looked like: handsome, slim and blond. He was well educated. He was personally brave—Athelstan “won by the sword’s edge undying glory in battle.” In short, the man is King Arthur material. So why wasn’t there a Guinevere? Historians struggle to explain it: “Athelstan’s decision to remain unmarried seems more readily explicable as a religiously motivated determination on chastity as a way of life.” Still, the concept of celibate warrior monks—such as the Knights Templar—did not come along for another two centuries. A king was expected to marry and beget heirs, in Athelstan’s time and throughout the succeeding dynasties (see Henry the Eighth).  Lacking a Dark Ages Dr. Phil--which is perhaps for the best--we’ll never get to the truth of this one.

4.)   Where did the Battle of Brunanburh take place?

Athelstan’s enemies, determined to put an end to Wessex domination, drew him north for a cataclysmic encounter. Winston Churchill, as only he could, summed up the odds against Athelstan in The Birth of Britain: “The whole of North Britain—Celtic, Danish and Norwegian, pagan and Christian—together presented a hostile front under Constantine, king of the Scots, and Olaf of Dublin, with Viking reinforcements from Norway.” And yet…Athelstan won. Where this battle was fought, no one knows, though Yorkshire is a solid guess. Most of our information about Brunanburh comes from a rapturous Anglo-Saxon poem. There is a great deal of “they hewed the battle shafts with hammered weapons,” but no identifiable landma

5.)   Why did Athelstan request burial at Malmesbury Abbey?

Almost every king of the House of Wessex was laid to rest in Winchester, the family’s seat of power. But Athelstan arranged to be buried at Malmesbury Abbey in Wilstshire. The king had "such a veneration for the place that he thought nowhere more desirable or more sacred." Whatever his reasons, Malmesbury rose to the occasion, and dedicated itself to the memory of the great king. Today you can visit Athelstan's tomb and glimpse his effigy, though his corpse is long gone. Some say it disappeared a few decades after his death, others that it was removed shortly before the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

6.)   Did Athelstan possess the most sacred religious relics of his time?

This was the age of relic collecting, and no one pursued them with greater passion than Athelstan. He was so famous for his love of relics than when Hugh Capet, descendant of Charlemagne, was interested in marrying Athelstan’s most beautiful sister, he is said to have delivered an amazing amount of treasure to England—as well as relics that date back to Golgotha. The most famous one was the Spear of Destiny, also known as the Lance of Longinus, that pierced Jesus’s side. But Athelstan is said to have possessed other objects of mystical value, too, and that is what I delve into in my novel, The Crown…

You can read more about Nancy at www.nancybilyeau.com.

Comments

[Sunny Frazier]

I love it when an author directs me to an otherwise "unknown" figure in history. Will certainly get my hands on this book!

[Jerelyn]

The Crown is on my MUST read list this year.

[Princess of Eboli]

I think the book is great, I really will like to read the story of Athelstan, I think is very interesting.

[jack everett]

As an author of one historical novel The Last Free Men about the disappearance of the Legion Hispanica-the 9th Legion- around the 2nd century AD. And the soon to be released book from OTP, Back of Beyond, a medieval mystery set in and around an Abbey in France. I am fully aware of the time needed to be taken to research for such books before putting pen to paper. I have since written four thrillers and crime novels in the time it took to write one historical so my admiration knows no bounds when it comes to reading Nancy's account of her writing Crown. I wish it and her every success now and in the future.

[Jeri Westerson]

Indeed, it's quite a luxury to take five years to write a book. Most historical novelists I know do take a few years. When you are writing genre, like mysteries, you don't have that luxury. A series needs its followers and followers expect a book a year. That's what I produce. Would it be wonderful to take more time? Oh yes. But I don't have it. However, since it is the same characters in the same time period, I'm pretty good with the history under my belt by now, though there is always something or someone I have to research.