Anglo-Saxon Queens

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The first Anglo-Saxon queen?

The arrival of the Germanic-speaking peoples in Britain, known now as the Anglo-Saxons, and from which the modern-day English language descends in part, is a key moment in history of the English. Many historians give an account of it, known usually as the adventus Saxonum, or ‘the arrival of the Saxons.’

One of the principal Anglo-Saxon sources on this is the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede. His works are probably the most important written source for the study of early Anglo-Saxon history. His Ecclesiastical History of the English People tells the story of the island of Britain and its conversion to Christianity up until his death in 735.

Bede’s account of the adventus Saxonum, the coming of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, is largely drawn from the work of the British monk, Gildas, who lived in the sixth century. His De Excidio et Conquestu Brittaniae offers a history of the island since the arrival of the Romans, and also rationalises the arrival and successful conquest of the Saxons, a pagan, Germanic tribe by blaming the sinfulness of the Christians in Britain.

Later historians continued to look back at his work, weaving in the traditions of other historical works as well. Two twelfth-century historians, Geoffrey of Monmouth and William of Malmesbury, use Bede in their account, but also the ninth-century Welsh work known as the Historia Brittonum. This tale draws attention to a snippet of history – or lore – that may be a hint as to the first ‘Anglo-Saxon’ queen.

Image result for hengest and horsa — A cartoon of Hengist and Horsa arriving

The archetypal tale is that Vortigern, king of the Britons, unable to muster sufficient military forces from among the Britons, invites some Germanic armed men to come and fight their battles for them. After several negotiations, oath-takings and promises, the Saxons under the leaders known as Hengest and Horsa came to Britain and fought against the Picts. At a second round of negotiations, Hengest asked Vortigern to send back to Germany for more troops – something which Vortigern agreed to. However, Horsa had more than that in mind:

…[T]hey returned with sixteen vessels, bringing with them the beautiful daughter of Hengist. And now the Saxon chief prepared an entertainment, to which he invited the king, his officers, and Ceretic, his interpreter, having previously enjoined his daughter to serve them so profusely with wine and ale, that they might soon become intoxicated. This plan succeeded; and Vortigern, at the instigation of the devil, and enamoured with the beauty of the damsel, demanded her, through the medium of his interpreter, of the father, promising to give for her whatever he should ask. Then Hengist, who had already consulted with the elders who attended him of [their] race, demanded for his daguther the province, called in English, Centland, in British, Ceint (Kent)…
Historia Brittonum, trans. J.A. Giles, c. 37

From there, though, the tales diverge. William of Malmesbury tells us no more of Hengist’s daughter after the agreement of her betrothal (c. 7), omitting her from a tale in which Hengist wickedly tricks and captures his own son-in-law (c.8). Nennius, however, gives an account of the tale, in which the Britons and Vortigern are invited to a feast, but spare Vortigern, as ‘on account of his marriage with my daughter, for it is better that he should be ransomed than killed.’ (c. 46). However, having escaped, Vortigern fled with his wives, one of which was his own daughter, and took refuge in a castle named Cair Guothergirn. St Germanus called down divine retribution for Vorgitern’s sins upon him, fire from heaven burned and consumed the castle, killing all within.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version is perhaps the most detailed and perhaps liberal. He names the daughter Renwein, and gives her a role in murdering Vortimer, Vortigern’s noble and upright son, by poison.

A certain evil spirit which had found its way into the heart of his step-mother Renwein immediately became envious of this virtuous behaviour of his and inspired her to plot Vortimer’s death. Renwein collected all the information she could about noxious poisons and then, by the hands of one of his serants whom she had first corrupted with innumerable bribes, she gave Vortimer a poison to drink.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. L. Thorpe (VI.14)

He also makes her an active agent of her father in undermining Vortigern’s rule, sending messages between Vortigern and her father, and helping to conceal the duplicity of the greedy Saxons. This most detailed account is also the most damning: Renwein is a wicked, envious queen keen on destroying the good, noble Britons.

So, could Renwein, daughter of Hengist, be considered the first Anglo-Saxon queen? As a historical figure, it seems improbable. Bede has no version of this tale, though he includes somewhat similar material from the Life of Germanus (who, in Nennius’ account, caused the fire that killed Vortigern and his wicked wives).

There are elements to these tales that suggest some possible authenticity, but others which indicate that they may be detailed with tropes and reused material. As Barbara Yorke and Virginia Blanton have observed in their work on early Anglo-Saxon saints, later sources often tell us more about the times in which they were written than about their subjects. Blanton’s work has identified that specific details suggest an older source, perhaps a vernacular or oral tradition.

One trend observable in these tales that rings true attests to an anthropological trend noted by Gayle Rubin in ‘The Traffic in Women’; she notes that in many societies, women are exchanged almost as social capital, or in exchange for other goods. In this tale, Hengist dangles his daughter in front of Vortigern to be exchanged for land. Doing so also creates a social bond: in the Historia Brittonum, Hengest advises Vortigern

“I will be to you both a father and an adviser; despise not my counsels, and you shall have no reason to fear being conquered by any man or any nation…”
Historia Brittonum, trans. J. A. Giles, c. 38

Nennius on this occasion offers no criticism of Vortigern’s character, though later Hengist’s duplicitous nature is illustrated at the feast where Vortigern is taken prisoner. The marriage between Vortigern and Renwein has created a kinship between the two peoples, but as Rubin observes, ‘it is the men who give and take them who are linked, the women being a conduit of a relationship rather than a partner to it… if women are the gifts, then it is men who are the exchange partners…. Upon whom reciprocal exchange confers its quasi-mystical power of social linkage.’ However, this is arguably a failed link. The extent of Hengist’s regard for his connection with his son-in-law is to spare his life (in Nennius’ version; in Geoffrey of Monmoth’s, Vortigern is spared only for the value of his ransom). The story of the failed link with an unhappy bride at the centre is one all too common in Anglo-Saxon literature. Tales of Beaduhild on the Franks Casket, Freawaru and Hildeburh in Beowulf, The Wife’s Lament and others all suggest the frequent failure of marriage links, often called freoðuwebbe. In this instance, the failure of Renwein’s marriage to bring peace between the Saxons and Britons if anything recommends it as a plausible tale.

On the other hand, other elements are more suspect. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of Renwein’s poisoning of Vortimer contains stock elements seen in many tales in which queens become political scapegoats: Asser, a ninth-century historian records the story of a queen of Wessex, Eadburh, who regularly poisoned the king’s favourites, but then accidentally poisoned him. The tale is part of a myth used by the West Saxon court to explain why it did not anoint queens; later accounts of the murder of St Æthelberht of East Anglia blame the queen, Cynethryth, when earlier accounts in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle laid the blame at the feet of her husband, King Offa.

The final factor in this assessment is her name. Nennius does not name Hengist’s daughter; Geoffrey of Monouth is the earliest to do so, and her name may be a corruption of Rhonwen, which could be connected to the Welsh word for “horsehair”. This wicked depiction of Renwein is associated with other wicked women in later Arthurian traditions, such as Morgan le Fay; even in Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, foreign queens continue to represent the instability and otherness which threatens the island and its governance.

It is possible, then, that the legendary heroes of the Adventus saxonum, Hengist and Horsa, brought a daughter with them, who was married off to a high-ranking British noble as part of a kinship-making exchange for social capital and to foster a closer relationship than that of a hired mercenary army. Whether she had any role in the breakdown of the relationship that, as most historians argue, was the fault of the untrustworthy, pagan Saxons, is impossible to say. Even her name may be derivative from those of her father and uncle, whose names translate roughly as ‘stallion’ and ‘horse’. Renwein could be regarded as the first potential Anglo-Saxon queen – a Saxon woman taken as another wife by a British queen – but, rather like her father, uncle, and husband, she is best considered as legend.

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Introduction

A brief overview of this blog

King Alfred "Learns to Read"
Now on a certain day his mother was showing him and his brothers a 
book of Saxon poetry, which she held in her hand, and finally said: 'Whichever of you can soonest learn this volume, to him will I give it.' Stimulated by these words, or rather by divine inspiration, and allured by the beautifully illuminated letter at the beginning of the volume, Alfred
spoke before all his brothers, who, though his seniors in age, were not so in grace, and answered his mother 'Will you really give that book to that one of us who can first understand and repeat it to you ?' 
At this his mother smiled with satisfaction, and confirmed what she had 
before said: 'Yes,' said she, 'that I will.' 
Upon this the boy took the book out of her hand, and went to his master 
and learned it by heart, whereupon he brought it back to his mother and recited it. 
Asser, Vita Alfredi

Osburg, though not a consecrated queen, is one of the better recalled women in Anglo-Saxon history. Her devotion to learning and to her children are immortalised in Asser’s Life of Alfred.

This blog is dedicated to two main aims. The first is to look at the queens of Anglo-Saxon England. Some are more famous than others: St Æthelthryth of Ely became one of the most popular female native saints in both Saxon and Norman England; other tales abound about the wickedness of queens, whether of Cynethryth of Mercia and her supposed role in the murder of St Æthelberht of East Anglia, or Eadburh of Wessex; other queens are barely known but from scant references, like Æthelburg of Wessex, who the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records as destroying the fortifications of Taunton in 721, or the wife of Eardwulf of Northumbria who is mentioned without name.

The second aim is to provide some tips and hints for secondary school students of English. I teach the Cambridge IGCSE and OCR syllabi, and hope to be of some help for students striving to do their best in these challenging examinations.

Penda’s queen: Cynewise

King Penda (r. 626-655) has been in the news recently. Scholars working on the Staffordshire Hoard have been circling in on the ‘bold’ interpretation that the Hoard may be linked with the famous seventh-century Mercian king. Primarily a collection of war-materials, including many sword hilts, pieces of a helmet, and many other yet-to-be-identified pieces, it offers new light on the warrior elite and material culture of the seventh century.

By contrast, the queens of the seventh century are relatively obscure in the historical record. There’s Bertha, the famous wife of Æthelberht of Kent (r. 589 – 616), probably the first Christian queen in Britain in centuries. Bede also tells us of the wise wife of Rædwald of East Anglia (r. 599-624). Though he does not record her name, he recounts how she dissuaded her husband from abandoning a pledge to protect an exile in favour of money, even though she was a pagan herself (HE II. 12). Yet perhaps the most tantalizing queen of the seventh century in Bede’s Historia is the wife of Penda of Mercia, Cynewise.

Penda is one of Bede’s most significant villains in the Historia Ecclesiastica. The eighth-century historian and polymath regarded Penda as a ruthless pagan warlord who had the audacity to ally himself with other Christians at times, and who was responsible for the deaths of several dearly beloved and, more importantly, Christian, kings and princes of Northumbria. When one looks at the list of Penda’s offspring, supposed or otherwise, one is inclined to agree with Bede’s assessment of him as uiro strenuissimo. They feature no fewer than four kings of Mercia and other nearby sub-kingdoms, as well as several saintly daughters: Merewalh, king of the Magonsætan; Æthelred, king of Mercia; Wulfhere, king of Mercia; Peada, king of the Middle Angles; Cyneburh and Cyneswith, sainted sisters; and possibly Wilburg, thought to be the mother of St Osgyth.

Cynewise was herself a remarkable woman. Bede records that during the battle of Winwæd, a key battle in the ongoing struggles between Mercia and Northumbria, she kept a certain Northumbrian prince, the future king Ecgfrith, hostage elsewhere (HE III.24). Whilst this explains Ecgfrith’s notable absence in the list of participants in the battle, it also gestures to the power and ability of this great queen. Queens in this era were typically the keeper of the royal household, with all of the duties that entailed, including gift-giving, negotiating, hostage-keeping, providing adequate provisions, dealing with the royal coffers, raising and educating her children, and, from time to time, protecting their interests. An eighth-century queen, Æthelburg, is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as destroying Taunton.

Another main concern of a queen was her offspring and their rights to inherit. This was presumably even more the case in the pre-Christian period, as primogeniture was yet far from normal practice. Instead, the splitting up of lands among sons was common in most of northern Europe in the seventh century, and in pre-Conquest England, succession practice tended to favour adults capable of leading war over children or regents.

In that respect, Cynewise may at first appear to be extraordinarily successful: four of Penda’s sons became kings, and at least a further daughter was married to a prince of a neighbouring kingdom. However, it is far from certain that all of Penda’s children were also Cynewise’s.

Monogamy was not considered an essential practice in the seventh century, and kings and other high-status nobles could take several wives or keep concubines. In part, this relates to traditional Germanic practices, in which status was linked to the number of wives and children a man could claim. There are several indirect references to concubinage in early and later laws, which suggests that although concubinage was probably more prevalent nearer to the adventus Saxonum, it was by no means confined to this earlier period and was certainly not eradicated by the coming of Christianity.

There is also the question of the names of Penda’s offspring. Naming practice in this era often served to illustrate ancestry and family relationships, typically using alliteration as a kinship marker. This could be passed along maternal or paternal lines, although it is far easier for historians to trace paternal ancestry because the names of men are recorded in far greater numbers than those of women. A child’s name might repeat part of a parent’s name which taken separately could be recognised as a word, also known as a deuterotheme.

When considered this way, the names of Penda’s offspring could be seen to cluster into some distinct groups: Peada, presumably Penda’s eldest, given his co-rule of the Middle Angles in his father’s lifetime, alliterates with the name of his father. Cyneburh and Cyneswith carry the same first deuterotheme as the name of their mother, Cynewise. Wulfhere and the possible Wilburh alliterate on W. Though it is difficult to know precisely the birth dates of any of these, Peada was considered old enough to rule by 653, whereas his brother who was set up in rebellion against Northumbrian rule was just a young boy in 658; after Wulfhere’s death in 675, Æthelred took the throne until his abdication in 704.

Clustered as they are, it seems sound to suggest that Cyneburg and Cyneswith were definitely the children of Cynewise and Penda. The identity of Peada’s mother seems less certain that Peada, especially given the detail that Alhfrith of Northumbria, Oswiu’s son, was Peada’s brother-in-law, as he had married ‘Penda’s daughter, Cyneburh’ (HE III. XXI). It seems therefore possible that Penda’s children had more than one mother, and that only one, Cynewise, was recognised as queen. Perhaps Peada was born of an earlier marriage; perhaps there were several women by whom Penda fathered his children. If so, at least one other with a name beginning in W- is a reasonable postulation. The source for this information, such that it is, must be considered in terms of its own aims and biases. It is also possible that Bede has not included the names of other women as part of his anti-Mercian, Christian bias, but given what is known, concubines could easily explain the names and number of Penda’s offspring.

What became of Cynewise is not known; Penda was killed at the battle of Winwæd in 655, and in the aftermath of his death, rule of Mercia was seized by the Northumbrian dynasty. It was only in 658 that rule returned to Penda’s line. Bede reports:

Three years after King Penda’s death the ealdormen of the Mercian race, Immin, Eafa and Eadberht, rebelled against Kign Oswiu [of Northumbria] and set up as their king Wulfhere, Penda’s young son, whom they had kept concealed; and having driven out the ealdormen of the foreign king, they boldly recovered their lands and their liberty at the same time.
Bede, HE III. 24

Cynewise appears nowhere in this narrative. Given that she had the ability to keep hostage a major political figure during her husband’s lifetime, it would seem strange that she appears to have played no role in the Mercian rebellion against Oswiu. It seems plausible that she too may have passed away in the intervening period.

Further reading

Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum is invaluable as a source. It is available in a user-friendly edition from Penguin; the usual scholarly edition is edited by Colgrave & Mynors, which I quote from here.

On concubinage, Margret Clunies Ross’s article is invaluable. Carol Braun Pasternack’s chapter, ‘Negotiating Gender in Anglo-Saxon England’ is useful, as are the overviews of queenship in Pauline Stafford’s Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, and, more recently, Theresa Earenfight’s Queenship in Medieval Europe, especially the first two chapters.

On naming practices, a good overview is available in Cecily Clark’s chapter in The Cambridge History of the English Language, vol I. More widely accessible is Peter Kitson’s article, ‘How Anglo-Saxon Personal Names Work’ in Nomina.

For an alternative view on Cynewise, see Michelle Ziegler’s blog post.

About Me

I’m an independent scholar and full-time educator.

I teach English language and literature in a secondary school in the UK. We teach the CIE IGCSE syllabus for Language and Literature. There was a fairly major change on the IGCSE Langauge paper this year, seemingly combining the former Paper 1 and Paper 2 into one Paper 1 for everyone. I can see this having clear benefits for many candidates, and am interested to see how students will find these changes this year. At A level, I’m familiar with the OCR English literature syllabus both as an instructor and as an assistant assessment specialist. It’s a delight to work with this exam board: its holistic approach tends to nurture the skills of the best students of English literature, and it’s a pleasure to teach.

My background is in early medieval studies. I’ve studied at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and completed my DPhil in the Department of English at the University of Oxford.

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