Ceretic of Elmet

Ceretic was a king of the Brittonic kingdom of Elmet in the early seventh century. The likely location of the kingdom of Elmet was discussed in an earlier post. Ceretic is the only king of Elmet explicitly mentioned in the surviving sources, and it seems likely that he was the last. What do we know about him?

Evidence

Historia Brittonum

Edwin, son of Alla, reigned seventeen years, seized on Elmete, and Expelled Cerdic, its king.

--Historia Brittonum ch. 63, available online

Annales Cambriae

616 Ceredig died.
617 Edwin begins his reign.

--Annales Cambriae, available online

Assuming that the Ceredig who died in 616 is the Cerdic, king of Elmet, mentioned in Historia Brittonum, Annales Cambriae seems to have got the events the opposite way round. If the records refer to the same individual, it is possible that Edwin (Eadwine) expelled Ceredig/Cerdic before beginning his own reign, or perhaps as part of the same campaign so that events followed close on one another and their order later became confused.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History

Bede refers to a Brittonic king called Cerdic, ruling in around 614. This king Cerdic shares a name with the Ceredig recorded in Annales Cambriae at about the same time, and also with the king of Elmet recorded at about the same time in Historia Brittonum. Ceretic, Ceredig and Cerdic were variant spellings of each other. Ceretic was a popular name*, but three separate Ceretics, two of whom are explicitly called kings and the third of whom was considered important enough for his death to be recorded in the Annales, all contemporaries, seems rather unlikely. The simplest explanation is that all three sources refer to the same individual.

….a dream which her mother Breguswith had when Hild was an infant, during the time that her husband Hereric was living in banishment under the protection of the British king Cerdic, where he died of poison.

--Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV ch. 23.

I discussed Hereric in an earlier post. Bede’s story suggests that Hereric’s death is likely to have occurred around the time of Hild’s birth in about 614, so Ceretic was reigning at that time.

The Welsh Triads

Three Adulterers' Horses of the Island of Britain:Fferlas [Grey Fetlock] horse of Dalldaf son of Cunin, and Gwelwgan Gohoewgein horse of Caradawg son of Gwallawc, and Gwrbrith [Spotted Dun] horse of Rahawd.

--Red Book of Hergest Triads, available online

Caradawg is a variant spelling of Ceretic.

Genealogies

There is no patronymic for Ceretic of Elmet given in Bede, Historia Brittonum or Annales Cambriae. As far as I know, the Triad mentioning a Ceretic ap Guallauc does not give him a territorial association. I cannot find a likely candidate for Ceretic of Elmet in the Harleian, Jesus College or Men of the North genealogies listed on Keith Matthews’ website.

On the strength of the reference to Ceretic ap Guallauc in one of the Welsh Triads (see above), John Koch suggests that Ceretic of Elmet was the son of Guallauc ap Laenauc, who appears in the genealogies and in Canu Taliesin (Koch 1997, page xxiii, footnote 1). If this is the same Guallauc recorded as an ally of Urien Rheged in Historia Brittonum, he was active in the late sixth century. More about Guallauc in another post.

Interpretation

Age

Historia Brittonum is clear that Ceretic was ruling Elmet when Eadwine ruled Northumbria, and we know from Bede that Eadwine ruled from 617 to 633. Annales Cambriae says that Ceretic died in 616 (assuming this is the same Ceretic), which would imply that Ceretic was ruling Elmet at the beginning of Eadwine’s reign rather than the end. If he is the same as the king mentioned by Bede, he was ruling in 614. So we can reasonably conclude that Ceretic was an adult in 614-617.

If we take John Koch’s suggestion that Ceretic of Elmet was the son of Guallauc, then Ceretic’s father was leading armies in the late sixth century.

Ceretic could have been born as late as the late 590s, if he was born well into his (putative) father’s active life. This would place him in his late teens in 614, just about old enough to be a king. None of the sources mention any children, which would be consistent with Ceretic having been too young to have married or fathered children before the end of his reign. However, the sources available to us are very patchy and it is perfectly possible that Ceretic did have children and they were simply not considered important enough to be mentioned (as is very likely if they did not hold positions of political or ecclesiastical power).

Ceretic was probably born some time after 550 (550 would make him 64 years old in 614), otherwise he would have been getting too old to be an active ruler in 614-617. This would make him an adult at the time of his father’s campaigns in the late sixth century, and so it is slightly surprising that he is not mentioned even in passing, but I wouldn’t read too much into that.

On the whole, I would favour a birth date for Ceretic somewhere in the middle of the possible range, probably some time around 580 or so. This would make him too young to take a senior role in his father’s campaigns in the late sixth century, and he would be an adult in his thirties by the time we know he was ruling Elmet in 614-617.

Family

No children, wife or parents are recorded for Ceretic of Elmet, so his family background and connections are uncertain. If John Koch is correct that he was the son of Guallauc ap Laenauc, then his family was a branch of the ‘Men of the North’ and claimed descent from the founder figure Coel Hen. This would make Ceretic and his father relatives of Peredur (possible king of York, see post on Peredur) and Urien, king of Rheged. This is quite a likely familial association for someone who ruled a territory in part of modern Yorkshire.

If Ceretic of Elmet is the Caradawg ap Gwallawc of the Triad, then presumably he was associated with some famous incident of marital infidelity, since he is listed as one of the Three Adulterers. Make of that what you will. (Sometimes I wish the Triads were just a little less cryptic).

Politics

Assuming that Ceretic of Elmet is the same British king Ceretic mentioned by Bede, he had given refuge to Hereric of Deira. Since Bede says that Hereric was living under Ceretic’s protection, this indicates that Hereric’s presence was officially recognised and sanctioned by Ceretic. Hereric’s wife and at least one young daughter, possibly two, were also living with him at Ceretic’s court. This may suggest that Hereric had been there some time, long enough to establish a household, and/or that he felt sufficiently secure there to bring his family to live with him. If he had been on the run from a recent defeat in battle, say, or if he doubted Ceretic’s intentions, it is perhaps unlikely that his wife and baby daughter(s) would be with him. This is consistent with Ceretic having a friendly attitude towards Hereric, rather than one of hostility or resentment, though this is speculative.

If Ceretic was friendly towards Hereric of Deira, this may indicate personal friendship, kinship or a political alliance (or any combination thereof). Ceretic’s marriage and family ties are unknown, and he may have had connections with the Deiran royal family in general or Hereric in particular. Elmet and Deira were neighbouring territories and would be natural candidates to ally together against predatory neighbours. Aethelferth of Bernicia had annexed Deira some years earlier (see post on Dating the annexation of Deira), which may well be the reason that Hereric was living in banishment in Elmet in the first place. Ceretic may have been willing to shelter Hereric to honour an alliance. If Hereric was planning to make an attempt to reclaim Deira, Ceretic may have been prepared to offer help and support, either to honour an alliance, out of self-interest or both. Aethelferth had a long track record of military conquest, and if Ceretic feared Aethelferth’s intentions towards Elmet he may have hoped that an attack by Hereric would weaken Aethelferth and forestall an invasion of Elmet.

If Hereric and Ceretic were on friendly terms, this raises questions about Hereric’s death while under Ceretic’s protection. We know from Bede that Hereric’s uncle Eadwine, also in exile from Deira, was living on friendly terms at the court of King Raedwald of the East Angles at about the same time (616/617), and that Aethelferth of Bernicia, Eadwine’s deadly enemy, sent envoys to Raedwald offering him bribes if he would murder Eadwine and threats of war if he would not. Raedwald was swayed by Aethelferth’s arguments – Aethelferth was an extremely powerful king at the time, very probably the most powerful in England – and agreed to kill Eadwine, until he was talked out of it by his queen (Bede, Book II ch. 12). Perhaps something similar happened with Hereric and Ceretic in Elmet, except that Ceretic did not have a queen who persuaded him to change his mind. Many other possibilities come to mind: Hereric’s death may have been due to natural causes and mistakenly or maliciously attributed to poison; he may have been killed for some personal motive that had nothing whatever to do with his membership of the Deiran royal family or Ceretic’s political position; he may have been secretly assassinated on Aethelferth’s orders, or by a rival from his own family, without Ceretic’s knowledge or consent; he may have been killed by somebody to discredit Ceretic… the list is limited only by your imagination.

Hereric’s uncle Eadwine expelled and/or killed Ceretic a few years after Hereric’s death, according to Historia Brittonum. No motive is recorded. It may have been an act of vengeance for Hereric’s death, if Ceretic was believed to have been responsible or even if he had only failed to prevent it. If it was a straightforward land grab with no motive except gain, it is possible that Hereric’s death served as a convenient excuse, if one was needed.

Fate

Historia Brittonum says that Ceretic was expelled from his kingdom, Annales Cambriae says that he died in 616. Both may be true; if he was driven out of his kingdom, perhaps injured in battle, he could have died shortly afterwards in exile.

Ceretic does not appear in the genealogies, and none of the sources mention any children. This may indicate that he did not have children, or that none of them held a position of sufficient political or ecclesiastical importance to warrant a mention by the chroniclers. Either way, it suggests that if Ceretic had any children, they did not subsequently reclaim his kingdom.



References

Annales Cambriae, available online
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
Historia Brittonum ch. 63, available online
Koch J. The Gododdin of Aneirin. Text and context from dark-age North Britain. University of Wales Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7083-1374-4.



*The name Ceretic belonged to: Caratacus, the first-century British king who fought the Romans; Coroticus, a fifth-century king in northern Britain ticked off by St Patrick; Vortigern’s interpreter in Historia Brittonum; the eponymous founder of Ceredigion in what is now mid-Wales; Cerdic, the founder of the royal line of Wessex; Caradog, an eighth-century king of Gwynedd. And those are just the ones I can think of.

December recipe: Christmas meringue

This is another alternative to Christmas pudding, sweet, suitably festive and lighter than the traditional plum pudding.

It’s a variation on mince pies. You can make it with any mincemeat of your choice (for a home-made mincemeat recipe, see here).



Here’s the recipe.


Christmas meringue (serves 2)

Pastry:
6 oz (approx 150 g) self-raising flour
4.5 oz (approx 125 g) butter
2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) icing sugar
1 egg yolk (use the white to make the meringue)

Filling:
Mincemeat of your choice, home-made or bought

Meringue topping:
1 egg white
1 oz (approx 25 g) granulated sugar

Grease two patty tins about 4 in (approximately 10 cm) diameter.

Rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar.

Beat in the egg yolk and press the mixture into a ball of dough. This quantity of pastry is much more than you need for the meringue tarts. About one-fifth to one-quarter of the pastry will be enough to make two meringue tarts. You can freeze the rest or store it in the fridge for two or three days to be used later.

In theory, at this point you are supposed to chill the pastry overnight. I find it is less prone to break if I roll it out straight away.

Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface. I like thin pastry so I roll mine to about 2 mm thick; you can leave yours thicker if you like.

Cut circles big enough to make pastry cases lining the base and sides of your tartlet tins.

Spoon mincemeat into the pastry cases. Don’t overfill them or the mincemeat will boil out and make an unpleasant mess on the baking tray. The filling should be no more than level with the rim.

Whisk the egg white until it stands in soft peaks.

Fold in the sugar using a metal spoon. Pile the meringue on top of the mincemeat, making sure that the meringue seals against the pastry edges.

Bake in a hot oven, around 200 C, for about 15 minutes until the meringue is set and golden brown.

Let the meringue tarts cool for a minute or two in the tins to set the pastry, then lift them out with a palette knife or pie slice and serve immediately.


Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, have a happy Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year!

The Duke’s Agent, by Rebecca Jenkins. Book review

Quercus, 2009. ISBN 978-1-84724-788-9. 296 pages. Review copy kindly supplied by publisher.

The Duke’s Agent is a historical mystery set in Northumberland in 1811. All the major characters are fictional.

Captain Frederick Raif Jarrett, on medical leave from the British Army, takes on the role of land agent to his relative, the Duke of Penrith. Sent to the Northumberland town of Woolbridge to conduct an audit of the Duke’s properties in the area after the unexpected death of the previous agent, Jarrett soon finds evidence of widespread embezzlement and corruption. Events take a sinister turn when a local beauty is found dead in mysterious circumstances and Jarrett becomes the prime suspect for her murder. It seems his investigations have earned him a powerful enemy – but who, and why?

The Duke’s Agent has at least two sub-plots, cleverly intertwined. The first, with which the narrative opens, centres on the strange circumstances surrounding the death of the Duke’s previous agent. Who cut the throat of the dead man’s dog? Who ransacked his study, and what were they looking for? The second appears about a third of the way into the book, and centres on the death of Sally Grundy, “Black-Eyed Sal”, a beautiful local laundry maid who was recently jilted by a local boy and was apparently being courted by a mysterious gentleman friend. How did Sal come by her death? Who moved her body afterwards and why? Who is the unknown gentleman friend and what was his business with Sal? And why are the locals – or some of them, at least – so keen to finger Jarrett for her murder? Both mysteries are gradually unravelled as the plot unfolds, revealing layers of subtle connections and local rivalries. I spotted the villain early on, but that was on the basis of character and role in the narrative, not by solving the mysteries.

The pace is leisurely, even slow, to start with, as the local countryside and the town of Woolbridge are described and the cast introduced. Jarrett is new to the area and a talented painter, so the reader sees both landscape and people through his keen artist’s eye. After Sal’s death the pace steps up a gear, with an effective courtroom scene and a greater urgency to Jarrett’s investigations. The leisurely pace allows time to develop not only a varied cast of characters – from poacher and innkeeper to the local gentry – but also the relationships and rivalries between them, all told in stylish prose.

Although the immediate mystery is wrapped up at the end – partly through the villain’s desire to demonstrate his own cleverness by filling in the details that the hero has not quite worked out for himself – there is a larger intrigue still to be resolved, which clearly offers scope for a sequel (or several). Similarly, Jarrett’s tentative relationship with Miss Henrietta Lonsdale, a young lady of impeccable manners, calm good sense, formidable reserve and remarkably attractive grey eyes, looks as if it has scope for further development.

Stylish historical mystery with well-defined characters and a clear sense of time and place, set in Northumberland in the early nineteenth century.

The kingdom of Elmet

Elmet was a British kingdom located in the area around what is now Leeds in the early seventh century. What do we know about it?

Evidence

Place names

The name ‘Elmet’ is retained in the modern place names of Barwick-in-Elmet and Sherburn-in Elmet, east of Leeds.

Map link: Barwick-in-Elmet
Map link: Sherburn-in Elmet

If these names were given to stress that the areas in question belonged to Elmet, it may indicate that they were located in a region near the edge of Elmet, where territorial affiliation might be in doubt. If so, this would be consistent with the kingdom having been bounded on its north-eastern side by the natural barrier of the River Wharfe and the River Ouse.

To the west, the Pennine chain of hills and moors running north-south through Yorkshire and Derbyshire forms a natural barrier that is a likely candidate for the western boundary of the kingdom of Elmet. See Wikipedia for a relief map.

One of the three main routes from west to east across the Pennines is the valley of the River Aire, which runs through Leeds. Following the river upstream, north-west, brings you to Bradford, Keighley, and then to a small town called Sutton-in-Craven.

Map link: Sutton-in-Craven

On the same logic as the –in-Elmet place names mentioned above, the –in-Craven suffix is presumably there to indicate a regional identity. If so, the north-western boundary of Elmet may have been somewhere in the Keighley area.

The River Sheaf, which flows into Sheffield from the south and gives its name to the city, has an Old English name meaning ‘boundary’ (Room 1993).

Map link: River Sheaf, Sheffield

It formed the boundary between the counties of Derbyshire and the old West Riding of Yorkshire (see Wikipedia for a map of the location of the West Riding). ‘Riding’ is a Norse word meaning ‘a third part’ (the other two were East and North), so the Ridings date back a long time. If the West Riding was derived from an earlier region, then the River Sheaf may have also formed the boundary of the earlier region, and it is thus a possible candidate for the southern boundary of Elmet.

Historia Brittonum

Edwin, son of Alla, reigned seventeen years, seized on Elmete, and Expelled Cerdic, its king.

--Historia Brittonum ch. 63, available online

Annales Cambriae

616 Ceredig died.
617 Edwin begins his reign.

--Annales Cambriae, available online

Assuming that the Ceredig who died in 616 is the Cerdic, king of Elmet, mentioned in Historia Brittonum, Annales Cambriae seems to have got the events the opposite way round. Ceretic is a common Brittonic name and Annales Cambriae may be referring to a different individual. If they are the same, it is possible that Edwin (Eadwine) expelled Ceredig/Cerdic before beginning his own reign, or perhaps as part of the same campaign so that events followed close on one another and their order later became confused.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History

Bede specifically mentions Elmet once in his Ecclesiastical History:

A basilica was built at the royal residence of Campodunum, but this, together with all the buildings of the residence, was burned by the pagans who killed King Edwin and later kings replaced this seat by another in the vicinity of Loidis. The stone altar of this church survived the fire and is preserved in the monastery that lies in Elmet Wood and is ruled by the most reverend priest and abbot Thrydwulf.

--Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book II ch.15

Loidis is modern Leeds. The site of Campodunum is uncertain. The two leading candidates are Doncaster and Slack, near Huddersfield, both the sites of Roman towns or forts. The Roman name of Doncaster, Danum, could be related to the second element of Bede’s name Campodunum. Both are within the boundaries of Elmet as suggested above. Bede uses the name Elmet not as the name of a region or province, but as the name of a forest, Elmet Wood. This may indicate that the name Elmet could refer to a specific locality, possibly part of a larger territory.

Bede also refers to a Brittonic king called Cerdic, ruling in around 614. If this king Cerdic is the same individual as the Ceredig recorded in Annales Cambriae at about the same time, and also the same individual as the king of Elmet recorded at about the same time in Historia Brittonum, then this also refers to events in Elmet:

….a dream which her mother Breguswith had when Hild was an infant, during the time that her husband Hereric was living in banishment under the protection of the British king Cerdic, where he died of poison.

--Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV ch. 23.

I discussed Hereric in an earlier post. Bede’s story suggests that Hereric’s death is likely to have occurred around the time of Hild’s birth in about 614, so Ceretic was reigning at that time.

The Tribal Hidage

The Tribal Hidage is a list of regions and the number of hides they contained. A hide was an Anglo-Saxon unit of land measurement, and roughly approximated to the amount of land required to support a household. Bede regularly refers to districts as “….the land of XXX families….”. Needless to say, the area of a hide would have varied enormously depending on the productivity of the land. The date and purpose of the Tribal Hidage are not certain (more on this in another post), but the various controversies need not concern us here. For the purposes of this post, the interesting part is the following entry:

Pecsætna twelf hund hyda. 1,200
Elmed sætna syx hund hyda. 600

--Tribal Hidage, transcription available online

“Elmed” is a variant spelling of Elmet, and “saetna” is an Old English word meaning something like “settlers”. It appears several times in the Tribal Hidage as the suffix to a district name.

The immediately preceding entry, Pecsaetna, is the origin of the modern name ‘Peak District’, which refers to the uplands forming the southern end of the Pennines in modern Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire. Map on the National Park Authority website here. This is consistent with the suggestion above that Elmet bordered the Pennine uplands of the modern Peak District.

The small number of hides attributed to Elmet (600) is slightly surprising, given that it was important enough for Historia Brittonum to consider its ruler a king. Caveat that we are uncertain about what was meant by a king or what size of territory qualified as a kingdom. This may indicate that Elmet was smaller than implied by the boundaries suggested above, which in turn may suggest that Ceretic was a minor king or a sub-king. Or it may suggest that Elmet had changed in size when the Tribal Hidage was compiled, or that the name Elmet could be used to refer to a particular region within a larger territory, or that the Tribal Hidage records only part of the territory of Elmet.

Interpretation

The place names with the –in-Elmet suffix indicate that Elmet included the area east of modern Leeds. Its boundaries are conjectural, but the River Sheaf, the Rivers Wharfe and Ouse, the Pennine uplands and the district of Craven are reasonable candidates. Its boundaries may have fluctuated over time.

Elmet was a sufficiently important territory for its ruler to be considered a king by the compiler of Historia Brittonum. This seems inconsistent with the small size (600 hides) recorded in the Tribal Hidage. It may be that Elmet was a small territory and its king may have been more of a sub-king, or Elmet may have changed in size over time, or the Tribal Hidage may refer to only a part of Elmet, or the name Elmet may have referred to a particular region (Bede’s ‘Elmet Wood’, perhaps) within a larger territory, which may or may not have shared the same name.

The king of Elmet at the time of its conquest was Ceretic or Cerdig (more about him in another post). If he was the king referred to by Bede, he was a Brittonic king, and he certainly had a Brittonic name. This may indicate that Elmet was a Brittonic or predominantly Brittonic territory.

Elmet was conquered by Eadwine of Deira/Northumbria (reigned 617-633), probably near the beginning of his reign on the basis of the dates in Annales Cambriae. It presumably remained under Eadwine’s control until his death in 633. Bede’s statement that “later kings” (presumably kings of Northumbria given the context of the passage, though this is not specified) had a royal residence near Loidis suggests that Elmet, or at least the area of Elmet near modern Leeds, was also in Northumbrian control during the reigns of Eadwine’s successors as kings of Northumbria.

What happened to Elmet immediately after Eadwine’s death is not recorded. It may have stayed part of Northumbria throughout, it may have regained independence temporarily, in part or in whole, or it may have been temporarily taken over by another kingdom, peacefully or otherwise. Bede describes the year following Eadwine’s death as total chaos in Northumbria, and the same may also have applied in Elmet.

References

Annales Cambriae, available online
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
Historia Brittonum ch. 63, available online
Room A. Dictionary of Place Names. Bloomsbury, 1993. ISBN 0-7475-1511-5.
Tribal Hidage, transcription available online

Map links

Doncaster
Slack

The Forever Queen, by Helen Hollick. Book review

First published under the title A Hollow Crown, Arrow, 2005. Shortened and revised edition published by Sourcebooks, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4022-4068-3, 614 pages.

Set in England, Normandy and Denmark in 1002-1042, The Forever Queen tells most of the life story of Emma of Normandy, who was Queen of England through her marriages to Aethelraed and Cnut. All the main characters are historical figures.

As a shy thirteen-year-old married into a foreign kingdom, Emma of Normandy quickly discovers that her new husband Aethelraed is a disaster both as a king and as a husband. While the inept Aethelraed and his avaricious favourite Eadric Streona progressively lose England to the capable Viking Svein Forkbeard and his son Cnut, Emma will have to rely on her own political skill and innate intelligence if she is to survive and to keep the crown that has become her most precious possession.

The Forever Queen covers a period of 40 years, from Emma’s arrival in England as a naïve young bride to the accession of her son Edward (later known as the Confessor) when Emma is a 53-year-old dowager. There was a lot going on in England and its neighbouring kingdoms during those four decades, and The Forever Queen covers most of it. It is thus a very long book – over 600 pages – and densely packed with detail, so some concentration is required to keep track of characters and events.

Emma seems to have had little happiness in her eventful life, and I would say The Forever Queen is the gloomiest of Helen Hollick’s historical novels. Part of this is due to the political situation; The Forever Queen gives the impression that almost everyone in a position of power in England in the first decade or two of the eleventh century was ineffectual or self-seeking or both. This may be entirely justified – Aethelraed Unraed (“Ill-Advised”) and Eadric Streona (“Greedy” or “Grasping”) no doubt did much to earn their derogatory nicknames, and the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is scathing about the incompetence of England’s leadership – but it doesn’t make for a cheerful read, especially for the first 300 pages.

Part is due to Emma’s personal circumstances, particularly during her disastrous marriage to Aethelraed, where her fortitude in enduring an abusive and sometimes sickeningly violent husband is well conveyed. Part is due to Emma’s character as developed in the novel. Coming from an unloved childhood, trapped for years in a miserable marriage, Emma has to be hard to survive. Clinging to her pride and her crown when they were all that gave meaning to her life, Emma develops a cold, calculating ruthlessness that shapes her whole life. She has little affection for her sons by Aethelraed, perhaps not surprising given the nature of her relationship with their father (and young Edward, as portrayed here, would have been a very difficult child to like!). Even when she finds some happiness in her marriage to Cnut, the demands of empire mean that Emma is often left alone for long periods while Cnut is away in one of his far-flung territories. Her son by Cnut, Harthicnut, is brought up largely in Denmark, and Emma sees little of him after early childhood. By the time her sons are grown, Emma seems to regard them in part as a means to retaining her status, and there seems little love lost even between her and Harthicnut, let alone between her and her sons by Aethelraed.

On a more cheerful note, Cnut is attractively drawn, maturing from an overgrown and somewhat blundering adolescent to an effective leader without losing his humanity along the way. Edmund Ironside, son of Aethelraed, takes his rightful place as a capable leader and a promising king. Had he not been mortally wounded in combat, Edmund might have made a worthy successor to his ancestor Alfred the Great, and English history might have followed a very different course. Edmund’s short reign is often treated as little more than a footnote between Aethelraed and Cnut, so it is very pleasing to see him fully developed as a character in his own right in The Forever Queen.

Useful maps at the beginning of the book help to locate the events, and a detailed Author’s Note is very helpful in setting out the historical basis for the novel.

Solid, detailed portrayal of the life and times of the formidable Queen Emma, wife to two kings and mother to two more in early eleventh-century England.

November recipe: Braised red cabbage and pork

Red cabbage and cooking apples are both in season in late autumn and early winter, usually harvested earlier in the autumn.

The brilliant red-purple of braised red cabbage is a cheerful splash of colour as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness gives way to fog and frosts.

Both red cabbage and apples seem to go particularly well with pork. This recipe works equally well with pork chops or pork steaks, either grilled or fried as you see fit.

Serves 2

Braised red cabbage with fried pork steak

Braised red cabbage
8 oz (approx 250 g) red cabbage
4 oz (approx 125 g) cooking apple
Half a small onion
About a teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) of butter
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
About 3-4 fl. oz (approx 75-100 ml) water

2 pork steaks or pork chops

Sauce
Half a small onion
About half an ounce (approx 10 g) butter
2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoon) flour
About 0.25 pt (approx 150 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) tomato puree
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ready-made mustard

Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut out the tough stalk in the centre. Cut into shreds.

Peel and core the cooking apple, and chop into chunks. Peel and chop the half onion (put the other half aside for the sauce).

Cook the cabbage in boiling water for 3-5 minutes, then drain. At this stage the cabbage will look a rather unappealing blue colour. Don’t worry. In a few minutes you can perform some kitchen alchemy with vinegar and turn it red again.

Add the butter to the drained cabbage and cook gently over a low heat to melt the butter. Stir in the chopped apple and onion.

Stir in the sugar and vinegar. The acid in the vinegar will turn the cabbage a cheerful red-purple colour. Add the water, season with salt and pepper to taste, cover the pan and simmer over a low heat for about 30 minutes until the cabbage is tender. Stir from time to time to make sure it isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan, and add a little more water if necessary. Only add a small amount of water at a time, because when it has finished cooking most of the water should have gone, leaving just a small amount of cooking juices.

While the cabbage is cooking, fry or grill the pork chops or pork steaks. I fry them in butter or cooking oil over a moderate heat for about 5-7 minutes each side.

To make the sauce, peel and chop half a small onion and fry gently in the butter in a small saucepan until softened and starting to colour.

Remove from the heat and stir in the flour, mixing well so that the flour coats the onion pieces. Pour in the milk.

Return the saucepan to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring all the time. When the sauce thickens, turn the heat down and add the mustard and tomato puree. Season with salt and pepper. If it is too thick for your liking, stir in a little more milk. Simmer over a low heat for 1-2 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the cooked pork steak or chops. Serve with the braised red cabbage and mashed potatoes.

Ruso and the Demented Doctor, by RS Downie. Book review

Penguin, 2009. ISBN 978-0-141-02726-5. 462 pages

Also published under the title Terra Incognita. Sometimes the author’s name appears as Ruth Downie, sometimes as RS Downie.

Second in the Medicus Ruso Roman historical mystery series, Ruso and the Demented Doctor is set in AD 118 in and around Coria (modern Corbridge) in the north of the Roman province of Britannia. All the main characters are fictional.

Gaius Petreius Ruso, Medicus (army surgeon) with the Roman Twentieth Legion in Deva (modern Chester), has volunteered to accompany a detachment on a mission to the northern border*, partly as a way of taking his housekeeper and girlfriend Tilla home to visit her remaining family and friends. Before they even arrive, Ruso learns there is trouble among the local population, not least from a man with antlers on his head – the Stag Man – who claims to be a messenger from the gods. Things get even worse after arriving in Coria, where Ruso is pitched unwillingly into a politically sensitive murder investigation. A soldier has been gruesomely killed in a back alley, and the fort doctor has apparently gone insane and confessed to the murder. Ruso is ordered to get the doctor to retract his confession, so the Prefect’s aide can arrest the preferred suspect, a local rebel sympathiser. On top of this, Ruso is also supposed to sort out the hopelessly inefficient – and, as he gradually discovers, possibly corrupt – fort medical service. And just to make his life even more complicated, his lovely girlfriend Tilla is even more troublesome than usual now she is home, especially when it turns out that the Romans’ preferred suspect for the murder is her childhood friend and former lover….

Ruso and the Demented Doctor lives up to the high standards of its predecessor, Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls (reviewed here in August 2010). The dry humour that was such an appealing feature of the first novel is back, as Ruso the eternal straight man gamely tries to navigate the bewildering native customs, Tilla’s self-willed independence of thought and action, the antics of the infirmary staff and the devious machinations of security officer Metellus. Ruso himself is as decent and likeable as ever, although he can be so obtuse in emotional matters that I can’t help thinking his ex-wife may have had a point when she told him he was impossible to live with. The beautiful and enigmatic Tilla comes more to the fore here on her home ground, torn between her affection for Ruso and her suspicion of Rome. More is revealed about the sad fate of her family and the events that led to Ruso buying her at death’s door from an abusive slave dealer in far-off Deva.

Minor characters are as individual as the two leads, whether they are secondary characters from Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls making a reappearance – slimy Claudius Innocens, cheerfully egotistical Valens – or new actors in the new story. Of the latter, I found Metellus especially convincing as the Prefect’s aide, a sort of head of the security police, polite, amoral and chillingly ruthless.

The mystery plot is rather more substantial than in Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls, and the solution isn’t obvious in advance (or at least, I didn’t spot it). An especially interesting feature of the novel is the vivid portrayal of a Roman frontier fort and its associated shanty town, full of the soldiers’ relatives and traders on the make. Some of the local British population have decided that the Romans have something to offer and have moved into town, set up businesses servicing the Army, and begun adopting Roman names and Roman ways. Others regard the Romans with suspicion and outright hostility. The different customs and ideas, and the interactions and conflicts between them, make for a thought-provoking picture of culture clash and transition, with no easy answers.

Ruso’s relationship with Tilla, which was just getting started in the first book, develops and deepens further in this one. It’s another feature of the novel that I found especially convincing. Both are likeable and sympathetic characters, both are independent adults with their own history and their own values, sometimes resulting in mutual incomprehension and mistrust that conflicts with their attraction to each other. Their relationship is important to them, but it is not the only thing in their lives, and if it is to work they will need to find some sort of mutually acceptable balance. The quote at the beginning of the paperback, from the poet Martial, says “I can’t live with you – nor without you.” Very apt. I look forward to more of this intriguing relationship in the next instalment.

A useful map at the front of the book places the locations in their geographical context, and a brief Author’s Note at the end sketches some of the underlying history.


Delightful historical mystery told with wry humour and deft characterisation, set against the contrasting cultures of northern Britain and the Roman Army in the second century AD.

*Hadrian’s Wall has yet to be built, so the border at this stage is just a road linking a string of forts.