In honour of the release of Ellen Alpsten’s new novel The Last Princess, please enjoy this imagined Q&A with its leading lady, Gytha Godwinson.
What an honour to meet the last Anglo-Saxon Princess here to discuss Royal Women. Welcome, Gytha Godwinson…
Please don’t. I never asked for what came to me. When we celebrated Modranecht – which is the old, beautiful name for what you call Christmas and may be translated as ‘Mother’s Night’ – at home in Bosham Manor in the Winter of 1065, I felt so secure in my family, its love, wealth and happiness. Little did I know that the seeds of discord had already been sewn. Their shoots made the firm ground beneath my feet crack open, turning it into quicksand. Whatever came after swallowed my world, such
as a tidal wave.
Oh my God. I have goosebumps now. Can we start from the beginning? The ladies of the House of Godwin – or the House of Dragons – were not always Royal Women.
No, but the men of our family owe us everything. They are a feral pack and utter upstarts. What others consider an unbreakable vow, is but a mere string of words to them. Betrayal runs generations deep: my grandfather Godwin lay the foundation for the family’s stellar rise when he married Grandmother, a relative of Canute the Great, the sole ruler of the North Sea Empire of England, Norway, and Denmark. How did he, a mere huscarl, do this? He was very handsome, and silver-tongued. My father,
Harold, was their eldest surviving son and the heir to their House of Dragons – our heraldic beast is a two-legged, winged Wyvern. Father was ambitious but lacked the funds – until his ‘Danelaw’ wedding to my mother Edith Swanneck. It was a simple hand-fastening: Grandmother tied their wrists together. Mother was England’s best catch: her dowry encompassed two-hundred-and-fifty ‘hides’, estates and their manors and belltowers. This offered father the fyrd, the simple soldiers whose fortunes rose and fell with ours, and the geld, the rental income we required to live. But there was also one Royal woman in my family already: my aunt, King Edward the Confessor’s Queen. But she spent most of her married years in a monastery and bore England no son and heir…
Which is the beginning of all trouble. May I mention Eldgyth of Mercia, your Stepmother, whom Harold II wanted to crown as his Queen?
If you must. The Men of Mercia were our enemies as long as we may think. Their women are no less fearsome: one Princess refused to get married, the other never lay with her husband again after giving birth once. There was, she says, no point in ‘something so short resulting in something so painful’. But enough of Eldgyth, who came accompanied by the Tylweth Teg, the green-faced Welsh fairy folk. Do you know that Father had slaughtered her first husband, King Gruffud of Wales? She placed her wed, a golden ring, on the same hand that murdered her first love. If ever there was a peace-weaver, it’s her.
A Peace-weaver! That sounds fascinating.
The roles of Royal women in the High Middle Ages were well defined: Cupbearer. Peace-Weaver. Memory-Keeper. Under normal circumstances, women of noble blood had two choices in my days: either join a monastery or make a good match in marriage. But in order to survive, I had to make a third choice – Exile. The word says it all. It is a short, sharp cut, which severs me from all that I am worth in my world: my home and my family.
You dare to be different: you choose flight AND fight and you write world history. Your fabulous fate spans myth and modernity.
All I do is place one foot in front of the other, hoping to survive that slaughter-stained year: 1066. For this, I must question the powers in place – the patriarchy and the church. I refuse to be mere bloodstock, fit for royal breeding. All my suffering and loss cannot be in vain: I seek love, friendship and belonging. Normans, Anglo-Saxons and the Norse – we are like three sides of a kub, all related through marriage. So, from the candle-lit splendour of our great Hall and the furies reigning a field in Hastings, I take things further, towards the vast, perilous unknown and what lies beyond the raging North Sea. Follow me…
Did you find Royal Women of a different nature there?
I do, and I don’t. The Viking women fight in battle, defend their settlement and are as ferocious as their men. They are an inspiration in many things, and in others they suffer as we do. Tora, the powerful Norse Seidr, plays her cards well. If she, too, was but the handfastened wife of Harald Hardrada, the last Viking, she chooses her own battlefield. And she always wins. Surviving her and her lethal hatred is the ultimate challenge I face. Which reminds me that I must leave…
What for? A royal ceremony?
I wish. No. Both my grandmother and the people of Soderup are consummate slavers. Your word ‘enthralled’ comes from the Norse word for an enslaved human being – thrall. I do not want to say more, but I have many duties from dawn till dusk. But nothing lasts forever. From the ashes of my father’s cursed kingdom, I make a new empire emerge. Which one? Let me surprise you.
Ellen Alpsten was born and raised in the Kenyan highlands and holds a MSc from the IEP de
Paris. She worked as a News-Anchor for Bloomberg TV before writing fulltime. Her debut
novel ‘Tsarina’ and its sequel ‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’ (both Bloomsbury Publishing) are
translated in twenty languages and were shortlisted for numerous awards.
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