PAULA'S PEOPLE: A New Home for King Harold's Daughter by Carol McGrath

After 1066 and his defeat in The Battle of Hastings, the survivors of King Harold II’s family were exiled to foreign lands, with the exception of Gunnhild, his younger daughter who took up with King William’s cousin, Alan of Richmond. Surviving supporters were also scattered to lands as far apart as Byzantium and Denmark. There were, and had been for some time, English communities in Russian Kyiv (Kiev) and Novgorod.

King Harold

 Princess Gyda (Gita/Gytha/Thea in The Betrothed Sister) was King Harold’s elder daughter. She travelled with her brothers to King Sweyn’s court in Denmark. Sweyn was King Harold’s mother’s nephew. It is likely that he arranged this brilliant marriage for his aunt’s grand-daughter to Vladimir Monomarkh, son of the third prince in line for the grand throne of Kyiv and since at this time Kyiv was possibly the richest and largest city in Europe it was a coup.

Gytha

Janet Martin, Russian Medievalist, writes in her book Medieval Russia 980-1584 ‘Prince Iarslav Vladimirovitch arranged the marriage of his daughter Elizaveta to the King of Norway; when widowed, she married the King of Denmark…Vladimir Monomarkh’s marriage to Gyda, the daughter of King Harold II of England reflected the prince’s ties with the king of Denmark more than England.’ There were already established historical links between Scandinavian and Rus lands. Only the odd snippet can be discovered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and The Russian Primary Chronicle; the latter an early twelfth century document from Kyiv, concerning Gyda’s marriage. The Russian Primary Chronicle suggests that the marriage took place in the 1070s

Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev

So what do we know about Princess Gyda’s new home? Her feelings as written in The Betrothed Sister are speculative, as is her lengthy betrothal. As a novelist we try to create a character and world for our historical protagonists. It was impossible to discover much about her character although I discovered that she cared deeply about religion and possibly through either devotion or illness or both, ended her life in a convent. It was easier to research the atmosphere and life of medieval Kiev and Novgorod and how life may have been for a dispossessed princess married into the wealthy Riurikid dynasty.

The Golden Gate of Kiev

Rus lands were inhabited by Slavs and Vikings during the ninth century. By the late eleventh century the Russian Orthodox Church, not dissimilar to the Greek Orthodox Church, influenced Rus culture. For instance, a written language had evolved and many throughout society were educated as is evidenced by the discovery of everyday messages scribed on birch bark during this period. Some scholars suggest that the seclusion of noble women in a part of the palace called a terem dates from the eleventh century rather than the later medieval period of Mongol invasions. The concept may have come from Frankish lands or from Byzantium, and is not to be confused with that of harem since Russians were strictly monogamous. The Russian Primary Chronicle documents the construction of Cathedrals and monasteries, influenced by Byzantine art, each decorated with frescos and icons, provided with liturgical books and sacerdotal robes.

Medieval Diorama of Kiev

The damp environment of the northern area around Novgorod proved conducive to preserving the layers of a medieval city. When teams of archaeologists began systematic excavations in Novgorod in the 1940s they discovered an immense trove of items from the old medieval city.Implements used in daily life were usually fashioned from wood. Ploughs and harrows used in the fields depended on wood, sometimes in a near natural state. Wooden houses from the period have partially been returned to life in Novgorod’s museums because of these excavations. Dwellings were set out in courtyards that lined streets made of logs split lengthways. Their houses were constructed of logs built on decks to protect them from the low damp ground characteristic of the region. Decaying refuse was overlaid with twigs and inhabitants built log pathways across their yards. In the south around Kyiv, wood was less important. The Prince of Kiev inhabited palatial buildings atop a central hill whilst the working population dwelled primarily in wooden homes in separate sections of the city, located on outlying hilltops at the base of bluffs in the area known as Podol. Red slate from an area north west of Kyiv was used in Cathedrals and presumably in palaces.

 Thousands of artisans and artists were employed in Kyiv and Novgorod the two major cities of the Rus. The wealthy, such as Thea (Gyda), who could afford more durable materials than wood would own a bone salt box, bone combs, dice and ornamental eating utensils. Byzantine craftsmen filled an increasing demand for luxury items generated by the Kyivan elite, the Riurikid princes and the Church hierarchy. Goods including nuts, spices, amphorae containing olive oil and wine were transported throughout Russia. Glass objects produced in Kyiv using Byzantine techniques were widely used. Kyiv became famous for beautiful jewellery decorated with inlaid enamel and fine pottery.The sense I have from my thorough investigation into early medieval Kyiv and Novgorod (I read Russian Studies at University) is that it was a wealthy and often an educated society. I aimed to recreate a general image of medieval Kyiv as a bustling cosmopolitan centre sustained by lively commerce and craft production. It was a stable complex society that was threatened during this period by internecine conflict between brothers and cousins who fought to control the central throne.The prince was the apex of social structure. His military retainers formed a layer under him. On a par with them were the Hierarchs of the Church. The bulk of Kyiv’s residents were merchants, tradesmen, artisans, unskilled labourers and the lowest strata of slaves and dependent labourers. Foreigners, such as Earl Conor and Padar in The Betrothed Sister, often held a special status within this society.

Prince Matislav (Harold)
Gytha's eldest son

This was the strange, exotic world into which King Harold’s daughter married. Sadly, however, she never lived long enough to see her husband become the Grand Prince of Kyiv, and, interestingly, three of their sons in turn also became Grand Princes. King Harold’s daughter was, in fact, an ancestress of the Romanovs. Therefore, it can be said that although King Harold II did not found a new dynasty in England, his elder daughter by Edith Swan-Neck was a significant and fascinating, if often forgotten historical woman, who indeed continued Harold’s lineage and dynastic ambitions through her sons, a woman who apparently embraced life in her land of exile, and what a life she must have lived. I hope that in The Betrothed Sister I allowed her a possible life.

Louise E. Rule Interviews Carol McGrath

First of all I would like to welcome Carol McGrath, author of The Handfasted Wife, The Swan-Daughter, and soon to be released, The Betrothed Sister.

Carol McGrath

A big welcome to The Review, Carol, thank you for joining me for this interview about your book, The Swan-Daughter.

How important was it for you, Carol, to have The Swan-Daughter, a stand-alone novel, considering that it is the middle book of a trilogy, the first book being The Handfasted Wife, and the last being The Betrothed Daughter?

The books are stand alone because they each tell individual stories concerning three different noble women. The novels have different focuses. The Handfasted Wife is about what happened to Harold’s wife and children during and after 1066. The Swan-Daughter is a true story of elopement and its consequences. The Betrothed Sister is about exile and a glittering marriage for King Harold’s elder daughter, Gita (Thea) with a great Kiev prince – a few battles too. They can indeed be read as individual stories although they possess an over-arching theme – a particular family’s destiny – that of the Godwins. They were a family which had either hoped to be or were chosen to form a new ruling dynasty after the death of Edward the Confessor. The stories in this series are told from the perspectives of three women, Harold’s handfasted wife and two daughters’ perspectives. How did they survive the regime change in 1066? What happened next? These were questions I answered in the context of three novels. Each is a different and thrilling survival story.

Gunnhild Godwinsdatter, as a woman, and from a woman’s perspective, comes across as having an extremely strong character once her husband, Count Alan of Richmond, is not around. How easy or difficult was it for you to create her, bring her to life, as you have done, given that there is so little that is actually known about her?

I think the events of 1066 threw many English women on their own resources. Gunnhild was King Harold’s younger daughter. Research indicated that she was nine at the time of the Norman Conquest and at the time she was a royal inmate of Wilton Abbey, there to be educated as had many other royal women before her. It is fact that Gunnhild eloped (there are letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury and Gunnhild surviving that indicate the elopement and a later relationship with his brother). Therefore, I considered that it is possible to portray her as a strong, independent personality, thrown on her own resources, particularly by 1075 when the novel opens, because her aunt had died. I knew also that she would be constricted in how her emotions could play out because of the religious and social conventions of the period. Gunnhild could have inherited her mother’s lands. Certainly, Alan, as recorded history indicates, acquired most of these. I portrayed her as naïve to begin with, a noble girl, deprived of and longing for lovely things to the extent that she will thwart convention and suffer for her actions. I portrayed her as maturing through the story. I have no idea what the real Gunnhild was like but I tried to make her plausible.

You say, Carol, in your Author Notes, that you had imagined that Gunnhild favoured calligraphy and drawing, rather than embroidery. That is extremely interesting, more especially as all three require a particular dexterity to perform, and a good eye for detail. So please could you tell our readers why you think she preferred these particular pastimes over embroidery?

I thought rather than Gunnhild being depicted as an embroiderer I would make her artistic and interested in writing. Women in earlier centuries had been monastery (nunnery) calligraphers so I revisited this notion. As a consequence, the Gunnhild I have imagined is artistic. She has a highly educated aunt in the widow of Edward the Confessor, the patron of Wilton Abbey, a woman revered for her intellect at the time. This is recorded fact. Aunt Edith was a renowned embroiderer. There was an embroidery school at Wilton; both Wilton and Winchester were noted for their calligraphy also. In fact there is an overlap in the two because the Bayeux Tapestry designs owe much to 11^th century English manuscript work. Now, Gunnhild would be overshadowed by Aunt Edith’s stunning legacy as the best embroiderer in England if she was an embroiderer as well! Thus my Gunnhild has a latent talent of her own which is, of course, calligraphy. I do not suggest this was the real Gunnhild, but then, how would we actually know how the real Gunnhild passed her time, what she really thought or said?

Research is both an important and an absorbing part of writing an historical novel. How do you go about your research, Carol? Do you, for example, gather all your research together before you begin writing, or do you research as you go?

The historical world the Godwin women inhabit needs to be based in sound historical research in both primary and secondary sources. By this I mean archaeology, chronicle, books, museums, as well as art and poetry from that era. 

I conduct most of my research in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in museums of all kinds, at re-enactments, in poetry from the period, stories rooted in the period, before I begin the novel. I have different notebooks for different aspects of research. I log every source’s details carefully, including page numbers as well in case I need to revisit them. It is an academic approach and disciplined. After a few months I have dropped into my novel’s world. Only then can I inhabit my characters. By the time I begin to write, I have absorbed the story’s alien landscape and its real and invented people. I have another A4 notebook in which I plan the novel. I also record character information, both invented and researched, in a notebook or two. I jot down phrases and relevant ideas for scenes, as they come to me. And I am old-fashioned as I do enjoy a mix of pencil and paper and computer files for information.

I can see that your cover design is very important to you, Carol. The Swan-Daughter has a beautiful resonance for me. There is a symbolism with the bulrushes, and with the two swans. The bulrushes are symbolic of how to live a humble life and about obeying the Church, as mentioned in Job 8:11: Can the rush be green without moisture. The swans are symbolic of love and loyalty, strength, grace and beauty. The colour of the font exactly matches the colour of the bills of the swans, and it creates a cohesiveness that can only draw the eye. Could you explain to our readers, therefore, how you went about designing your cover, and what it was you wanted to convey with just the viewing of it?

The cover is an illustration that can be viewed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is The Swans and the Irises by Walter Crane. I loved the illustration and suggested it for the cover. I agree with the symbolism suggested in the question. When I discovered this picture, it was only the swans and what they stand for that occurred to me. Accent, my publisher, acquired the right to use it and designed the cover.

Questions that I always like to ask, Carol, are about an author’s writing routine. Could you tell us a little about your writing routine, please? For example, do you write at a particular time of the day, in a particular place? Do you work in a library, or at home, or both? Also, the editing, and proofreading processes are as equally important as the actual writing. How, then, do you go about these tasks, Carol?

I work best in the mornings and try to write most days. I write a scene and revisit it the next day before I write the next scene. It is good for continuity. There is a narrative plan to it, but this develops as I write. I have the novel’s beginning, middle and end before I start. I write chronologically through from beginning to end. Editing is absolutely crucial. It takes months. I go through the first draft three times thoroughly editing, thinking does the scene matter, is the character consistent, is each word the right word, or does a sentence, or even paragraph, sit in the right place within a chapter? Then, groan and joy both, there are three more edits with my editor, the manuscript going back and forth. It is wonderful to see it improve through this process to become the swan rather than the ugly duckling.

Is there anything else that you would like to add, Carol?

At the end of it all I do hope readers enjoy these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them. And now they can listen to the first novel in the series as well, as it is available on audio. Hopefully The Swan-Daughter will follow. 

And finally, thank you, Paula and Louise for reading and reviewing my novels and for this interview.

 It's been a real pleasure chatting with you, Carol, and thank you for joining me for this interview.

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Other books in the Daughters of  Hastings Trilogy by Carol McGrath

 

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Carol can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and on her website you will find many more social media links to Carol.