setting fire to buildings. Several houses were already well alight. There was a large group of local people gathered for the ceremony, and a number were sprawled on the ground injured or dead. Whatever the mood of the crowd may have been minutes earlier, now it was sullen and angry. As he ran the fifty or so paces towards the group of soldiers, who numbered about twenty, Alan roared at them “What in the name of Christ do you think you’re doing?”
One, who appeared to be a sergeant, turned from his task with a burning torch still in his hand and shouted back “The English are attacking the king in the Hall! They’re rioting here! We’re creating a distraction to save him!”
By then Alan and Robert had reached the group of men, who were now standing watching the exchange. “Fool!” shouted Robert “We’ve just come from the Hall. There is no attack. The shouting was part of the ceremony.”
“You men, put out those torches and organise a bucket brigade to put out those fires!” ordered Alan. By now a considerable number of Englishmen had gathered. Most were watching the Normans with ill-concealed animosity- not surprising given that they had just started to burn down houses. A few of those who were quicker of wit were already running up with buckets of water and dashing them against the flames of those houses that were alight.
“I don’t speak the language of these animals and anyway I don’t take orders from fancy-dressed bastards like you!” snarled the sergeant in reply.
In a blur of movement Alan’s sword rasped out of its scabbard and he struck in one continuous motion. The head of the Sergeant bounced against a whitewashed wall in a spray of blood. There was a murmur of approval from the crowd. “Does anybody else want to challenge my authority?” demanded Alan. “No? Then move your arses and get those fires put out now!” Alan shouted instructions to the crowd and soon a chain of eighty or so men were passing buckets between a nearby well and the fires. After about half an hour the fires were under control and nearly out. Alan and Robert went to return back to the Coronation ceremony, but were just in time to see the prelates and newly-crowned king filing out of the abbey.
Despite the festive season Alan was able to find a tailor and a cordwainer, both on Cordwainer Street, to make him a new tunic and hose and a new pair of boots. His clothing and boots had been poor enough quality previously and had been worn out by heavy service over the last few months. With London packed for the coronation Alan and Robert were sharing a room in a shabby inn on Threadneedle Street at Alan’s expense, using the money that he had recently obtained. Gillard slept in the hayloft above where the three horses and the mule were stabled at the rear of the inn.
With Hugh de Berniers gone and the remains of his squadron split up to make up losses in the other cavalry squadrons of Geoffrey de Mandeville, no fighting was on immediate offer. With little booty as yet handed out to the Barons, de Mandeville’s victualler the Frenchman Michel de Boulogne had, if anything, become even more mean and irregular in his payment of wages.
Alan had also used the time spent on London to have the gold jewellery he had looted melted down into four-ounce ingots by a goldsmith in Wood Street and sold the rings and jewels to a pawnbroker in a side street just east of the Chepe Market.
While the newly-crowned king’s castle was being raised on the south-eastern edge of the city next to the River Thames, with a large number of houses and other buildings demolished to make space, William was residing outside the city at nearby Barking, in a manor now vacant as the thegn who had previously held it had died in one or another of Harold’s battles.
Two other fortified places were being raised by barons in the south-west corner of the city close to the river, Baynards’s castle and Montfitchet Tower. William recognised the importance of the city and its large and traditionally bellicose population. He was determined to keep it under control. Unfortunately, the forced demolition of many houses and other buildings to create the three fortifications did little to improve the mood of the city’s people.
William often held court at the abbey and Old Palace complex at Westminster. It was there on the 29th December that Alan, resplendent in new clothes of fine burgundy-coloured wool, presented himself to Corbett, William’s steward to remind him of William’s promise. Corbett told him to return the following evening, after Vespers, when it was likely that William would be able to see him, depending on how events of the day had proceeded.
Evidently the day had proceeded well. William and a party of nobles had hunted with success in the forest to the north-west, near Kensington and Hanwell. Alan was ushered into a room of medium size where William lounged in a relaxed fashion in a chair, with two monks acting as scriveners sitting at small tables with pen, ink and parchment. By their appearance one was English and one French. After giving Alan a long look up and down, he waved at a chair nearby. “It appears that you have used well some of the money I gave you,” he said. Alan gave a respectful inclination of the head in reply. “I hear that a tall knight, dressed as you used to dress and with red hair, stopped the foot-soldiers of Eustace of Boulogne from burning down Westminster on Christmas Day.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” replied Alan. “The fools seemed to think that there was a riot going on in the abbey and that setting fire to the forecourt was a suitable response. I had to chastise the sergeant in charge.”
“Yes, Eustace wasn’t happy about that, but I told him I wasn’t happy about the actions of his men either. It appears that here in England you are my good-luck charm popping up wherever and whenever needed. Now to business! I promised you a suitable reward when I was in a position to do so, as I now am. I have a busy few weeks ahead. I’m due to meet with Edwin and the thegns of Mercia, Morcar and at least some of his Northumbrians, and the thegns of Shropshire in a week, so I’d best get my other obligations out of the way.
“Aethelbald has been checking which thegns were killed at Hastings, Fulford and Stamford- and therefore whose land is vacant. At the moment he’s covered Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Hertfordshire- and Essex. There was a King’s Thegn called Wulfwin who owned much land in Essex. I’m not feeling generous enough to give you all that land. That would make you a baron- which is an honour you have not yet earned. But he held three manors in Tendring Hundred. Another thegn, Alfred Kemp, held three and one called Estan another. They’ll make a reasonable and compact demesne. Aethelbald, how many hides of land? Thirty-six and a half? I’m introducing a standard quota of six hides per mounted man-at-arms, so your quota will be six.
“I understand that all the manors are what the English call ‘bokland’, or ‘landboc’, although two have been let out to other thegns under some system I find both unpronounceable and unintelligible. You’ll own the land on the same terms as the previous owners, and as tenant-in-chief from me. That will make you a
“As to the rest of England, and this includes Essex, I’m appointing earls to the various holdings of the English earls, particularly those formerly held by the Godwin family. The English will continue to hold their land, subject to paying me a ‘Redemption Relief’ for failing to support me in my taking the Crown, either as bokland or laenland, provided that they maintain their historical obligations, which I understand varies in virtually every case but has always included military service. Effectively they are paying what we Normans refer to as Relief, and the English refer to as a Heriot. It’s interesting how little practical difference there is in land holdings between the two systems. The earls will hold their lands as fiefs or honours at my pleasure and with a Relief payable on succession, not as alods. I expect most will grant at least some of their demesne land and some of the land which now, or in the future, has no holder, as fiefs for military service. You’ll hold your land in landboc and not able to be taken from you without proper cause.
“I’m also changing the administration of the shires. The sheriffs will have greater authority and duties. Officials such as those of the king’s household, the Stallers and the like, will be phased out. The new sheriff of Essex will be Robert fitzWymarc, a half-Breton who came to England in Edward’s time, in place of Leofstan the Reeve who was killed at Hastings. He’s raising a royal castle at Colchester, under my charter- at his expense.”
“Can I raise a castle?” asked Alan.
“If the situation warrants it and you can bear the cost of building one yourself,” William replied, waving his hand at the French clerk to include that in the document before him, before he continued his discussion of his Great
