Free She Wolves by Elizabeth Norton Page B

brother. 39 This situation would not have been judged satisfactory by either of Cnut’s queens but, certainly, it was Aelfgifu who had the upper hand and, around that time, Harold was also able to deprive Emma of the royal treasury, further cementing his hold on the kingdom. Rather than bringing the rivalry of the two women to an end, however, the council at Oxford appears merely to have increased the tension between them.
    Numerous Anglo-Saxon and later medieval chronicles refer to suggestions that neither Swein nor Harold were sons of Cnut. Florence of Worcester, for example, claims that Swein:
    Was said to be his son by Aelfgifu of Northampton, daughter of Ealdorman Aelfhelm and the most noble lady Wulfrun; but some asserted that he was not the son of the king and this Aelfgifu, but that this same Aelfgifu wished to have a son by the king, but could not, and therefore ordered to be brought to her the newly born infant of a certain priest, and made the king fully believe that she had just borne him a son. 40
    Florence of Worcester had also heard a similar story about the birth of Harold, whom he claimed to be a foundling and the child of a humble shoemaker rather than the king. 41 Stories such as these appear to have become common around the time of Cnut’s death and, tellingly, a version exists in the Encomium of Queen Emma herself. In this account, Aelfgifu was a ‘concubine’ of Cnut, rather than his wife, and Harold, the son of a servant, was taken by Aelfgifu to pass off as her child by the king. 42 It seems likely that Emma was the source of the rumours both about Aelfgifu’s concubinage and the rumours of her sons’ births. This was probably a deliberate policy to damage the status of Harold in the eyes of the nobility of England, thus emphasising her own legitimate marriage to Cnut and the legitimacy of her son, Harthacnut.
    If Emma resorted to dirty tricks in order to denigrate the son of her rival then she was not the only one. By August 1036, word had reached Gunnhild, Emma’s daughter by Cnut who was living in a Germanic state, that Aelfgifu was working to ensure the succession of Harold. 43 Aelfgifu was apparently holding feasts and offering gifts to the nobles of the kingdom in order to bring them round to her point of view. This together with fact that Harthacnut had still not materialised in England appears to have strengthened Aelfgifu’s cause in relation to her rival. Emma could spread rumours about Aelfgifu and Harold but without a son present in England, there was very little that she could do to advance her own cause.
    By mid-1036, Emma herself appears to have become exasperated at Harthacnut’s failure to arrive and claim the English crown; for the first time in twenty years, she once again looked towards her sons by Aethelred. According to Emma’s own account, written several years after the disaster of 1036, it was Harold himself who summoned her two older sons to England, forging a letter to appear to be from their mother inviting them to claim the English crown. 44 However it seems unlikely that Harold and, for that matter, Aelfgifu would have risked summoning rivals to England in 1036. A more likely candidate is Emma herself, writing to her sons, pointing out to them: ‘I wonder what plan you are adopting, since you are aware that the delay arising from your procrastination is becoming from day to day a support to the usurpers of your rule’. 45
    It is unlikely that Emma expected both sons to heed her summons. Both decided to come to their mother separately and Edward arrived safely with Emma in Winchester. Alfred, however, decided to come by a less direct route and his party was intercepted by Harold at Guildford. Simeon of Durham writes:
    [Alfred] Was carried heavily chained to the Isle of Ely; but, as soon as the ship reached the land, immediately his eyes were there most cruelly torn out, and then he was taken to the monastery and delivered to the custody of the monks. 46
    Alfred