Note Ddd. p. . The Death of Eadric

The accounts of the death of Eadric form an excellent example of the growth of a legend. Each writer knows more about it than the one immediately before him.

The three elder Chronicles, under the year 1017, simply record the execution of Eadric; “On þisum geare wæs Eadric ealdorman ofslagen.”

The Canterbury Chronicler adds the place, London, and volunteers his own conviction that the execution was righteous; “Eadric ealdorman wearð ofslagan on Lundene swyðe rihtlice.”

Florence adds that the execution happened at Christmas, in the palace, and that the body of Eadric was thrown over the wall of the city, and left unburied. He also tells us Cnut’s motive, namely fear lest Eadric should some day betray him, as he had betrayed his former lords Æthelred and Eadmund.

William of Malmesbury (ii. 181) knows Eadric’s fate after death; “Putidum spiritum dimisit ad inferos.” He has also more to tell us than his predecessors about his last sayings and doings in this world. Cnut and Eadric quarrelled, he does not know about what; but Eadric began to go through all his services, and to tell, amongst other things, how he first forsook Eadmund and then slew him for Cnut’s sake. Cnut waxes wroth, and says that Eadric must die, because he has slain his own lord and Cnut’s sworn brother. His blood shall be on his own head, because he has borne witness against himself that he has slain the Lord’s anointed. For fear of a tumult the King has Eadric at once stifled to death (“fauces elisus”) in the room where they were, namely Cnut’s own bed-chamber, and has the body thrown through the window into the Thames.

Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 756 E) makes Eadric come to Cnut directly after the murder of Eadmund and salute him as sole King. Cnut asks the meaning of the title, which Eadric explains, saying how he has brought about Eadmund’s death. Cnut answers that for so great a service he will set him higher than all the Witan of England. So he cuts off his head, and sets it on a pole on the highest tower in London.

Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 365) has the same story with a few verbal changes. He sets the head on the highest gate of London. The gate and the tower may or may not be the same thing, but we have now clearly come to the beginning of the practice of exposing heads on Temple-Bar.

Walter Map (De Nugis, 207), who never names Eadric, tells nearly the same story of the anonymous servant of Eadmund of whom he has so much to tell us. After Eadmund’s death at Ross, the servant hastens to Cnut and tells him that he is now full King instead of half-King (“rex integer qui semirex heri fuisti”), and begs him to reward the man who had removed his enemy. Cnut (“licet tristissimus, placido vultu retulit”) asks who his friend is, as he will set him high above all his comrades (“faciam eum præcelsum præ consortibus suis”). The servant says it is himself, on which the King has him hanged on a lofty oak, a kind of death which looks as if Walter Map did not place the story in London.

Roger of Wendover (i. 460) tells William of Malmesbury’s story, only adding the subject of dispute between Cnut and Eadric, which William of Malmesbury could not tell us. Eadric complained of being deprived of his earldom of Mercia, a singular complaint, as Cnut had only that year confirmed him in it. He also tells Henry of Huntingdon’s story as an alternative.

Bromton (X Scriptt. 908) gives both versions with slight improvements on each. William’s version is enriched by the detail that Eadric’s hands and feet were tied when he was thrown out of the window. This was the mode of his death, for in this version we do not hear of his being stifled. To the other story the only addition is that, when his head was set on the gate, his body was thrown over the wall.

Lastly, Knighton (X Scriptt. 2318) follows William, but gives us Eadric’s speech at greater length and tells us that it was made before dinner. Also we now hear that he was thrown into the Thames from the window of a high tower; his hands and feet were tied, and he was thrown out by a machine—a sling or catapult.

These English versions seem to form a series of themselves, and to grow without foreign help. But in the Encomium Emmæ (ii. 15) we have a version older than any of these except perhaps that of the Chronicles, which shows how the intentional or careless perversion of a contemporary writer may depart as widely from the truth as any feat of the imagination of legend-makers. The Encomiast, as we have seen (see above, p. ), leaves the death of Eadmund shrouded in mystery, and does not say a word implicating Eadric; he also leaves out Eadric’s appointment to the earldom of Mercia, because his object is to represent Cnut as immediately punishing all who had dealt in any way treacherously towards Eadmund. Eadric is therefore made to demand a reward for his treachery at Assandun (“Edricus qui a bello fugerat, quum prœmia pro hoc ipso a rege postularet, acsi hoc pro ejus victoria fecisset”). Cnut says that he who had been faithless to one lord will not be faithful to another, and he accordingly bids Earl Eric to cut off his head with his axe. “Ille vero nil moratus bipennem extulit, eique ictu valido caput amputavit, ut hoc exemplo discant milites regibus suis esse fideles, non infideles.”

In the English series the turning-point is when, in the version of William of Malmesbury, there comes in the first allusion to the Amalekite who slew Saul. When this parallel was once thought of, the true date of Eadric’s execution, namely the thirteenth month after Eadmund’s death, no longer suited the tale; the date of the story was therefore moved back, and Eadric was made to announce the murder of Eadmund and to be put to death at once. For the details, the writers at each stage of course drew on their imaginations.