Eadric the Grasper: Sons of Mercia: 1

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The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices.

Edric Streona was not to enjoy his new exalted position for long, considering himself to have not been amply rewarded by Canute, he quarrelled with the King. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent, who had previously supported Sweyn, immediately swore their allegiance to his son Cnut; but leading English noblemen sent a proposal to Æthelred to negotiate Æthelred's restoration to the throne. Brice's Day Massacre - although this is uncertain - prompting Sir Frank Stenton's epigraphic footnote about him being the usual suspect for unknown crimes. In this historical epic based on a real-life medieval rogue, a cunning young man rises through treachery—or is it statesmanship? Alphege at Greenwich by Thorkell the Tall's men, Thorkell defected to Ethelred possibly through Eadric's agency.Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The next year he betrayed Kings Ethelred, Edmund and Canute, almost certainly having Earl Uhtred and King Edmund slain, but he himself was executed by Canute, who distrusted the slimy chap.

Edmund should have won the Battle of Assandun; his forces were superior to the Danes and he had enlisted fresh fighters, compared to the Danish forces who were fewer in number and battle-weary.Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. Edmund assembled an army to resist them but his Mercian forces refused to fight the Danes and disbanded. Canute had taken up residence in London and the Saxon king died a couple of months later – some said from exhaustion, or from wounds taken in battle.

When Ethelred in 1009 proposed a great attack on the Danes, Eadric dissuaded him from carrying it into effect. Thegns bearing these names occur among the witnesses to the charters issued in the name of King Æthelred II in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. These sensations pulled her too deeply into a reality that made her doubt the strength of her purpose. It’s fiction that doesn’t read as heavy historical fiction and it certainly isn’t dry and bogged down by too many details.

He was perhaps the only thoroughly bad King among all the Kings of the English of the West-Saxon line; he seems to have been weak, cowardly, cruel, and bad altogether. But after another unsuccessful assault, the Danes withdrew into Kent, under attack by the loyalists. He began to notch up his chances of being the century’s most villainous person when Eadric first he invited Ælfhelm, earl of Northumbria to be his guest at Shrewsbury. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. After a short space of time his sons, Wulfheah and Ufegeat, were blinded, at King Æthelred's command, at Cookham, where he himself was then staying.

There is no evidence that Eadric’s father, Ethelric, held any titles or contributed to the court in any significant way.Why Edmund kept forgiving him and trusting him remains a mystery—unless it’s because Eadric was married to his sister.