HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2026-10-23T10:40:23.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/period/feed/atom HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/henry-viiis-mistresses-who-else-did-the-tudor-king-sleep-with/ 2026-10-23T10:40:23.000Z 2026-10-23T10:26:00.000Z Popular history is so well versed in the six wives of Henry VIII that they require little introduction. From the colourful bodice-ripper series The Tudors (2007–10) to the feminist retelling in Six (2017–present), we are reminded of the old mantra we learned at school: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
We might also be forgiven for thinking that the king was so busy keeping up with the women to whom he was legally united that he had little time for any others. However, Henry VIII, with his “angelic” face, athletic build and red-gold hair, had an eye for the ladies, and in his early years, particularly, few were able to resist him.
Paradoxically, we can learn most about Henry’s mistresses through his wives. Anne Boleyn’s refusal to sleep with the king in the late 1520s was all the more successful because until this point he was accustomed to other women saying yes. Two of them are known to us: Elizabeth Blount and Anne’s own sister, Mary, who were Henry’s lovers in the late 1510s and early 1520s after he started to question his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Who was Bessie Blount?
Elizabeth, or ‘Bessie’, is the first woman who is known, with any certainty, to have been Henry’s mistress. She was born at Kinlet in Shropshire in around 1500, making her just a teenager when she arrived at Henry’s court. Her family home fell under the jurisdiction of Catherine of Aragon’s first husband, Arthur, so it's possible that the young Catherine saw Bessie as a baby during her residence at Ludlow Castle in 1501–02. In fact, it is quite likely that Bessie’s parents capitalised on this early connection to place their daughter in the queen’s household.
Two court dances suggest the duration of Bessie’s tenure. Bessie is recorded as being one of eight in a masque performed to celebrate new year 1515, partnered by Henry himself. Then, in October 1518 she was paired with courtier Francis Bryan during a masque performed at Durham House in London. It was around this time that she fell pregnant with Henry’s son.
The pregnant Bessie disappeared from court, taken in secret by Henry’s leading minister, Thomas Wolsey, into the safety of the Essex countryside. There, at the Augustinian priory of St Laurence at Blackmore, also known as ‘Jericho’, Bessie gave birth to Henry Fitzroy, the king’s only acknowledged illegitimate child.
Henry stayed at two of his nearby properties that summer, Havering-atte-Bower in August and Beaulieu in September, which would have allowed him to visit his newborn son, had he been minded to do so. What Catherine thought of the arrangement, or whether she was then aware of the situation, is not recorded. Wolsey stood in as godfather and the boy would later be given such significant titles as the Duke of Somerset and Richmond.
A marriage was arranged for Bessie to Gilbert Tailboys in 1522 (although some sources suggest 1519) and she retired from court for a time, bearing at least two more children (some sources suggest up to four) in the early 1520s. The uncertainty of the children’s birth dates has led to speculation that they were fathered by Henry, although by this time we know he had moved on to Mary Boleyn. Bessie remarried in the 1530s following Tailboys’ death and lived long enough to outlive Henry Fitzroy (who died in 1536), serving briefly as a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves shortly before her own death in around 1540.
The other Boleyn sister
Another masque marks the entry of the Boleyn sisters to the Tudor scene. In March 1522, Mary Boleyn took the part of Kindness and Anne that of Perseverance in the Chateau Vert pageant at York Place. Henry was among the eight men led by the figure of ‘Ardent Desire’ to lay siege to the castle to rescue the women.
Anne had recently returned from the French court, which Mary had left several years before – rumours still persisted that Mary had been intimate with Francis I. In February 1520 Henry had attended Mary’s wedding to his gentleman of the privy chamber, William Carey, or at least sent a gift in addition to his offering of 8s 6d. The exact moment Mary became Henry’s mistress is unclear, but it is interesting that her marriage coincided with substantial gifts from Henry to her father and husband.
Much of Mary’s personality and education eludes us, as do the details and duration of her affair with Henry. Both she and Anne were already known to Henry as the daughters of Sir Thomas Boleyn who, along with Wolsey, had masterminded the magnificent Anglo-French meeting at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Yet it was Mary who caught Henry’s eye first and her two children, Catherine and Henry, born in 1524 and 1526 respectively, have sometimes been attributed to the king. As Mary was married, though, the children were legally considered to be those of her husband, who always treated them as such.
By the time of Henry Carey’s birth, though, the king’s attention had wandered to the enchanting, dark-eyed Anne Boleyn. We only know about his prior relationship with Mary because he required a dispensation to marry her sister, and had to admit to the affair. When questioned about his relations with the Boleyn girls and their mother, Henry replied, tellingly, “never with the mother”.
After Carey’s death from the sweating sickness, Mary remarried for love, returning briefly to court during her sister’s reign and admitting her secret. Mary was banished for her indiscretion and lived out her days in the Essex countryside.
Henry’s relations with Bessie and Mary are known to us almost by accident. If Henry Fitzroy had not lived, or had Henry not been forced to declare his past relationship with Mary, he might today be lauded by historians for his faithfulness to Catherine of Aragon.
These accidental survivals raise the question of what other secrets have remained concealed in Henry’s private life. Glimmers of possible affairs can be read into his associations with other women at his court. In 1534, during the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote that Henry had “renewed and increased the love which he formerly bore to another very handsome young lady of his court” and that Anne attempted to “dismiss the damsel from her service”.
Referred to as the ‘imperial lady’, the identity of this woman cannot be verified, but her presence seems to have put a strain upon Henry’s marriage, occasioning harsh words between husband and wife. ‘Imperial’ may not have referred to the woman’s origins but instead highlighted her sympathies to the cause of Rome and Henry’s rejected daughter, Mary.
Also from this era date the rumours of Henry’s involvement with Anne Boleyn’s cousin, Margaret (or ‘Madge’) Shelton, who may be the same person as Mary Shelton, who until recently was assumed to be Anne’s sister. Chapuys’ letters from February 1535 make reference to a Mistress Shelton, and any affair she had with Henry would date to that year. Early in 1536 Madge was engaged to the ill-fated Henry Norris, who lost his head along with Anne Boleyn that May. Mistress Shelton was suggested as a potential wife for the widowed king two years later, but she married another man in 1546 and lived well into the reign of Elizabeth I.
Who were the other rumoured mistresses?
Most of the other reputed mistresses who may have shared Henry’s bed date from the earlier part of his reign. During Catherine of Aragon’s first pregnancy, in 1509, Henry was embroiled with Anne Hastings, sister of the Duke of Buckingham and a newly married member of Catherine’s household. Henry’s close friend William Compton appears to have acted as a go-between, although Anne later went on to have an affair with Compton himself. Henry sent her away from court in retaliation.
There was also a ‘Madame the Bastard’ who kept Henry dancing into the small hours of the morning in 1513 at the court of Margaret of Savoy, and Étiennette de la Baume, whose plaintive letter to Henry asking for assistance reminded him of the promise he had made her when leaving France that year, and that he had called her his ‘page’.
There was the mysterious Jane Popincourt, who was refused entry to France by Louis XII, with the comment that she should be burned, plus a host of other ladies who received gifts from Henry at some point, or danced with him in a masque. Their connections with Henry are only fleeting and suggested, yet they might hint at secrets that the king had hidden more successfully than those of Bessie and Mary.
Given Henry’s desire for an heir, it is unsurprising that various stories survive that connect him with illegitimate paternity. The timing of these is interesting, with three in particular dating from the period when the king was wooing Anne Boleyn and, apparently, refraining from sex. If Henry did not sleep with Anne until 1532, Tudor medicine would have advised him not to remain completely celibate, as this would have been thought to imperil his health. Accordingly, Henry may have sought solace elsewhere.
Mary Berkeley had been married in 1526 to her uncle’s ward, Thomas Perrot, settling in Pembrokeshire. Perrot had been knighted by Henry that year and was a great hunter; it is thought that Mary was part of Catherine’s household, placing the pair at court during these years. Mary’s eldest son, John, was born in November 1528 and reputedly bore a great resemblance to the king. As a young man John was in the king’s favour – Henry once intervened to prevent him from being punished after he was drawn into a brawl. Later involved with piracy, debt, deception and scandal, John’s reputed parentage may have been a convenient way to escape retribution.
In the same way, another man claimed to be Henry’s son, with perhaps the same intentions. Thomas Stukeley was employed as a standard bearer in 1547, in his late teens. The son of Jane Pollard, who was married in around 1520 to Sir Hugh Stukeley, Thomas is thought to have been conceived when Henry stayed at their Devon home of Affeton Castle. Thomas was something of a romantic figure, and poems and plays written about him after his death (for example, George Peele’s 1590s work The Battle of Alcazar) served to inflame such rumours.
Finally, the child arguably most likely to be related to Henry is an Ethelreda, or Audrey, Malte. If Henry had sought sexual satisfaction from someone other than Anne Boleyn, he is more likely to have turned to a woman of the lower classes, who were considered to be more ‘earthy’ and would not complicate lines of dynastic inheritance. Audrey’s mother was a Joan or Joanna Dingley, employed as a royal laundress, and the girl was raised by one of the cutters in the king’s wardrobe [who cut clothing patterns out of cloth]. John Malte “and Awdrye his base daughter” received a grant of £1,312 from the king while he lay on his deathbed, a huge sum for mere servants. Nothing more is known of Joanna or her daughter.
What this exploration of Henry’s love life makes tantalisingly clear is the fragile nature of the surviving sources. Henry’s desire for secrecy, and his ability to achieve it, are coupled with the problematic nature of rumour and second-hand accounts that date from this period. It may be that Chapuys exaggerated, or that Perrot made false claims; perhaps, in the case of Jane Popincourt, Louis XII was mistaken; or Anne Hastings’ sister was being over-protective.
What we know for certain is that our scant knowledge of Henry’s affairs with Bessie and Mary reached us accidentally and indirectly. Far from being a prude, Henry was a very private man and took measures to cover his tracks. When it comes to the question of who shared the king’s bed, it is likely that we will never know the full truth.
Amy Licence is an author and historian. Her latest book is Philip II: The King, the Man, the Marriages (The History Press, 2026)
A version of this article was first published by HistoryExtra in February 2016
]]> Kev Lochun <![CDATA[Pompeii wasn’t destroyed when you think it was]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/pompeii-wasnt-destroyed-when-you-think-it-was-video/ 2026-10-23T10:57:29.000Z 2026-10-23T09:54:32.000Z How do pomegranates help to unlock a 2,000-year-old mystery? Here's how they illuminate whether we've got one of the most basic facts about the destruction of Pompeii wrong.
For centuries, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Pompeii has most regularly been dated to 24 August AD 79. But a growing collection of archaeological clues – from mysterious graffiti and Roman coins to woollen clothing, grapes and even pomegranates – suggests the disaster may actually have struck months later.
So when did Vesuvius really erupt? *HistoryExtra'*s Kev Lochun, with expertise from Dr Jess Venner, investigates the evidence behind one of ancient Rome’s most enduring mysteries – and asks whether a 2,000-year-old assumption needs to be rewritten.
You can watch Kev's full podcast series, four episodes on the mysteries of Pompeii with Dr Jess Venner.
View Green Video on the source website]]> James Osborne <![CDATA[The Vikings had a terrifying myth about the end of the world. Was it inspired by a real deadly disaster?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/fimbulwinter-inspired-by-real-disaster/ 2026-10-23T09:16:17.000Z 2026-10-23T09:16:17.000Z The legend goes something like this: before the gods met their enemies in their final battle, an unprecedented winter would take hold. A thick blizzard would come down from every direction, blocking out the weakening sun. Three successive winters would pass, with no summer between them.
This is the story of Fimbulwinter, the “mighty winter” of Norse mythology: the prelude to the destruction of the world at Ragnarök. It’s a story preserved in the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda; one part of a broader suite of legendary tales from these two sources of Norse mythology.
But what if Fimbulwinter wasn’t just a story, but rather, a memory?
“We know beyond any doubt now there were a series of really drastic volcanic eruptions in the mid-500s, with enormous effects on Scandinavia, that really impacted the population” says Professor Neil Price, one of the foremost world experts on the Viking Age.
Scientific evidence confirms the eruptions, but establishing what they did to Scandinavian communities is harder, and tracing their effects into stories told centuries later is harder still. Price nevertheless suspects that accounts of the disaster survived through oral storytelling, eventually becoming preserved for evermore as part of the grand Norse vision of the world’s end.
A fragmented empire
The volcanic eruptions Professor Price describes struck more than two centuries before the conventional (though contentious) beginning of the Viking Age in the late eighth century. In this early medieval period, Scandinavians then lived in farming societies connected by trade, warfare and travel to the rest of Europe, where Roman imperial power had broken down. Some historians refer to this period of turbulence the Age of Migrations. But Professor Price argues that the vast movement of peoples was only part of the upheaval.
“What we're really looking at is the disintegration of a superpower,” he says, speaking on an upcoming episode of the HistoryExtra podcast. “What happens when something like the Roman Empire begins to come apart in different ways, at different speeds, in different places, all through its territory, and what comes out of that?”
- Read more | This Viking ruler begged to be dismembered – but his rival had something far worse in mind
Imperial rule in western Europe fragmented during the fifth century. Scandinavia had never been a Roman province, but its inhabitants were connected to the empire’s economic and military networks. Disruption farther south affected the movement of goods, wealth and people. “There is a decline in the numbers of settlements, the numbers of cemeteries, basically a decline in human habitation in Scandinavia at this time,” Price explains.
Amid this destabilisation, Scandinavian mercenaries returning north, Price suggests, could use their military experience to strengthen their position at home, consolidating power around themselves as regional warlords. So, communities were already dealing with economic disruption, conflict and shifts in political authority when the eruptions began.
Changing climates
In AD 536, observers around the Mediterranean reported an unusually dim sun. The historian Procopius, writing about the wars of the eastern Roman emperor Justinian, described weak sunlight resembling an eclipse. Other accounts recorded disturbed seasons and problems with food supplies. These witnesses were far from Scandinavia, so their reports show how widely the effects were felt.
Researchers can compare those accounts with records preserved in ice and wood, thanks to archaeological science. Ice cores contain sulphate deposited after volcanic eruptions; unusually narrow tree rings can indicate poor growing conditions. Together, they help researchers connect eruptions with periods of abrupt cooling.
This evidence points to major eruptions in 536 and around 540, followed by another in 547. In a short window, the climate suffered repeated, violent disturbances. As a result, says Price, “you end up with something resembling a volcanic winter.”
For communities of early medieval Scandinavia, these eruptions would have been catastrophic. “The margins of subsistence [in this region], in terms of the regular climate, the scarcity of agricultural land and so on, they're so much narrower than they are in, say, the Mediterranean.”
Unlike in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean, Scandinavian farmers needed enough warmth to bring in their harvest before autumn. They also had to gather fodder to keep livestock alive through winter. A poor growing season threatened both sources of food. Repeated agricultural failures would make survival nearly impossible.
“Some scholars have estimated that the combined impact just of the volcanic eruptions is a 50 per cent mortality rate, not universally across Scandinavia, but in some places,” says Price. “In social terms, that's catastrophic.”
Even where communities survived, their inhabitants faced years of disruption. “An awful lot of lives were not only ended, but the lives of all the survivors were also disrupted.”
A legendary truth?
Price thinks those experiences of intense climate disruption may help explain the legend of Fimbulwinter. He sees similarities between the environmental crisis and the wider mythology of Ragnarök: darkness, cold, hunger and the breakdown of social order; a memory of a real environmental catastrophe, passed down across generations, possibly transformed over the course of centuries into this frosty myth of the precursor to the end of the world.
But Ragnarök, despite all the death and despair, isn’t a tale of total doom. The stories also describe a world renewed after the destruction, though scholars debate how Christian influence may have shaped the surviving accounts. For Price, the prospect of life continuing after catastrophe is another possible connection with the sixth-century experience.
- Read more | This Viking warlord had a magical banner that promised victory. But it had a secret curse
“Ragnarök is not in the past tense. It's still in the future. [And] of course, in the 6th century, the world didn't actually end,” says Price. “People did get past that.”
Research into connections between natural events and traditional stories is called geomythology. These connections can be suggestive and persuasive, but similarities alone don’t prove that a story descended from a particular event. Could a culture that has had no experience of a long, harsh winter create a myth that tells of a long, harsh winter, drawn from imagination rather than reality? Logically, yes. Retaining some scepticism is important.
That’s why Price says “it's an interesting idea, but it's also a bit risky and like a circular argument because you find what you're looking for in the end.”
“But personally, I think the idea that there is an echo of that disruption, that trauma, centuries later in the Norse myth of the end of the world, I think it's very strong.”
Neil Price was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast.
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[History crossword: 16 October]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/history-crossword-16-october/ 2026-10-23T08:07:05.000Z 2026-10-23T07:31:30.000Z View Riddle on the source website]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The History Round: our weekly trivia challenge]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/general-history/weekly-history-quiz/ 2026-10-23T07:31:14.000Z 2026-10-23T07:31:14.000Z Test your knowledge with our general knowledge weekly history quiz...
View Riddle on the source website
Did you know we have other regular quizzes here at HistoryExtra? To test your historical knowledge even further, try our daily quizzes, or our weekly crossword.
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Can you solve our history crossword of the week?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/general-history/crossword/ 2026-10-23T07:30:10.000Z 2026-10-23T07:30:10.000Z View Riddle on the source website]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Daily Quiz: 23 October]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/daily-history-trivia-quiz/ 2026-10-23T06:00:10.000Z 2026-10-23T06:00:10.000Z View Riddle on the source website
If you want to test your historical knowledge further, why not try our weekly crossword too?
]]> Jonny Wilkes <![CDATA[Malaria once ravaged Britain. Could it come back?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/general-history/malaria-once-ravaged-britain-could-it-come-back/ 2026-10-22T14:01:03.000Z 2026-10-22T14:00:22.000Z According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were 263 million cases of malaria and 597,000 deaths around the world in 2023. The life-threatening disease, spread by infected mosquito bites, is most associated with sub-Saharan Africa, but it used to be a scourge in the UK.
From the 15th to 19th centuries, the marshland areas of southeast England, the Fens and up the Yorkshire coast were ravaged by malaria, although under names like ‘marsh fever’ and ‘ague’. Spread by the Anopheles mosquito, it came with high levels of mortality. Parishes in marshland areas in the 1600s and 1700s recorded deaths rates from ague at between 60 and 80 per 1,000 people, or two or three times as much as non-marshland parishes.
This was also a time when people believed in the miasma theory, which claimed that diseases spread through foul-smelling air. So, even though it is extremely rare for malaria to be passed from person to person, there was a fear that once someone came down with ague, the whole community could be in danger.
How widespread was malaria and what were the cures?
Ague was so prevalent that it merited mentions in literature throughout the centuries, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. William Shakespeare referred to the disease in a number of his plays, including Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Tempest. In King Lear, he even coined the term, “ague-proof”.
Not only the poor living on marshland perished, either, since malaria could be found along the length of the River Thames, bringing it to the capital of London. James VI and I contracted the disease as his health finally failed in 1625, and Oliver Cromwell succumbed to malaria in 1658.
Common remedies included opium and alcohol, although they didn’t prove to be overly effective. The treatment of malaria truly improved with the introduction of quinine, found in the bark of the cinchona trees of South America. It was called Jesuit’s Bark, as it had been brought to Europe by Jesuit missionaries.
This association with Catholics, however, meant that physicians in Protestant England were initially reluctant to administer the medicine. After its first use in England, attributed to Robert Brady in 1660, quinine grew in popularity after being used to treat Charles II.
Why did malaria die out in the UK?
Malaria gradually died out in England, helped by better healthcare, sanitation and housing, along with the drainage of marshlands. Larger livestock populations may have also distracted mosquitoes from biting humans, too.
The disease remained a threat until the 20th century, though. The last outbreak in the UK occurred in the years after the First World War, when British soldiers serving in the Balkans, where malaria was endemic, fell ill in huge numbers. When they were brought back to the UK for recuperation, especially to areas with lots of mosquitoes, such as the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, the infection spread quickly.
It is thought that there were nearly 500 cases between 1917 and 1921, although this paled in comparison to the Spanish Flu that wreaked havoc in Europe at the same time.
Could malaria return?
The last indigenous case of malaria in the UK came in the 1950s, and by 1975 WHO declared the eradication of the disease in Europe.
While highly unlikely to be endemic once more, scientists have suggested that climate change and the volume of traffic with areas where malaria remains a serious risk could bring new types of mosquitoes to the UK.
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[This Viking ruler begged to be dismembered – but his rival had something far worse in mind]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/viking-leaders-orkney/ 2026-10-21T14:31:04.000Z 2026-10-21T14:30:39.000Z It’s Easter time, 1116. Hardly a fitting moment for an act of great treachery. Yet this was medieval Orkney, and treachery was very much on the menu.
That spring day 910 years ago, two powerful men came face to face on the island of Egilsay, in order to seal a peace agreement. Magnús Erlendsson and Hákon Pálsson were cousins and co-rulers of the Earldom of Orkney, and had been for years. But things were about to change.
Hákon had decided that he’d had enough of sharing power with his cousin, and so he lured Magnús into a trap. After a period of escalating tensions, Hákon had arranged what was ostensibly a peace meeting between the two rulers. But when Magnús arrived, he swiftly realised that he was outnumbered by eight warships to two – and that Hákon harboured violent intent.
- Read more | The real Viking Age: when did the era of Norse expansion start and end?
Magnús knew that he had been outwitted. And so he made Hákon three offers in an attempt to save his life. Firstly, Magnús offered to go to Rome and Jerusalem to “redeem both our souls” and never return. This was refused. Then he suggested going into captivity in Scotland. This, too, was turned down.
Then Magnús made a third offer: to be dismembered, or blinded, and imprisoned. Hákon was at first inclined to accept this bid. But Orkney’s chieftains were having none of it.
“We must kill one or the other of you now,” they declared. “And you shall not both rule the lands from this day forth.”
“Kill him then!” said Hákon. “Because I want to rule the territory and the lands before I die so suddenly.”
The killing of Magnús Erlendsson is arguably the central episode in The Saga of the Earls of Orkney, a narrative history of the Orkney and Shetland islands and Caithness in the medieval period, embellished with layers of fantasy.
In the Saga’s telling of this 12th-century showdown between co-rulers, Magnús’s martyrdom – not to mention a series of miracles attributed to him – led to his recognition as a saint two decades later. Over the following decades, Orcadians’ reverence for Magnús only grew – as did a building constructed to house his relics. That building, St Magnus Cathedral, still stands in the town of Kirkwall: Scotland’s oldest and most northerly cathedral and an impressive, Romanesque tribute to the slain earl.
The aftermath
Given Magnús’s status, it’s hardly surprising that the Saga was full of praise for his capabilities as a ruler. He was, we’re told:
“The most outstanding person, imposing in size, manly and intelligent-looking, well-mannered in his conduct, victorious in battles, wise in his understanding, eloquent and imperious... He gave many gifts to chieftains and powerful men, and yet he often showed the most care for poor people.”
But what of Hákon? Perhaps surprisingly, the Saga doesn’t paint the architect of Magnús’s death as wholly evil. After a brief period of oppressing Magnús’s followers, Hákon, we’re told, had a change of heart. He travelled to Rome and Jerusalem and bathed in the river Jordan. On his return to Orkney he became “a good ruler and brought peace to his territory... At this his popularity began to grow; in the end, the Orcadians wanted nothing more than to have Hákon and his offspring as their chieftains.”
So what was going on here? Why was the Saga willing to give Hákon, slayer of the saintly Magnús, such a positive press? The answer lies in the distinctive way power was inherited in the Earldom of Orkney.
Royal support
The origins of the earldom lie in the Viking Age settlement of parts of what is now Scotland in the ninth and tenth centuries. This meant that the earldom developed in a Norwegian tradition of inheritance, in which territory was divided between family members who had equal claims to it.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Earldom encompassed Shetland and Caithness as well as Orkney. It was soon established as a Christian polity presided over by earls who owed their power to the king of Norway. And because of that Norwegian inheritance system, there were often two or more earls, usually close kinsmen, ruling together.
- Read more | Meet the mysterious leaders of the Vikings’ most fearsome army
This was the context confronting the authors of the Saga when, in the early 13th century, they described Hákon’s deeds. The elevation of Magnús to sanctity suggests some disapproval – at least from the church – of such political killings. But the attitude of the chieftains, and Hákon’s popularity, opens a window on an alternative viewpoint in the Saga: that peace and prosperity could only be achieved when there was a single ruler.
The history of the Earldom of Orkney suggests that this viewpoint had more than a little merit. The death of Magnús at the hands of his cousin and co-earl is the best-known example of such a killing in the Saga. Yet it was far from the only one. In fact, the Saga is studded with examples of co-rulership ending in violence.
A beginner's guide to The Saga of the Earls of Orkney How do we know so much about the exploits of the rulers of early medieval Orkney? The answer lies in The Saga of the Earls of Orkney, otherwise known as the Orkneyinga Saga. The sagas are long, prose narratives of varying types. But those written with historical intent focus on the Viking Age (c750–1100) and the following centuries, and are mostly set in Iceland or Norway. The Saga of the Earls of Orkney is the only one of these set largely in the British Isles, reflecting the fact that parts of what is now Scotland then belonged culturally and politically to that Scandinavian world. It tells the story of the rulers of northern Scotland and their henchmen, taking the reader on a journey from their ancestry in Norway through to the beginning of the 13th century. Its account, particularly of the 11th and 12th centuries, presents a plausible, though certainly partial, outline of the main events of that time. Most of the action takes place in Orkney and Caithness, with occasional forays to Shetland. Readers are also taken to Ireland, and even the Holy Land via Galicia and Narbonne. The narrative is predominantly realistic, but it also has supernatural elements and a host of weird and wonderful characters. The Saga was compiled in Iceland in the early 13th century. It is, however, clearly based on the testimony of informants knowledgeable about northern Scotland, and on traditions from across the Viking diaspora. These traditions include the poetry quoted in the Saga, composed at the time of the events described. The narrative is firmly situated in the landscape of northern Scotland. As such it mentions locales that, in many cases, visitors to this beautiful part of the world can still see in the landscape today.
It all started in the early 11th century – decades before the rise of Hákon and Magnús – when the earldom was ruled by three of five brothers: Sumarliði, Einarr and Brúsi. When Sumarliði died, the youngest brother, Þorfinnr, staked his claim. Einarr was eliminated and Brúsi died of natural causes, leaving Þorfinnr to share power with his nephew, Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason.
But Þorfinnr was not inclined to rule alongside his nephew. And so, like Magnús in the following century, Rǫgnvaldr was killed by a follower of his co-earl – this time on the island of Papa Stronsay. And like Hákon, Þorfinnr went on to become a successful sole ruler, known as the ‘Mighty’.
Þorfinnr was succeeded by his sons, who got along just fine before their own sons – Magnús and Hákon – grew up. The Earldom of Orkney continued to follow the Norwegian model of co-rulers, and so the cycle of internecine violence was fated to continue.
As Magnús had no children, the rule then reverted to Hákon’s sons (by different mothers), Páli and Haraldr. This time, the elimination of one of the co-earls, Haraldr, happened by accident when he put on a deadly linen garment intended by his mother for his half-brother Páli.
Páli ruled alone until his second cousin, Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson), emerged to claim his part of the earldom. He was the son of St Magnús’s sister and had been brought up in Norway. His role in the capture and elimination of Páli by an enigmatic Saga character called Sveinn Ásleifarson is not clear, but it undoubtedly benefited him, clearing his way to the earldom.
But Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson) was not to rule alone. Páli’s sister, Margét, saw an opportunity for her son, Haraldr Maddaðarson, to replace Páli and rule as co-earl with Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson), who was persuaded by a couple of bishops to agree to this. The bishops perhaps did not anticipate any problems, as Haraldr was only three at the time. And the two earls ruled together quite successfully for 20 years. But then events took a familiar turn.
In 1158, Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson)’s life was brought to a violent end by a man called Þorbjǫrn, kinsman of Haraldr. In the Saga’s telling of events, Þorbjǫrn acknowledged his guilt but told Haraldr it was for his benefit:
“This deed that I have done is a great crime, and I am responsible, but all the territory has fallen into your power.”
Þorbjǫrn was right. Haraldr went on to become sole earl, ruling alone for 48 more years. However, unlike Hákon and Þorfinnr before him (those other earls who went on to enjoy long tenures in power following the deaths of their co-rulers), Haraldr didn’t get a particularly sympathetic hearing from the Saga. Other sagas show that he was also responsible for losing half of Caithness to the king of Scotland.
As for Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson), he fared a lot better in the Saga’s pages. Like his uncle Magnús, he was venerated as a saint:
“His death was much lamented, because he was very popular there in the isles and widely elsewhere. He had been of assistance to many people, generous with money, calm and loyal to friends, a man of many skills and a good poet.”
This was high praise indeed. But such praise was rarely lavished on the earls’ henchmen. In fact, in a trope widely found in medieval literature, the Saga repeatedly attributes the earls’ murderous actions to the malign influence of their advisers.
Of the bust-up between Þorfinnr and Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason, the Saga writes:
“There was always a good relationship between the kinsmen when they met, but if worse men intervened, then there were differences.”
The same applies for Magnús and Hákon. These co-rulers are shown to have cooperated in the defence of their lands, but “when the kinsmen had ruled the land for some time, then it transpired as it more often and regularly does that many ill-intentioned men took to destroying their relationship”.
Despite the Saga’s misgivings, power-sharing persisted until the early 1200s, a century after Magnús’s death. So what are we to make of the system of co-rulership practised in the Earldom of Orkney? Was it always destined to end in bloodshed? And why did it endure so long? To answer these questions, we need to look to the realm that exerted such power over the earldom in the Viking Age: Norway.
Single and stable?
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Norway was also often ruled by co-kings, always close relatives, often brothers. Some historians have argued that such power-sharing arrangements led to more stable societies than those in which power was concentrated in single hands.
However, just as it sets out the challenges presented by co-rulership in the Earldom of Orkney, so the Saga describes the spectacular breakdown in relations between Norwegian kings. For example, in an episode set in the 1130s, the Saga notes that:
“Magnús and Haraldr [who were nephew and uncle] were kings of Norway for three winters, while their agreement could be said to hold, but in the fourth summer they fought at Färlev.”
Whatever the pros and cons of co-rulership, by the mid-13th century Norway had adopted a sole monarchy, bolstered by detailed legislation, primogeniture and the support of the church. The Orkney Earldom could not go down this road as it was never a kingdom nor powerful enough to become one. Yet it’s hard not to conclude from the Saga that power-sharing usually worked for a time, but always ended badly.
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Overall, there is a sense that neither the Icelandic compilers of the Saga nor their informants from Scotland were impressed by the earls, whether ruling jointly or singly.
What the general population thought of their rulers is harder to discern. The Saga tells us that when Earl Hákon Pálsson was struck down by disease, “people thought that was a great shame because it was very peaceful in his latter days and the householders were doubtful of any co-operation between the brothers Páli and Haraldr”. But the Saga focuses mainly on the doings of the earls and their closest associates. The ‘little people’ remain largely anonymous.
The last co-earls mentioned in the Saga were Haraldr Maddaðarson’s sons, Davíð and Jón. But Davíð died in 1214 and the Saga ends with Jón as sole earl of the Orkneys. By then, the islands were a part of a Norwegian empire that had also experienced its own period of civil wars, but had come through to establish a strong monarchy.
The earls of Orkney continued to wield a degree of power. But, over the following centuries – increasingly living in the shadow of the kingdoms of Norway and Scotland – that power would wane.
Judith Jesch specialises in Old Norse language and literature, and the Viking Age. Her translation of The Saga of the Earls of Orkney was published by Birlinn in 2025.
This article was first published in the November 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
]]> Elinor Evans <![CDATA[America's anti-Chinese laws: a forgotten history]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/americas-anti-chinese-laws-forgotten-history-podcast/ 2026-10-21T14:12:36.000Z 2026-10-21T14:12:36.000Z From the middle of the 19th century, Chinese people in the United States found themselves increasingly policed, as legislation was introduced that contained and controlled their economic and cultural lives.
Historian Beth Lew-Williams tells Elinor Evans about her work uncovering this wide-reaching set of laws for her book John Doe Chinaman, and reveals how Chinese people resisted and avoided discrimination.
Beth’s book is a finalist for the 2026 Cundill History Prize – you can find more details at cundillprize.com.
Find out more about the Chinese Exclusion Act.
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