Arthur of the Red Robe Read online

  Arthur of the Red Robe

  Gerry Spoors

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Arthur of the Red Robe

  About The Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Gerry’s Memoir – Part 1

  Gerry’s Memoir – Part 2

  Gerry’s Memoir – Part 3

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Gerry Spoors has an Honours degree in Chemistry, and is a Chartered Chemist, Chartered Scientist and fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In his spare time, he has spent many years studying the history of early Britain, particularly what is now Northern England and Southern Scotland. The main tribe occupying this area was the Votadini, and their greatest Chieftain was Cunedda, whose descendants significantly influenced subsequent British history.

  Dedication

  To Julie, Geoffrey and Kenneth

  Copyright Information ©

  Gerry Spoors (2019)

  The right of Gerry Spoors to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents in this publication are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 9781788784801 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781788784818 (Hardback)

  ISBN 9781528955607 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Arthur of the Red Robe

  Splendid he was in battle, with his nine hundred horse, Cunedda—the Lion—son of Aeternus.

  Chapter 1

  “They really do work! Elaine, Kenneth—they work just like it says in the book,” shouted Gerry, rushing in from the garden.

  “Oh God, what now?” replied Kenneth, unenthusiastically, familiar as he was with his dad’s earth-shattering observations. In fact, he was almost convinced that his dad’s ‘discoveries’ were a result of aberrations of the mind in his middle age.

  “These, look!” said Gerry, thrusting two pieces of wire coat-hangers into his son’s hand. However, they had lost their familiar shape having been cut, straightened and then bent into right-angled rods of 30 cm by 20 cm. “Dowsing rods!”

  “Oh sure, and I suppose you’ve also located an underground lake out there. Anyway, I’m going into the garage to do my weights.”

  “Look, I’ll show you,” said Gerry.

  Lightly gripping the short arms of the rods in his outstretched hands, with the longer arms pointing forwards, Gerry walked slowly along the length of the garden. Then suddenly the rods began to swing towards each other of their own accord.

  “Go on, try it! It’s not a trick—they just move.”

  “But Dad, even if they do work, why should they work here? I thought they were used to trace sources of water.”

  “Ah! That’s what I used to think until I got this book out of the library. The author has spent many years surveying the grounds of old churches and locating the foundations of earlier walls and even the underground remnants of complete buildings. Just look at all of these plans from churches throughout the land. The existing walls are shown in solid lines, whilst the outlines of walls that have long since been demolished are shown in broken lines. He quotes an accuracy of +/− 3 cm!”

  “OK,” said Kenneth, “but what on earth can they have picked up in the garden?”

  “Well, these houses were built on the site of an old farm and I presume that down at the bottom of the garden, where the rods began to twitch, there are still some foundations of the old buildings. Go on, you have a go!”

  And so he did. It didn’t take long for Kenneth to get the knack, and he was soon as convinced about dowsing as his old man.

  “Dad, why don’t we take them with us on Sunday? You never know what we might find.”

  ***

  For some years now, Gerry had been fascinated by the history of the people who had inhabited Britain before the days of the so-called Anglo-Saxons. He was especially interested in the inhabitants of what were now North-East England and southern Scotland. Eventually, this area would become part of the great English kingdom of Northumbria with its royal towns of Bamburgh, Gefrin (Yeavering) and possibly two others; one thought to be in what was now County Durham and the other near York. This was long before Scotland or England even existed as countries.

  The Roman Empire had never really ended at Hadrian’s Wall. North of that great monument, in some of the most magnificent countryside in Britannia, lived British people who dwelled in tribal kingdoms that had lasted for perhaps hundreds of years, with ever-changing boundaries. The Romans were quite happy to allow the ruling royal families of these lands to remain in place, and in exchange, the Roman authorities had a buffer zone that helped to keep marauding Picts at bay.

  The rulers of these frontier lands and their families had full Romano-British status and their kingdoms had ‘associate’ membership of the Roman Empire. Those of royal blood took Roman names. The largest and most powerful tribal kingdom was that of the Votadini, sometimes known as the Gododdin, or Guotodin. At the height of their power, the Votadini controlled the area of land that stretched from the Forth to the Tees and possibly even further. North of the Forth lay the territories of the Pictish peoples who spoke a different type of language to that spoken by the rest of the British peoples, which has been labelled as Brythonic. South of the Tees was also occupied by Parisii and Brigantes, the latter also having considerable influence across the other side of the Pennines.

  The greatest of the Votadini kings was Cunedda (pronounced Cynetha), whose exploits were talked and sung about in settlements throughout Britain. Cunedda’s sons and grandsons spread far and wide, becoming rulers in their own right of British kingdoms in the North and West. In the aftermath of the Roman withdrawal, they were at the forefront of the ongoing battle to keep the invading Anglo-Saxons, as well as the Picts, at bay. Many heroic deeds were spoken of by the poets of the 5th and 6th centuries.

  ***

  “Right, Dad,” said Kenneth, “I’ve marked out a route up to Yeavering Bell. I reckon that if we park at Old Yeavering, we can make it up to the Bell in less than two hours. I’ve also written out a list of the provisions that we require, so that you can get them when you do your shopping on Friday night.”

  “OK, let’s have a look then. Nuts, chocolate, crisps, stuff for sandwiches, chocolate biscuits. Crikey! You know we’re only going for a day’s walking in the Cheviots?” replied Gerry.

  “Yes, but you never know when an emergency will happen. I have to follow my ‘Duke of Edinburgh’s Award’ training.”

  On Sunday, Gerry and Kenneth set off for the 90-minute drive to Yeaveri
ng. It was early May and the weather was perfect for walking—a beautiful spring day. Old Yeavering turned out to be a few small, terraced cottages near to the northern foot of the Bell—which was a strange name for a hill with twin peaks. They left the car at the side of the road—in fact, it was parked just opposite the field where the English royal settlement of Ad Gefrin (as Bede called it) had been in the 6th and 7th centuries, but whose foundations could now only be picked out by aerial observation.

  The walk was easy for a fit and experienced 17-year-old like Kenneth. Gerry was all right at first, until the slope increased and they got off the beaten path. The public footpath marked on the map soon disappeared on the ground but never mind—they soon found themselves next to a small stream that 1500 or more years ago might have supplied fresh water to the inhabitants of the Votadini stronghold that stood on top of the ‘Bell’. Suddenly there was a rustle, and a bird the size of a farmyard chicken—the like of which Gerry had never seen before—scuttled out of a bush and half flew, half jumped across the stream and into the undergrowth. It also disturbed a few of the sheep that were quietly grazing.

  “What on earth was that?” said Gerry.

  “Probably a pheasant,” replied Kenneth, and they both laughed as they automatically thought of their favourite phrase for not very pleasant people, which was ‘pheasant pluckers!’

  Kenneth hadn’t really seen it anyway, as he was about 40 yards ahead of his dad by now.

  “I don’t know about that. It looked very strange to me,” said his dad, who was inclined to look on anything unusual as a sign that he was about to make a great discovery or observation—relatively speaking, at least.

  They stopped for something to eat and drink, tucking into Mam’s delicious sandwiches, then cake and Penguin chocolate biscuits. Gerry could have killed for a cup of tea, but Kenneth wouldn’t tolerate anything but water on the expedition.

  “Just think,” said Gerry, “Fifteen hundred years ago, Votadini men and women might have been tending sheep on these slopes. In fact, these very creatures could be their descendants.”

  “Dad, are you feeling all right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Never mind. By the way, have you noticed how these gorse bushes also look like sheep, standing on their hind legs?”

  “Son, are you feeling alright?” said Dad, ducking as a half-eaten cheese sandwich came flying past his head.

  PHOTO 1: “By the way, have you noticed how these gorse bushes look like sheep, standing on their hind legs?”

  They set off again—and it wasn’t easy. Rather, it was obvious that they were not taking the normal route to the top. Thousands upon thousands of loose, small stones were lying underfoot, making fast progress difficult. Eventually, they reached what appeared to be the outer wall of the settlement. It was really just a pile of large stones that acted as the perimeter. It was quite surprising how the boundary had retained its resemblance to a wall, considering the numbers of ramblers and sheep that must have scrambled across it over the years. Not to mention the rain, hail and snow; and the farmers who must have taken countless thousands of stones for their own walls. And presumably around the seventh century A.D. this settlement would have been destroyed by the English—after the Votadini had fled—or perhaps they moved in when native British still lived here. A massacre may even have occurred—who knows? So very little is known of the history of that time.

  Kenneth and Gerry soon reached the first of Yeavering Bell’s two summits and they decided just to walk around and get a general feel for the place.

  “This is absolutely astounding,” was Gerry’s first comment. “Magnificent!” Certainly the sheer size of the fort was simply breath-taking. It looked as if the remains of buildings—in reality just small piles of stones or mounds of raised ground—were concentrated on the two peaks. The saddle in between the peaks seemed to show less evidence of any construction. However, even on the peaks, there were gaps where you would have thought there would have been some sort of hut—or perhaps that was where animals were kept in staked areas.

  Kenneth now started mapping out the whole hill while his dad continued walking around, seemingly in some sort of a trance! There was no doubt that the eastern peak had a different character to the western one. First of all, it was higher and it had a mound of stones at its pinnacle. This mound was obviously the work of the many walkers who had come to this spot over the years, and some had even inscribed their names on a rock. Could this have been the home of the more senior people of the tribe? Had Cunedda himself stood on this very spot? There was definitely a distinct physical separation between the two peaks and the two explorers, who were now comparing notes, thought this to be a reasonable hypothesis.

  After about an hour of walking around and generally getting a feel for the place, Kenneth and Gerry decided to see if the dowsing rods would be of any assistance. The trouble was, that coming up the hill on the proper path, which could now be seen from their new vantage point to be a couple of hundred yards to the east of the one they had taken, was a party of ramblers, all resplendent in anoraks, boots and thick woolly socks. And quite frankly, Gerry was a bit embarrassed at using the rods in public!

  Fortunately, as each rambler reached the top, they seemed to head automatically towards the eastern peak. So, the explorers decided to start using the rods. They had already decided to try dowsing the saddle between the two peaks and the northern slope of the western peak. They felt a bit silly at first, but gradually got into the swing of things. Taking turns at holding the rods and sketching the profiles, they slowly built up a picture of one or two round structures, now hidden by soil and grass—which were presumably huts or store-houses of some kind—and other assorted shapes which could have been anything. There was one small group of stones, which just seemed to be clumped together for no particular reason.

  “Let’s have a look at these,” said Gerry. “They might be part of a wall or something.”

  The reaction to the dowsing rods was more pronounced, slightly away from and at right angles to the stones.

  PHOTO 2: The reaction to the dowsing rods was more pronounced, slightly away from and at right angles to the stones.

  “I wonder if it’s a channel or an old trench,” said Kenneth as he patiently walked backwards and forwards across the line of the ‘trench’. The stones themselves were obviously not part of any structure, so they decided to move one or two, and then one or two more.

  “Dad, I think it’s just a rabbit warren or a fox-hole.”

  “Well I suppose it might be, but…”

  Gerry’s next words were incomprehensible as his foot suddenly disappeared into a hole that had opened up in the ground behind the stones, as he had stepped backwards. By now, Kenneth had collapsed into a heap, seeing his dad flapping his arms around like a demented windmill.

  “Thanks a lot. It’s really funny, isn’t it?”

  Actually, it was quite difficult, even with Kenneth’s help, to extricate the foot. It seemed to be trapped between two large stones that were inside the burrow. Kenneth put his hand into the hole to see if he could manoeuvre the stones out of the way. However, the stones somehow felt strange, quite rough in texture, with a uniform curvature.

  Concern for Gerry’s foot now became of secondary importance, as Kenneth had taken an interest in these unseen objects. Suddenly, one of the stones came out with one yank of Kenneth’s powerful arms, releasing Gerry’s foot in the process. And there, in the newly revealed gap were—as plain as daylight—several earthenware jars! Not narrow-topped and bottle-like; more wide-necked and sort of cauldron-shaped. Although they couldn’t see the entire contents of the burrow, it was obvious that there were quite a few of them.

  The excitement was unbelievable as thoughts of gold coins, bejewelled brooches and silver goblets flooded the minds of the two historical adventurers. And questions! What should they do? Remove all of the jars and risk breaking them and perhaps destroying the contents—in other words, become archaeol
ogical hooligans? Shout out for the ramblers to come scampering over the hillside and share their glory? Or carefully conceal the pots and seek professional help?

  When Kenneth was still at junior school, he used to go to a monthly club for young naturalists, held at Sunderland Museum. There, they had hands-on experience of identifying beetles, digging up fossils and plodging at the sea-shore, looking for shellfish. Both Kenneth and his dad had got to know the organiser quite well, and had occasionally seen him in the intervening years. In fact, he was now Director of the region’s top museum in Newcastle. They decided to contact him. Next day—which was Monday—Gerry would phone the museum and try to get an appointment for the afternoon. If the Director was available, Gerry would take the afternoon off work and go and see him. His name was Alan Coulson.

  So that Alan wouldn’t think that he was a complete crank, Gerry decided to take one of the jars with him. They carefully extracted one of the containers from the trench and even more carefully concealed the others just as they had found them. It was amazing how intact the jar was after, presumably, hundreds of years. No doubt it had been buffeted by the constant passage of rabbits and rainwater—but it was solid, with the stopper thoroughly cemented in place.

  Slowly and awkwardly, they made the descent by the same route, fortunately passing no one on their way. They took turns carrying the jar, taking great care not to slip or trip, on what was, in places, a very difficult terrain. And the journey home seemed to take an eternity. Gerry just couldn’t stop talking, as he was extremely excited about what might be in the pot.

  By the time they got home, Kenneth’s head was splitting, and he thought his dad was getting carried away by the find. After all, the jars could be empty, or full of soil, or even ashes from funeral pyres.

  Elaine was the wife and mother of the house, and she’d seen it all before: guaranteed winning lottery numbers, UFO sightings, new species of fungi, and even fossilised dinosaurs. So in the general scale of things, an old pot was rather boring. She just didn’t possess the spirit of adventure that Kenneth and Gerry had. Or was she just realistic?