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Orderic Vitalis describing the attendees of the Council of Clermont that launched the First Crusade;
"There were present at the council of Clermont thirteen archbishops, and two hundred and twenty-five bishops, with a vast number of abbots and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, to whom the care of the churches was divinely committed."
St Edmund The Martyr, himself slain by the Vikings in 869, returns to avenge himself on Sweyn Forkbeard, the Danish king who stole the English crown in 1013. Edmund appeared to Sweyn in a dream and slew him. According to legend that is.
The final words of Thomas Becket, according to Edward Grim who witnessed his murder;
"There has been no satisfaction, and I will not absolve them. I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace. But in the name of Almighty God, I forbid you to hurt my people whether clerk or lay. For the Name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death."
King Aethelstan's tomb at Malmesbury. The tomb dates from the 15th century, 500 years after his death. The tomb itself survived the destruction of Henry VIII but sadly the remains lying inside were lost.
King Aethelstan died #OTD (27th October) 939 One day after the 40th anniversary of the death of his grandfather Alfred The Great. Widely regarded as the first king of the English, Aethelstan was a kindly and charitable man unless you happen to be one of his enemies in battle. In 937, he utterly routed his Scottish and Viking enemies at Brunanburh, writing his name into history forever more. Aethelstan died unmarried and childless, passing the throne to his half brother Edmund who had stood alongside him at Brunanburh.
The Battle of Brunanburh, the great triumph of King Aethelstan. Whilst it was an important victory for the English, it wasn't quite decisive. After Aethelstan's death two years later in 939, his successor as king of the English, his half brother Edmund who'd also fought at Brunanburh, would face fresh challenges to his authority which he'd, eventually, largely overcome.
Ranulf De Flambard finds a way of escape imprisonment in the Tower of London in early 1101, namely getting his guards drunk.
Alfred The Great in the days and weeks before the crucial battle of Edington, his revival from a period of great despair being viewed as him almost returning from the dead;
"The same year, after Easter, King Alfred, with a few men, made a stronghold in a place called Athelney, and from thence sallied with his vassals of Somerset to make frequent and unwearied assaults upon the heathen. And again, the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Egbert’s Stone, which is in the eastern part of Selwood Forest ). Here he was met by all the neighbouring folk of Somerset and Wiltshire, and such of Hampshire as had not sailed beyond sea for fear of the heathen; and when they saw the king restored alive, as it were, after such great tribulation, they were filled with immeasurable joy, and encamped there for one night. At daybreak of the following morning, the king struck his camp, and came to Æglea where he encamped for one night."
The troubles of Alfred The Great in 878
"At that same time the above-mentioned King Alfred, with a few of his nobles, and certain soldiers and vassals, was leading in great tribulation an unquiet life among the woodlands and swamps of Somerset; for he had nothing that he needed except what by frequent sallies he could forage openly or stealthily from the heathen or from the Christians who had submitted to the rule of the heathen."
It was at this time that Alfred allegedly burned the cakes. Thankfully, he roused himself to crush the Vikings at Edington
