Not a light showed in the house as

Jack Hollinster and his strange

follower made their way across the
dank moor. A thin mist had blotted
out most of the stars and through it
the great black house reared up
dark and ominous, surrounded by
dark, bent ghosts which were
hedges and trees. Seaward all was
veiled in a grey shroud but once
Jack thought he heard the muffled
clank of a mooring chain. He
wondered if a ship could be
anchored outside that venomous
line of breakers. The grey sea
moaned restlessly as a sleeping
monster might moan without
waking.

--Robert E. Howard, "The Blue

Flame of Vengeance"--

ABOUT THE BLOGGERS | THE PRINT JOURNAL | HOME

G
         

        
             
        !   
   
          "    # $ %  &
 % $     '          
      ( )
èUther Was A Black-Bearded Madman ´ P art 2

Saturday, May 15, 2010

POSTED BY KEI TH T AYLOR

Previous Posts In This Series:

1. è"  *  &#

+&  , %-
 .

This writer¶s previous post on "  (as REH, perhaps, envisioned him) ± born Eutherius,
possibly in /# , and a witness at the age of eleven to the crucial Battle of Chalons against
Attila¶s Huns ² dealt with his background, his world, and the situation in which he found himself
as a young man. The Huns were no longer a menace, but the Franks to the north, Visigoths to the
south and wild Saxon pirates along the western coasts, made the word èsecure´ a joke. Aegidius
was the ruler of the èRoman Kingdom´ north of the river Loire, centred on !, and he
needed help badly. It came to him from an unexpected direction.

The !
 , from Britain to Brittany took place from about 458-460. (Uther had
been born in 440.) Large numbers of Britons, largely aristocrats and townsfolk, crossed the water
to escape the Saxons after Hengist¶s treacherous massacre on the èNight of the Long Knives´ ²
noble ones included. They didn¶t realise the Western Empire was already gone. To them their
movement was simply shifting from one part of the Empire to another. èFor all the earth is
Roman earth, and I shall die in Rome,´ as Chesterton put it in his 

 
 .

The Britons were led by %, who has been equated with King Arthur ² or at least
identified as one of the men who contributed to the legend. They were welcome in Gaul, for they
included twelve thousand fighting men ² or that¶s the figure given, though it may have been
considerably less, and if it was really twelve thousand, they couldn¶t all have crossed the water at
once. Not enough ships. Aegidius settled them in Brittany, and the area we call Normandy.
There are more than a dozen places in that region today that are still called Bretteville.
Uther would have been busy as a soldier of Soissons. He probably had to help his master Aegidius
teach the Franks manners. The !#  had made armed inroads on Roman territory
before Aegidius¶s time; he successfully drove them back into their former lands, north of the

Carbonarian Forest (in the Ardennes). After that a legend seems to have
grown up that they deposed their king, 0# 
, for bad conduct that included wife-stealing,
and accepted Aegidius as their lord willingly ² indeed, asked him to become their ruler. That has
the signs of a face-saving story to disguise their defeat, especially since other aspects of it seem
more like legend than fact. Childeric was in all likelihood never deposed or exiled, and remained
king of the Salians until his death in 481. He was an exact contemporary of Uther¶s, born in the
same year. He became King of the Salian Franks at the age of seventeen, in 457. He and Uther
would, inevitably, have known each other pretty well.

In Aegidus¶s service, Uther would have had to ride against groups of insurgent &
  , also.
These were peasants and slaves who took advantage of the social chaos in Gaul to rebel and go on
the rampage. We needn¶t doubt that Uther, young as he was, suppressed them harshly.

Numbers of Bacaudae fled to Armorica for refuge. They found it there. The aristocrat and poet
(later a bishop) !  1## sent a letter to % asking for help in the matter
of some escaped slaves of a friend of his ² but Riothamus does not seem to have delivered them
back to their owner. Perhaps he was also a friend of Uther¶s, or else some other fugitives who ran
to Brittany and found safety there were people who had offended him. I wouldn¶t be surprised if,
one way or another, Uther had conceived a dislike for Riothamus.

We can wonder what sort of person Uther was. REH, through the mouth of his Gaelic pirate
0%
,
, in è  %1#  %è describes him as èa black-bearded
madman, more Roman than Briton and more Gaul than Roman.´ In short, more of a Gaul than
anything else. From the Roman viewpoint, anyhow, the 2# had quick wits and imagination,
but were hot-headed, given to excess, violent, contentious, boastful, proud, impulsive ² and very
hard drinkers. Probably Uther had all those traits to a marked degree. Given that the best-known
story about him is that of his long war with 2#, Duke of Cornwall, and the obsessive lust he
felt for Gorlois¶s wife Igraine, which he went to the length of making a bargain with , # to
satisfy, it¶s fair bet he held chastity in the same disdain as temperance.

I picture him as not unlike the Gaelic warrior and champion 0## 0 
 in è # 
,
34
- Conall is described as èheart of stone, angry ardour of the lynx, glitter of ice,
red strength of fury.´ When Conall demands the champion¶s portion of the pig at a feast, the
warriors of Connacht all back down, but Cet mutters that èif Anluan were here´ he¶d make the
brash intruder sing a quieter song. èIt is our misfortune that he is not in the house.´

Conall answers mirthfully, èOh, but he is! I met him on the way here, earlier today!´ And he takes
Anluan¶s severed head from under his cloak and hurls it at Cet, so that it strikes him hard on the
chest and blood bursts over its lifeless lips.

Uther was probably a similar sort of man-killing roughneck. While    would have found
such a badass supreme a very useful soldier, he might have had reservations about him from the
beginning of their acquaintance. Given his character, it would be odd if Uther hadn¶t quarreled
with one or two fellows in his cups and killed them. Not to mention seduced a noble 2##+
% girl or two and ravaged a nun. Although Aegidius had doubtless had to cope with such
contretemps before, Uther must have been a fearless and effective war-leader for Aegidius to find
him worth the trouble he caused.

Despite his ability ² and, apparently, honour ² Aegidius faced not only trouble from the
surrounding barbarians but treachery from the direction of Rome. 
% , who made and
broke emperors in Italy as he pleased by that time, wasn¶t his friend. Even though he lived before
mass communications, Ricimer still had a sharp grasp of the uses of propaganda. He presented
Aegidius as an upstart power-grabber who would be better destroyed. He (Ricimer) made crafty
use of his barbarian allies and federates as well. He planted the Burgunds at Lyons, where they
would block any advance Aegidius might make on Italy. He made cunning arrangements with the
Visigoths. He clearly planned to destroy Aegidius.

Aegidius had his own resouces, though. He had the Salian Franks on his side, if not altogether
willingly, and they were fierce fighters, untrustworthy though they were. He had some Alans,
Sarmatians, and other remnants of  4 forces which had checked Attila in 451. He had the
Briton Riothamus and his twelve thousand fighting men (if Riothamus really brought that many),
who would have been badly needed by him; it¶s no wonder he had given them such a warm
welcome. He had Soissons, which was an important administrative centre and possessed a mint.
Money, then as now, was the sinews of war. Aegidius also had three centres of weapons
manufacturing near his capital of Soissons. He wasn¶t a man to be lightly attacked, even by
Ricimer, maker of emperors.

But « Aegidius had Uther in his service. REH has Cormac, who evidently knew him, at least
slightly, refer to èUther¶s waywardness, which is tinged with madness.´ I think of Uther as having
been very like the protagonist of REH¶s poem, è !##   0# -

èI am no thrall to any man, no vassal to any king.

èI owe no vow to any clan, nor faith to any thing.

èTraitor²but not for fear or gold, but the fire in my own dark brain;
èFor the coins I loot from the broken hold I throw to the winds again.
èAnd I am true to myself alone, through pride and the traitor¶s part.
èI would give my life to shield your throne, or rip from your breast, the heart.

èFor a look or a word, scarce thought or heard, I follow a fading fire.

èPast bead and bell and the hangman¶s cell, like a harp-call of desire.
èI may not see the road I ride for the witch -fire lamps that gleam;
èBut phantoms glide at my bridle-side, and I follow a nameless Dream.´

Uther would always have been fully aware that he was the grandson of an emperor, if only a sword -made emperor
out of & who, like many others of that sort, had not lasted long. It would certainly have been clear to him
that in his world, the sword ruled, and kingdoms could be made ² or seized ² by a strong warrior. Here at
Soissons was one ready-made, in a situation whose instability made it ripe for the taking, if one seized an
advantageous day. He¶d have had no doubts that he was the right man. He served Aegidius with ² èThe Skull in
the Clouds´ again ² an ever smiling face and a black heart under his mail. In his way he was cunning, but not too
stable, and he had a streak of ungovernable violence. Forceful, passionate and a great warrior, he yet wasn¶t as
clever as he believed.
Between 459 and 463 I have little idea of what befell Uther, except plenty of fighting. But he must
have spent time at the court of Soissons as well. The hot-blooded young warrior might have
blazed with desire for an aristocratic Gallo-Roman girl and been rejected by her father, who had
another husband in mind for her. Uther may have appealed to Aegidius to obtain her for him,
and Aegidius, perhaps, refused. Uther would not have forgiven that. Not that he¶d have been
heartbroken, or celibate, because of it.

In 463 the , under their king, Theodoric II (who had

become king in 453 when he murdered his brother Thorismund) launched a determined attack
on the realm of Soissons. His brother 
, an able warrior, was there supporting him. They
advanced in force on the town of Orleans. Aegidius gathered his Gallo-Roman forces and called
upon his Frankish federates, under their king Childeric, to assist. The Franks came. Aegidius
moved Riothamus and his Britons down from Armorica to hold the territory south of the Loire,
centred on & , which in former centuries had been the country of the & , in case
the Goths turned aside to ravage it. Aegidius, probably, was also concerned that Ricimer in Italy
might send an army to aid the Visigoths, and wanted forces of his own waiting in position to
block any such advance.

Aegidius, supported by Childeric¶s Franks, trounced the Visigoths and made them retreat. Uther
would almost certainly have been in the battle, along with Aegidius¶s son, Syagrius, and his
general, Count Paul. Uther probably distinguished himself in the fighting so well that his master
overlooked his transgressions and quelled his doubts about the dangerous firebrand. If the
retreating Goths did attempt to plunder the country around Bourges, Riothamus and his Britons
turned them back, and the Goths retreated further to their own territories in Gaul, in the south -
west around Toulouse, their capital.

The following year(464), Aegidius died, and there are various accounts of how it happened . He
may have perished in an outbreak of plague, but most versions say he died by treachery ² either
poison or an ambush by the river Loire. I believe the ambush story, myself, and I believe it was
led by Uther, who had made a deal with the Visigoths to avenge their defeat after secret
communication with the Gothic king¶s brother Euric. Perhaps he received gold for the
assassination, but he was chiefly motivated by ambition to seize the realm of Soissons for himself.

He didn¶t get his wish at once. Syagrius, and the general Count Paul, assumed authority in
Soissons. What happened after that is hard to fit into a coherent sequence. The records are
scrappy, to say the least, and what records exist contradict each other. Often they aren¶t any too
consistent even within themselves.

Syagrius and Count Paul maintained cordial relations with the Frankish federates under
Childeric. Riothamus and most of his 12,000 Britons returned to their homes in Armorica; but a
few thousand were left in the district surrounding Bourges in case they should be needed
suddenly. The others remained ready to advance to Bourges again at any time; the Visigoths were
still a menace, and Syagrius may have shared his father¶s concern that Ricimer would act against
them. Count Paul appears to have held the chief authority; perhaps Syagrius was young and
deferred to him while learning to lead armies and govern. Paul, at any rate, was staunchly loyal,
or seems to have been.

Two years after the slaying of Aegidius, the Visigoth Euric, then in h is forties, decided to wait no
longer to be king himself. He remembered the ferocious, black-bearded Gallo-Roman who had
murdered Aegidius for him, and sent word to Uther again. Uther travelled south by devious ways
and cut the throat of the Visigothic king, Theodoric II, much as Theodoric had cut the throat of
his brother, Thorismund, shortly after the battle of Chalons in 451. Uther wouldn¶t have
overlooked the strong possibility that Euric would have him killed to shut his mouth, after he had
murdered Theodoric, but he doubtless covered his bets and made it back to Soissons alive. For
public appearances¶ sake, Euric was beside himself with grief and swore vengeance on the
perfidious Romans who had killed his brother. Despite his ègrief´ he assumed the Visigothic
crown briskly in that year of 466.

Renewed war after that was only a matter of time. Uther had no objection. He was fully awake to
the possibility of rising to rule Soissons himself if Count Paul and then !( should fall in
battle. He felt confident they would.

åHow that hope, the war with the Visigoths, and further political events in Gaul and Italy, all
worked out in Uther¶s continued career, will be subjects of the next posting.)