Saint Margaret of Scotland

Margaret of Wessex was almost 50 years old in 1093 when her husband, King Malcolm III of Scotland, and her eldest son went to war against the English at the Battle of Alnwick, where they were killed on 13 November. Tradition says that her son Ethelred, the lay abbot of Dunkeld, was with her when her son Edgar brought the news.

Margaret died three days later; no one assumes the cause was anything other than grief.

Her close friend, advisor, and biographer, Turgot of Durham, left us with a record of extreme piety. She worked on church reform, trying to bring the practices of the Scottish church closer to those of the continent (where she spent her childhood) and Rome. She performed charitable works, even washing the feet of the poor. She rose each midnight to attend Mass. She brought the Benedictines to establish a monastery at Dunfermline, and paid to establish ferries across the Firth of Forth to allow pilgrims to reach Saint Andrew's in Fife.

Her husband, whom the records call illiterate (but those may have been motivated by political enemies) admired her learning and had her books decorated in gold and silver. A pocket Gospel of hers is in the Bodleian.

Margaret was buried before the high altar at Dunfermline Abbey. Her husband's body had been interred in Tynemouth Priory, but was brought to Dunfermline for reburial near his wife during the reign of their son Alexander (1107 - 1124). That was not, however, the end of their love story.

Pope Innocent IV canonized Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her good works and personal piety. As a result, her body was disinterred at Dunfermline and the remains immediately placed into a reliquary appropriate for a saint of the Catholic Church. When they tried to carry the reliquary to its new location (a new shrine at Dunfermline), however, the path went past the location of Malcolm's remains. Those transporting the reliquary claimed it suddenly became too heavy to move. Interpreting this as a desire for Margaret to remain near her husband, Malcolm's body was likewise disinterred and placed near hers.

That was not the end of her body's travels. Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head exhumed and brought to Edinburgh as a "good luck charm" to assist in childbirth (N.B.: her son James was not born until 1566). In 1597 the head went to the Jesuits at the Scots College in France, but it was lost during the French revolution. The rest of her (and Malcolm) was transferred to Madrid by Philip II of Spain, but the location of their remains has been lost.

Malcolm and Margaret had several sons, any one of which could have assumed the throne in 1093 after Malcolm and his eldest, Edward, died. That was not to be the case, however. Malcolm's successor was Donald III, who swept in and laid siege to Edinburgh and Malcolm's family. Where did he come from? Let's look into that next time.

Margaret of Wessex

Margaret of Wessex (c.1045 - 16 November 1093) was born in Hungary while her family was exiled there. Her father was Edward the Exile, heir to the throne of England but sent away as a babe after Cnut conquered the country. Her father had been sent to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skötkonung, and eventually made his way to Kiev. When grown, he traveled to Hungary and helped their King Andrew I achieve the throne. This gave the family a home in Hungary, where Margaret grew up in a very religious environment.

Her father was recalled to England as a potential successor to Edward the Confessor, and he brought the family with him. Edward died right after arrival in the land of his birth, and then the death of Edward the Confessor started a series of events that left the Exile's heir, Edgar Ætheling, unlikely to achieve the throne, though not for lack of trying. When Duke William II of Normandy succeeded at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and inevitably became King of England, Margaret and her family found a home in Northumbria.

The traditional story is that Margaret's mother, Agatha, decided to take her children back to the continent in 1068. A storm, however, drove them back to land, but farther north, where they were shipwrecked and given refuge by King Malcolm III of Scotland. Malcolm would have been in his late 30s, and Margaret in her early to mid-20s. He took a liking to her, and they were married in 1070. (The illustration is Malcolm greeting Margaret by a Victorian artist.)

Orderic Vitalis wrote that Malcolm had, in fact, traveled to England many years before to speak to Edward the Confessor and ask for his kinswoman's hand in marriage. If this meeting took place, the marriage was delayed for several years. It is possible that the marriage was arranged and then put off against Malcolm's intentions, which might explain Malcolm's plundering of Lindisfarne. Whatever the case may have been, Malcolm was at the time a widower with two sons and would have benefitted from linking himself to the English royal line.

The two had eight children, among which were three kings of Scotland and a queen of England. Tomorrow I'll tell you about their children's fortunes, and then we'll get to her sainthood.

Malcolm and English Royals

King Malcolm III of Scotland (c.1031 - 1093) was alternately supporting and attacking English royalty. The tradition that his father had sent him to the court of Edward the Confessor in his youth suggested there would be strong ties to Scotland's neighbor to the south. The later Scottish historian John Fordun assumed that Malcolm spent Macbeth's seventeen-year-reign with Edward.

Orderic Vitalis wrote that Malcolm was betrothed to Margaret of Wessex, the daughter of Edward the Exile. (That's Margaret in the illustration, reading the Bible to Malcolm. She was later declared a saint.) When they married in 1070, this made Malcolm the brother-in-law of Edgar Ætheling, one of the potential heirs to the throne of England in 1066 after Edward the Confessor's death. This was the context for Malcolm supporting Edgar with troops in Edgar's attempts to capture the throne from the more successful claimant, William II of Normandy.

You can see here and here how Edgar relied on Malcolm for support and simply as a place of refuge when things got bad. Malcolm's good relationships were with English royals, not the Normans who invaded in 1066. His aid to Edgar helped prompt William to engage in the Harrying of the North, a series of military campaigns by the new king of England to devastate much of the north of England to punish for past and deter future attempts to coalesce around Edgar Ætheling and use him to replace William.

Malcolm and William finally met in 1072 and negotiated a treaty. Malcolm pledged his loyalty to William, which meant little: Malcolm continued raiding in Northumbria until Williams sent his son Robert Curthose in 1080 at the head of an army. This time Malcolm kept the peace to which he had agreed.

In 1091, when Robert Curthose started rebelling against his brother William Rufus (who had inherited after William's death), Malcolm did not take sides. He did, however, take advantage of their fighting to go south and besiege Newcastle and the castle built by Curthose. This was a step to pushing Scotland's boundary further south. An approaching English army led by Rufus motivated Malcolm to retreat north.

His final dealing with royalty came when he marched south with his son to discuss the return of lands given to Malcolm by William II. Rufus refused, saying that the matter would be settled by the English barons. Malcolm rejected this idea and returned to Scotland, gathering an army and ravaging Northumbria more harshly than ever before. On 13 November 1093, he was ambushed by the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, and killed.

His interment includes a story that needs to start with his wife, Margaret. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the queen who became a saint.

Malcolm III of Scotland

Almost exactly a decade ago I posted "The Real Macbeth" about how he killed Duncan I of Scotland. Well, let's talk about Duncan's son, who has been mentioned many times in the past several posts because of his links to English royals.

Malcolm's mother is a mystery. John of Fordun, a Scottish chronicler from a few centuries after Malcolm, says she was a blood relative of Earl Siward, Earl of Northumbria, but this was probably a late attempt to tie Scottish royalty closer to possessions in England (but see below). An even later story suggests she was the daughter of a commoner and Malcolm was born out of wedlock.

Where was Malcolm when Duncan was killed by Macbeth? Malcolm was only about nine years old, but chieftains could have supported him. Tradition says that Duncan had sent his sons (besides Malcolm there was Donald and Máel Muire*) away for their safety; Fordun says Malcolm was sent to England to the court of Edward the Confessor.

Fordun writes that in 1054, Earl Siward of Northumbria invaded Scotland with the intent to install one Máel Coluim, son of the king of the Cumbrians, on the throne of Scotland. This Máel Coluim was identified as Malcolm III Canmore. William of Malmesbury agrees with this event, and says that Macbeth was killed by Siward. The problem with this is that Siward died two years before Macbeth. More recent scholars believe that Siward's Máel Coluim was a later Malcolm.

Other chroniclers of the time state that Macbeth was killed by Malcolm on 15 August 1057, but Macbeth was succeeded by his son Lulach (actually his step-son, born to his wife Gruoch—yes, "Lady Macbeth" did have her own name—from her first marriage), who was crowned in September. Lulach (whose nickname was Tairbith "The Unfortunate") was then killed by Malcolm in April 1058, who then became king shortly after.

It was common for Gaelic rulers to start their reigns with a show of strength by mounting an invasion somewhere. Malcolm's supposed close connection with England did not stop him from plundering Lindisfarne in 1061. This was far enough from the seat of English monarchy that it probably did not draw much attention. The local alderman of Northumbria at the time was Tostig Godwinson, but not only was he away on pilgrimage to Rome for recent offenses, but also he didn't care much for his people anyway.

Malcolm actually offered Tostig asylum at a time when Tostig needed a safe place. That, and other ties to English royalty, will be the subject for tomorrow.

*not this Máel Muire, however.

Edgar Ætheling, Part 3

Edgar Ætheling had been through many ups and downs. For the trouble he had caused for William II of Normandy as an "alternate choice" for king of England, he might have been executed, but he was allowed to live, given his freedom, and also given some estates.

When William died in 1087, Edgar threw his support to William's eldest son, Robert Curthose, to whom William had left the dukedom of Normandy. The second son, William Rufus, succeeded as King of England. Robert felt he should have England, and tried to overthrow William in a conflict that was not resolved until 1091.

Part of the resolution was that Edgar be stripped of lands given to him in Normandy. Edgar fell back on an old habit: going to stay with King Malcolm III in Scotland (now Edgar's brother-in-law), who also happened to be preparing war with William Rufus. Significantly, when the two armies met, they did not fight. They decided to talk things over, and whom did the kings pick to conduct negotiations? Malcolm sent Edgar, William sent Robert. Since Edgar had been one of Robert's chief advisors, the two would be able to talk amicably.

One result of the negotiation was a reconciliation between Edward and William, that made it safe for Edgar to return to England. The peace between the two countries began to break down, however, and eventually he left England for Normandy with Robert. In 1093 Edgar was back in Scotland to speak to Malcolm at William's request: the peace treaty wasn't working, and war was unavoidable. That war killed Malcolm and his heir, Edward, Edgar's nephew. (Edward was not his eldest; that was Duncan, who was kept at William's court.) Another army against Scotland had Edgar at its head in 1097 and helped to establish another son of Malcolm, Edgar, on the Scottish throne.

Orderic Vitalis wrote that Edgar Ætheling was the leader of an English fleet in support of the First Crusade. Orderic must be wrong, since the English supporting fleet reached Syria in March 1098, and Edgar was known to be in Scotland in late 1097. There was no time between the two events for him to reach Syria. William of Malmesbury said that Edgar made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and Orderic may just be confused about the reason and timing for Edgar's trip.

After Jerusalem, William Rufus died when Robert Curthose was too far away to claim the throne, which was grabbed by their younger brother, who became King Henry I. Naturally, Robert went to war over this, and naturally, Edgar joined him. Naturally, they failed again; Robert was imprisoned for the rest of his life, and Edgar was let go, since by this time Henry had married a daughter of Malcolm and Edgar's sister, making Edgar his uncle by marriage.

William of Malmesbury wrote that, in 1125, Edgar was still alive and growing old in privacy and quiet. A tumultuous life came to a peaceful end, but we do not know where or when.

Next I want to turn to Malcolm III "Canmore" who was a significant player in these events.

Edgar Ætheling, Part 2

For Edgar Ætheling, landing in Scotland in 1068—whether by accident or design—was fortuitous. King Malcolm III took a liking to Edgar's sister Margaret, who was probably in her early 20s. They married in 1070 (see illustration), and had several children, including kings of Scotland David I and Alexander I.

Edgar's new brother-in-law supported Edgar's claim to the throne of England. Edgar's and Malcolm's plans caused the north of England—what is now Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Lancashire—to start a series of local rebellions against Norman rule. This led to the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's campaign to subdue the northern territories and stop Edgar's plans. The Harrying was vicious, using scorched earth tactics to starve out the rebels and replacing all English aristocracy with Normans.

Edgar had returned to England to become the focal point for the rebellions, but retreated to Scotland when things got bad. Later that year, King Sweyn of Denmark arrived in the north, triggering a fresh set of uprisings. Edgar, the Northumbrians, and the Danes combined to take York from Norman control. William arrived later, bought off the Danes (they were still susceptible to Danegeld), and caused Edgar and his other followers to, once again, retreat to Scotland.

In 1072, William invaded Scotland, forcing Malcolm to recognize William's overlordship. Part of the agreement was the expulsion of Edgar, who went to Flanders where Robert the Frisian was hostile to Normandy. Edgar returned to Scotland in 1074, but then received an offer from Philip I, King of France. Philip offered him a castle near the Norman border from which he could hassle Normandy. Embarking for France, a storm wrecked his fleet along the English coast, whereupon Normans hunted him down. He fled back to Scotland on foot, after which Malcolm convinced him to give up his dreams of a throne and submit to William.

Edgar tried that route, but felt he deserved better treatment because of his status. The Domesday Book in 1086 lists two estates in Hertfordshire belonging to Edgar, although by that time he was no longer living in England. Dissatisfied, he had gone to Italy to settle in Apulia, which was occupied by Normans. A few years later, however, he returned to England.

After William's death in 1087, Edgar's fortunes seemed to rise a little with William's sons, who clearly had no concerns that this older man was going to try to take their throne. Instead, they involved him in their reigns.

For the happy remainder of Edgar's complicated life, tune in tomorrow.

Edgar Ætheling, Part 1

After the death of King Harold Godwinson on 14 October 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, the witenagemot wasted no time: the very next day, while Harold's body was being identified on the battlefield, they chose another man to be king, despite the claims of William of Normandy. That man was Edgar, called "Ætheling" ("noble").

This choice was not random. Not only was he in a line of legitimate succession, but it could be argued that his accession to the throne had been approved by Edward the Confessor before his death in January of 1066.

Edgar's great-grandfather was Æthelred. When Æthelred was killed by Cnut, his the family fled England. Ægthelred's son was Edmund Ironside, who would rule the south of England while Cnut ruled the north, until one of them died and the other took the whole island. Edmund died shortly after. Edmund's son was called Edward the Exile and spent most of his life in Hungary, where Edgar Ætheling was born. In the illustration above, you see Edmund in the upper-right, Edward the Exile in the center, and Edward's children below: Edgar, Margaret (who would later marry Malcolm Canmore and even later become a saint), Edmund (who died young), and Cristina.

In 1056, Edward the Confessor recalled Edward the Exile and his family to England to make Edward his heir. This was actually Edward's attempt to have an Anglo-Saxon dynastic succession in the face of the increasingly powerful Godwins. Unfortunately, Edward died shortly after returning to England, in 1057. Still, to the witenagemot, this meant that Edward's son Edgar was a potential successor. One day after Hastings and the loss of Harold, the witenagemot chose Edgar as the new king. He was perhaps 14 years old.

Edgar had powerful supporters: Earls Edwin and Morcar, Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York. What he did not have was an army. The powerful men who supported him did not put together a very serious defense. Whatever claim he had through Edward's choice of Edgar's father had been ignored months earlier by these same men in favor of Harold, so their determination to support him is questionable; you might call it the last gasp of "national pride" before the inevitable Norman takeover.

In fact, Edward was never formally crowned, and by December the witan and Edgar's key supporters were agreeing to negotiate with William. Everyone, including Edward, agreed to pay homage to William.

William kept Edgar with him, first on his return to Normandy in 1067 and then back to England. A brief attempt at rebellion by the northern earls Edwin and Morcar in 1068 was quickly suppressed. We do not have confirmation that Edgar was part of it, but it is true that he and his mother and sisters landed on the coast of Scotland around that time. Either he was in the north as part of the rebellion or he was attempting to return to Hungary, the land of his and his siblings' birth.

They were taken in by King Malcolm III, a connection which offered another opportunity for Edgar to become king. I'll tell you how that went next time.

Harald Hardrada and Tostig

While William in Normandy was preparing to take over England after the death of Edward the Confessor and the coronation of Harold Godwinson, King Harald III "Hardrada" of Norway decided to attack England himself. Harald had a dream of re-creating Cnut's North Sea Empire, but Denmark resisted Harald's frequent raids on the Danish coast. He had all but given up this dream when a new player entered the scene: Tostig Godwinson.

That's Tostig in the illustration, brawling with his brother Harold at Edward's court. Their sibling rivalry and violent nature didn't end when they got older. Tostig became the Earl of Northumbria in 1055 at the death of Earl Siward. Northumbria was home to Anglo-Saxons and settlers from Danish invasions. He was not well-liked by either group because of his heavy-handed manner. Also, he was from the south, and the cultures of north and south were very different and led to mistrust. Moreover, King Malcolm III "Canmore" of the Scots to the north was a friend of Tostig, and he was negligent in the face of Scots raids over the border. All these points plus heavy taxation to pay for mercenaries when he needed soldiers (because the locals did not readily volunteer when he made the call) led to a general uprising.

Yorkshire rose up against him and declared him outlaw. Edward was still king, and sent Tostig's brother Harold (by then Edward's right-hand man) to negotiate with the rebels. Harold realized the situation was too untenable for Tostig to remain in power. Harold returned to Edward and advised him to agree to the rebels' demands and depose Tostig. Having Tostig remain the country would not be advisable, so he was exiled.

Tostig and his family and a few loyal retainers went to Baldwin V of Flanders, who gave him some ships and men for support. He then went to Normandy, but William wanted nothing to do with him. After Edward's death in January 1066, Tostig sailed to the Isle of Wight, taking money and provisions and trying to establish a base from which he could get back into the country, but he sailed away when Harold (now king) sent troops down there. Tostig then sailed northward to raise Norfolk and Lincolnshire but was defeated decisively by the earls Morcar and Edwin. His supporters abandoned him, and he went to Scotland to spend the summer with King Malcolm.

At some point he contacted Harald Hardrada, either by message or by sailing to Norway, and invited Harald to take the throne of England. Their first foray in September led to the Battle of Fulford, in which Tostig wanted revenge against Edwin and Morcar. Let's take a look tomorrow at how that went.

Henry I of England

The first royal wedding too take place at Windsor Castle was that of King Henry I and Adeliza of Louvain.  Henry (c.1068 - 1135) was a younger son of William the Conqueror who was initially cut out of inheriting anything substantial. Upon William's death, William Rufus became king of England (brother Robert Curthose got Normandy), and Henry got nothing.

He was granted the County of Cotentin—the peninsula that extends into the English Channel and contains Cherbourg and Bayeaux—for £3000 from Robert, slowly establishing power and some authority. Robert had hoped to be given England as well as Normandy, and wanted Henry on his side. Since Henry was otherwise landless—which at the time meant having no power whatsoever—he allied himself with Robert. Robert's intention to take England from William never turned to action, however.

In 1088, Bishop Odo of Bayeaux convinced Robert that Henry could not be trusted. Odo seized Henry, who was captive for the winter; Robert took back the Cotentin. In spring of 1089, nobles in Normandy persuaded Robert that Henry should be released.

In 1091, William invaded Normandy, defeating Robert and signing a treaty with him making each the other's heir and completely leaving Henry out of the negotiations. Henry decided to fight his brothers, but wound up being besieged in MontSaint-Michel for a time. Rumor has it that, when Henry ran out of fresh water, Robert allowed supplies to be taken in, upsetting William Rufus. The back-and-forth between siblings in that family would surprise no one who had seen a certain movie based on their descendants, The Lion in Winter.

Time passed, and once again William and Henry were on amiable terms. When William Rufus died on 2 August 1100, Henry "happened" to be present (click the link to understand the quotation marks). Henry wasted no time in getting himself crowned. Although rightly the throne should have gone to Robert, England accepted Henry with alacrity because of the Charter of Liberties, in which Henry made promises that undid some of William's unpopular practices. The nobility might have been fed up with the constant fighting between Robert and William and embraced Henry as a sort of "compromise candidate." After some debate over the rightful heir, Henry was crowned 5 August in Westminster Abbey.

Three months later, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, also known as Malcolm Canmore, in a shrewd political move. That Matilda might have been a nun did not deter the marriage. They had two children: Matilda and William Adelin, who died in the White Ship tragedy.

Marriage did not mean fidelity: kings were understood to exert their sexual prowess and desires in many directions. Henry had at least ten acknowledged extra-marital children who lived long enough to have titles and careers. Matilda of Scotland died in 1118, and when the White Ship sank in 1120 taking his legitimate son with it, Henry collapsed with grief. Now with no legitimate son, and seeing the prospect of numerous less-legitimate heirs and various nephews who could tear the country apart fighting for the throne, he decided to marry again.

So finally we come to the first royal wedding to take place in Windsor Castle, to Adeliza of Louvain. See you tomorrow.

The King That Almost Was

I mentioned here that, after the Battle of Hastings, another claimant to the throne of England had to flee to Scotland in the face of William of Normandy's success. There, Edward's sister Margaret married King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, and Edward gave up the dream of his line ruling England.

There was, however, a chance for the throne to pass back to his family, after all.

William of Normandy divided his rule by giving Normandy to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, and England to a younger son, William Rufus. When William Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in 1100, the youngest son, Henry, became Henry I of England. In 1105, prompted by his older brother Robert's poor performance, Henry invaded Normandy, succeeding in claiming Normandy for his own within a year.

Henry was not just a good soldier; he was a decent politician. He chose to placate his Anglo-Saxon subjects by marrying a "local" girl, Matilda of Scotland. (There was a small snag, in that she was believed to be a nun, but that was settled eventually.) Matilda was the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret of Scotland, and therefore the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, a previous Anglo-Saxon king. Marrying her and having heirs would put a combined Norman-Saxon king on the throne. That king was William Adelin ("Adelin" was a form of Ætheling, the Anglo-Saxon word for "prince" or "noble"). He was born in 1103, and while in his teens was called rex designatus [King designate].

Then came the night of 25 November, when William Adelin and his brothers made some bad decisions while in command of the White Ship on their way back to England from Normandy. Henry lost all his sons in the disaster. Henry's attempt to place his daughter on the throne led to a period called The Anarchy, after which the throne was taken by the very un-Saxon (and reportedly unpleasant) Stephen of Blois.

1066: The Other New King

Edgar and his sister, St. Margaret, landing at
Wearmouth after their ship was blown off course

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when the forces of William the Conqueror (mentioned many times; see one of them here) defeated the English and killed King Harold Godwinson. The link in the previous sentence for the Battle of Hastings tells more of the story than is generally known, namely that Harold's army had been on the march and fighting for weeks prior to Hastings. Also not generally known is that someone was proclaimed King of England the day after the Battle of Hastings, and it was not William of Normandy.

Edward the Confessor supposedly saw the impending trouble with succession to the throne of England and saw a way out: he had a nephew who was the legitimate heir: Edward (1016-1057), called "the Exile, who had fled to Hungary after being ousted from England after the defeat of his father (Edmund II "Ironside," c.989-1016) by King Cnut. Edward the Confessor had called Edward the Exile back to England to make him his heir. Sadly, the Exile died very soon after his arrival back in England in 1057. History does not record a reason, but it is possible that he was eliminated by the Godwinsons, who were very powerful and wanted to see Harold succeed to the throne.

Edward the Exile had left children behind on the continent, however. Edgar the Ætheling (c.1051-c.1126) was only a teen in 1066, but his youth was no bar to the succession. The witenagemot, the council of wise men that approved the succession in Anglo-Saxon England, met in London and chose Edgar as king the day after Harold fell at Hastings, and sent for him to return to England and lead the opposition to William of Normandy.

The men who chose him, however, chose not to defend their choice and resist William as his forces approached; instead, they negotiated with William for a peaceful turnover of the kingdom. In December, the aristocracy of England met with William at Berkhamstead to submit themselves to his rule and hand over Edgar. William took Edgar and some other English leaders into custody in order to ensure future cooperation.

In 1068, Edgar fled captivity with his mother and two sisters (Margaret and Cristina) to return to Hungary, but their ship was blown off course and landed in the north of England, where they were taken in by Malcolm* III Canmore, king of Scotland. Malcolm married Edward's sister Margaret (who later became Saint Margaret). Edgar had an "on again, off again" relationship with William and an adventure-filled life. He was still alive in 1125 according to William of Malmesbury, so his date of death assumed to be c.1126.

*Malcolm was the model for the character in Shakespeare's MacBeth.

Tornado Surprise

Tornadoes usually form when masses of warm, moist air and higher altitude cooler air meet. The cooler air descends, the warm air ascends, and the action creates a vertical funnel of swiftly rotating air. The majority of tornadoes in the world are created in the North American mid-west, when cool air coming over the Rocky Mountains meets the warm air rising from the Great Plains. With these geographical features, North America has what is called "Tornado Alley." Without these geographical features, tornadoes have a more difficult time forming; when they do, they are usually very weak. In fact, in the 1000 years prior to the 20th century, only about 2 dozen tornadoes were recorded in all of Europe.

Artist's impression of St. Mary le Bow being destroyed

Which makes it all the more interesting to learn that a tornado—the earliest known in England and perhaps the biggest ever experienced by that country—hit London in 1091. Once again, London Bridge fell down. The church of St. Mary le Bow was flattened, and four of its 26-foot-long rafters were driven into the ground with such force that only 4 feet remained showing. Several other churches were damaged or destroyed, as well as 600 houses. Estimates of the force of the tornado seem foolish, but people have tried, and they rate it an F4 on the Fujita Scale (F0-F5), with winds at 200 miles per hour or more. If that is true, then it is truly remarkable that there were only two deaths reported.

A tornado like that hitting London now would be striking a city of more than 8 million, but in 1091 estimates for London's population range from as few as 10,000 to as many as 20,000. In October of 1091, actually, there were even fewer people in London than usual. Thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we know that King William II was up north with his retinue and army fighting King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland (1038-1093). William prevailed, and was out of town when disaster struck. All things considered, it was probably the luckiest military campaign he ever undertook.