Siward, Earl of Northumbria
Siward emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut. His career in northern England spanned the reigns of four different monarchs. He died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually succeed to Northumbria.
About Siward, Earl of Northumbria in brief
Siward was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. He emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut. Siward’s career in northern England spanned the reigns of four different monarchs. He died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually succeed to Northumbria. No contemporary or near-contemporary biography has survived, and narratives from around the time of his life scarcely mention him. The former is associated with the great Roman city of York, while the latter was associated with Bamburgh, a stronghold of the Norse. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus are given to him by near-Contemporary texts. He was one of the many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath of the 1010s conquest of the West Saxon royal house that Cnut had deposed. In the early 1050s Earl Siward turned against the Scottish king Mac Bethad mac Findlaích. Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeatedMac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the adventure in Scotland earned him a place in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. He probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s, and there is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In England, it fell to a handful of newly promoted ealdormen, or earls, who ruled a shire or group of shires on behalf of the king.
Some historians think it was comparable to the Norman conquest five decades later. As Cnut ruled several Scandinavian kingdoms in addition to England, power at the highest level was delegated to such strongmen. It was a politically fragmented region, heavily settled by Norse-Gaels, while heavily settled in the rest of Lancashire, Cumberland, and the south of the River Tees. It had only been united with the English kingdom in the 950s by King Ealdred, and subsequent control and control over it was exerted through the agency of at least two earls to the north to one to the south and one to north to the east and west of the river. It is thought that Siward was the third man in Cnut’s new triumvirate of earls – the other two being Godwine, Earl of Wessex and Leofwine, Earls of Mercia. He may have been a relative of Earl Ulf, perhaps a friend of King Harold Harefoot. He is also associated with St Olave’s church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward. He had a daughter, Ælfflæd, who was married to the daughter of Eadulf, the Earl of BambURgh. He also had a son, OsbjORN, who became the first Earl of Northumbri. He helped to defeat the Scottish King Mac Bethads in battle.
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