-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Five, Chapter XI, p. 451.
What? Will Gunnhild advise her sons to curtail their royal privileges and prerogatives? Or four to stand down in favor of one? Will she heck as like! She will advise them to murder two other kings.
Despite her friendly diplomacy with Haakon Jarl, Gunnhild now suspects Haakon of conspiring with King Tryggvi Olafsson and King Gudrod Bjarnarson. Consequently, her son Gudrod invites King Tryggvi to discuss sharing a viking cruise, then has Tryggvi and his followers killed. Also, her son Harald attacks King Gudrod, killing him and many of his followers. This joint enterprise is enough to reconcile Harald and Gudrod, despite recent hard feeling (!), and enables them to join forces to conquer the whole Vikin area. Well, that is one way to solve the problem of too many kings. Another way would be a popular uprising to overthrow all of them.
1 comment:
Kaor , Paul!
This piece about too many kings in Norway reminded me of this text from page 11 of Poul Anderson's HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA (Ballantine Books, October 1973), set in Denmark of the sixth century AD: "Frodhi left three sons, Halfdan, Hroar, and Skati. They fell into strife over who should be foremost. It has ever been the curse of the lands across the North Sea, that their kings beget many sons and one's claim is as good as another's, whether he be born of a queen, a leman, a thrall-woman, or a chance meeting--can he but raise men who hope to gain if he wins."
That is, all the sons of a Scandinavian king had an equal claim to the kingship, regardless of age (younger sons having as good a claim as the eldest), or whether born, as said above, of a wife, leman, or slave girl. And there was no dearth of ambitious chieftains, powerful yeomen, or warriors willing to back one or another candidate when royal sons quarreled.
I'm sorry, but I disagree with your last sentence above. What you advocated there was simply not how people thought in those days. The real problem was unclear laws and customs of succession. The idea that ONE king alone should rule at a time in Norway (despite having brothers) took a long time to take root there.
Sean
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