Reconquering England for the English in Havelok the Dane

Abstract

The Middle English Havelok the Dane (ca. 1295–1310), set in pre-Conquest England and rooted in Lincolnshire history, features an Anglo-Danish alliance through marriage between the heir to the throne of Denmark, Havelok, and the heir to the throne of England, Goldeboru.1 The alliance comes amidst circumstances, paralleled in the two countries, of political usurpation and conquest. Both Havelok and Goldeboru lose their fathers (and kings) in early childhood, find themselves robbed of their royal positions, and are thrust into hardship despite the best efforts of their ailing fathers to provide for their future safety and well-being. Though Havelok is often considered a romance, in which such romantic unions typically play a central role, the marriage between the royal heirs departs from convention in that the union serves strictly political aims as it goes against both of their wishes, eliciting his feelings of awkwardness and her disgust. Their joint political destiny becomes manifest to both of them only after marriage when they realize that this union empowers them to reclaim their royal authority and take back their countries, which they do. Political readings of Havelok the Dane tend to situate the poem in the present, within the contemporary political affairs of the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), emphasizing the abuse of royal power in general.2 While these readings rightly identify political corruption as a primary