XXXIX
The Pope, Alexander the Second, placing his ghostly terrors at the disposal of William, declared Harold an usurper, and William the lawful heir. Thus early had Englishmen to remember Rome for a disservice. It then remained only for William to collect his forces for an invasion of England. He set about the work with business-like promptitude and a settled determination which, by comparison, make the great Napoleon’s projected invasion of over seven hundred years later seem like the wayward fancy of an infant. The forests of Normandy were felled and converted into timber, and all the summer of 1066 thousands of shipwrights were busily employed in Norman havens building the vast fleet designed to invade our shores. When we form a mind’s-eye picture of a fleet, we necessarily visualise nowadays something very different from the flotilla prepared by the Duke of Normandy for the invasion of England; but we must go far back, beyond even the small ships with which Edward the First waged war in foreign parts, if we would see what William’s navy, made of the green timber that had been growing six months before, was like. His “ships” numbered, according to the lowest computation, six hundred and ninety-six: according to the highest, there were over three thousand; but if we turn to the indisputable evidence of the famous Bayeux Tapestry it will be seen that they were craft more in the nature of galleys—open boats with one mast.
The same want of exact figures meets the inquirer who seeks to learn the number of that invading army. Contemporary chroniclers are at great variance, the numbers, by their accounts, ranging from 14,000 up to 60,000. From February onwards to September those craft were building and that army collecting. Meanwhile King Harold was not idle. He had long been skilled in warfare, and was as able a general as William himself, and by sea and land he was gathering a force together that in all human probability would have annihilated the Norman host had it not been for the happening that at this juncture divided his attention.
That happening was the invasion of northern England by the Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada, in conjunction with Harold’s own brother, the banished rebel Tostig, in September, at the very time when the Duke of Normandy’s expedition was lying ready to sail, only waiting upon a southern wind. The Norwegian host landed in the Ouse and the Humber, and the English had been defeated at Fulford and Hardrada received in York as a conqueror before the English Harold could march from London to the scene. But when he arrived victory attended him, and in the Battle of Stamford Bridge, September 25th, he not only defeated the invaders, and killed Hardrada and his brother, Tostig, but almost annihilated the foreigners. It was the supreme victory of a great military career, and the last ever gained by the Saxon English. In the midst of the rejoicings and the absolutely necessary rest at York, Harold received the tidings of the Norman landing at Pevensey, near Hastings.
Fate had indeed dealt hardly with that brave heart. He had marched full two hundred miles to meet one foe, and he was now to march back to face another, already established on the coast he had been so concerned to guard. For the south wind that had been denied William for near a month of waiting at the Dive and at St. Valery had, in this hour of his need, played Harold false and had wafted the Norman sails across the Channel. William landed unopposed on the deserted coast at Pevensey, twelve miles to the west of Hastings, in the early morning of September 28th, and the next day marched to Hastings, which he made the base of his operations. From that place he ravaged and laid waste all the surrounding country, with the intention of drawing Harold down to the sea-coast, to attack him in defence of his plundered and ill-treated subjects. He reasoned, as an invader even in these times must needs reason, that the chances were more in his favour if he could meet the English by the shore. Were he obliged to march inland to the attack, grave considerations of provisioning his army must be contended with, and in the event of defeat his difficulties would have increased with every mile he had advanced into the interior. He thus lay at Hastings, within reach of his ships, while Harold was marching southwards, and organising his army in London. There were not wanting those who at this time warned William earnestly against what they considered the folly of his enterprise. The might of the Saxons was no mere tale, and messengers, coming southward with news of how Harold had defeated the Norwegian invaders, and was now marching to repeat his victory upon the Norman host, might well have made even so tried and fearless a soldier as William retrace his steps. But he had come to victory or to death, and had staked all upon this one throw for that magnificent prize, the crown of England. Had he recrossed the Channel, it is certain that never again would the opportunity of landing on an unguarded coast be afforded him; and on all counts, now or never was his time. He had taken a high moral ground for his invasion, and was come, by his own claim, not as Conqueror, but as one claiming his legal rights, secured on the most sacred of oaths and hallowed by the blessing of the Church. Legal rights are the great standby of the plunderer and the spoiler, and the stirrup for William’s vaulting ambition was legality. It was, as we have seen, the kind of legality we associate rather with the pettifogging attorney than with justice; but he had wrung the blessing of Rome on it, and beside his banner floated the standard consecrated by the Pope.