A history of England

by Charles Oman

So rapidly did Harold move, that he caught the Northmen quite unprepared, and came upon them at Stamford Bridge, close to York, when they least expected him. There he defeated the invaders in a great battle. Its details are unfortunately lost, for the noble Norwegian saga that gives the story of Hardrada's fall was written too long after to be trusted as good history. It tells how the English king rode forward to the invading army, and, calling to his brother, offered him pardon and a great earldom. But Tostig asked what his friend Harald of Norway should receive. "Seven feet of English earth, seeing that he is taller than other men," answered Harold of England. Then Tostig cried aloud that he would never desert those who had helped him in his day of need, and the fight began. We know that both the rebel earl and the Norse king fell, that the raven banner of the Vikings was taken, and that the remnant only of their host escaped. It is said that they came in three hundred ships, and fled in twenty-four.

Landing of the Normans.

Harold of England was celebrating his victory at York by a great feast a few nights after the battle of Stamford Bridge, when a message was brought him that William of Normandy had crossed the Channel and landed in Sussex with a hundred thousand men at his back. Harold hurried southward with his house-carles, bidding the Earls Eadwine and Morcar bring on the levies of Mercia and Northumbria to his aid as fast as they might. But the envious sons of Aelfgar betrayed their brother-in-law, and followed so slowly that they never overtook him. Harold marched rapidly on London, and gathered up the fyrd of East Anglia, Kent, and Wessex, so that he reached the coast with a considerable army, though it was one far inferior in numbers to William's vast host. Not a man from Mercia or Northumbria was with him; but the levies of the southern shires, where the house of Godwine was so well loved, were present in full force.

The battle of Hastings.

William had now been on shore some ten or twelve days, and had built himself a great intrenched camp at Hastings. But the King of England, as befitted the commander of the smaller host, came to act on the defensive, not on the offensive. He took post on the hill of Senlac, where Battle Abbey now stands, and arrayed his army in a good position, strengthened with palisades. He was resolved to accept battle, though his brother Gyrth and many others of his council bade him wait till Eadwine and Morcar should come up with the men of the north, and meanwhile, to sweep the land clear of provisions and starve out William's army. The Norman duke desired nothing more than a pitched battle; he knew that he was superior in numbers, and believed that he could out-general his adversary. When he heard that Harold had halted at Senlac, he broke up his camp at Hastings, and marched inland. The English were found all on foot, for they had not yet learnt to fight on horseback, drawn up in one thick line on the hillside, around the dragon-banner of Wessex and the standard of the Fighting Man, which was Harold's private ensign. The king's house-carles, sheathed in complete mail, and armed with the two-handed Danish axe, were formed round the banners; on each flank were the levies of the shires, an irregular mass where well-armed thegns and yeomen were mixed with their poorer neighbours, who bore rude clubs and instruments of husbandry as their sole weapons.

William's army was marshalled in a different way. The flower of the duke's host was his cavalry, and the Norman knights were the best horse-soldiery in Europe. His army was drawn up in three great bodies, the two wings composed of his French, Flemish, and Breton mercenaries, the centre of the native Normans. In each body the mounted men were preceded by a double line of archers and troops on foot.

The two hosts joined in close combat, and for some hours the fighting was indecisive. Neither the arrows of the Norman bowmen, nor the charges of their knights, could break the English line of battle. The invaders were driven back again and again, and the axes of the men of Harold made cruel gaps in their ranks, cleaving man and horse with their fearful blows. At last William bade his knights draw off for a space, and bade the archers only continue the combat. He trusted that the English, who had no bowmen on their side, would find the rain of arrows so insupportable that they would at last break their line and charge, to drive off their tormentors. Nor was he wrong; after standing unmoved for some time, the English could no longer contain themselves, and, in spite of their king's orders and entreaties, the shire-levies on the wings rushed down the hill in wild rage and fell upon the Normans. When they were scattered by their fiery charge, the duke let loose his horsemen upon them, and the disorderly masses were ridden down and slain or driven from the field. The house-carles of Harold still stood firm around the two standards, from which they had not moved, but the rest of the English army was annihilated. Then William led his host against this remnant, a few thousand warriors only, but the pick of Harold's army. Formed in an impenetrable ring, the king's guards held out till nightfall, in spite of constant showers of arrows, alternating with desperate cavalry charges. But Harold himself was mortally wounded by an arrow in the eye, and one by one all his retainers fell around him, till, as the sun was setting, the Normans burst through the broken shield-wall, hewed down the English standards, and pierced the dying king with many thrusts. With Harold there fell his two brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, his uncle Aelfwig, most of the thegnhood of Wessex, and the whole of his heroic band of house-carles.

THE ENGLISH KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF ECGBERT.

			Ecgbert, 800-836.
			Aethelwulf, 836-858.
Aethelbald, 855-860.		Aethelbert, 860-866.		Aethelred I., 866-871.		Alfred, 871-901.
				Edward the Elder, 901-925.		Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia = Aethelred.
		Aethelstan, 925-940.		Edmund I., 940-946.		Eadred, 946-955.
		Eadwig, 955-959.		Eadgar, 959-975.
		Edward the Martyr, 975-979.		Aethelred II., 979-1016.
		Edmund II, 1016.		Alfred the Etheling, slain 1036.		Edward III., the Confessor, 1042-1066.
		Edward the Etheling.
		Eadgar the Etheling.		Margaret = Malcom, King of Scots.