A short history of the Norman Conquest of England

by Edward A. Freeman

2. Harold Hardrada.—Harold of Norway was the most famous warrior of Northern Europe. His youth had been passed in banishment; so he took service under the Eastern Emperors, who now kept a Scandinavian guard called the Warangians. In that force he did many exploits, specially by helping in the war, when in 1038 the Imperial general George Maniakês won back a large part of Sicily from the Saracens. It is even said that he waged war with the Saracens in Africa, and he then made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which he is said to have not done without fighting. And there is a stone at Venice, which was brought from Peiraieus the haven of Athens, on which is graven the name of Harold the Tall, and it has been thought that this records some exploits of Harold Hardrada there. And many strange tales are told of him, of his killing dragons and lions, carrying off princesses, and the like. In short he is one of the great heroes of Northern romance. But there is no doubt that he came back to Scandinavia, that he got the kingdom of Norway which had been held by his forefathers, and waged a long war with Swegen of Denmark. Now at the time of Edward’s death and our Harold’s election the North was at peace. The great warrior was perhaps tired of peace; and, either of his own thought or because he was stirred up by Tostig, he began to plan an expedition against England. Whether Tostig had stirred him up or not, it is certain that, when he set out, Tostig joined him, bowed to him and became his man, and helped him in his warfare against his own brother and his own country.

3. Preparations of Harold of England.—All the summer of the year 1066 King Harold of England was doing all that man could do to put southern England in a state to withstand any attack from Normandy. If he knew at all that King Harold of Norway was coming, it was still his main business, as he could not be everywhere at once, to defend that part of the kingdom which was under his own immediate rule and which was exposed to the more dangerous enemy. The care of the North he had to leave to its own earls, Edwin and Morkere, who were now his brothers-in-law, and who, of all men in the island, were the most concerned to keep Tostig out of it. King Harold then got together the greatest fleet and army that had ever been seen in England, and with them he kept watching the coasts. This was very hard work to do in those days. For only a small part of his army, called his own housecarls, were regular paid soldiers; the greater part were the people of the land, whose duty it was to fight for the land when they were called upon. Such an army was ready enough to come together and fight a battle; but it was hard to keep them for a long time under arms without fighting. And it was also very hard to feed them, for of course they could not be allowed to plunder in their own land. The wonderful thing is that King Harold was able to keep them together so long as from May to September. All that time they were waiting for Duke William, and Duke William never came. Early in September they could hold out no longer; there was no more to eat, and every man wanted to go home and reap his own field. So the great fleet and army broke up, and the land was left without any special defence. And in the course of the month in which they broke up, both enemies came. In that very September both King Harold of Norway and Duke William of Normandy landed in England. But King Harold of Norway came the first, and indeed the war with him was over before Duke William crossed the sea.

4. The Voyage of Harold of Norway.—Whether then he was stirred up by Tostig or whether he set forth of his own will, King Harold of Norway got him together a mighty fleet, and set sail for England, meaning to win the land and reign there. But men said that he and his friends saw strange dreams and visions on the way which forebode evil to the host. One saw the host of England march to the shore, and before them went a wolf, and a witch-wife rode on the wolf, and she fed the wolf with carcases of men, and, as soon as he had eaten one, she had another ready to give him. It is well to mark these stories, which come out of the old tales and songs of the Northmen, as they show what manner of men they were who now came against England for the last time. The whole story of Harold Hardrada is told in one of the grandest of the old Northern tales, but, when we come to examine it by our own Chronicles, we see that only parts of it can be true. But, notwithstanding the bad omens, the great fleet sailed on, and reached the isles of Shetland and Orkney. These were then a Scandinavian earldom, and its earls, Paul and Erling, joined the Norwegian fleet. It was joined too by other Scandinavian princes from Iceland and Ireland, by King Malcolm of Scotland, and at last, when King Harold of Norway reached the Tyne, by the English traitor Tostig. Whether by agreement or not, he met the Norwegian fleet with whatever following he had, he became the man of Harold Hardrada, and agreed to go on with him against his brother Harold of England. They sailed along the coast of Yorkshire, as Deira was now beginning to be called; they ravaged Cleveland, and met with no resistance till they reached Scarborough. There the Northmen climbed the hills above the town, and threw down great burning masses of wood to set it on fire. Then they sailed on; the men of Holderness fought against them in vain; they entered the mouth of the Humber; the Northumbrians fled before them, and sailed, as the small ships of those times could, a long way up the country, up the river Wharfe to Tadcaster. So the Norwegian fleet was able to sail up the Ouse towards York without hindrance. They reached Riccall, a place about nine miles from York by land, but much further by the river. There the host disembarked; some were left to guard the ships, while the main body of the army, with Harold Hardrada and Tostig at its head, set forth to march upon York.

5. The Battle of Fulford.—It would seem that the two brother earls who ruled on either side of the Humber had taken very little care to defend their coasts; but they were no cowards when actual fighting came. They were now together at York; and when the Northmen came near, they marched out with whatever troops they had, and met Harold of Norway at Fulford, two miles from York, on September 20th, 1066. Events now press so fast on one another that we must remember the days of the week, and the battle of Fulford was fought on Wednesday. Though Fulford is much nearer to York than to Riccall, Harold of Norway got thither before the English earls, and was able to choose his own ground. The battle was fought on a ridge of ground with the river on one side and a ditch and a marsh on the other. On this side was the weakest part, the right, of the Norwegian army; here Earl Morkere charged, and pressed on for a while. But on the left King Harold of Norway, with his royal banner the Landwaster beside him, drove all before him. The English presently fled, and not a few, besides those who were slain with the sword, were hurled into the river and into the ditch. The two earls, with the remnant of their host, found shelter at York.

6. The Surrender of York.—York held out only four days, and made terms with the enemy on Sunday. An assembly was held, in which Harold Hardrada was received as king, and it was agreed that the men of Northumberland should follow him against southern England. Hostages for the city were given at once, and hostages for the shire were promised. It is plain that all this was not according to the real wishes of the Northumbrians; but one would think that Edwin and Morkere must have been poor commanders, not to have held out a little longer. The Norwegian army now marched to Stamfordbridge, about eight miles north-east of York, on the river Derwent. Thither the hostages were to be brought. It is not very clear why they went away so far from York, and still further from their ships at Riccall. Perhaps it was because there seems to have been a royal house near at Aldby, of which either Tostig or Harold of Norway may have had a fancy for taking possession at once. Anyhow the mass of the army encamped at Stamfordbridge. There was a wooden bridge there across the Derwent, and the host was scattered on both sides of the river.

7. The March of King Harold of England.—The men of York needed only to wait one day longer, and they would not have had to bow to Harold of Norway. For King Harold of England was on his march; that very Sunday when they surrendered he was in Yorkshire; on Monday morning he was in York itself. When the fleet and army which had guarded the south coast had dispersed, the King rode to London, and there he heard the news of the coming of Harold of Norway. It is said that he was sick at the time; but he bore up as well as he could to get ready his army. And the story ran that King Edward appeared in the night to Abbot Æthelsige of Ramsey, and bade him go to the King and tell him to be of good cheer and go forth and smite the enemies of England. Now this story proves something; for those who put it together could not have looked on Harold as a perjurer or usurper or one undutiful to King Edward, as the Normans said he was. Harold was condemned by the Pope at Rome, and yet Englishmen, even in after times, did not think the worse of him for that. So a tale like this is worth telling. In any case King Harold got ready his army, and pressed on as fast as he could. When he left London, he could not have known of the battle of Fulford; but he would hear the news on the way, and it would make him press on yet faster. On Sunday, September 29th, he reached Tadcaster, and reviewed the fleet in the Wharfe. The next morning he reached York. The whole city received him gladly; but he passed on through the city at once to attack the enemy. The land between York and Stamfordbridge lies so that an army coming from York could get very near to Stamfordbridge without being seen. So we read that King Harold of England and his host came unawares on King Harold of Norway and his host. And then, on that same Monday, was fought the first of the two great battles of this year, the fight of Stamfordbridge.

8. The Battle of Stamfordbridge.—The Norwegian story has a grand tale to tell of the battle, which may be read in many books. But it cannot be true; it must have been made many years after. For it describes the English army as made up chiefly of horsemen and archers, which were just the forces which an English army of that time had not. In after days, when Englishmen had taken to the Norman way of fighting, there were English archers and horsemen, and the story must have been written then. But in those days Englishmen fought on foot; those who rode to the field got down from their horses when the fighting began. The heavy-armed first hurled their javelins, and then they fought with their great axes, or sometimes with swords. The sword was the older weapon; the axe had come in under Cnut. The light-armed had javelins, slings, any weapons they could get; the bow was the rarest of all. But though we cannot believe the Norwegian story, we know something of the battle from our own Chroniclers, and there are bits in one of our Latin writers, Henry of Huntingdon, which are plainly translated from an English song. And that song must have been made at the very time, for only a few days later men had something else to think about besides making songs about Stamfordbridge. In this way we learn that the battle began on the right side of the Derwent, that nearest to York. The English army came unawares on the part of the Northmen who were on that side, who were not in order nor fully armed. They were presently cut to pieces. But meanwhile the main body on the other side had time to form under King Harold of Norway and Earl Tostig, and one valiant Northman kept the bridge against the whole English host. He cut down forty men with his axe; one of the few archers in the English army shot an arrow at him in vain; at last a man went below the bridge and pierced him from below through his harness. Then the English crossed, and the real battle began, the fight of the two Harolds. The fight was long and fearful between two armies equally brave, fighting in much the same way, and each led on by a great captain. But in the end the English won a complete victory. Harold of Norway and Tostig were both killed in the battle, and the great mass of the Norwegian army was cut off. Tostig was known by a mark on his body and was buried at York. And King Harold of England, who had marched into York from Tadcaster on the Monday morning, marched back again to York from Stamfordbridge on the same Monday evening, having overthrown the first of the two enemies who threatened him. So the hostages for all Yorkshire were never given to Harold of Norway.

9. The Days after the Battle.—The Norwegian army had been cut off at Stamfordbridge; but the Norwegian fleet was still in the Ouse at Riccall. There were Olaf the son of Harold of Norway and the Earls of Orkney. King Harold of England offered them peace; so they came to York and gave hostages, and sware oaths that they would keep friendship towards England. Some days afterwards the feast of victory was kept at York; and while the King was at the board, a messenger came who had ridden as fast as he could from the south to say that the second enemy was come. Duke William of Normandy had landed in Sussex, and was harrying the land. He had indeed landed three days after the fight of Stamfordbridge, Thursday, September 28th, 1066. We must now go back and see all that he had been doing since the crowning of King Harold of England.

CHAPTER VII.
The Coming of Duke William.

1. Duke William’s Claims.—Every one who knew what had happened between William and Harold must have known that after that Duke William would certainly claim the English crown whenever King Edward died. He would most likely have done so, even if Harold had never sworn anything to him; but now that Harold had sworn something, whatever it was, he was yet more sure to press his claims than before. It is worth while to stop and think what William’s claim really was. The truth is that he had no real claim whatever; but he was able in a cunning way to put several things together, each of which sounded like a claim. And so, by using one argument to one set of people and another to another, he was able to persuade most men out of England that he was the lawful heir to the English crown, kept out of his right by the wrong-doing of Harold. Each of his claims was really very easy to answer; but each was of a kind which was likely to persuade somebody, and the whole list together sounded like a very strong claim indeed. The real case was this. The people of England had a right to choose whom they would for their King, and they had not chosen William. It was indeed usual to choose out of the one kingly house, and Harold did not belong to that house. But then neither did William. William indeed said that he was Edward’s near kinsman and ought to succeed him. And no doubt in lands where the notion of electing kings was going out of memory, where hereditary succession was coming in, but where the rules of hereditary succession were not yet fully fixed, this claim would have an effect on men’s minds. But in truth William had no more claim by inheritance than he had by election. He was indeed Edward’s kinsman through Edward’s mother Emma; but he was not of the house of the Old-English kings, which alone could give him any preference for the crown above other men. And meanwhile there was young Edgar, a nearer kinsman than William, and who was of the old kingly house. And it is worth noticing that, about a hundred years after, when the notion of hereditary succession had taken root, men began to speak, very often of Harold, and sometimes of William too, as wrong-doers against Edgar. But at the time no one thought of this. And according to modern law King Edward himself would also have been a wrong-doer against Edgar; for by modern law Edgar, the grandson of the elder brother, would come before Edward the younger brother. But most surely no one at the time thought of that either. Then William said that Edward had left him the crown. Now there can be little doubt that Edward had once made him some kind of promise; but a king of the English could not leave his crown to any one; he could at most recommend to the Wise Men, and Edward had recommended Harold. William in short had no kind of right to the crown, whether by birth, bequest, or election. But it was easy for him to talk as if he had; and it was still easier to bring in all manner of other things, which had nothing to do with the matter, but which all helped to make a fair show. Harold was his man who had forsworn himself against him. Harold had done despite to the bones of the Norman saints. These might be Harold’s own personal sins, but the English people had nothing to do with them. But William found something to say against the English people also. They had, with Harold’s father at their head, murdered the Ætheling Alfred, William’s cousin, and his Norman companions. They had, Harold among them, driven out many Normans, among them Archbishop Robert, and had set up a schismatic archbishop in his place. They were an ungodly people, who did not show respect enough to the Pope; he, Duke William, would go and teach them better ways. And, if all other arguments should fail, he could offer lands and honours in England to all who would come and help him to conquer England. William in short could show himself all things to all men, from a pious missionary to a mere robber. But mark that all this care to put himself right in men’s eyes shows that we have got out of the days of mere violence. When the English entered Britain, when the Danes entered England, when the Northmen settled in what was to be Normandy, they did not think of putting forth so many good reasons for what they did as Duke William put forth now.