It may be noted that the favourite methods of the Danes when invading England was to enter the rivers so as to reach by that means populous towns and districts where they could seize valuable possessions. The monastic houses were their favourite prey, and few in England escaped injury or pillage at their hands.
The following extract from the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” gives a vivid picture of the doings of the Danes at the end of the tenth century:
“A.D. 999. In this year the army again came about into the Thames, and then went up along the Medway, and to Rochester. And then the Kentish force came against them, and they stoutly engaged together, but alas! that they too quickly gave way and fled; because they had not the support which they should have had. And the Danish had possession of the place of carnage; and then took horses and rode whithersoever they themselves would, and ruined and plundered almost all the West Kentish. Then the king with his ‘witan’ resolved that they should be opposed with a naval force, and also with a land force. But when the ships were ready, then they delayed from day to day, and harassed the poor people who lay in the ships; and ever as it should be forwarder, so was it later, from one time to another: and ever they let their foes’ army increase, and ever they receded from the sea, and ever they went forth after them. And then in the end neither the naval force nor the land force was productive of anything but the people’s distress, and a waste of money, and the emboldening of their foes.”
[THE NORMAN INVASION OF ENGLAND]
It is a remarkable fact that the greatest event in the whole history of foreign attack upon England, namely, the invasion under the leadership of William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066, excited less interest, and provoked less effective opposition than many other incidents of infinitely minor importance.
The invasion was not unexpected by any means. When tidings of the projected invasion reached England, the largest fleet and army ever seen in this country were being mobilized at Sandwich. Yet, when the Norman invaders actually arrived the English made practically no opposition at all. It appears that the crews of the navy were tired of being under arms so long, and went home; whilst the king was bound to go northward to put down the troubles in Yorkshire. Nothing was ready.
The Norman fleet consisted, according to various accounts, of from 696 to 1,000 vessels. It can hardly be described as a navy, because the ships were too small to carry much more than the men and their arms: there was no room for provisions, and when on the 28 September 1066, the invaders landed in Pevensey Bay they encountered no opposition. In the Battle of Hastings the English forces were protected within palisaded entrenchments, but the result of the conflict was a decisive defeat.