... from four different perspectives
Let's Hear It For Harold
Let's Hear It For Harold
by Helen Hollick
1066, the most famous date in English history. The Battle of Hastings. To be precise, the 14th of October, 1066, the day when William, Duke of Normandy, led his conquering army against King Harold II of England.
Today, 950 years later, one could be forgiven for thinking that modern governments had invented spin doctoring, but media manipulation is nothing new. By 1077, Duke William's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, had commissioned an embroidery - now called the Bayeux Tapestry - to depict the victorious events; William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges had both written a detailed version of the Conquest. William himself had ordered the building of a splendid abbey on the battle site, the altar being placed at the spot where Harold fell. Supposedly killed by an arrow in the eye.
However, the Norman versions are heavily biased, their explicit purpose: to prove to a Papal inquiry, concerned at the level of brutality and aggression meted on the English, that William's conquest had been justified.
Within twenty years of the Conquest, after the North of England had been savagely razed and the Domesday Book compiled, King Harold II's reign of nine months and nine days was completely undermined. Despite legitimate crowning and anointing in the newly built Westminster Abbey, he was systematically downgraded to his pre-1066 title of Earl, and discredited. William's media managers had to justify political murder.
Strip away the Norman gilding, and what do you get? Twisted truths and blatant lies. Start with the fact that William had no right whatsoever to claim the English throne.
He was the result of Duke Robert of Normandy's liaison with Herleve, the daughter of a tanner. No-one in Normandy expected Robert to die before he took a legal wife and had a legitimate heir. In fairness to William, he did suffer a traumatic childhood. The Norman nobles were not happy bunnies, they did not want an eight-year-old by-blow as their next Duke. As a child, William had to flee for his life more than once; saw his trusted servant murdered before his eyes.
William's claim, in 1066, was that his great-aunt, Emma, had been Queen of England - the only woman to have been queen to two different kings. Æthelred, better known as the Unready, and Cnut - that's the p..c. spelling of Canute - the king famous for attempting to hold back the tide. Her first born son was Edward, later canonised and called the Confessor. Blame the Conquest on him. He was sent into exile when, with Æthelred dead and England falling to the conquest of the Dane, Cnut, Emma decided to remain queen by marrying him. For more than thirty years Edward languished in Normandy. He was in his early teens when he left, a man approaching middle years when he came back, recalled to be crowned King of England. He was a man indoctrinated with the Norman way of life, and probably, would have preferred to take Holy Orders. He may have declared a vow of chastity, or he may have been gay. There are indications to infer he was. Prime among them, his wife, Edith, bore him no children. In this period of history barrenness was always the woman's fault. Edith was never blamed. Edward even took her back as wife after a nasty incident when her father was accused of turning traitor and forced into exile. Edith was sent to a nunnery, always a woman's fate, but after a year, with Godwine forgiven and re-instated as Earl, she too was recalled.
Oh, and by the way, the Normans were not French, although William's great-grandfather had embraced Christianity and the French, civilised, way of life. The Normans were re-located North Men. They were Vikings.
According to William's biographers, King Edward had appointed him his heir, and despite swearing an oath to support his claim, Harold had seized the throne in indecent haste, and had himself crowned on the same day as the old king's funeral, January 6th 1066. Outraged, William immediately ordered an invasion of England, and while Halley's Comet blazed in the sky, a fleet was assembled. In September, he crossed the English Channel without mishap. In the meantime, Harold's brother, Tostig had invaded Yorkshire vwith the Norwegian King, Harald Hardrada. Moving swiftly, Harold marched to Stamford Bridge near York and won a victory, but when he heard of William's landing, he had to return, hot-foot, south.
Medieval spin doctors would have us believe that Harold was a poor commander who fought with a tired and depleted army against the elite supremacy of Norman cavalry. Victorious, William marched on London and on Christmas Day was the first king to be crowned in all splendour in Westminster Abbey. (History has disregarded Harold's legitimate crowning ever since.)
So how had Harold become King? His father, Godwine, was the most powerful man beneath Edward. He had risen under Emma and Cnut. Five of his six sons became earls and his daughter, Edith was Edward's childless queen. When Godwine died Harold stepped into his shoes as Earl of Wessex. Harold proved, several times, that he was an able and capable soldier. He conquered Wales, not Edward I in the thirteenth century. Harold became King of England because he was the most suitable man for the job. Edward could not have appointed William as heir, things did not work like that in Anglo-Saxon England. When a successor had to be found, the most suitable man was chosen by the Council, the Witan. William might have been considered, but against Harold? No contest.
The coronation took place on the day of the funeral because everyone of importance had been summoned to the Christmas Court. By early January they needed to return home, and England could not be left vulnerable until the next calling of Council at Easter. There was nothing untoward about accomplishing such important issues on the same day.
But what of the claim that Harold had pledged an oath to aid William? In 1064 Harold went to Normandy, his voyage duly recorded on the Bayeux Tapestry. Norman sources declare he went to offer William the crown; more likely he was hoping to achieve the release of his brother Wulfnoth and nephew Hakon, held hostage by William since that temporary disgrace of Earl Godwine back in 1052. (I'll not go into detail, suffice to say the exile was caused by some Normans stirring trouble in Dover. Godwine refused to take their side, hence his falling out with the King. For some reason, when the Normans went home they took the two boys with them.) Harold did return to England with Hakon, but Wulfnoth never saw his freedom again.
While William's guest, Harold went on campaign with the Duke, earning himself honours by rescuing two men from drowning near Mont St. Michel (again depicted in the tapestry). Riding with William, Harold would have discovered what sort of man he was. Dedicated to his cause. Single-minded. Ruthless. At the siege of Alencon, William had men skinned alive for daring to taunt him about the nature of his mother's background. William was was quite capable of slaughtering innocent women and children.
At William's Court, Harold was forced to swear, on holy relics, an oath to agree to support the Duke's claim to the English throne. Did he have any choice? What would have been the consequences for him and his men if he had refused? William, as his own vassals knew and Harold had discovered, was not a man you said non to. If you knew you would be locked away for the rest of your life and your men butchered, wouldn't you have risked perjury?
For a Saxon nobleman it was a matter of honour to protect those you command. To place his men in danger by refusing, Harold would have brought a greater dishonour on himself..
As for Harold's command at Hastings - he showed aptitude and courage, dignity and ability. Norman propaganda states that he fought with tired men, with only half the fyrd - the army - and without the support of the North. Tosh!
In mid-September, Harold had marched from London to York in five days to confront his jealous, traitorous brother, Tostig, who had allied with Harald Hardrada of Norway. The southern fyrd, on alert all summer, had been stood down (possibly because the Norman fleet had been defeated by the English fleet at sea). He took only his housecarls - his permanent army, north, gathering the men of the Midlands to him as he marched. Undoubtedly, the housecarls were mounted for no infantry could cover that distance so quickly. Already the fyrds of the north had fought and lost a great battle at Gate Fulford, outside York. Under Harold, they fought again - this time to win - at Stamford Bridge. And again, very possibly on horseback.
It was not that the nobility and the men of the Northern Fyrd did not want to support Harold at Hastings; they could not, for their numbers were savagely depleted, many of the survivors wounded and exhausted after fighting two battles. It would have been impossible for them to have marched south when news came that William had landed. The northern earls did, in fact, follow Harold as soon as they could but, of course, by then it was too late.
The battle that took place seven miles inland from Hastings is almost unique for this period. Fighting was usually over within the hour, two at most. This battle lasted all day. The English, for the most part, stood firm along the ridge that straddled the road out into the Weald, stood shield locked against shield, William's men toiling again and again up that hill. This was deliberate strategy on Harold's part. He and his men had marched to York and back, fought a battle in between. Doesn't it make good sense to make the opponent do all the hard work? Yes, perhaps Harold should have waited before committing his men to fight, but he had no choice in the decision: once out into the Weald it would have been difficult to stop William. Within the Hastings peninsula, he and the extensive, deliberate, damage he was doing to people and property were firmly contained. Harold had to keep him there, therefore Harold had to fight.
He stood his men, firm, along the ridge, forming the shield wall. Side by side (to coin an over-used phrase, "shoulder to shoulder") Shouting their contempt, clashing spear and axe against their shields, hurling abuse down that steep, grass hill that so rapidly became a morass of mud and blood:
"Ut! Ut! Ut! - Out! Out! Out!"
Only once did Harold's men let him down. The right flank broke - assuming William's men were beaten they tore down the hill after them, Being cavalry, the Normans were able to re-group. The result was outright slaughter, every Saxon was killed.Three times William was unhorsed. Three times the Normans retreated; only the fear of William's wrath held them together, although the Norman writers naturally portrayed their blind panic as strategic withdrawal.
And so to Harold's death. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts a man wounded by an arrow in his eye, and another being felled by a sword, the words 'Here Harold is killed' above both. Which one is Harold? Well, it is not the one with the arrow. Arrows travel in a trajectory. They go up, form an arc, come down. Can you honestly believe that there stood Harold, an experienced soldier, looking upward as arrows came over?
King Harold II of England died at the hands of four of William's ignoble noblemen. They dismembered and decapitated him.
The truth of Hastings? Our last English king died slowly and bloodily. He was savagely hacked to pieces on the battlefield that later became known as Hastings' Göd cyning - Harold was a good king. He gave his life defending England from foreign invasion, and has paid the penalty of deliberately twisted truth ever since.
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| King Harold II depicted on the facade of Waltham Abbey - originally built by Harold when he was Earl of Essex (photo www.avalongraphics.org ) |
by Joanna Courtney
Harald Hardrada didn’t really have a concrete
claim to the English throne at all, but as a Viking king, and a warrior through
and through, he wasn’t overly bothered with the niceties of a legal claim,
being more than happy to take the throne by the usual Viking method – with the
sword.
That said, however, Harald was a modern-day
Viking. He was not one of the original pagan invaders that we think of when we
imagine the ravening hoards piling into Lindisfarne. Harald was a Christian, a
sophisticated man of the world, and had been King of Norway for nearly twenty years
when he made his claim on England. He had personally led a movement to improve
both the law courts and the economy of Norway and, although he still intended to
take England in battle, he did appreciate the need for a little justification.
So where did he find it? Well, it went back
to Harthacnut who had become King of England following the death of his father,
the infamous King Cnut. Cnut, incidentally, was a Dane who had taken first
Norway and then England (by the sword) and proclaimed himself ‘Emperor of the
North’. It’s a pretty cool title and I think it’s fair to say that Harald
Hardrada probably had his eye on it for himself. He had spent years fighting
the Danes – it was his favourite summer sport –and I doubt he had given up
aspirations in that direction when he set his three-hundred ships in the
direction of England in 1066. Indeed, taking England would have been a big step
on his way to also taking Denmark.
What’s more King Cnut had been a popular and
strong king. England, it must be remembered, was very much a part of Northern
Europe before 1066. It would be naïve to say that it was the Normans who
connected us more closely to continental Europe, as many trading links had
already been forged with France and Germany – and even down into Byzantium, but
nonetheless, before 1066 our cultural heritage was intimately tied up with Scandinavia.
Anglo-Saxons, after all, were originally Angles and Saxons – tribes from
Denmark – and your archetypal Englishman was tall and blond like his
Scandinavian neighbours.
The indigenous British Celts had long since
either intermarried with the English, or remained independent on the edges of
England – Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall - and by the eleventh century we
were very much a country that looked across the North Sea, not the Narrow Sea
(now the English Channel) for our key links. The English language at that time
was far more like Norse than anything we would recognise as English today and,
indeed, it is likely that Cnut and Hardrada (had he made it as king), would
have been able to more or less make themselves understood in their native
tongue, especially in the north and east, which had traditionally been affiliated
to Norway and Denmark.
East Anglia was still known as the ‘Danelaw’
before 1066, from the agreement with King Alfred the Great in 878 that had seen
it ruled over by the Danish warlord, Guthrum. Northumbria, too, was filled with
nobles of Scandinavian birth, as their names – Uhtred, Siward, Erik, Tostig,
Copsig - testify. Even Gytha, the mother of Harold of Wessex who is often held
up in this period as being in every possible way ‘English’, was Danish, and
Harold’s father, Earl Godwin, had risen to power as King Cnut’s right-hand man.
If England was to have a foreign king in 1066, they were far more used to, and
far more culturally ready to have one from Scandinavia than from France.
But what of Harald’s claim? When Cnut died in
1035 Harthacnut succeeded him in Denmark, and Magnus, the son of the deposed King
Olaf, succeeded him in Norway. There was inevitable fighting between them to
try and nick each other’s country, but by 1039 they made a peace treaty in
which they agreed to make each other their heirs in the event of them dying
without sons of their own.
This must have seem highly unlikely at the
time, as both were young men but in fact Harthacnut died in 1042, without an
heir, and Magnus inherited Denmark (though he had subsequently lost it to Svein
Estrithson, the very noble he’d assigned as his regent). By 1042, however,
Harthacnut had also become King of England – through his father Cnut, and
through his mother Emma (who was also Edward the Confessor’s mother) and Magnus
should, according to the treaty, have inherited England too. Sadly for him, Edward,
Harthacnut’s half brother – and the indomitable Queen Emma – were on the scene in
Westminster and grabbed the throne before Magnus could so much as launch a
ship.
Magnus was then rather caught up in the
return to Norway of his uncle, a certain Harald Hardrada, so did not pursue the
claim, and then he himself died, also without a male heir, in 1047. On his
death, the claim theoretically passed to Harald so there, if the lawyers of the
day required, was his nominal right to England. Tenuous, yes, but still there.
So would Harald have been a good king? His
nickname, Hardrada, means ‘Hard Ruler’,
or ‘Ruthless’, suggesting maybe he would have been every bit as harsh as
William eventually proved to be, but that was a name he had gained in his
youth, way back in the 1030s. He was just fifteen when, fighting his first major
battle for his half-brother, King Olaf, against Cnut, his side were harshly
defeated, apparently during an eclipse that turned the battlefield at
Stikelstad dark at a key moment (leading to suspicions of witchcraft from the
much-feared Cnut). Harald, badly wounded, hid under a bush to avoid slaughter
and was eventually rescued by comrades and nursed back to health in a peasant
farmer’s household until he was well enough to flee over the sea into Russia.
He landed up in the court of Grand Prince
Yaroslav of Kiev and from there preceded to make both his name, and a vast
fortune, as a ‘Varangian’ – a Viking mercenary, first for Yaroslav himself and
later for the Byzantine emperor. He became a famed and highly decorated
war-leader and we can assume that Magnus was quaking in his boots when Harald
finally, in 1045, decided he had enough treasure to challenge for the Norwegian
throne.
He sailed with his new wife, Elizaveta,
eldest daughter of Yaroslav, and by all accounts his true love (there is
evidence of love poetry he wrote to her), and, after some skirmishing, Magnus
conceded defeat and made a peace treaty with his uncle, in which they would
jointly rule Norway. This cannot have been a comfortable situation and it is
hard to believe that Magnus’ death the following summer, apparently of
ship-fever when on the usual Dane-bashing summer mission, was a natural one.
Nonetheless, no one challenged Hardrada and he became sole king of Norway – a
title he was to hold with honour and great success all the way to 1066.
Personally, I think Harald would have been a good King of England.
Not better than English Harold, perhaps – although his experience as a ruler
was far greater – but definitely better than William. Fifty years earlier, Cnut
had slid onto the English throne with barely a ripple and had ruled very well
for twenty years before his early death. Harald was already fifty and a wise
and far steadier man than in his warrior youth, and he had two grown sons who
could stand as regent in both Norway and England, ensuring stability.
Many English nobles still had Scandinavian
blood, so would most likely have accepted his rule, meaning none of the
rebellions that led to the endless bloodshed of 1067-70 under William. What’s
more, his wife, Elizaveta, had brothers and sisters in the royal houses of
France, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Russia and Byzantium meaning that England
would have been closely connected with not just Scandinavia but continental
Europe too. Having Hardrada as king would not have limited our prospects as an
international power.
Harald Hardrada came very close to being our king
in 1066. He decimated English forces at Fulford on September 20th
and took York easily. He was, it must be remembered, a renowned warrior and a
far more feared force than the little Norman duke, and the North – always resistant
to control from Wessex (does anything change?) – might well have backed him.
But of course he wasn’t…
but there again... Let's Hear It For Edgar...
by G.K. Holloway
How
many people have heard of Edgar Atheling? Not many, is my guess. How many
people have heard of the Battle of London Bridge? Even fewer, I’d say. So, who
was Edgar and why was he proclaimed king? We have to go back quite a way to
discover how this young man fits into the story of 1066. I would just mention
here that the people at this time seemed to be singularly unadventurous when
naming their children – so pay attention as there is more than one Edgar,
Edward and Edmund.
Edgar
grew up with his sisters, Margaret and Christine in King Edward’s court. At the
time of the king’s death, Edgar would have been fifteen or sixteen, too young
and inexperienced to defend his kingdom. Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex
was crowned instead. But Harold only ruled for nine months and nine days until
he met his historic end at Hastings. This time the Witan proclaimed Edgar king
but England was in chaos. The Normans were sweeping across south east
England and no one could stop them. The survivors of the English army,
exhausted from the battles at Stamford Bridge (a win) and at Hastings (a
defeat) were in no fit state to hold back the invaders. A few young earls were
all that remained of the aristocracy and two of them had been involved in the
disastrous Battle of Fulford Gate. Edgar and his tiny army did actually manage
to defend London Bridge. When losses proved unacceptable, William called off
the attack. He then burned down Southwark before heading up stream
to cross the Thames at Wallingford. Once he was on the north bank,
the demoralized earls and churchmen soon deserted Edgar and surrendered.
Finding himself without support, Edgar surrendered too. William held his
coronation on Christmas Day 1066 and allowed Edgar to keep the title Earl of
Oxford, which had been bestowed on him by King Harold. But the Normans
treated the vanquished so badly they rebelled time and again. Often as not
Edgar would be their leader. But after battling hard to eject to Normans from
his country, in 1072 Edgar, his sisters and their mother, Agatha, made
their way to live at the court of King Malcolm of Scotland. Here he stayed
until William invaded and banished him. Returning from exile to England after a
few years, in 1085 he left once more, this time for Sicily, where he hoped to
start a new life. The venture was a failure and within two years Edgar was back
in England.
When
William the Conqueror died, Edgar sided with his son Robert Curthose, Duke of
Normandy, against another of William’s sons, William Rufus, King of England. Again
Edgar was on the losing side. William Rufus defeated Robert in 1091 and yet
again, Edgar sought refuge in Scotland before travelling on to Normandy.
In
1097 one of Edgar’s nephews, also called Edgar, became King of Scotland, while
Edgar himself joined the First Crusade. After his adventure he returned to
Europe only to find himself involved in another feud between two of the
Conqueror’s sons. This time the conflict was between Robert Curthose and his
younger brother, King Henry I of England. As ever, Edgar was on the wrong side.
In 1106 Henry defeated Robert and had him thrown in Cardiff prison where,
after thirty years of incarceration, he died of starvation.
King
Henry pardoned Edgar for his part in Robert’s rebellion and he lived peacefully
in England until 1120. William Adeling, the son of his niece, Edith and heir to
the English crown, died at sea in the same year. A tired and broken man, Edgar
went to live in Scotland until he died at the age of seventy five. Where he is
buried, no one knows.
Edgar’s
life seems a tragedy. The proclaimed King of England for just twenty-seven days,
Edgar was robbed of his future by a power hungry tyrant. He spent most of the
rest of his life fighting to regain his inheritance or trying to make a new
start in another land. Losing one battle after another, nothing seemed to work
out for him. How many times must he have asked himself the question, What could
have been?
or... Let's Hear It For William...
by Joanna Courtney
Not
many people are prepared to stand up for Duke William of Normandy – William the
Conqueror. This is odd, really, as let’s face it, he won and normally we all
love a winner. But with William, somehow, it’s different.
I
was amongst the William-haters myself for a long time, right up until I started
working on the third novel in my Queens
of the Conquest series and had to consider the events leading up to 1066
from the Norman point of view. That’s when I started seeing where William was
coming from and even, dare I say it, falling a little bit in love with him… (loud ‘hrmph’ from Helen who can’t stand
William!)
Of the three main contenders for the
throne of England in 1066 William is generally considered to be the least
likeable, the least exciting and certainly the least sexy. Normans have a largely
well deserved reputation for being dour, disciplined and harsh. However, in
reality all important men in this warlike society would have had to be at least
the latter two and William has much to recommend him in comparison to either
Harold Godw3inson or Harald Hardrada.
For a start, William seems to have been
both devoted and faithful to his wife, Matilda of Flanders. Compared to the
Harolds, who both had a ‘Roman’ and a ‘Handfast’ wife, and indeed to most leaders
of a time in which having a mistress was almost as common as having a horse,
this makes him unusual.
William seems to have been a man who
prized loyalty above all things. Brought up in fear for his life from the age
of seven when he inherited his rebellious dukedom from his father, he cherished
those he could trust and rewarded them well for it. He promoted a group of men
almost as young as himself for their service and reliability and kept them with
him throughout his reign, making them key lords in England as soon as he could.
Plus, although he punished rebels harshly, this was mainly by exile rather than
death, and he was well known to pardon those who proved themselves keen to make
amends. He was, in short, a lord worth serving well.
He was a highly skilled warrior,
something he shared with both Harolds. His horsemanship seems to have been
second to none and he was said to be able to fire a bow further than any man,
demonstrating huge strength. He was also tactically very clever. He put down
numerous rebellions within Normandy as a young man, successfully repelled two
invasions by France/Anjou, and conquered neighbouring Maine before he invaded
England. When Harold Godwinson mysteriously travelled to Normandy in 1064,
William took him on campaign to Brittany and the two men seem, at least
superficially, to have got on well. Had Harold chosen to back William things
could have been very different for England in the years after 1066 – but that,
clearly, didn’t happen.
William was also a man who valued
promises. This must have gone alongside his inherent fidelity and prizing of
loyalty but it was also the most naïve part of his character. In 1051 it is
possible that King Edward of England – William’s cousin – brought him to
Westminster for Christ’s Mass and, in some way promised him the inheritance of
the throne if he did not produce an heir of his own.
To put this promise in context, it was
made when the previously powerful Earl Godwin of Wessex and his entire family had
been exiled, largely due to the machinations of the Norman Archbishop of
Canterbury, Robert Champart, who was working hard to promote William’s
interests. When, the following year, the Godwins fought their way back into
power, everyone conveniently forgot the promise – everyone except William. He
refused to see it as part of the endless political game-playing that ruled (and
rules) European politics and hung steadfastly onto it all the way into 1066,
fifteen years later. Indeed, when Harold visited William in 1064 and was
‘forced’ to swear an oath of allegiance to him it was almost certainly centred
upon this shadowy promise. William, like an elephant, never forgot!
He was also a very devout man. He ruled
over a period in Norman history famed for the building of abbeys and churches
and he and Matilda commissioned several of their own, including the stunning abbeys
of St Etienne and La Trinite that still stand in Caen today. William seems to
have strongly believed in the authority of the pope and although he defied an
edict banning him from marrying Matilda (an edict made for political rather
than doctrinal reasons) back in 1051, he worked tirelessly to have that
reversed and was delighted when, in 1059, it finally was.
One of William’s first actions when he
heard that Harold had claimed the English throne was to send a deputation to
the Pope to ask for a ruling that he was the rightful heir – a deputation that
was successful. The Pope ruled in William’s favour and sent an edict
proclaiming Harold as an oath-breaker which was nailed on virtually every
church door in northern France, greatly strengthening William’s claim – and the
number of his recruits. The Pope also sent a holy banner under which William
marched into war. We can be as sceptical as we like nowadays about the reasons
for this (this was a Pope who was favouring Normans in Italy), but at the time
it would have been a strong and powerful vindication of William’s invasion
‘mission’ for those flocking to join him and, indeed, for William himself.
There is no doubt in my mind that
William genuinely believed that he was the rightful King of England in 1066 and
that this was backed up by the promise of 1051, Harold’s oath of 1064 and the
Pope’s own blessing. He did not invade, as Hardrada did, under a trumped-up and
barely cared-about claim, but to defend what he strongly felt was his God-given
inheritance.
There is also no doubt that initially William
did not intend any ravaging or destruction of English lands or peoples. When he
conquered Maine in 1062 he retreated back to Normandy and left his new people
to rule themselves in peace for as long as they acknowledged him as their
overlord – and this seems to have been the blueprint he intended for England. Had
Harold supported William, William would almost certainly have appointed him as
regent. Although he was very ready after Hastings to hand over the lands
surrendered by those dead in battle to his own lords, he kept a number of key
English lords, including Edwin and Morcar, in place – until they rebelled.
William was a man who had grown up
fighting endless rebellions and challenges to his right to rule. He must have
been utterly fed up of it. I suspect he hoped that being a king instead of a
mere duke – and a king of a land long shaped by intricate and clever
administrative and fiscal policies – would be an easier role. He must have
expected some rebellion but the sheer scale and endless nature of the English
refusal to accept him would have hurt.
As a man who prized loyalty this would
have been a lot to take – too much. The Harrying of the North came after a run
of rebellions and was the act of a man who had just had enough. He needed to
stamp his authority on his new subjects and he did so in the most brutal way
possible. England still struggles to forgive him for it but, in William’s
defence, they (we) may have slightly asked for it.
I
think that I remain, deep in my heart, a Harold-supporter, but exploring
the run-up to 1066 from the Norman side has helped me to see how truly William
felt he should be King of England and how keen he was to rule well. It is
history’s tragedy that it didn’t quite work out that way but Norman influence
brought a lot of strong things to England, things – like castles – that we tend to think of, perhaps ironically,
as archetypally English.
William may often be the ‘baddie’ of the
1066 story but he was not a ‘bad man’, he was merely typical of a leader and warlord
of his time. The year 1066 is a fascinating one when considered from his perspective. I urge you to try it.
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| Probably the most famous English castle built by William the Conqueror The White Tower - more commonly known as the Tower of London |
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Who would you shout for and why?
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