1066 Turned Upside Down

by Joanna Courtney

  We lost many all the same, including the Lord Ulf himself. He’d been very ill before we left Norway – a canker in his stomach that had looked like to fell him – but he had rallied, or so we’d thought. I think now that perhaps he was too weak all along and was simply determined to die on the battlefield like a true Viking, rather than wasting away in a bed like a woman.

  I saw him go down. It is a picture frozen in my mind, so stark that it imprinted on the back of my eyes like a monk’s illumination – except that no monk would paint that picture of horror. It was as if his knees collapsed beneath him, as if they’d endured one too many charges and could take no more. He staggered, tripped, righted himself but it was too late – he was isolated. The first I knew of the arrow in his throat was Harald’s wail of desolation.

  He bellowed like a speared bull, throwing his white blond head back to the sky in fury. But then, like the king he has always been, he took out his grief as he should – with the sword. I have heard men sing of warriors going berserker before but I thought it a bard’s trick, an invention owing more to effect than truth. That day, though, I saw it for real. Harald ripped through the Saxons like an ancient fury, cutting a path right to the other Harold – and right through his heart too.

  The Battle of Stamford Bridge did not last long after the eight-month king was dead. The Saxons turned and ran the minute Harold’s standard fell and the field was ours – England was ours. Or so we thought. One thing only could spoil our victory, for no sooner had we installed ourselves in York than news came: Duke William had landed.

  It was an annoyance, I’ll tell you that. We’d scarce had time to set the boar over our new hearth-fire or to broach a second barrel of ale. The men had fought twice within the week and were not in the mood for more but we knew what must be done.

  ‘Tis a gift really,’ Harald said.

  ‘A gift?’ I asked him, incredulous.

  ‘A gift,’ he repeated, ‘for now the English need us.’

  He spoke true. A week later as we sailed our ships up the Thames we were ushered into Westminster as if they’d invited us there themselves. Edwin and Morcar sailed with us, having slunk out of hiding to prostrate themselves at Harald’s feet. Morcar bent so low that when he rose again he had hound-dirt on his nose; we have called him Shitface ever since, though these days more in fondness than in derision.

  The southern lords were every bit as eager to welcome us. The moment we came into view they wound up the great bridge that kept the royal palace safe from invaders, and they were all lining the banks of Westminster when we docked. Prince Edgar welcomed Harald on his knees and in return Harald presented him with Harold Godwinson’s body – still intact and carried with respect. It is buried in the new abbey and monks say prayers over it every day in honour of a worthy adversary. Back then, though, it seemed that for the English one Harald was as good as another as long as he would wield a sword in their defence. But then, of course, wielding swords is what we Vikings do best.

  The Normans had no chance. I’d heard tell that Duke William was a hardened warrior who’d defeated more rebellions in his own land than there are herring in a Spring catch, so why he trapped himself on a funny little peninsula in a funny little wooden castle I’ll never know. It was almost laughable. I was in the lead ship with Harald as we rounded the coast and when we saw their fleet – if you can call it that – we thought perhaps it was a jest. The flagship was fine, newly built on a grand scale and gleaming with colour, but the rest were trade vessels or transport-boats, weighed down with wooden panelling to keep their precious horses safe. Ha! What use are horses against the Viking, save maybe seahorses?

  Edwin and Morcar played their part. Eager to prove their worth to their new king and to keep their lands, they marched south with scores of Englishmen and joined battle with Duke William on the sloping land north of Hastings that we now call ‘Victory Field’. Elizaveta oversaw the building of an abbey there afterwards, built in fine byzantine style and dedicated to our patron St Olaf, to celebrate the combined might of England and Norway seeing off the upstart southerners.

  We made a good team. The English shield wall faced down the Norman cavalry and held against them for just the two short hours it took us to lead our Vikings up the road from the coast and right into their rear. They were decimated before the noontime meal and those that fled met only more Vikings lying in wait in our warships.

  It was carnage. Scarce a woman in Normandy must have been left without a hole in her bed, though it didn’t take us long to fill those! We took Normandy in 1067, Maine and Anjou in 1068, and France herself in 1070. After all that, Denmark had little choice but to surrender in 1071 and Harald was named as Emperor of a North far wider than even King Cnut controlled. It was a grand coronation the following year, with churchmen from all over Europe in attendance and both Harald and Elizaveta in empirical purple, as if Constantinople itself had come north, and the people cheering wildly and drinking the rich Norse ale Harald commanded fed into every fountain as the Romans used to do.

  And they were right to cheer for he has been a fair ruler. I am biased, I know. My damned bed lies within the royal palace at Westminster so I am hardly like to criticise but it seems to me that, bar the usual gripes over taxes and harvests and law disputes that no earthly ruler could avoid, his subjects are content. Every land has its own regent, with power enough to rule as he wishes beneath Harald’s overlordship, our shared coinage is stronger than any in the known world, and trade thrives. Who knows how it would have been if Harald had not succeeded, but in the face of such wealth, who cares? Personally, I consider myself privileged to have been a part of his journey all the way from those first vital victories at Fulford and Stamford Bridge. Privileged and proud.

  Yes, 1066 was a fine year indeed and one I will gladly take to my grave as the year my dear King Harald Hardrada took the English throne and paved the way to becoming acclaimed ruler of this united Empire we all so proudly call our own – this English Empire.

  Author’s Note

  The biggest ‘what if’ of any 1066 discussion is ‘what if Harold had beaten William at the Battle of Hastings’ and, given that victory was only secured at the very end of the battle, it can safely be said to have been the closest call of all the events of that huge year. What is less regularly talked about, however – mainly because the battle was almost forgotten about in the near-instant demands of the next one – is ‘What if Harold had not beaten Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.’

  To be honest, if you’d been a betting man at the start of 1066, you would have probably put your hard-earned pennies on Hardrada. He’d won huge treasure as a mercenary all over Rus and Byzantine lands as a young man, then successfully taken Norway from his own nephew and held her in security and prosperity for twenty years before he challenged for England. He had an invasion force of thousands, sailing in three-hundred feared Viking warships, he came in alliance with Tostig who had been Earl of Northumbria for ten years before he was ousted in 1065, and he had some sort of backing from King Malcolm of Scotland. How did he ever lose?

  Several things won King Harold the Battle of Stamford Bridge. One – perhaps the greatest one – was raw courage and determination. His miraculous march north from Westminster in the mere handful of days between Hardrada’s huge victory at Fulford and the proposed hostage handover at Stamford Bridge, is truly the stuff of heroic poetry. The fact that they then caught the vicious Viking army by surprise, understrength and sunning themselves with their armour off, adds to the amazing tale of the victory. At the end of that battle King Harold must have truly felt that God was smiling upon him. Sadly, He wasn’t!

  What sort of a king would Hardrada have made? I’d argue he’d have been a good one and certainly likely to be more culturally suited to ruling England than the Norman, William. Many Englishmen were still of Norse heritage, especially in the north and east, and it was not that long since Cnut had
ruled – and ruled well. It is likely, I contend, that had Hardrada taken the English throne in 1066, he would have settled in with barely a ripple.

  What’s more, his wife – Elizaveta of Kiev (heroine of my novel The Constant Queen) – had sisters and brothers in the ruling houses of France, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Russia and even Byzantium. We would not, I believe, have been stuck as a ‘northern backwater’ with Harald and Elizaveta as our monarchs – but that, sadly, is not something we will ever know save in fiction.

  Joanna Courtney

  www.joannacourtney.com

  Discussion suggestions

  What might a Norse England have looked like, not just in the eleventh century but in the twelfth and thirteenth?

  How much of our culture has come from our association with France in the medieval period?

  APRIL

  1066

  After a largely successful tour of Northern England, including a grand coronation in York, King Harold and Queen Edyth headed back to Westminster to celebrate Easter in what must have been a cautiously optimistic mood. They had been cheered around the north and were rapturously welcomed back into Harold’s heartlands in the south. Internally, for now at least, England was secure.

  However, invasion forces were gathering in both Norway and Normandy. Spies would have reported the building of ships and massing of men, and it looked certain that there would be battle before the end of the fighting season.

  And then, in the Easter skies, a strange ‘dragon’ or ‘fire’ tailed star was seen all over Europe – what we now know as Halley’s Comet. In a time of great superstition and religious fervour this must have struck awe into the hearts of both common people and leaders. It was certainly seen as a sign from God. But a sign for whom? And signifying what?

  THE DRAGON-TAILED STAR

  CAROL MCGRATH

  Harold Godwinson, as Earl of Essex and then Wessex, had taken Edith Swanneck as a common-law wife. By her he had several sons and daughters – all legitimate, for this was a legal marriage, but not one blessed by the Church. Harold set his first wife aside, however, when he became king, for he needed to confirm an alliance with the earls of northern England, and the only way to do so was to take their sister as wife.

  It must have been hard for his sons and daughters by that first wife to accept the second. Harder still for them to realise that he was now vulnerable to outside threats and maybe even attempted murder…

  Thea stared up at the night sky wondering if King Edward dwelled in Heaven, or was he one of the stars that glowed through April’s frosted darkness? She certainly never considered Uncle Edward saintly. He had been stuffy and pious – too devout, surrounding himself with Norman priests, building a new abbey at Westminster, expecting Aunt Edith to be kind and welcoming to his visitors from across the Narrow Sea. Yet, Thea pondered, as she gathered up her thirteen-year-old thoughts, in the end, Uncle Edward had approved of her family and chosen her father, Earl Harold, his brother by marriage, to rule the kingdom after his death. It was a surprise to them all when the dying king expressed his wishes as he had hovered between the world of angels and a darker and very frightening place. She shuddered and hurriedly crossed herself. Surely better for Uncle Edward that he was a star in the night sky, than facing the terrors that lay between Heaven and Hell?

  Thea’s father, King Harold, second of that name, had been crowned on the day her Uncle Edward was interred in his new abbey. Even though she was now a princess, this was a mixed blessing. Her father had remarried, taking Aldgyth, the sister of the powerful Northern earls and widow of a king of Wales, as his wife, claiming that marriage with Thea’s mother, his true hand-fasted wife of eighteen years, was not approved by the Church. He told the family that since their union broke the Church rules on consanguinity – they were related at three times removed – he would have to marry the Northern widow to ensure her brothers’ support and to keep the Church on his side.

  ‘As you know well, there are too many greedy eyes on our kingdom. I must ally with her brothers if I am to protect England,’ he had explained.

  After his pronouncement, her father had sent her mother away. He had packed her, Thea, his elder daughter, off to Grandmother Gytha’s household.

  Thea stared up at the night sky, bright and star-dusted after several weeks of heavy cloud and cold rain, and wondered if she dared refuse to attend her father’s Easter Court at Westminster. She could not be pleasant to the woman who had usurped her mother, though she still loved the huge, bearded warrior who was her father; a warrior who seemed to her as golden as the sun and gentle as the moon. She had another thought. Her childhood friend, Earl Waltheof, would join her father’s Easter Court.

  ‘You are coming and that is all there is to it, my girl. Sit up straight. It does not become a princess to be petulant.’ Gytha peered closer at Thea’s needlework. ‘Just look at those stitches. You must improve your embroidery skills if you are to be a suitable wife for one of noble blood. Unpick that dragon.’

  Tutting, Grandmother Gytha opened coffer after coffer, allowing their lids to crash down again. Finally, she found the box she wanted and dragged out the woollen blankets they might need for their journey. She called for maids to shake the fennel from them and repack them into a great leather travelling chest.

  Thea said passionately, ‘He married her, Grandmother. He married that woman whose brothers plagued him until he said yes. What about my mother? She should be my father’s queen.’

  ‘Do not speak of your stepmother in such a manner.’ Gytha looked icily at her.

  ‘I do not have a stepmother. I have a mother. That woman is a nithing to me.’

  ‘You are ridiculous, girl. She is of our nobility, the queen, and your father is king. You cannot change what is. What is, is.’

  ‘I refuse to bow to her.’

  ‘You will bow to her, Thea. Now, leave your needlework. Go and ask Lady Agatha to help you pack your warmest clothing. The spring warmth has not yet arrived in England.’ With those final words, Grandmother Gytha, the Countess of Wessex, stamped from the bower chamber, banging her eagle-headed walking stick against the coffers as she went.

  Was it possible that Grandmother was angry at Harold’s choice of bride, or was she just furious at her granddaughter’s rebellious words? Wearily, Thea packed away her threads. She glared at the Wessex dragon stretched across her tapestry frame, a dragon still requiring much attention. For a moment, she fancied that the embroidered monster spat angrily at her too.

  They rode from Heathfield on a misty April morning that promised to become a beautiful day once the sun reached its zenith and the light touch of early morning frost had disappeared. Thea, wearing a determined smile, mounted Lady, her grey palfrey, determined that today she would not antagonise the countess. Grandmother Gytha who, despite her sixty years, loved to ride, sat erect on her jennet, Juno, heavily booted feet set firmly in the stirrups below her divided riding gown and her voluminous mantle. The journey to London would take two days.

  An hour after midday Grandmother announced that they would rest at the Bishop’s Palace at St Albans. There, they could be assured of soft mattresses, linen sheets, and despite its being Lent, a delicious meal cooked by St Albans’s excellent cook, Brother Lawrence, who had a talent with Lenten food, using spices and sauces in a clever way.

  Thea glanced behind at the wagons carrying the maids, travelling chests and her grandmother’s dismantled bed with its goose feather mattress which, once they reached Westminster, she must share. Thea sighed. At court, Grandmother would be watching her constantly. There would be no opportunity to seek the handsome Earl Waltheof and, once arrived, there would be a tapestry to finish during the month they would pass at the Easter Court. Grandmother never travelled to London without her embroidery threads. Under her sharp-eyed tutelage, the noble ladies would work on a hanging for the abbey building at Westminster, an Adam and Eve tapestry, begun a
t Christmastide and left aside once the court had dispersed.

  Grandmother glared over at her as if she were reading her thoughts and Thea straightened up at once, reminded of how she must observe decorum. If she appeared contrite and obedient now, her grandmother might be lax in her vigilance and it might be possible to escape the palace bower halls to find her earl.

  As they trotted through lanes ready to burst into leaf, along primrose-heavy banks and hedgerows threaded with robin-run-the-hedge, feeling the afternoon sun grow warmer on her back, Thea dreamed of her favourite dish – beef and mushrooms in a honeyed sauce – and imagined sharing the dish with the handsome blue-eyed young earl. She thought of the Eastertide festivities that would follow the feasting – the story telling, music and dancing long into the night. Smiling, content, she rode on.

  When the cavalcade passed through the ancient Roman walls of St Albans, it was but a short trot to the Bishop’s Palace hall. Sounds of activity echoed all around the abbey’s palace courtyard: the stamping of horses, bridle bells jingling and usually silent monks noisily bustling here and there. Although the countess had expected them to be the only visitors, the abbey was as hectic as a market day in a town.

  ‘What is occurring here?’ The countess leaned down over Juno’s proud head to speak to the gatekeeper.

  ‘The king’s train has arrived. He is on the way to the Easter Court at Westminster.’

  Bishop Erwald, seeing their arrival, hurried across the yard. ‘Welcome, Countess! We are to have great company this night…so honoured. Come, come, and dismount. Brother Hubert will escort you and the princess to your chamber. Not the best chamber, I fear, but I promise it is the second best.’