And as to Hallgerdur, may I recommend you read Njals Saga to meet her fire-breathing namesake?
Anna Belfrage
www.annabelfrage.com
Discussion suggestions
How influential were the ‘old gods’ at this time? Do you think only a few, or many people, like Gunhild, hedged their bets between old and new religion?
With no modern artificial aids, how did disabled people manage? How much difference would there have been if you had a disability and you were either rich or poor?
OCTOBER
1066
1066 is the most well known date in English history, for on that fateful 14th day of October King Harold of England fought Duke William of Normandy on Hastings field and, in the dying light of an almost unprecedentedly long battle, lost. It was, perhaps, an especially tragic defeat coming off the back of Harold’s amazing victory over Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, almost three hundred miles north, just three weeks before.
Details of the Battle of Hastings were reported in various accounts, all of questionable accuracy, and debate will always rage over whether William was unhorsed and believed dead, whether he ordered a ‘feigned retreat’ to tempt the English out of their shield-wall, and whether Harold died from an arrow in the eye – which for various reasons is now considered unlikely.
It matters little. Although William was not yet a king at the end of that bloody day, he had started his campaign in the most brutally successful way possible. Not only King Harold but many of his key lords lay dead and William was well on the way to taking the English throne.
Resistance, however, would be strong and as a result, the Battle of Hastings effectively ushered in several years of rebellion and bloodshed, culminating in the vicious ‘harrying of the north’ that saw whole villages laid waste. Such violence, beyond the key battle itself, may not have been William’s original intention but he was a man used to rebellion, having fought endless challenges to the title of Duke that he’d inherited aged only seven, and he was merciless in putting them down.
So many more lives were lost to William’s victory than those taken on the field in October, and it will forever be tempting to imagine a world in which it had been William, not Harold, who lay cut to pieces at the end of that famous ‘Battle of Hastings’ – actually fought atop a steep-hilled field seven miles from the small harbour town.
HOLD ENGLAND FIRM
JOANNA COURTNEY
If you’ve ever had the luck to go to the Battle of Hastings re-enactment at Battle Abbey, you will have heard, as I have, the vast majority of the spectators vigorously boo-ing Duke William. Most of us still, despite so much of our heritage coming from our Norman ancestors, believe in our hearts that Harold was the just and good English defender and that William was the vicious foreign invader.
Certainly at the time, King Harold was desperate to see William from his shores. This was the man who had forced him, under duress, to swear an oath of allegiance. This was the man trying to steal England on some trumped-up promise no one else remembered. And this was the man who was ravaging his own patriarchal lands around Hastings. Harold had beaten Hardrada in a surprise attack and he was keen to do the same to William. He rode out from Westminster before his northern reinforcements had caught him up – a rare impetuousness that may well have cost him the Battle of Hastings. If only he had waited one more day…
I was not born to be a king. I know that without others pointing it out. I did not even ask to be a king. I was chosen, and chosen for one reason only – my ability as a commander. I am not here on England’s throne for my bloodline, or my heritage, or my links to other royal houses. I am not here as part of any grand scheme; I am here to defend my country. I am here to keep the invaders from our shores.
I am half way there. Already we have seen off the Vikings. Even now, Hardrada’s body will be on a ship back to Norway, wept over by his queen. I am sorry for it, for I hear tell he was a great ruler but this is war. If it had not been him going to God it would have been me and I am not ready to die. I have a job to complete and tomorrow, on the fifteenth day of the October month, I will complete it. Together with my men, I will hold England firm.
The English camp stretched out as far as the eye could see, swamping the ancient moot point of the now wizened hoary apple tree. And still men came. Even now, Harold could see a new group coming out of the thick trees of the Andreaswald – maybe fifty of them, led by a squire who was barely bearded and riding on a packhorse that looked as if it might expire at any moment.
His men had an eclectic collection of weapons: rusting swords with only their new-cut edges shining in the low autumn sun; knives of all sizes, no doubt taken from the kitchen or the threshing barn; and hoes and spades and rakes that might have looked comical save for the fierce determination with which they were wielded. These men had come with all they had to fight for England and Harold rushed to welcome them to his army. He would have felt safer, perhaps, had they been in chainmail with fine new blades, but raw courage counted for much in a shield wall and he grabbed keenly for their hands.
‘Welcome, welcome. Thank you for joining us.’
The men, wide-eyed, dropped to their knees at the sight of the crown on Harold’s head.
‘King Harold, my lord. We are honoured indeed.’
‘No please.’ Harold rushed to raise them. ‘It is I who will be honoured to fight at your side tomorrow. England will need all her sons to keep the Normans out.’
This elicited a roar of approval and Harold seized the chance to move away, adjusting the heavy crown as he went. He felt a little foolish wearing it in the rough warcamp but his brother, Garth, had insisted that the men needed to see him as a king and he was right. These new recruits would fight harder for having stood before their ruler. If Harold was to be a king, he was determined to be a good king and if that started with jewels on his brow, so be it.
It will make you an easy target, a voice inside his head reminded him but he paid it little heed. He had led armies for years with his ‘fighting man’ standard high over his head and had not yet been cut down. His chainmail was of the finest quality, his helmet of the thickest steel and his sword sharpened to cut bone like butter.
The royal swordsmith had done the sharpening in London, saying Harold could not ride on the Normans with Viking guts dulling his blade. There was time, he’d insisted, and everyone had said the same. The Normans were going nowhere. They’d set up one of their ridiculous little wooden castles at Pevensey and were happy hiding within its walls. Harold, they’d all said, could take a few days to regroup and recruit and rest.
‘Rest?’ he’d roared at them. ‘How can I rest with scum on our doorstep? In my own earldom? How can I rest whilst they raid my villages to feed their greedy troops and cut down my trees to make arrows for our hearts?’
Everyone had looked scared at that, even Garth. Harold had been a little loud, perhaps –there must be traces of his father in his blood after all, God bless him. Born the son of a lowly thegn, Godwin had fought his way up to become England’s topmost earl and had passed that honour to his eldest living son, Harold. How proud he would have been now, to see his son as king.
Harold pushed his chin up at the memory of his father, the crown no longer so heavy on his head, and went to find his commanders. He was calmer than he’d been in London. It was a relief to be here on the brink of battle. He just wanted it done now, wanted the bastard duke dead and his ravening troops gone from England. He’d have been here yesterday if he could have but Edyth had stopped him.
‘You want me to rest I suppose?’ he’d snarled at his queen – yes, snarled. Perhaps, on reflection, he had needed rest.
‘No,’ she’d said crisply, ‘not if you don’t want to, but I do need to talk to you.’
She’d been very calm, very certain. Amidst the clamour of soldiers and battle plans, her clear voice had spoken out to him.<
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‘Very well,’ he’d agreed. ‘Here?’
‘In our chamber.’
The men had bellowed approval at that, coarse lot that they were, but Edyth had just smiled. Having been Queen of Wales for nine years she was well used to coarseness.
‘I wish,’ she’d said, loud enough for all to hear, ‘to give my king something to fight for.’
They’d liked that, the men, had clapped lustily as she’d led him away by the hand, he the one blushing. He’d known Edyth from a young girl and been married to her nearly nine months but still she surprised him with her strength and resourcefulness. Without her and her two brothers, Edwin and Morcar, the lords of Mercia and Northumbria, he could never have held the North.
It was Edyth who had been forced to entertain Hardrada at York after his victory at Fulford; Edyth who had delayed the delivery of the hostages until Harold could get his army there; and Edyth who had kept the citizens of York silent as they had marched through to surprise Hardrada at Stamford Bridge. He had married her for her northern connections and it had paid off, but now she’d given him even more.
‘I am with child, Harold,’ she’d told him that day in Westminster.
He’d gaped like a fool.
‘With child?’
She’d smiled then.
‘Yes. It is not, you know, that much of a surprise. I have three children already by Griffin, do I not? And you five of your own, and we have, you know, created plenty of opportunity.’
He’d blushed again like some virgin boy and not a man on his second wife, though she’d spoken true. He had married her for political convenience but the match had been no hardship in the bedchamber, though bedding her had been different from with Svana, his handfast wife of twenty years. It had been harder, faster, more tangled with the fierce world they had been thrown into on Edward’s death, but they had both embraced it along with their other duties and now this.
They’d lain side by side the night she’d told him, talking it over for hours. Their son would unite the north and the south for good, they had sworn to each other. England would be whole and stronger for it. They’d spoken of Wales too. Griffin was dead but Edyth’s two sons, Ewan and Morgan, carried his blood and maybe, in time, could be restored to the throne of Wales, forging bonds with England’s neighbour where previously there had been only strife. Such plans they’d dreamed up – and they would make them work too, once the Norman was defeated.
‘Garth, Leo!’
Harold found his brothers eating stew outside their pavilion with all his other key lords and housecarls. They were in their armour already, though spies had reported that William was camped beneath the trees to the south of Caldbec hill. Battle would be joined in the morning and by this time tomorrow it would surely, be over? Harold looked to the skies, purpling with the first colours of dusk, and prayed he would see the sun set again, for if he did not it would mean he had failed and England had fallen. But that would not happen.
‘Any news of our northern troops?’ he asked, glancing back into the Andreaswald through which the dusty road led up to London.
‘Yes, Sire,’ Garth said using the new French term coming into fashion among the noble kings of Rome.
Harold grimaced at him.
‘Call me, Harold, Brother, please.’
‘Yes Harold – Sire.’
Garth winked at him and Harold had to smile. His brother was irrepressible. He would have to find him a wife and settle him down once the battle was won.
‘Where are they?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Barely half an hour away, my King. They will be with us before sunset and with two thousand men at their backs.’
Harold looked again to the skies, now turning orange as the sun sank with a sigh of a breeze over the great sloping field on which tomorrow they would play out England’s fate. He sent a prayer of thanks up to God above and thought, again, of Edyth. He had slept after her news – slept deep and long. Too long, or so he’d thought. He’d risen the next day furious at himself but then word had come that Edwin and Morcar, recovered from Fulford – or at least recovered enough – were already at Bedford and moving fast to join their king against the Normans. And now they were almost arrived with just enough time to rest before the most important battle of any of their lives.
God was good. It was the fourteenth day of October and tomorrow, the fifteenth, they would stand side by side – Northerner and Southerner alike – to England’s defence.
Men do not like to defend. It is hard to sustain. It requires patience, determination, control. Defending does not sing through the blood as attacking does. To stand and take another man’s repeated charges requires a stubborn stamina that can grind a man down. And yet that is what we must do – at least until the time is ripe to break.
We cannot fight cavalry in the open field. I know, for I fought with William in Brittany two years back and have seen, first hand, the havoc an armed rider can wreak upon foot soldiers. I have seen too, though, how fast horses tire in battle, how easily even the most fiercely trained beast will rear from a well-placed spear. No horse will charge a wall, even a shield wall, if it is well made and well held. And a Saxon shield wall is always well held.
William will not take us. I will not allow it. Maybe I was not born a king but I was, at least, born an Englishman. William has no more right to the throne than I. He claims he was promised it but such promises are ever made and broken and only a fool boy holds to them in this reckless way. He is not wanted here. Does not every rake-armed soldier prove that, especially those who have marched from York still fresh from victory over the Viking? All of England stands here with me now and all of England will stand here with me at the conclusion. Together we will keep hold England firm.
They lined up at dawn, though men had been stirring long before. Few sleep well in the face of battle. It matters little for the pulse of battle-lust keeps the heart beating and the mind sharp and there will always be plenty of time to rest afterwards, one way or another. They’d left the camp in the hands of the old men and the followers – the myriad women weaving between the soldiers, feeding their stomachs and, often, their more carnal appetites. Imminent mortality can be very arousing but now the fires were burnt low and the women left behind to rest and prepare to receive the inevitable wounded once battle was joined.
Harold’s own wife and queen had ridden in last night, high in the saddle at her noble brothers’ side.
‘What are you doing here?’ Harold had demanded.
‘I ride with the men of the North to your aid,’ had been the proud reply.
‘And what am I to do with you now?’
Much laughter but in front of the common soldiers Edyth had been all dignity.
‘I shall ride to Whatlington to await news of your victory in safety.’
‘You have a guard?’
‘Of course, and a companion besides.’
She’d pulled her horse aside and there, to Harold’s utter astonishment, had been Svana. His wives had been friends for years when he had been wed only to Svana but his second marriage had, needless to say, driven something of a wedge between them. Seeing them there, together, had brought home to him how truly all of England was united behind him and he had nearly, God save him, wept.
Garth had rescued him, leaping forward to pump the hands of Edwin and Morcar and welcome them at huge volume, to their camp. The men had cheered so loudly at this huge boost to their numbers, that Harold had sworn William must have heard them on the far side of the valley. The thought had set steel in him again. Let him hear; and let him quake. They were coming for him.
And now, here they were. The Normans were coming out of the trees and lining up and, Lord, there were a lot of them. The legendary cavalry were at the back, horses frisking, long lances glinting, pennants flapping cockily in the breeze. In front of them were lines of infantry, many of them
mercenaries from all over northern France, and all with armour and weapons. No rakes for the Normans. And then, in front of them, were row upon row of archers. He would have to watch them. The wall would need to keep shields high overhead. Instinctively Harold pushed down on his own helmet but it was secure. He wore no crown today, merely a simple diadem studded with jewels, sitting over the rim of his helmet.
‘Like a halo,’ Garth had joked this morning as they’d checked each others’ mail before leaving camp.
‘Saint Harold!’ Leo had laughed.
‘I’m no saint,’ Harold had shot back, tense. ‘How can I be when I killed our brother?’
But at that Garth had grabbed him by both arms, holding him hard in his warrior’s grasp.
‘Tostig deserved to die, Harold. He fought against you, up there in the North alongside Hardrada – he fought against England. You had no choice.’
‘It’s true,’ Leo had agreed, serious now. ‘Though true, too, that you’re no saint. You have two wives, man!’
Harold had forced a smile.
‘We will get you wives, both of you. You will be heroes once today is done.’
‘Heroes,’ Garth had agreed happily. ‘And how much better is that than saints?’
Now Harold looked over to his younger brothers, stood with his other commanders awaiting his final orders. Leo and Garth had revelled in being safely down the family line, both living the free lives of warriors, and despite being over their thirtieth year now, were wild yet. They were earls, though and, more importantly, were brave men and true. They would lead well today if they could keep their heads.
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