This Sceptred Isle

by Christopher Lee

  King Edward came to Westminster towards Christmas [1065] and there had the abbey church consecrated which he himself had built to the glory of God, St Peter, and all God’s saints; the consecration of the church was on Holy Innocents’ Day [28 December]. He passed away on the vigil of the Epiphany and was buried on the Epiphany [6 January]. Here in the world he dwelt for a time in royal majesty, sagacious in counsel; a gracious ruler for twenty-four years . . . And so Edward died and with him the line of the Saxon Kings.

  The boy who should have been King on Edward’s death was Edgar. He was the son of the King’s nephew. But he was in no position to lead the nation, certainly not to defend it, especially as it was certain that Duke William of Normandy and the King of Norway would each claim the crown for himself. The English had to decide between a respect for the royal line and the need to be protected. Harold was unique. No one man, other than the King himself, had ever been so popular and so powerful throughout the land.

  Yet one irony remained. On his deathbed, Edward warned of the great evil that was about to sweep his land. But the Archbishop of Canterbury encouraged Harold to ignore the warnings. This was nothing more, he said, than the ramblings of an ancient robbed of his wits. The Archbishop was that great ecclesiastical survivor, Stigand. But the warnings were true and the spirit of Edward ruled English hearts for centuries, so much so that it wasn’t until the fourteenth century that the people abandoned Edward as the nation’s patron saint for the mythical St George. And while England mourned, Duke William of Normandy made ready for sea.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1066–87

  Edward the Confessor died on 5 January 1066. The Battle of Hastings took place later that same year, on 14 October. But what happened in that ten-month gap before the start of the Norman Conquest? We should really know because this was the last successful invasion of these islands.

  The first point to make is that the Normans weren’t French in the way that the term is understood today. Their origins were in Scandinavia. Under a vigorous warrior king, called Rollo, the Vikings had settled in northern France a century-and-a-half before William the Conqueror was born. During the years before the invasion, Normandy was a land of ambitious, well-ordered, often uncompromising peoples and it had something of a structured society, but it wasn’t as far advanced in statehood as England. Leaders in England were beginning to take quite seriously the business of government by bureaucracy rather than by battleaxe.

  The England of 1066 usually appears as some pastoral canvas about to be slashed by a Norman vandal. Considering the internal strife and the ambitions of lords and minor lords it was hardly a land of undisturbed peace. Nor was it a State able to defend itself against a carefully planned invasion. There was no English fleet other than a few ships which the king could requisition. Also, gathering enough soldiers to reinforce the monarch’s professional fighters was a complicated task. At the core of Saxon physical authority was the ‘thegn’, part of the system of nobility (nowhere near as complex as it was to become towards the end of the Middle Ages). The Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was a simple rank structure that could be assessed according to what twenty-first century Britain might call death duties, known in the eleventh century as heriot. The most powerful in society (and not many of them) were the earls. The next in line was the person who was committed to the king and had land supplied by the king; in return this person supplied the king with a small army. He was the king’s thegn, a term that later translated into count. The median thegn did not get his land from the king but from a senior figure such as an earl. At whatever level, a thegn held his land in return for military service. Peasants also had obligations, but it was often difficult to decide how far that obligation went. And unlike the system across the Channel, England didn’t have a complex of castles as defensive points in any county or region.

  So, in spite of the structure of obligation, the omens were not good for Harold, especially as he faced enemies on two fronts: his half-brother Tostig, who hated him and had aligned himself with King Hardrada III of Norway; and William of Normandy, who believed the English crown belonged to him. If there were two enemies, it was inevitable there would be two fronts and so two battles. Hardrada was the last of the Cnut-inspired northern kings determined to rule England. With a considerably larger fleet than Harold of England could have mustered, Hardrada arrived off the north-east coast in the summer of 1066 and sailed up the Humber. The local earls, Edwin and Morcar, had little chance against the fierce and well-organized invaders. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle provides the gruesome detail:

  Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar had gathered as great a force as they could; but a great number of the English were either slain or drowned or driven in flight, and the Norwegians had possession of the place of slaughter. After the battle King Harold [Hardrada] and Earl Tostig entered York and received hostages from the borough and provisions. Then meanwhile came Harold the King of the English on the Sunday to Tadcaster and there drew up his household troops in battle order and on Monday marched through to York. The King of Norway and Earl Tostig and their force had gone beyond York to Stamford Bridge. Then Harold, King of the English, came upon them unawares beyond the bridge. And that day no side gave quarter. There were slain Harold the Fairhead [Hardrada], the King of the Norwegians, and Earl Tostig and the remaining Norwegians were put to flight until some of them reached their ships, some were drowned, others burned to death and thus perished in various ways so many that there [were] few to survive. And the English had possession of the place of slaughter.

  Edwin and Morcar may have been defeated at the first battle (20 September) but before they went down, they must have taken many of the invaders with them. Therefore, when Harold arrived he was fighting a much weakened army of Hardrada and Tostig. Equally, that battle had also taken its terrible toll on Harold’s allies and so they could not raise many troops, certainly not fresh ones, and march with Harold to Sussex where he was to meet William of Normandy who had landed at Pevensey beach on the morning of Thursday, 28 September 1066. He had come to claim the throne of England for himself from Harold, who would become the last king of the Old English.

  It is easy to see why William believed he had a right to the English throne. Emma of Normandy, who had been married to King Cnut, and also to Æthelred the Unready by whom she had the son who became Edward the Confessor, was also the sister of Robert, Duke of Normandy. William was the illegitimate son of Robert. In addition, Harold was not of the royal line, and he had agreed that when Edward died he would support William’s claim to the throne. As the bastard son of Robert, William was not able to secure as Duke of Normandy until he was twenty, in 1047, thirteen years after his father had died. William had to fight for his inheritance and the experience hardened him.

  It was also during this period, on the Continent, but not in Britain, that warfare began to change. The chain-mailed knight appeared and more thought was given to fortifications, cavalry tactics (instead of simply using horses for transportation) and disciplined armies, which in some cases had not been seen since Roman times. William of Normandy emerged as a proper general, not just a general by right. He brought together disparate soldiery, including peasants and mercenaries, and welded them into formidable fighting units. So they proved, north of the Pevensey coast at a place which hardly had a name, but is now a town called Battle.

  In just seven days Harold had marched the 200 or so miles from Stamford Bridge in the north-east to Sussex. On the way, he gathered what forces he could. But there were few. When he arrived at the slope called Senlac Hill on 13 October 1066, Harold II of England surely must have known that promised soldiers would arrive too late, if at all. Eight miles away, the Normans made ready. Harold’s foot-soldiers formed up at the top of the slope behind a wall of shields. The shields, even when buffeted and cut through could be reformed and, but for discipline, Harold might have had the day though surely not the battle. William needed to break down the shields and the best way was to get the Saxons to do it for
him. The Normans appeared to be in retreat. The Saxons sensing the chance of victory broke ranks and chased after the Normans, who were withdrawing and not retreating as Harold’s men soon found out. William sent in his cavalry to slice through the ill-armed Saxons and then to deal with what was left of the shield-bearers.

  Harold died, according to the Bayeux Tapestry, from an arrow through the eye. In truth it would seem that he was cut down by Norman cavalry. William, who had three horses killed under him, survived and camped upon the battlefield. There is a general and easily concluded notion that the Battle of Hastings decided the fate of the English nation. And that’s probably true. But on Senlac Hill that 14 October 1066 night, when a purple robe was wrapped about King Harold’s naked body, and William of Normandy began to count the cost of that day’s slaughter, no one knew that for sure. Here was a moment in history that hindsight sees with clarity. At the time, few – Saxon nor Norman – had such clear vision. There were pockets of resistance, but with the exception of Hereward the Wake in East Anglia, they were never as organized as had been the vengeful Boudicca against the detested Romans. For example, when Saxon rebels on nearby Romney Marsh attacked and slaughtered a band of Normans, William sent his knights and took terrible revenge. The Kentish opposition melted. William marched on London but was wise enough not to assault the capital. Instead he laid waste to its borders and settlements; the smoke from burning thatch and carcasses was enough warning to the people of that town. William then followed the Thames and then towards Wallingford and Berkhampsted. The Saxons, once proud nobles with their clergy in tow, bent at the knee.

  Some of the English believed they could raise another army. But they needed a leader. They chose Edgar the Æthling. The choice did not amount to much. William was to be crowned that Christmas Day at Westminster and that was that. But even in such stark circumstances there was still a sense of constitutional decorum to be observed. Can we really imagine that a ruthless invader chose to stick to the constitutional rules? We are told that the people at the coronation had to show that they freely accepted him as King. But not all spoke Saxon English and not all spoke French. So the question was put to them in two languages. The commotion of their responses echoed about the building. Outside, William’s guards could only hear roaring and shouting. They thought the crowd inside must have turned upon William. So they panicked and set fire to the surrounding buildings. But when all had calmed, and presumably the fires had been put out, the ceremony continued and the Crown of England was William’s. One point from this story is worth remembering when we explore the next 200 years: Henry IV (1367–1413) was probably the first English king after the Norman invasion to use English as a first language. The previous twelve monarchs – William I, William Rufus, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, Richard I (Coeur de Lion), John, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III and Richard II – all appeared to have used French as their first language.

  The physical legacy of the period is seen in castles and churches, but especially castles. One of the first was by the Thames, which was some indication of the importance of London and the fear that towns could be the centre of an uprising. Soon William replaced the castle with his lasting visible monument: the Tower of London. The castle of London and the taxes William imposed marked the start of his steady conquest of these islands.

  But conquest does not necessarily mean control. It’s true that six months after the Battle of Hastings William felt confident enough to return to Normandy. But it was three years before Chester fell. And he had to make sure he was not going to be overthrown while he was away. So, he made Bishop Odo, his half-brother, Earl of Kent, installed him in Dover Castle and left him in charge along with William fitz Osbern, who was his most trusted steward. Then, having decided to go, he took to Normandy the very people who might lead an uprising once his back was turned. It was as much as he could do, but eleventh-century rebellion was never far from the minds of those who lived not close to court, but in the marches of England’s still Saxon civilization. However many flowers are thrown for conquering soldiers, many bear the thorns of distrust and rebellion. And for two decades at least after William’s coronation, the Normans remained invaders and so always on watch, always vulnerable to cunning as well as hothead rebels. One such rebel in the Cambridgeshire fens was Hereward the Wake.

  So little is known of Hereward that there’s a temptation to add him to the same gallery as King Arthur and Robin Hood. But he was real enough. He came from Lincolnshire and he was one of the aforementioned thegns – those who held land in return for military service. Today he’d probably be called a freedom fighter or guerrilla. A modern-day William would call him a terrorist. He doesn’t appear to have been a nobleman, which makes it hard to understand why so many followed him. There is, however, in a near contemporary document called De Gestis Herwardi, a description of the man. We’re told he had yellow hair and large grey eyes, one of them slightly discoloured. He had great and sturdy limbs and none was his equal in daring and braveness. The most romantic of all ideas is that his mother might have been Lady Godiva and his father Leofric of Mercia. It is known that for years Hereward led a rebellion in the southern part of East Anglia and that when Ely fell he escaped into the Fens. After that, like the less real figures of King Arthur and Robin Hood, Hereward’s name became a symbol of resistance to evil authority.

  However, the King’s next major rebellion came not from the Saxons, but from his own people. It happened in 1075 and was a product of the disaffection of Norman knights across a line from East Anglia through the Midlands to the Welsh Marches. There was one particular Saxon sympathizer to the revolt. He was Waltheof Siwardson, a figure who would achieve something close to martyrdom. He was the first Earl of Northampton, and Earl of Huntingdon and Northumberland. As matter of political convenience and in the manner of the day, William the Conqueror had given one of his nieces in marriage to Waltheof. In 1075, the Revolt of the Earls began and the others enticed Waltheof into the plot – perhaps because his extensive lands across the Midlands would be valuable in raising armies to repel the inevitable retaliation from William, who was then in Normandy. Waltheof never appears to have been a willing rebel. In fact he went to London and confessed his part to the seemingly everlasting Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc. Lanfranc advised him to go to Normandy, take plenty of expensive gifts and confess all to William. He did. William, for the moment surprisingly, did nothing about Waltheof but sent his forces against the other earls. The rebels enlisted the help of the Danes, but it all came to nothing even though the conflict was renewed in Normandy itself. Whether or not Waltheof was actually betrayed by his wife Judith has never been conclusively set out. Whatever the circumstances, William now had Waltheof arrested and prepared for execution. Legend is a fine tickler of history’s duller moments. The executioner was impatient (so runs the story) and brought down his axe as Waltheof was praying the Lord’s Prayer and had reached the exhortation, ‘and lead us not into temptation’. It is said that from the head rolling across the floor came the clear words, ‘but deliver us from evil’.

  It is thought that he was the only noble to be executed by King William. Yet, even in these cruel times, this death penalty of someone of such high rank, who had, incidentally, given himself up to William, was regarded as harsh, even unjust. The Saxon population may have wanted revenge (Waltheof was regarded as an Englishman), but not this. Waltheof became a martyr. The medieval legend has it that the guilt of Waltheof’s execution hovered over the King for the rest of his life.

  William was King of England for twenty-one years and much of that time was spent in bringing the two societies together. The Saxon aristocracy learned Norman French. The two peoples mingled and married. Perhaps many longed for the days of Saxon England, but most accepted they were gone forever and, anyway, for most had not been so marvellous that they should have created a national nostalgia. But if the conquered society was to live in some sort of harmony then it had to have basic rights. And these rights developed
over long periods. There were laws for estate workers. A cowherd was, usually, entitled to the milk of an old cow after she was newly calved. A shepherd’s due was twelve nights’ dung at Christmas; he also got one lamb a year, a bellwether’s fleece and a bowl of buttermilk throughout the summer, And slaves, the lowest of all workers, were to be given food at Christmas and Easter and a strip of land they could plough and tend. A female slave was given three pence or one sheep for winter’s food. There was also an indication that the Normans exacted clear penalties from those who offended this new society. An early twelfth-century document called Textus Roffensis gives some idea of what were known as the Laws of King William, particularly those to protect his Norman followers.

  I will that all the men whom I have brought with me, or who have come after me, shall be protected by my peace and shall dwell in quiet. And if any one of they [sic] shall be slain, let the lord of his murderer seize him within five days; if he cannot, let him begin to pay me fort-six marks of silver so long as substance avails. And when his substance is exhausted, let the whole hundred in which the murder took place pay what remains in common. And if the murderer were caught, and if he were an Englishman, then the Laws of William the Conqueror were quite clear as to what happened next.

  If a Frenchman shall charge an Englishman with perjury or murder or theft or homicide or ‘ran’, as the English call rapine, which cannot be denied, the Englishman may defend himself as he shall prefer, either by the ordeal of hot iron or by wager of battle. But if the Englishman be infirm let him find another who will take his place. If one of them shall be vanquished, he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the King. If an Englishman shall charge a Norman and he be unwilling to prove his accusation either by ordeal or by wager of battle, I decree, nevertheless, that the Norman shall acquit himself by valid oath.