Crown & Country: A History of England Through the Monarchy

by Starkey, David

  It is a remarkable achievement. Edward’s coronation seems to have been intended to usher in a new ‘age of Edgar’. An observer of Britain in 1063 would probably think that it had succeeded.

  But he would have judged too soon.

  III

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains no entry at all for 1064. But this is the year, almost certainly, of Harold’s ill-fated visit to William of Normandy. There are contemporary descriptions of the visit only in the Norman sources and even they disagree about details. But the broad outlines, as they are presented in the Bayeux Tapestry, seem reasonably clear. Harold took leave of Edward and rode to Bosham, hunting and hawking along the way. He prayed at Bosham Church and ate and drank in the hall before embarking in a single ship with his hawk still on his wrist and his hound under his arm. Was he on a royal mission to renew Edward’s offer of the crown to William, as the Norman sources claim? Or was it a pleasure trip that went wrong, as some later English sources argue? At all events he was driven ashore in the hostile territories of Count Guy of Ponthieu. Thence he was rescued by William; accompanied the duke on a campaign against the refractory Bretons, in which he performed wonders of strength and bravery, and finally swore a great oath to support William’s claim to the throne at Bayeux (or Rouen or Bonville-sur-Touques or Bur-le-Roi, depending on which version is to be believed). He then returned to England to an apparently grim reception from Edward, who pointed an admonitory finger at him.

  What to make of all this? That the visit to Normandy took place and that Harold swore an oath we can accept. But it is impossible to believe that Harold acted voluntarily. However he got to Normandy, he was in the duke’s power. As was his younger brother, Wulfnoth. Harold therefore swore under duress and would have discounted his oath accordingly.

  Moreover, he soon had more pressing things to worry about.

  For, at the beginning of October 1065, Northumbria rose in revolt against Earl Tostig, Harold’s brother. Partly, it was a question of style. Tostig was a stranger to the area; he had tried to impose southern customs and he maintained, the northern men felt, unnaturally friendly relations with King Malcolm III of Scotland. But there were also more serious and specific charges: that he had perverted the law to kill his enemies; had robbed churches and had taxed disproportionately. The revolt was no hole-in-the-corner affair. Instead, the Northumbrian thegns (nobles) acted collectively and decisively. They killed Tostig’s retainers, seized his arsenal at York and confiscated his treasury. Having thus emasculated Tostig’s local power, they then chose as their earl Morkere, the younger brother of Earl Edwin of Mercia. Under the nominal command of their new earl, the rebels marched south, gathering the strength of three more counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire on the way, till they came to Northampton. There Earl Edwin joined them with the Mercian levies.

  All seemed set for another civil war: between north and south and between Godwins and the rest. But, once again, a way out was found, with Harold performing the crucial role of peacemaker. He had gone to Northampton as the king’s representative at the meeting of the witan convened there, and had returned thence to put the rebels’ demands to Edward. No doubt on Harold’s advice, Edward accepted them at a second meeting of the witan on 28 October at Oxford; replaced Tostig with Morkere as earl of Northumbria and confirmed the Laws of Cnut, which embodied the separate legal status of the Danelaw.

  Harold had played the statesman. He had put his country before his family and saved England from civil war. But there was a price: the Godwins were now irretrievably split and Harold’s dispossessed brother Tostig had become his deadliest enemy. After the Oxford meeting, Tostig fled with his family to Flanders, where he spent the winter contacting allies and plotting his revenge.

  Edward by this time was about sixty. It was old for the time but his health was excellent. When, for instance, he received the news of the Northumbrian revolt he was hunting with Tostig in Wiltshire. But the political storm of the autumn, which came from a blue sky, affected him badly. He celebrated Christmas Day with the usual pomp. But on the 26th he took to his bed and was too ill even to attend the consecration of his new abbey at Westminster on the 28th.

  Over the next few days, his condition worsened and he alternated between fitful sleep and delirium. As he shook with a particularly violent seizure his terrified attendants roused him and all his old lucidity seemed to return. He had had a prophetic dream, he explained. God’s curse was on England for her sins, and her troubles would cease only when the trunk of a green tree, which had been cut in half, reunited of itself and bore leaf again.

  Was he really prophesying the fate of England and the House of Wessex? Or was it only, as the ever secularly minded Archbishop Stigand whispered to Harold, that he ‘was broken with age and disease and knew not what he said’?

  As well as the archbishop and Earl Harold, the group gathered in the royal bedchamber included Robert fitzWimarch, the king’s kinsman and staller or master of the horse, and Queen Edith herself, ‘who was sitting on the floor warming his feet in her lap’. Edward, now fully himself, first spoke to Edith, beseeching God to be gracious to her: ‘for certainly she has served me devotedly, and has always stood close by my side like a beloved daughter’. Then he turned to Harold and said, ‘I commend this woman and all the kingdom to your protection’. The words do not quite amount to a bequest of the crown, but they were the next best thing. That Edward had nominated Harold as his heir was also stated as sober fact by The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; it was even admitted by the Norman sources – though, in view of the earlier undertakings of both Edward and Harold, they denied the validity of the bequest.

  Edward’s final request was that his death should not be concealed, so that all his subjects could pray for his soul. He had his wish. He died on 5 January and was buried in his new abbey on the 6th.

  On that same day, the Feast of the Epiphany, and in the same place, Harold was crowned king of the English. It was a peaceful, unchallenged succession and, as the ceremony took place so quickly, it must have been both anticipated and prepared for. Harold’s other moves display a similar confidence and good sense. He married Ealdgyth, sister of Earls Morkere and Edwin, as his queen. And he went on a progress to the north. He was back in London from York by Easter, which fell on 16 April.

  But, a week later, on 24 April, Halley’s comet appeared in the skies and remained there till 8 June. It was universally taken as a portent of disaster. In the Bayeux Tapestry a group of men marvel at the flaming comet in the sky; it is labelled ISTI MIRANT STELLA, ‘these men marvel at the star’. A messenger is shown bringing the news to Harold, whose evident anxieties are reflected in the ghostly fleet of empty ships which appear beneath him, in the margin.

  IV

  But the disaster seemed long in coming. Tostig made the first moves, raiding from the Isle of Wight to Sandwich and thence to Lincolnshire. He fled from Sandwich with the approach of Harold, who had assembled ‘so large a force, naval and military, as no king collected before in this land’. And he was driven out of Lincolnshire by the brother earls, Edwin and Morkere. He then took refuge with his bosom friend, Malcolm III, in Scotland.

  With Tostig out of the way, Harold was able to put his forces to the use for which he had raised them and guard the south coast against William: ‘for it was credibly reported that Duke William from Normandy, King Edward’s cousin, would come hither’. Harold stationed himself on the Isle of Wight, which enabled him to shadow perfectly the fleet that William was building, directly opposite, at the mouth of the River Dives. But then, about 8 September, shortage of provisions forced Harold to stand his forces down. It was a blow. But not, apparently, a bad one as the usual campaigning season was almost over.

  But, just when he seemed safe, events started to run hard against Harold. For the stand-off in Scandinavia, which had given England three decades’ respite from the Vikings, now started to resolve itself. In 1062, King Harold Hardrada of Norway defeated King Swein of Denmark at the b
attle of Nissa, and two years later they made peace. Either was now free to take advantage of Edward’s death and attack England as the self-proclaimed heir of Cnut.

  Harold Hardrada took the initiative. Though just over fifty, he was a formidable warrior of the old Viking type. He was bloodthirsty, and, in his own saga, gloried in his deeds:

  Now I have caused the deaths

  Of thirteen of my enemies.

  I kill without compunction

  And remember all my killings.

  Harold, he determined, should be his fourteenth victim. He set sail for England with a huge armada of 300 ships; landed at the Tyne and linked up with Tostig, who swore fealty to him. Then they sailed up the Ouse towards the old Viking city of York. En route, they were intercepted by Earls Edwin and Morkere. Both sides suffered heavy losses when they met on 20 September. But Hardrada and Tostig were left in possession of the field and entered York.

  Harold, who meantime had force-marched his troops from London, arrived at Tadcaster on the 24th. There he heard that Hardrada and Tostig had already moved a few miles north-east of York to Stamford Bridge, to receive hostages and the submission of the countryside. Instead, Harold took them unawares in a headlong assault in which Hardrada and Tostig were both killed. As the invaders turned to flee, a lone Norseman held the bridge and prevented the English pursuit. But an Englishman somehow got under the bridge and ‘pierced him terribly inward under the coat of mail’. The pursuit now became a massacre, which was halted only by Harold himself. Barely 25 of the 300 ships which Hardrada had brought were left to sail home.

  It was the most total, complete victory that the English had ever won over the Vikings. But there was no time for celebration as, immediately after Stamford Bridge, the wind turned and William was able to set sail. He landed unopposed at Pevensey on 28 September and occupied the old Roman fort of Anderida. Then he moved a few miles north-east to the more strategically important site of Hastings, where he erected a wood-stockade castle.

  What would Harold do? To fight two major battles within days of each other was unheard of. But that was what Harold resolved on. After returning from the north, he spent about a week in London, gathering more men and resting such crack troops as he had brought down from the north. Then, before his preparations were fully complete, he force-marched south towards Hastings. His intention seems to have been to repeat the success of Stamford Bridge and take William unawares. Instead, William got news of his approach on 13 October and the two sides took up battle stations the following day: Harold on top of the hill where Battle Abbey now stands; William on Telham Hill. The English fought on foot, forming a shield wall as at Maldon, which they defended with battleaxes and throwing spears. The Normans attacked with mounted and armoured knights and foot archers. As they clashed the Normans cried Dieux aide (‘God help us!’), while the English chanted Ut, ut! (‘Out, out!’)

  The two sides were evenly matched and the balance, insofar as the different, contradictory accounts can be disentangled, swung this way and that. Harold’s brothers, Earls Leofwin and Gyrth, were cut off and killed. But then a large detachment of Normans were worsted and threatened to flee. They were rallied by William’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, waving his baton (baculus). More confusion was caused by a rumour that William was down, and he raised his helmet to identify himself. This seems to have been the turning point. Perhaps the English had broken ranks to pursue the apparently fleeing French. Perhaps the steady rain of arrows was beginning to tell. At any rate, first Harold’s bodyguard was slaughtered; then the king himself was killed, disabled apparently by an arrow in the eye and then cut down with a sword-blow to the thigh. With the death of the king, the English fled and William was master of the field – and, as it turned out, of England.

  The result was the death of one world and the birth of a new. Anglo-Saxon England had been a nation-state, in which rulers and ruled spoke the same language. This now ceased and, for the next four centuries, England was administered in Latin and governed in French. Anglo-Saxon, instead, became the patois of the poor and dispossessed. On the site of his victory William founded Battle Abbey. It was built on the hill where the English formed their shield-wall phalanx and the high altar is said to mark the spot where Harold fell. The size of the abbey also tells its own story: like the Normans themselves, it dominates the landscape and crushes the nearby settlement. Even its name is foreign and French: Bataille.

  But what of the ideas and institutions of the Anglo-Saxon state, with its notions of consensual politics, of participatory government and a monarchy that, as 1014 had shown, was in some sense responsible to the people? How would these fare under new rulers with a new language and new values? Would they vanish? Or would they transmute and survive?

  PART II

  THE MEDIEVAL MONARCHY

  Chapter 6

  Subjugation

  William I

  THE FIRST PART OF THIS BOOK traced the history of Anglo-Saxon England from its beginnings to the crisis of the Norman Conquest, when, as one contemporary put it, ‘God ordered that the English should cease to be a people’.

  But the institutions of the Old English state proved more resilient and, within forty years of Hastings, the English could celebrate the English conquest of Normandy and the rebirth of an English nation. It was polyglot and multicultural and found itself retelling the Anglo-Saxon past in Latin or Norman French. But it was, finally, the values and practices of Anglo-Saxon politics which survived and came to dominate the history of medieval England.

  I

  William the Conqueror is perhaps the greatest man to have sat on the throne of England; he is certainly one of the most unpleasant. He was covetous, cruel, puritanical, invincibly convinced of his own righteousness and always ready to use terror as a weapon of first, rather than last, resort. He was also deeply pious and sure that God was on his side.

  And the extraordinary course of his career gave him every reason for this belief.

  William was born around the turn of the year 1027–8 in Falaise, Normandy. His father, Robert, was younger brother of Duke Richard III of Normandy and his mother, Herleva, was the daughter of a furrier or skinner. Six months later, Richard was dead, some said of poison, and Robert succeeded him as duke. Robert was not an effective ruler. During his reign the great Norman landed families seized the leading offices in the ducal household and made them hereditary. They likewise took over the local position of vicomte or sheriff. This last was especially important. Since the vicomte controlled the local administration of finance and justice, it meant that the duke was losing control of his dukedom – just as his own independence vis-à-vis the king of France was a symptom of the fragmentation of the kingdom into a series of largely independent territorial principalities.

  Robert’s personal life was more successful. He and Herleva never married but their relationship was close, perhaps even loving, and Robert always treated William as his son. Shortly before he left on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035, he had the Norman magnates swear fealty to William as his heir and had the bequest confirmed by his overlord, Henry I, king of France. Robert never returned from his pilgrimage, and later in 1035, William succeeded as duke. He was still only in his eighth year.

  Predictably, his minority was troubled. Two of his guardians were killed; his steward, Osbern, was murdered in the duke’s bedchamber as William slept, and in 1047 he was saved from deposition only by the personal intervention of King Henry I, who joined with William to defeat the rebels in battle at Val-ès-Dunes.

  William was twenty and his victory marked his coming of age. He was now his own man and he quickly made his mark. In about 1050 he married Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders; in 1051 he was apparently offered the throne of England by Edward the Confessor, and in the following year he was strong enough to go on the offensive against his enemies. These were headed by Count Geoffrey Martel of Anjou, who in 1051 conquered the county of Maine. This made him William’s immediate neighbour with, thanks t
o the revolt of the lord of the castles of Alençon and Domfront, a back door into Normandy itself. William resolved to close it. Geoffrey backed off from battle and William was able to pick the disputed castles off, beginning with the lightly defended Alençon. The defenders beat pelts on the walls in mocking reference to William’s birth. Once he had captured the place, William retaliated by cutting off their hands and feet. Domfront then surrendered without a struggle.

  William had got what he wanted. But, in so doing, he had aroused a fear and loathing that he was never able to shake off. The immediate result was a renversement d’alliances in northern France, as Count Geoffrey and King Henry, hitherto inveterate enemies, went into alliance against the upstart. Two invasions of Normandy took place which William had difficulty in fighting off. But in 1060 both Geoffrey and Henry died and were succeeded, respectively, by a weakling and a minor. William never looked back from this extraordinary stroke of luck, which gave him a free hand in France and, it turned out, in England. He seized the county of Maine in 1062, claiming, as he was to do in England, that the late count had nominated him as his heir if he died childless. Then in 1064 he launched a successful attack on Brittany, in which, as we have seen, Earl Harold of Wessex had distinguished himself. Finally, in 1066, he won the battle of Hastings.

  But winning the battle was not the same as winning England. To do that would take seven more years of almost continuous, often bloody fighting, and would involve an almost complete reversal of political strategy.

  In the immediate aftermath of Hastings, it was far from clear that all was lost for the English: William had only a toehold on the south coast and only a tiny proportion of the available manpower had been thrown against him. The problem, essentially, was one of leadership. The Godwins had monopolized political power. But, between them, the two battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings had wiped them out. The Mercian earls, Edwin and Morkere, survived, as did Earl Waltheof, the son of Siward of Northumbria. But the two former had been bloodied by Harold Hardrada and Tostig and were, in any case, more used to an oppositionist role against the Godwin hegemony than to leadership in their own right.