Fortunately, the gap in William of Poitiers’ account is filled for us by the Bayeux Tapestry, and there we find the reason for the sudden weakening of the English army after such a long and hard struggle. It is not merely cruel fortune, for there on the Tapestry, amidst the final assault by knights and archers, can be seen King Harold, clearly depicted, stationed under his standard, with an arrow piercing his eye. Here surely is the reason for the sudden and unexplained weakening of the English defence. King Harold is struck in the eye by a stray arrow and is fatally wounded. The reliability of this part of the Tapestry account has been doubted, but there is a great deal of circumstantial confirmation for it. William of Jumieges says that Harold ‘fell . . . pierced with lethal wounds’, and later local tradition, recorded in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey, speaks of him being ‘laid low by a chance blow’. William of Poitiers himself speaks later of Harold’s body being ‘recognised not by his face’, implying such disfigurement as an arrow might produce. This news would have at once sent shock waves through the English army, as had happened earlier within the Norman ranks, when rumour of William’s death had spread. At confirmation of the news, the English army wavered and broke, and only then was the Norman cavalry finally able to penetrate their ranks. Both William of Jumieges and the Bayeux Tapestry make clear the direct link between Harold’s death and the break-up and flight of the English army.30
Thereafter, the broken English army was cut down by Norman knights. It was probably at this point that Harold’s banner fell into Norman hands and that Gyrth and Leofwine were killed, since their bodies were found near that of Harold. Although already mortally wounded, there is a possibility that Harold himself was not struck down until now. We have seen that William of Poitiers curiously makes no mention of Harold’s death. It is unlikely that he knew nothing of it, after all, he had detailed information on all other aspects of the battle. It seems more probable that he deliberately chose to omit this episode from his account. It may be that he did not wish to detract from William’s victory by attributing it directly to Harold’s fall. It is also possible that he did not record the moment when the already dying Harold was struck down because he did not want it to be remembered – there was little glory for the Normans in the felling of a dying man. The royal huscarls may have died with their king, but the remaining English, confused and demoralized, decided to make their escape into the gathering dusk. A few turned at bay to inflict a final severe blow at the pursuing Normans. However, King Harold’s death had removed the spirit which had held the English ‘rooted to the ground’ for almost the entire day against all that the Normans could throw against them.31
Thus the battle reached its fatal climax for King Harold, but as we have seen, it had been a very close run thing. The fact that King Harold did not seize the opportunity offered by the collapse of the Norman left wing and the rumour of William’s death has puzzled many. However, we should remember the condition of his army. A basically cautious man like Harold would be unlikely to take unnecessary risks by advancing from his position when all he really needed to do was stand his ground and force William into submission. If he had held the field at the end of the day, William would have been finished, and he almost succeeded in this, falling just before nightfall. That he ultimately failed was largely because of the fortune of war, and the evidence suggests that it was King Harold’s fall to a chance arrow which finally broke English resistance and left the field to the Normans. We must remember that what in hindsight was to prove such a decisive defeat for the English, was in fact balanced on a knife edge throughout the day.
As dusk fell on that autumn day, Harold lay dead, his face unrecognizable, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal brothers and many of his huscarls. Also among the fallen were Aelfric of Yelling, Aelfwig, abbot of the New Minster, Eadric the Deacon and many other unnamed English thegns. The king’s body was finally identified, perhaps by distinctive armour or marks on his body, and brought to William’s camp. William apparently refused the request of Countess Gytha, Harold’s mother, to allow her to remove her son’s body for burial, even when she offered its weight in gold. He may have feared that Harold would become a martyr to the English and his body a source of unwanted devotion. This stands in contrast to Harold’s magnanimous actions after Stamford Bridge, and perhaps indicates an unease behind William’s claims. Instead, William turned the body over to William Malet, ordering him to bury Harold on the sea shore. It would not have been inappropriate for Harold’s body to remain in this resting place in his native Sussex, but local tradition at Waltham later recorded that it was in fact removed and reburied in his own foundation there. This may be true, as the author of the Waltham Chronicle claimed to remember, as a boy, the translation of Harold’s body into the new Norman church around 1120, and the supposed site of Harold’s grave is still marked there. Alternatively, this story may simply reflect the desire of the canons of Harold’s foundation to remain associated with their distinguished patron.32
William’s concern that Harold would become a focus for English devotion was indeed fulfilled. Thus a cult developed around Harold’s grave at Waltham which naturally caused the canons considerable embarrassment under Norman rule. As a result, they sought to minimize Harold’s cult by developing a cult of the Holy Cross itself, to redirect the devotion of pilgrims. In 1120 they transferred Harold’s body to a less attractive location in their church where it was less likely to be such a focus of devotion. The Augustinian canons who later assumed control of the church also sought to deflect this devotion to Harold into a form which did not threaten the Normans. Thus they fostered existing legends which reported that Harold had in fact escaped death in the battle and was not buried at Waltham at all. He was said to have travelled to Denmark and Germany, seeking allies to restore his throne. Unsuccessful in this, he then humbly accepted his fate, became a pilgrim in expiation of his broken oath to William, and lived as a hermit either in Chester or Canterbury. The association of Harold with Chester may dimly reflect that of his own son, also called Harold, with this city, where Queen Alditha sought refuge after Hastings and where young Harold was born after his father’s death. These legends reflect Harold’s other role as an English folk hero, but were also successful in their purpose of neutralizing any potential cult of Harold the martyr.33
TWELVE
END OF A DYNASTY
Harold’s sons came unexpectedly from Ireland with a naval force.1
King Harold lay dead on the battlefield in his native Sussex where he had fallen, with his loyal brothers Earls Gyrth and Leofwine and his huscarls at his side. The victorious Norman invaders now began a rampage through Kent, taking Dover and Canterbury almost unopposed. The shock of the defeat at Hastings, the loss of King Harold and his brothers, and the severe losses of fighting men in the battles of 1066 go far to explain William’s largely unimpeded march towards London. In spite of their desperate situation, the remaining English leaders did not consider submission. Indeed, William had already waited at Hastings in vain for this. This indicates the lack of reality behind William’s claim as portrayed by William of Poitiers. If this claim had been widely agreed by the English in 1051 and Harold had usurped the throne, why did the English not accept William as king immediately after Harold’s death at Hastings? Instead, the principal surviving English leaders, including Archbishops Stigand and Ealdred, Earls Edwin and Morcar, and the men of London, coalesced around Atheling Edgar in London. This was almost a reflex reaction in that they rallied to him as the familiar symbol of their ancient dynasty, but it reflected their desire to fight on. Indeed, Edgar’s supporters, who probably also included Ansgar the Staller, successfully held the Thames bridges against Norman attack. They clearly possessed sufficient forces to defend London against William’s now reinforced army and to compel him to attempt to cross the Thames further west at Wallingford.2
As William’s army moved cautiously through Wessex, ravaging the countryside, the English discussed their options. The Chronicle states tha
t they wanted to have Atheling Edgar as king, and that the northern earls intended to fight for him. But, in the absence of Harold, there was clearly a lack of political and military direction. The two northern earls were relatively young and inexperienced, and Harold’s remaining family were currently leaderless. As William of Poitiers suggests, it seems likely that it was actually the experienced Archbishops Stigand and Ealdred who were behind the Atheling’s candidacy. They perhaps feared that Harold’s fall had been God’s judgement and sought to reverse this by invoking the traditional and legitimate dynasty. No doubt they also sought in this way to secure their own positions. However, the Atheling was not crowned and there was no fighting. On the contrary, English resistance now began swiftly to collapse.3
The reason for this was principally military. The English now lacked a successful war leader. Earls Edwin and Morcar, with their depleted forces, appear to have been unprepared to face a now reinforced Norman army under William. This is hardly surprising following King Harold’s recent defeat and their own earlier experience at Fulford. The English had been able to defend the Thames crossing at London, but were less willing to face William’s cavalry in the open. In addition to this, there was the political confusion which resulted from the lack of a satisfactory successor to King Harold. None of the surviving male members of Harold’s family, chiefly his young sons, carried enough political weight to be considered at this point. The preferred choice, Atheling Edgar, still laboured under the handicap of his youth and inexperience as he had in January, when he had been passed over in favour of Harold. Indeed, he had only his descent to recommend him and under the pressure of the relentless Norman advance this was not enough. The fact that Edgar was not crowned as he could have been makes it clear that the English were reluctant to endorse him wholeheartedly and that some were having second thoughts about their choice.
The initially powerful group supporting Atheling Edgar, which controlled most of the remaining English military resources, began to break up. The loss of the royal treasure, when the widowed Queen Edith surrendered Winchester to the Normans, was undoubtedly a blow to the hopes of Edgar’s supporters, depriving them of significant resources with which to finance opposition to William. According to John of Worcester, Edwin and Morcar were the first to abandon Edgar. It is likely that they were acting out of self-interest in doing so. It is surely no coincidence that just before abandoning Edgar, they had sent their sister, Queen Alditha, Harold’s wife and probably heavily pregnant with his child, north to Chester for safety. These actions were probably part of a long-term plan of their own, to await the birth of Harold’s heir by their sister and then push his or her claims to the throne. In the meantime they would bow to the inevitable and submit to William.4
The withdrawal of the support of the earls with their forces was probably decisive in leaving Atheling Edgar at the mercy of William’s victorious army. Thereafter, Archbishop Stigand, who astutely saw the writing on the wall, hastened to submit to William at Wallingford. Subsequently, the other main English leaders submitted to William ‘out of necessity’ at Berkhampstead. After this, William entered London unopposed and was crowned king at Westminster on Christmas Day. The new king then received further submissions, constructed castles to provide security for his garrisons in occupied south-east England, and appointed lieutenants to govern this conquered area on his behalf. With the country apparently subdued, William returned to Normandy in March 1067, loaded with looted treasures and accompanied by those English leaders who might serve as rallying points for any opposition, including the Atheling himself, Earls Edwin and Morcar, and Archbishops Stigand and Ealdred.5
We must not underestimate the impact of the Norman invasion because of its distance from us. This impact went beyond the killing, raping and looting normally associated with warfare at this time, and certainly committed by the Normans as recorded in the penance imposed on them by the Papal Ordinance of 1070. This was not a conquest by Danes or Norwegians, whose speech was understood and whose manners were familiar throughout England. The new invaders spoke a language which few Englishmen could comprehend, and had some strange and unfamiliar customs. They had already devastated a swathe of the heartlands of England, from Kent to Hampshire. They now began to rob churches, to seize large areas of land, and to demolish houses to make way for their castles. In modern Britain, perhaps only the inhabitants of the Channel Islands can fully understand what 1066 must have been like.6
The activities of the Normans aroused frustration, resentment and hatred among the English, which gradually grew into opposition. This gathered strength during William’s absence in 1067, and rebellions were planned in a number of regions. In a sense, the ground was fertile for such activities as the Normans had as yet, secured only the south-east corner of England. The English had been temporarily stunned by the sudden and complete nature of their defeat. They had lost most of their natural leaders and best men on the bloody battlefields of that year – Fulford, Stamford Bridge and Hastings. However, their opposition to the invaders had been stilled only temporarily. They soon recovered from their shock, and their opposition grew into open resistance.7
The remnants of Harold’s family had been particularly affected by the defeat at Hastings. With the fall of the king and both his brothers, they had been deprived of their senior representatives. Harold’s sons and heirs were as young and untried as Atheling Edgar. Faced with a stark choice between these boys, the majority of the leading Englishmen had returned not unnaturally to their familiar loyalty to Alfred’s dynasty. Deprived of political influence and military support, Harold’s family were forced to retreat before William’s advance, and seek refuge in their lands in south-west England. All the bright hopes of the beginning of the year had been dashed before its end, but the family were Harold’s heirs and fully intended to make every attempt to restore their fortunes. They also had the resources to do this. Countess Gytha’s offer for the return of Harold’s body provides an indication of the wealth still available to the family.
The family began to construct a basis for their planned return to power in the south-west, beyond William’s reach, probably under the direction of the redoubtable Countess Gytha. They chose Exeter, the fourth largest town in England, as their base. It was a wise choice as a city with direct links by sea to sources of possible support in Ireland and Denmark. In addition, the family held wide lands in the surrounding counties of Devon, Somerset and Cornwall. There they began repairing the town fortifications and securing support among the thegns of the region. They were apparently supported by a remnant of Harold’s huscarls, perhaps those occupied on other duties during the Hastings campaign or survivors of the battle, and these men provided a nucleus of trained soldiers for a new army. The intention of the family was to make a bid for the throne based on the right of an atheling, or king’s son, to succeed his father on the throne. King Harold’s sons, Godwine, the eldest, Edmund and Magnus, were all eligible for the throne on this basis. It has been held that their mother Edith’s marriage more Danico to the then Earl Harold disqualified them from the kingship. However, the succession of Harold ‘Harefoot’, son of Cnut and Aelfgifu of Northampton, in 1035 shows that such descent was not necessarily a disqualification. Not surprisingly, they appear to have had no intention of supporting Atheling Edgar, who had already been put aside by Harold and who had now passed into Norman captivity.8
The evidence for a revival by Harold’s family is scarce but not entirely lacking. Countess Gytha seems to have granted land at Warrington in Devon to Abbot Sihtric of Tavistock at this time, perhaps in return for his support. This appears to have been effective, as William of Malmesbury tells us that Sihtric later became a pirate, probably indicating that he joined the raiding fleet of King Harold’s sons. Abbot Ealdred of Abingdon was another supporter of Harold’s family, in breach of an oath of allegiance to King William, and he later travelled abroad with them. The fact that Ealdred supported Harold’s family is confirmed by the abbey’s own chronicle, which
connects his opposition to William specifically with that of Countess Gytha. It is even possible that it was Gytha’s advice that the abbey’s thegns listened to when they went armed to join what is termed a gathering of William’s enemies. The Abingdon Chronicle places this latter event with Bishop Aethelwine’s rebellion in 1071, but there is no strict chronological sequence in this source and thus no reason to place it in 1071 rather than 1067 or 1068. Indeed, it is possible that the men of the abbey’s forces were on their way to Exeter when they were intercepted by Norman forces during William’s offensive of winter 1068. Another of the family’s supporters may have been Abbot Saewold of Bath, who fled to Flanders at the same time as they did, taking his valuable library with him. The family must also have rallied others to their cause and recruited support locally from their own lands and possibly former royal estates. It is possible that this scenario provided an occasion for the appropriation by Queen Mathilda of the wide estates of Brihtric, son of Aelfgar, which were situated in the region. If Brihtric had been among Gytha’s supporters at Exeter, William may have ordered the forfeiture of his estates and presented them as a gift to his wife when he met her at Winchester in Easter 1068 for her coronation, just after his campaign against Harold’s family. In addition, Orderic Vitalis records that envoys were sent from Exeter to urge other cities to join its stand and this may have been part of the family’s process of rallying support. They may also have sought aid from Swein of Denmark, but, if so, none was apparently forthcoming.9
The opposition to William developed and fostered in this way by Harold’s family during this period was not a national movement. At this stage, the prospect of Godwine, Harold’s son, as king of England did not receive much support outside Harold’s former earldom. Godwine was young, unproven and little known in comparison with his father. The family could probably rely on old loyalties in Wessex to provide them with support, but could not count on such support beyond its borders. Nevertheless, the rebellion in the south-west inspired by Harold’s family was one of the most significant of those which occurred in William’s absence.
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