by C. R. May
Despite the gloom and clinging undergrowth the heavily armed men who would form the front ranks were soon in position, and as the last of the fyrdmen crowded in their wake sunlight flared on the ridge top opposite. Edwin drew his sword, and the sound of steel sliding free from scabbards was repeated all along the line as the leading men followed his action. The earl raised his head as they did so, his eyes reckoning enemy numbers as the returning light bathed the hilltop camp. The first men were moving about, thin lines of smoke rising into the Sussex sky as the cooks and other non combatants began to prepare the first meal of the day amid a charnel house of the dead. Edwin strained to listen as the last of the men shuffled into line, hoping desperately that the messenger he had sent the night before had got through. Eastwards the pinkish hue was growing by the moment, he would have to order the advance very soon whether help arrived in time or not if his attack was to stand any chance of success. But then it came, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift along with the mood of those around him as the distant sound of English war horns hung in the still air.
In the darkness at the woodland edge Wulfmær broke the silence, his words heavy with pride: ‘they made it!’
The pair, earl and housecarl, exchanged a smile. A mile to the South, the Pevensey road must be choked with the army of Morcar and the Wessex shires as they bore down on the foreigners who had thought to invade their land.
Edwin raised his sword arm as he took the first step forward, and the fringe of Andredes Weald reverberated with the answering cry of their own war horns. A heartbeat later he had led them clear of the tree line, and a quick look to either side confirmed that the sight was all that he had wished for. As the mournful cry filled the air the returning sun broke free of the ridge line — spear points blazed, mail and helms reddened in the dawn, and he allowed himself a grim smile as he imagined the disbelief of men clambering bleary eyed from tents to gape in horror as a spectral army hardened from the shadows. Fifty paces and he paused just long enough to ensure that the fyrdmen had left cover, the armoured ranks of the men flanking him setting up a deafening beat as they clashed spear and sword on shield rim and set up their battle cries.
Silhouetted at the crest of the ridge the Normans and their allies could be seen running to and fro, throwing on war shirts and snatching up weapons nicked and blunted by the previous day’s hard fighting as the senior men cobbled together a makeshift defence.
Edwin Ælfgarson, Earl of Mercia, strode clear from the battle line. As he did so, the war chants and battle cries of an avenging army died away and the earl revelled in the power of the moment. For an instant he felt the world still as it awaited his words, and Edwin knew then that this was the high point of his allotted span on God’s earth. But there was no time to wallow in self regard, his king lay hacked into meat not half a mile away surrounded by an army of the dead: their ghosts demanded vengeance. As the sound of Morcar’s approaching host grew louder in their ears Edwin filled his lungs, led the army in three hurrahs and broke into a run.
Afterword
Having defeated Harald Hardrada of Norway on the 25 September outside York, Harold of England likely spent the following few days negotiating the surrender terms of the Norwegian survivors with sixteen year old Olaf, Hardrada’s son, and celebrating the victory in the city. The citizens of York had readily submitted to the Norwegians following Edwin and Morcar’s defeat at Fulford less than a week earlier, and no doubt Harold Godwinson wished to visibly remind them that he was their anointed king. King Harold was still in the city when news reached him of the Norman landing in the South, probably on the first or second day of October. Harold was back in London by the sixth, so he must have discharged the army who had fought so well at Stamford Bridge and raced south with the mounted elite: the housecarls, thegns, and the men sent by his kinsman King Sweyn Estridsson of Denmark.
Unfortunately we do not know for sure who accompanied the king to York, but it would seem unlikely that after all the preparations of the summer the Norman threat would have been completely disregarded at so critical a time. Someone must have been left in charge in the South in the king’s absence, and there were plenty of possibilities within the Godwin family itself. Harold’s mother Gytha was still politically active and was a major source of support in her grandsons attempts to regain the English throne after the loss of her sons in the battles of 1066. Harold’s sister Eadgyth was of course the widow of the late King Edward the Confessor and must have been well known to any man of rank.
A man known only as Wace writing in the eleventh century describes a scene in his Roman de Rou, whereby Harold’s brother Gyrth attempts to persuade Harold on his return from the north to remain in London to build up his forces, while Gyrth himself leads the initial confrontation with the duke’s army. Both Gyrth and Leofwine Godwinson held earldoms in the South, so either would be a natural choice to watch the channel coast while the king was away. If something like this had occurred the time available to re-muster the army expands from the few days following Harold’s return to London to a couple of weeks, making it entirely possible that the men of the western shires could have reassembled within striking distance of the invader. The town of Lewes would have been the ideal place to gather, located where Roman roads from Wessex and London meet a day’s march from the enemy camp.
The fight which we now know as the Malfosse Incident could then take on a whole new meaning. No longer is it the desperate last stand of a defeated host, but the first strike of a relief army. William of Jumieges in the Deeds of the Dukes of the Normans written shortly after the battle itself briefly mentions: ‘The long grass hid from the Normans an ancient bank where the Normans were suddenly thrown with their horses, killing one another as they fell suddenly and without warning, one on top of the other.’ The twelfth century Chronicle of Battle Abbey was the first to name the incident as the Malfosse, the Evil Ditch, and pinpoint its location as Oak Wood Ghyll, just beyond Caldbeck Hill where the Hoary Apple Tree itself stood, and describe it thus: ‘… a final disaster was revealed to all. Lamentable, just where the fighting was going on, and stretching for a considerable distance, an immense ditch yawned. It may have been a natural cleft in the earth or perhaps it had been hollowed out by storms. But in this waste ground it was overgrown with brambles and thistles, and could hardly be seen in time; and it swallowed great numbers, especially of Normans in pursuit of the English.’ The sources are confused as to the details of the incident, but I have chosen to follow the writings of William of Poitiers who has the attack led by Eustace of Boulogne who, upon fleeing the unexpected counterstrike was struck between the shoulder blades, blood spurting from his nose and mouth just as William arrived with reinforcements. The same writer says there were ‘battalions’ of men, making use of ‘a deep gully and a series of ditches,’ and it seems that Duke William also entertained the thought that the position was defended by fresh troops, newly arrived at the battlefield.
The earls of Mercia and Northumbria were certainly in London soon after the Battle of Hastings, sounding out their own chances for the vacant throne. Rebuffed they threw their support behind the young Edgar ætheling before shepherding their sister, Harold Godwinson’s queen Edith the Fair, to safety in far-off Chester. If they had followed Harold south with their own thegns and housecarls and joined with the men of the southern and western shires as in our tale, the likelihood is that a Norman army already weakened by a day long fight would have stood little chance against them.
7
PEACE WEAVER
Panting like a coonhound, the shaggy haired youth hooked a finger behind the neckband of his tee and gave a tug: ‘dude, it’s sweltering!’
Karl rolled his eyes, lacing his reply with just enough sarcasm that he hoped his friend would get the message without taking offence. ‘In June? Who would have thought?’ He was unsuccessful.
‘Still, it’s the last one for me — you?’
Karl gave a shrug as he searched for an excuse to move off:
Ed was far too bubbly a character for moments like this. It was hotter than a pharaoh’s sandal and he was about to sit an exam in an airless gymnasium, but he was a good mate and he deserved a reply. ‘I have a chemistry paper this Friday and then that’s my lot.’ Ed’s lips began to move just as Karl’s eyes alighted on salvation. ‘I am parched,’ he croaked as he began to drift away, ‘best of luck in your final exam, you lucky sod!’
Snaking through the crowd Karl was soon at the faucet, cursing beneath his breath as he bent his head and thumbed the button. Why anybody would choose to plug the hole with gum was beyond his comprehension, but he could almost feel the eyes upon him — willing him to shy away — and he let the tepid, minty tasting stream play across his lips as he affected an unconcerned air despite the churning in his guts.
Thankfully the sound of the double doors opening soon came to his rescue, and as the crowd shuffled away Karl followed on into the school gym and searched the rows for his candidate number. The sunlight streaming in from the windows set high in the south wall neatly divided the room into light and relative shade, but lady luck had had her fun that day and he slipped into a chair in the darkest part of the hall. He took a last look around as he began to compose himself, sparing a sympathetic thought for those who would have to contend with the torch-like glare of the midsummer sun. As the invigilator revelled in his fleeting moment of importance, addressing the packed rows like a drill sergeant on parade, Karl placed the clear bag containing his pen and a spare — black ink only! — in plain sight as instructed.
A waft of perfume mixed with the smell of burnished parquet, a sickly addition in a room imbued with the odour of decades of sweaty armpits and worse, and the paper was on the desk before him. Karl felt his cares melt away as the earlier jitters vanished; history was his thing, and he found that he was looking forward to it after all the years of study.
The hand on the oversized clock behind its protective mesh flicked silently upright: it was ten o’clock exactly and the instruction came to begin. Turning the paper over Karl pushed down the desire to gallop ahead, carefully filling in his name and number as his eyes took in the heading:
THE NEW JORVIK REGIONAL EXAMINATIONS BOARD
For the General Certificate of Education
June Examination 2019 - Advanced Level
HISTORY
Second Syllabus - From Empire to Commonwealth and the growth of the English Speaking Peoples
Two Hours and Thirty Minutes Allowed
Answer ONE question from section a) (60 marks) and any TWO questions from section b) (twenty marks each)
A quick double-check that he had entered his candidate number correctly and Karl opened the booklet, running his eyes down the page as he looked for the question which would supply the majority of his marks. His mind sifted them into possibles, probables and definitely nots as he read. All the stock questions were there: Athelstan the Conqueror’s death and the retreat from the East; the effect of global cooling in the mini ice age on the Atlantic trading routes and the differing fortunes in the English colonies of Greenland and Iceland. He was about to sigh inwardly at the predictability of it all when the final question seemed to leap at him from the page, and he reread it again as he reached for his pen and began to sketch out a draft:
The main turning points in the development of the English Empire are generally well known: the invasion and incorporation of the kingdom of France within the empire in response to the anti Huguenot pogroms of 1685; Athelstan the Conqueror’s plague death outside Moscow in 1352….
Karl snorted as he read the old exam standard again, his eyes flicking from side to side as he realised that the sound had reverberated around the hall. Heads were turned his way — at the front of the hall Sergeant Rock was shooting daggers. A light thump on the chest and a sickly smile, and he covered up his indiscretion with a cough in the time honoured way before moving down to read the final line of the question:
In your opinion are there any other times, perhaps less well known, that the history of England and wider Scandinavia in general could have taken a far different course?
Karl arranged his papers and mind. This was heaven sent. He had been reading about an obscure period in history only the previous week which was the perfect response to the exam question before him, and he finished jotting down the main points, drew a line through his workings and began….
Most people are aware of the Danish conquest of England in 1016, but few realise just how close the kingdom came to a take-over, both clandestine and militarily, by the powerful duchy of Normandy in the middle years of that century.
Following the deaths of Cnut the Great’s sons, Harold I and Harthacnut in 1040 and 1042 respectively, a half forgotten son of the line of Cerdic, Edward, was recalled from exile in Normandy to take up the English throne. Supported by the warlord Godwin, earl of Wessex, the early years of Edward’s reign were largely uneventful, but as the earl aged and the king’s confidence grew England slowly but surely became riven into two opposing camps which could be loosely termed Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Danish.
Edward the Confessor was a son of the English king Æthelræd II unræd and Emma of Normandy, and he invited increasing numbers of Normans to cross the channel to become his advisors.
Godwin had been elevated by king Cnut and was a trusted advisor of that king. Married to Gytha, the daughter of an important Danish chieftain named Thorkil Sprakling, it seems certain that Godwin would have fought alongside many of the current Danish nobility as a young man and his sons were undoubtably Anglo-Danish.
The first hints of the coming discord between king and earl came in 1047, little more than five years into Edward’s reign. The king of Denmark Sweyn Estridsson, a nephew by marriage of earl Godwin, sent a request for aid to the English in his ongoing war with the king of Norwegians. Godwin urged that fifty ships and their crews be sent to aid his kinsman, but the king refused. A few years later Sweyn, now facing the new king of Norway Harald Hardrada again asked for succour, but although Godwin supported his cause king Edward once again turned them down. To make matters worse for the earl, the later years of the 1040s saw increasing numbers of Normans crossing the channel to take up positions of prominence with the king. The most influential of these was Robert of Jumièges, a Norman churchman who Edward had made bishop of London in 1044. There appears to be little doubt that Robert slowly supplanted Godwin as his main advisor, and it seems just as clear that the two men had little time for each other. Godwin opposed the elevation of Robert to the See of Canterbury in 1050, and must have been perplexed when the now vacant bishopric of London was given by Edward to yet another Norman, William, the king’s chaplain. The early years of the following decade saw matters come to a head.
The year 1051 witnessed two major events which in my view must be connected. While Godwin and his family were abroad witnessing the marriage of Tostig Godwinson to Judith, the daughter of the count of Flanders, the count of Boulogne Eustace II was in England meeting with king Edward. Not only were Flanders and Boulogne traditionally hostile neighbours but Eustace had at one time been married to a sister of the English king, and one can only imagine the anti Godwin poison which was dripped into the ear of Edward as he, Robert and Eustace hunted and dined together in the earl’s absence. On the return journey the count and his followers stopped outside Dover, donned armour and proceeded to provoke the townsfolk to open hostility. Men died on both sides, and back in the country now Godwin was ordered by the king to lay waste the town as punishment. Dover, as all parties were well aware, was part of Godwin’s earldom and he refused to carry out the harrying. Ordered to appear before the king Godwin for once overreacted, mobilising his own forces and those of his sons to confront the Confessor. When the northern earls and the royal housecarls in London declared for the king, Godwin and his sons were forced into exile, exchanging two younger members of the family as surety that they would be allowed to leave unmolested.
With Godwin and his sons seemingly gone for good
, Edward was now free to recast the kingdom in the image of an Anglo-Norman continental state. Queen Eadgyth, Godwin’s daughter, was packed off to the abbey at Wherwell where yet another sister of the king could keep a good eye on her. Normans were appointed to the vacant earldoms where they began the construction of motte and bailey castles, but most importantly either in late 1051 or early 1052 duke William of Normandy is said to have crossed the channel to England. Sure now that he would remain childless, king Edward apparently bestowed the English succession on the duke as the crowning act of his Normanisation of the country.
But the earl and his sons were not so easily defeated, and by the end of the summer of 1052 they were back in force. Outmanoeuvred, the king was forced to reinstate both the queen and Godwin and his sons to their earldoms. Although Godwin himself died soon after Edward was no warlord, and following the flight of his Norman friends he needed the Godwinsons to help run and defend the kingdom. While Edward lived the situation stabilised, and for the following thirteen years the king seems to have retreated into a life of piety and hunting. During this time the Godwinsons gained influence and power. The eldest son Sweyn had died on pilgrimage, but Harold became earl of Wessex on the death of his father and in 1055 the third brother Tostig became earl of Northumbria. With the later accession to the earldoms of East Anglia and Middlesex by the younger brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, all but the earldom of Mercia in the west were in Godwinson hands.
