THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE - PART TWO
THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE – PART TWO
While the final decision as to who was to become king of England was for the Witan, there was nothing to stop the king from indicating who he thought his successor should be, and here arose the dichotomy. The childless Edward seems, at some time, to have promised the throne to William of Normandy, and to Harold Godwinson on his death bed. Harold had no blood claim, the nearest relationship being his position as the king’s brother in law, a relationship somewhat strained when Edward put Edith aside. The English did not want another foreign king, which ruled out Eustace, William and the two Scandinavians. Edgar was only a teenager, and although there had been young kings in the past, he had little support. The only realistic candidate, the mature man, proven warrior and already the most powerful man in the kingdom was Harold, already (at least by his account) chosen by Edward, and it was he that the Witan acclaimed as the next king, crowned on 6 January in the as yet unfinished Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury. Upon his crowning Harold married as his second wife Ealdgyth, the sister of the Northern earls Edwin and Morcar, ensuring the loyalty of the north.
Not only was King Edward believed to have promised the throne to William of Normandy – which was not, of course, his prerogative to do – but the Normans believed, or said they did, that Harold too had vowed to support William’s claim. William was the only son of Duke Robert I of Normandy, out of Herleva, and was born in Falaise in, probably, 1028. As they were both unmarried William was thus illegitimate, hence referred to by some of his contemporaries as William the Bastard. Contrary to later anti Norman propaganda Herleva was not the daughter of a tanner, nor was she a laundrymaid, but a perfectly respectable lady whom Robert later married off to one of his nobles, Herluin de Conteville, by whom she had two sons, Odo, later bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, later Count of Mortain. Duke Robert died in 1035, on his way back from pilgrimage, and William, acknowledged by his father as his heir, became the duke aged only seven. During his childhood the various Norman barons battled for control of the duke and of the duchy, but as he had the support of Henry I of France and of the archbishop of Rouen, the capital of Normandy, all accepted William’s right to the title. Illegitimacy was no barrier as previous dukes had been illegitimate, but at least three of his guardians were killed in attempts to gain control of him.
The situation was chaotic until around 1047 when William, now nineteen years of age, supported by troops of the French king put down a serious attempt to seize control of the duchy. Even then it took several years before all internal opposition was stifled, and in 1054 he defeated an invasion by the same French king, who had withdrawn his support and was now allied with Norman rebels, and a new archbishop of Rouen. The French repulsed and the archbishop removed and replaced by a Williamite, William now began to expand his territory by gobbling up neighbouring regions. By 1051 at least William was harbouring ambitions to succeed Edward as king of England, at first peaceably, but when the Witan awarded the throne to Harold Godwinson thoughts and preparations turned to war.
The Normans saw Harold as a usurper and an oath breaker. It is true that in 1064 Harold was blown off course onto the coast of Ponthieu and captured by the Count of Ponthieu, then handed over to William. We do not know whether Harold was heading for Normandy or whether he was blown on to the European shore by storms, but William treated him well, supplied him with armour and weapons, and Harold fought with William in battle against the Count of Brittany, one of many opponents to William’s accession to the Duchy. It was then that, according to Norman accounts, Harold swore to support William’s claim to the English throne.
Before an invasion of England could be contemplated William needed to ensure the security of Normandy’s borders against a prolonged absence of himself and his army. This he achieved through a mixture of military and diplomatic action. He had annexed Maine in 1062 and brought Brittany to heel in 1064, the king of France was a child whose guardian was William’s father-in-law, the Count of Flanders. Eustace of Boulogne was married to Edward the Confessor’s sister and although he had designs on the English throne himself he was quite happy to support William – or indeed anybody else – against a Godwin. Having ensured that Normandy would not risk invasion, William then had to garner military support, vital for a Norman population of around only one million, less than half that of England. The Duke of Brittany promised a large contingent and a number of Flemish mercenary companies were engaged as were numerous crossbowmen and archers from all over northern France. In any military venture the support and approval of God was a considerable advantage and William managed to obtain the Pope’s blessing for his expedition, despite papal disapproval of what were then (and would be now) war crimes after the capture of Alencon. Alencon was a buffer between Normandy and Maine and in 1059 had risen against William. After a siege ending in 1061 William had the right hands of all the citizens cut off, a not untypical Norman response at the time. The Pope was even more unhappy with England, however, for although Edward the Confessor had appointed Norman bishops who had the Popes approval, Anglo-Saxon kings before him and Harold Godwinson after appointed their own men with scant regard to papal approval. Even more important was the failure of England to pay Peter’s Pence, an annual tax required to be paid to the Vatican. William went to war with a papal banner, demonstrating divine approval of his mission.
In 1066 England had a population of around 2 ¼ million, all referred to as Anglo Saxon but with a significant minority of Scandinavian origin. The economy was largely agricultural with around ninety per cent of the population being rural, but thanks to wool, gold, salt and tin England was a very rich country, and unlike anywhere in Europe had its own nationwide currency. Society was stratified with the ealdormen, or earls, being effectively provincial governors. The next level was the thegns, today’s landed gentry, whose status depended on land holding, and below them were the peasantry, freemen who owned or rented enough land to support themselves and their families, and villeins who were not free and who held land belonging to the local magnate in exchange for services or payment, but had certain rights which put them above slaves, who had no rights at all. Huge amounts of land were held by monasteries and other clerical institutions, and the church was hugely influential both in religious and in lay matters.
Once the Roman empire collapsed, as much due to internal problems as to external pressure, standing professional armies ceased to exist – no one could afford them. The post-Roman Britons either relied on men defending their own land or on hired Germanic mercenaries who eventually turned against them. Alfred the Great did revive the idea of a standing army, and his was divided in two, with half available for campaigning and the rest manning garrisons of his burghs, or fortified towns, but while a standing army of sorts survived until the reign of Æthelred II it was very small, perhaps a thousand men at most, and after him was no more, with England’s war making capacity lying entirely with the fyrd, the militia, which was largely infantry, and the king’s household troops – the housecarls. By the time of Harold Godwinson the fyrd was intended for home defence and was not required to deploy more than a day’s march from their own shire, although some men might be required to accompany a local magnate or be paid to campaign anywhere. Members of the fyrd were free men, and were required to have a ten-foot long ash shafted spear, a sword, a dagger, a shield, and a helmet of the Roman style with cheek flaps and a nose guard. In earlier times shields had been round, made of lime wood with a central iron boss, but by 1066 shields were long and kite shaped. While bows and arrows did exist archery was the province of thralls, or slaves, and not for freemen, a condition that would change dramatically in the next three centuries. Most private soldier equivalents would have started with a leather jerkin as protection moving to a chain mail shirt when they could afford it.
The equivalent of senior NCOs were from the ranks of the housecarls and the officers were the thegns, with the generals coming from the ranks of the ealdormen. Apart from the housecarls all were part-timers, called up when the king needed them. The number of men called depended on land holdings, measured in hides. Although its actual size depended on the quality of the land, one hide was was estimated to be the amount of land required to support one peasant family for a year. One soldier was required from every five hides, although how he was selected varied enormously depending on how many eligible men were available from the five families. There were restrictions. Men could not be called up during the planting season and had to be released for the harvest, and the time that they could be obliged to remain in the field was generally forty days, sometimes extended to sixty. An army could in theory cover around thirty miles a day but this depended very much on whether they could be provisioned en route, or whether a baggage train had to follow, which would cover much less distance.
Anglo-Saxon tactics were based on the shield wall, that is men packed together in line with shields interlocking. In defence spears projected from the wall, and when the two walls met men used their daggers to attempt to stab an opponent, reaching between the shields. Some men were equipped with long handled axes, a weapon copied from the Vikings, to try to pull down the opposing shields and create a gap, allowing the rolling up of the enemy line. As it was the responsibility of each man in the wall to protect the man on his left the lines tended to edge farther and farther right, sometimes outflanking each other, so if possible the defending line would anchor its flanks on a wood, a river, a building or some other immovable obstacle.
Norman methods were rather different. There was much more emphasis on heavy cavalry to support the foot soldiers, as well as large numbers of archers and crossbowmen. While archery in Europe, like in England, was not the province of gentlemen it was nevertheless not neglected. The short bow used was similar to that of the Anglo Saxons, with a lethal range of around 100 yards against unarmoured men and horses. The crossbow, although with a slower rate of discharge and a lesser range, shot a bolt with considerably more punch which could penetrate chain mail.
Having secured his borders and obtained guarantees of the company of allied contingents there were other factors to be considered. The existing Norman navy was not nearly large enough to transport the number of troops and horses that would be needed, so a massive ship building programme was started, not only in shipyards under William’s direct control but in those of his relatives and allies as well. His two half brothers, Robert and Odo, provided 220 ships between them, and altogether most sources estimate a fleet of around 700 ships was assembled over the summer of 1066.
Norman ships were built to a pattern very similar to that of the Viking longship (the Normans were, after all, originally Vikings), clinker-built with one mast and a sail, which could also be rowed. The Bayeux tapestry shows these ships as carrying twenty-four or thirty six men, not all of whom would be soldiers, others carrying horses and stores. Although estimates vary, the Norman army at Hastings may have been around 7,000 strong, of which 2,000 were mounted heavy cavalry and perhaps 1,000 were archers or crossbowmen. In addition there would have been servants, grooms, farriers, blacksmiths and priests, plus spare horses so the total numbers to be moved would have been in the region of 7,500 men and 2,500 horses, to say nothing of vast amounts of stores and rations including wine, bacon, salt meat, twice baked bread (biscuit) and beans. There were also two prefabricated ‘castles’ loaded aboard. These were wooden palisades that would be quickly erected, usually on a hilltop and to be surrounded by a hastily dug ditch, thus providing a temporary strong point to be used either as a jumping off point for attack, or a last-ditch defence.
Horses are generally good travellers and keep their inherent fitness without exercise for longer than humans, and these were loaded on ships adapted to take them, either by winching them on with A frames or by a gangway, with grooms to feed them and remove their droppings (a horse defecates eight to twelve times a day). Once the ships were ready William ordered them to concentrate at Dives, north of Caen, with the soldiers assembled and billeted locally. On 12 August all was ready, and stores began to be loaded prior to embarking the men and horses.