1066 Turned Upside Down Page 5

  Can we assume that the crown would have sat on Harold’s head for very long after that?

  History tells us that Morcar owed his earldom to Harold’s refusal to support Tostig when the northern lords rebelled. We don’t know exactly when Harold married Ealdgyth, but we do know that he felt the need to ride north some time after Edward died – in January – and that he was back in London for Easter on April 16th. (According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the comet appeared on 24th April.) Yet his brother Edwin had nothing to gain from supporting Harold and I wonder why he did.

  There was a long-running and well documented feud between the two families. Earl Siward had been a friend of Leofric, grandfather to Edwin and Morcar and husband to Godiva. It’s unlikely that his son, Waltheof, would have been loyal to the Godwins. I think he would have followed Edwin, as would all the northern lords. Morcar and Edwin were both conveniently nearby when the northerners rebelled and Harold backed down in the face of the combined Mercian and Welsh army.

  Even if Harold survived Hastings, a precedent had been set: although in theory the Witan had always chosen the next ruler, the reality was that the king was always of royal blood, until Harold. Edwin’s claim would have been at least as strong.

  Annie Whitehead

  www.anniewhiteheadauthor.co.uk

  Discussion Suggestions

  If Harold had held onto the throne in 1066, would the Northern earls have, at some point, rebelled, or would being kindred to the next royal heir have been enough for them?

  Why does England have such a deep-rooted and still strong North/South divide? Did the events of 1066 have an impact on that?

  MARCH

  1066

  Vikings, so their reputation would have it, were rarely slow to spot an opportunity for raiding or, indeed, conquest. Indeed their name probably derives from the phrase going ‘i-viking’: raiding. The Scandinavians had been sailing forth on adventures for hundreds of years by the 11th century – even getting as far as America – and were very familiar with the short hop across the Northern Seas to England. Even in midwinter, it would not have taken long for news of King Edward’s death to make its way to Norway where Harald Hardrada (Ruthless) had been king for twenty years. It does not seem to have taken long, either, for him to decide to invade.

  Sometime in early 1066 it seems that King Harald had a visitor to his royal court in Oslo – Tostig Godwinson, Harold’s brother, who had been exiled in 1065 and was now looking for a way back into England. Tostig had almost certainly already been to the courts of William of Normandy and Svein of Denmark but, finding no ally there, was now trying his luck with Hardrada.

  It seems unlikely that the King of Norway saw much benefit in the help of a lost English earl with only a handful of ships, but neither did he see much harm and he agreed to let Tostig join him. It is also possible that talking to him cemented Hardrada’s own determination to invade. His claim to the throne was via a tenuous pact between Harthacnut, briefly King of England before Edward (he was Edward’s half-brother by Queen Emma and King Cnut) and Magnus, King of Norway before Hardrada. The legal claim mattered little to a Viking though – what was important was winning in battle.

  Hardrada had rarely lost a battle in his life. He was a rich and highly experienced warrior with an invasion force of some three-hundred ships full of eager and warlike Vikings, seeking to emulate the great King Cnut’s successful invasion exactly fifty years before – he did not expect to lose.

  EMPEROR OF THE NORTH

  JOANNA COURTNEY

  Harald Hardrada, renowned Viking warrior and King of Norway, had two important ‘right-hand men’ – Lords Halldor and Ulf. They seem to have been with him from his early years as a Varangian mercenary and were a key part of his stable rule of Norway from 1047. Halldor returned to his homeland of Iceland in 1051, but Ulf remained as Harald’s High Commander until he died in early 1066, just before the invasion of England.

  Was it, I wondered, the lack of this level-headed commander that led to Harald making what must be one of the only tactical mistakes of his prestigious military career in turning up at Stamford Bridge with only half his army, and they not in full armour? This story, told by Aksel, imaginary son of Lord Halldor, explores that possibility and the effect it might have had on England if Norwegian Harald had defeated English Harold in 1066.

  It was a fine year, 1066 – a year to be sung to the rafters of the mead halls, a year to hail the crowning of a mighty king: Harald Hardrada, Emperor of the North. Not that I ever doubted he would do it. None of us did, for had Cnut not done the same fifty years before, and he facing a king of royal lineage not a trumped-up earl trying his luck at a throne too big for his scrawny warrior’s arse?

  Harald had been a king long before 1066 and a fine one. They didn’t call him Hardrada – Ruthless – for nothing. He’d won Norway in 1047 and held her for nigh-on twenty years before he challenged for England. I should know, for I was born in his warcamp, son to his trusted friend Lord Halldor of Myvatyn, and was passed to Harald for luck as soon as my cord was cut. I followed him from that moment and my main memory of boyhood was the painful frustration of being parted from him, my father and their third great friend, Lord Ulf, when they sailed to war. I was first to volunteer, therefore, when Harald spoke of England for I did not wish to be left behind on this, his greatest adventure.

  Let me introduce myself – Aksel Halldorson, Earl of Wessex and Commander of the King’s troops either side of the Narrow Sea, though I am little use in that office these days, being more or less confined to my bed since the summertime of this year of our Lord, 1086. I am but two and fifty – almost the age Harald was in 1066 – but I have some damned disease that is wasting away my bones and no one, it seems, can do anything about it save coddle me with blankets and broths like an old-one.

  I did drag myself up for the victory celebrations in October but even feasting wore out my silly brittle bones and I had to watch the dancing from the sidelines with the other cripples. I felt a fool all right, especially with our dear Emperor Harald still upright on his throne in Westminster’s fine hall, his blond hair now purest white. But my heart still burned with pride to know that I had been there, exactly twenty years before, when he first took that throne, and the memories keep me going even now that I am almost done with this life.

  ‘They said we were mad!’ That’s how my father used to tell the events of 1066. ‘They said we could never take England, that she would be too strong for us – but we sailed on her anyway.’

  He was always one for the drama in a tale, Lord Halldor, and he liked to make out the expedition was harder than it was, but in truth no one said that we were mad – they just said, ‘show us the path’. Vikings, even these days, are ever keen to take to the whale road and men were summoning their crews the moment Edward died and Harald spoke of England. We were wild enough to yearn for battle and arrogant enough to believe we could seize England, the jewel in Europe’s crown – a land so sure of itself that all men longed to hold it. Earl Harold longed, for sure, Duke William too, but God did not choose them. God chose Harald Hardrada of Norway and Harald has paid Him back with twenty years of security and prosperity for his people.

  I think of it still sometimes, feel it even. That great year of 1066 creeps into my mind often these days – usually when dawn threads through my rich bed-hangings in whispers of light and the past feels every bit as real as the present to a man hovering on the edge of both.

  ‘Invasion,’ the men call to me still, as delighted as if it were a great feast they were being summoned to. ‘Invasion. Conquest. Adventure.’ Always adventure – even now that it is more in my fading mind than in my sword arm.

  It was Queen Elizaveta, though, who really drove the mission, who yearned for the adventure of it. That’s how Harald tells it and that is true. Believe me, I knew Elizaveta from 1035 when I was still a babe and she took me into her mother’s royal nursery
at Kiev so that I would not have to be carried from warcamp to warcamp with my father. I resented that sometimes as I grew older, but she was right to do it for I might never have made adulthood had she not and then I would not have been a part of this great Empire of ours. And oh, I loved her. She was scarcely more than a child herself at just sixteen but I thought her as beautiful a lady as in any of the legends told around the hearthfires and I devoted myself to her service.

  I sat at her feet whenever I was allowed, and whenever she sat still, which was not often, for she was a woman with adventure in her veins. She was a true Viking queen for a true Viking king and still people call blessings upon her. Beautiful, fiery, exciting, she has brought Rus elegance to England. And through her sisters – married to kings throughout Europe – she has placed us at the heart of a great skein of trade routes that means that even now, as I clutch at the last golden threads of life, my days can be eased by fine fabrics on my back and rich foods on my plate. I can be blessed in churches glowing with the colour and fire of Byzantine artists. Yes, England is a better place for having Elizaveta as her queen.

  I can see her now, riding the waves with us that burn-bright day in August 1066 when we turned our dragon prows out of Norway’s Sognafjord and west towards England. She refused to be left behind in Norway and I believe she would have ridden all the way to York and into battle besides given half a chance for she was a fiery woman, God bless her. But Harald left her in the Orkneys with their daughters until he could safely summon her to the throne. It did not take long.

  We did not expect it to be easy. We are not fools. Vikings are fierce but we are canny too. We do not win battles by madness, whatever others may conveniently think, but by cunning – by preparation and wise choices even in the heat of the moment. Wiser choices than the English, for it was their poor decision at Fulford that won us that first victory. Their commanders, the lords Edwin and Morcar were young and driven more by courage than experience. They will tell you as much themselves, for we laugh about it sometimes still, when we are all at court together.

  It is hard to believe now, that we were once such bitter enemies. Edwin married Harald and Elizaveta’s second daughter, Ingrid, the year after the conquest and they have given our king many grandchildren to run him ragged. They are gentle souls, both, and are happiest on their lands in Mercia and working to promote peace with Wales, which is no easy task even with Edwin’s Welsh royal nephews in his care.

  Morcar is less gentle. Always one with a sparkle in his eye, he enjoyed life as a conqueror for a year or two before he fell in love with a fearsome Norwegian girl who came over for Harald’s magnificent coronation as Emperor in 1072. Ever since their wedding he has divided his time between Northumbria and Norway so that he has become, we tease him, more Norse than us Norse. I believe he sometimes sees his sister, the exiled nine-month-queen Edyth, and her son, Harold Haroldson, but no one speaks of them and the boy has never sought to challenge the Emperor of the North so we leave him be. But then, why would he? Only a fool would overthrow such a stable rule.

  Thank the Lord, Edwin and Morcar ran from Fulford and thank Him again that they came out and submitted to us after Stamford Bridge, for they have been loyal servants and together we have made England stronger. Back in 1066, though, they were determined to see us from their shores. I can see them now, teeth bared, swords high, fury in their young eyes. They’d arrived at the battle-site first and set their armies tight against the marsh to force them to stand firm and fight. Harald commended their bravery but he knew how to exploit it too. All we had to do was to hit them hard and drive them sideways and let the suck and pull of the bog do the rest of the work.

  I still hear that battle sometimes; it is perhaps the most vivid memory of them all. It had a peculiar sound as sword-wound cries gurgled into silence beneath the marsh water as if the earth itself had swallowed up the Saxons’ pain. And there were so many of the fallen – so many that by the end you could run across even the soggiest sections of the battlefield on their backs. Many did, but not me. I was sickened by it. When I was younger, Elizaveta used to tease me that I was too soft for a Viking and she may be right but I see little joy in trampling the dead for we will all be gone one day. One day soon for me.

  We took York undisputed. I’m not sure if her people were afraid of us or pleased to see us. Some were certainly the latter for there is much Norse blood in the north of England. It was the Northerners who welcomed Cnut when he conquered fifty years before us and, indeed, it was the Northerners who eventually saw us to Westminster once the usurping Earl Harold was dead. After Fulford though, that task was still ahead of us.

  Harald was keen to secure York. He arranged for hostages and treasure to be delivered to us at a pretty meadowland around Stamford Bridge, a key meeting of the main roads across the district. It was such a hot day. I remember that well for the sweat felt as if it was running like a very river beneath my mail. I longed to take it off, we all did, and Harald might have let us – for what threat was a handful of cowed hostages? – but Ulf refused and Ulf was captain of the army and the king’s friend since childhood, so he was allowed to overrule him.

  ‘The men are boiling alive,’ Harald said to Ulf.

  I can hear him now, as if the pair of them were stood the other side of my bed-hangings. But Ulf was having none of it.

  ‘Let them boil. A good Viking is always ready for battle.’

  ‘There is no battle,’ Harald laughed.

  How wrong he was – not only was there a battle, but the battle, the one that won him the crown. And, oh, did he thank Ulf for his foresight when the English spears tipped the hillside! For it was Ulf, too, who had ordered almost the full force of our men to Stamford Bridge so that at that dread moment we outnumbered the arriving army. There had been much grumbling for it had been a long, hot walk from the ships at Ricall and men were keen to stay at the cool of the riverside, but Ulf had insisted.

  ‘A good Viking is always ready for battle’ he’d said then too, adding, ‘we are on enemy territory and cannot be too careful.’

  And thank the Lord he’d insisted for it was not a straggle of hostages that we met on that pretty field, but a vast army, marched all the way from London by King Harold.

  He was a good man, King Harold, from all we saw. Am I sad he had to die? A little, perhaps, for the world needs good men, but war is war and he understood that as well as we. The bastard Norman duke ranted on about rights and oaths and sent off for a damned scrap of a papal banner to trumpet his claim, but Harold knew, as we knew, that this was nothing about ‘right’ and everything about power. It was an honest contest in that way and one we are proud to have won for Harold was a brave and determined general. I had to admire him for that. Harald admired him for it too. I remember his mouth falling open as he saw the ‘fighting man’ standard of the English king – a standard that should still, by rights, have been flying over Westminster.

  ‘He is quite a man, your brother,’ he said to Earl Tostig.

  That didn’t please our damned English ‘ally’. Tostig had wormed his way into our ranks after he was exiled by the English the year before and I didn’t like him. None of us did. He was an empty sort of a man – always out for a quick answer and always believing he was entitled to more than he was worth. He was a poor fighter, too – one of the first to fall, slain by his own people, the Saxons. A traitor’s death; I felt no sorrow for him. Harald only took him on because of his knowledge of the land around York, though in the end that was sketchy at best. Perhaps, also, he took him on hoping that his brother would be as spoiled and useless as he, but that was not the case as his mad march north proved. Sadly for Harold, he would never march south again.

  I think he’d hoped to surprise us and he might have done so had Harald not been thrown by Ulf’s caution and sent spies far and wide. I can still see the messenger-lad’s face as he spurred his horse toward us, the Saxon armies marching almost visibl
y across his dark pupils, just as men were setting down their shields and swords and scrambling for water from the river.

  ‘The king,’ he shouted. ‘King Harold is come!’

  The men might have panicked then, but Harald rose, caught the lad’s bridle and looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘No,’ he said, his great voice echoing across the field, ‘King Harald is already here!’

  They cheered at that and cheered even louder when Harald told them how kind it was of the English to march so far north to save us the effort. And then, within moments, we were men no longer but a mass – an army. We found our shields and our places behind them with the ease of long practice. As Ulf had said, over and over, a good Viking is always ready for battle and were in place before the English were even close.

  At first Harald sought to negotiate, to split England north and south as Cnut did with King Edmund at the start of his reign here, but the Saxon would have none of it – promised us no more land than seven of soil feet in which to bury our king. Harald admired that too, but declined the polite offer and raised his sword.

  The Saxons fought hard. They near matched us for ferocity but we were fresher. We’d marched several long hours, yes, but they’d marched several long days. Even so, they might have had us if we had taken our armour off, so thank the Lord we did not – or, at least, thank Lord Ulf. Better sweat than blood.