THE INVASIONS OF 1066
The passing from the scene of the strangely unsubstantial and shadowy
figure of the sainted Eadward ‘the Confessor’ was the signal for the
bursting of the storm that was to overwhelm Anglo-Saxon England.
For the last thirteen years of his reign the country had been
practically governed by his great minister, Harold Godwineson, Earl of
Wessex. Harold’s character has suffered much at the hands of Norman
chroniclers; there is no real reason to think that he was morally worse
than most men of his age. His practical ability was of a high order,
and while administering the realm with success, he also gave proofs
that he possessed tact and moderation. At the same time, his general
success cannot hide the fact that England lacked political unity; it
was a group of great family earldoms, whose heads looked upon each
other with jealousy and distrust. Harold seems to have behaved with
remarkable forbearance and friendliness towards the rival house of
Leofric, and though he had more than one opportunity of aggrandizing
his family at their expense, the death of Eadward the Confessor found
Eadwine and Morkere, grandsons of Leofric, still ruling over his broad
lands.
Eadward the Confessor’s fondness for the Normans among whom he had
been brought up was natural enough, and it is quite possible that the
dominating personality of his cousin, William of Normandy, on the
occasion of his visit in 1051, so impressed him that he made some sort
of promise of leaving him his heir. At any rate when Harold, in 1064,
after his shipwreck in the Channel, became William’s unwilling guest,
the Duke had no scruple in exacting from him an oath of support. The
decorative adjuncts--‘holy’ relics, and so forth--which he contrived
in order to impress the superstitious bystanders, certainly had the
desired effect on contemporary public opinion. Harold left as a hostage
with William his hapless youngest brother Wulfnoth, destined to die in
captivity.
But when Eadward the Confessor died on January 5, 1066, he, according
to the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ left his realm to Harold. The ‘Vita
Eadwardi’ says much the same. It seems, also, that the Witan had
already chosen Harold, for he was crowned the next day in the new
Abbey Church of Westminster. It is a curious reflection that the great
church, which was consecrated as the old king lay dying, was, in a
sense, the funeral monument of early English times.
Harold was threatened with attack from three quarters--perhaps four.
It was certain that William of Normandy would attempt an invasion at
the first opportunity. Harald Hardrada of Norway, the last of the
great Viking monarchs, was known to be ready for any opportunity of
aggrandizement. Sweyn Estrithson of Denmark, cousin of Harthacnut,
might deem the moment favourable for advancing his claims. Finally,
Tosti, Harold’s worthless brother, was preparing to regain by force
his forfeited Northumbrian earldom. Internally, the Northern earls
were lukewarm in Harold’s cause. They were men of little mark, but
they controlled nearly half England, and their disaffection was a very
serious matter. Truly, says the Chronicle of Harold, ‘little quiet did
he enjoy while he wielded the kingdom.’
When the news of Harold’s coronation reached Normandy, William broke
out into one of those terrible bursts of savage rage to which he
was subject in times of stress. ‘To no man spake he, and none dared
speak to him,’ says a chronicler. After his fit of passion was over
he announced his intention of invading England. He called an assembly
of his barons at Lillebonne on the Seine, and set forth his ideas,
but they hung back; England seemed too strong. He then appealed to
their individual loyalty, promising to reward them with English lands
in proportion to the contingents that they furnished, and with this
inducement practically the entire baronage of Normandy agreed to join
in the enterprise. But the forces of Normandy alone were not strong
enough, and William used every means to induce neighbouring princes
and adventurers to join his standard. Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who
had a private grudge against England, and Alan Fergent, cousin of the
Duke of Brittany, were the most notable of these foreign allies; but
adventurers from all France came in numbers, and even, so Guy of Amiens
says, some of the Normans who were conquering Southern Italy from the
Eastern Empire. Many months were needed before the miscellaneous host
could be gathered, and hundreds of ships had to be built and launched
for the transport of the fighting men, followers, the provisions, and,
above all, the thousands of horses, without which the mailed knights
would lose three-quarters of their efficiency. Wace tells us that the
number of vessels that actually sailed was 696; other chroniclers
raise it to 3,000. In this conflict of evidence the figures given by
Wace have a strong appearance of veracity. Most of the vessels were
doubtless small.
The number of the army is stated at from 40,000 to 60,000 by mediæval
chroniclers. Some modern estimates put it as low as 12,000. There
are no solid grounds upon which to base a reasoned estimate. After
the Conquest there were about 4,300 knight’s fiefs in England. The
casualties among the invaders were enormous, but the gaps were filled
by fresh adventurers, and certainly not all the English landowners were
dispossessed. We are, perhaps, justified in assuming 4,000 cavalry,
about 4,000 archers, and possibly 7,000 mail-clad infantry--say 15,000
men in all.
William had the support of religion in his enterprise in so far as it
could be given by a papal bull. There had been, even under the pious
Confessor, irregularity in the filling up of the episcopal sees; in
particular, the position of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a
scandal. This, and Harold’s perjury, induced the support of Alexander
II., and a consecrated banner was sent to William with the bull.
The gathering-place of the army of invasion was at the mouth of the
Dive. The Norman writers are eloquent upon the admirable order and
discipline that prevailed in the camp, and, beyond doubt, William did
keep his own subjects well in hand; but that the same was the case
with the motley throng of allies is hardly possible. Still, knowing
what manner of man William was, it is likely enough that his standard
of discipline was, for the time, a very creditable one. Moreover, when
the army came to fight it showed itself to be very different from the
usual disorderly mediæval horde--highly trained, flexible, precise in
manœuvre, and under excellent discipline. Its organization was clearly
Byzantine. The three East-Roman arms--archers, heavy infantry, and
mailed cavalry--were all there. An East-Roman army would have had
nearly as many cavalry as infantry, if it had used infantry at all to
back its masses of mail-clad horse-bowmen and lancers, but William’s
resources were unequal to putting many thousands of mounted men in
the field. As it is, it is evident that his army was by far the finest
force that had ever invaded England.
By about August 10 the concentration appears to have been almost
complete, but for a month no move could be made owing to persistently
contrary winds. The difficulties of supply must have become greater and
greater, and in September William moved to the Abbey of St. Walaric,
now St. Valery, in Caux. Still for a fortnight longer the favouring
wind did not come.
Meanwhile Tosti had long since sailed. His attack was made
apparently in conjunction with Harald Hardrada. He had in Flanders
collected enough miscellaneous adventurers to man sixty ships, but
his impatience--probably he could not keep his plundering bands
together--wrecked the design of co-operation with Hardrada. The
Norwegian king was collecting a great armament, and probably its
concentration took time. At any rate, he did not appear in English
waters until August.
Harold, meanwhile, was organizing for defence. His only standing force
consisted of the Hus-Carles, or royal household troops--4,000 men at
the utmost. They were, unquestionably, a magnificent body of men, fully
equal in quality to William’s knighthood, equipped like them with
helmet and mail-shirt, kite-shaped shield, and armed with the terrible
battle-axe, which England had adopted from Denmark. Unfortunately,
however, though they habitually used horses on the march, they had no
experience of, or training in, fighting on horseback--a fatal defect.
The _land fyrd_, on the other hand, was difficult to move. It is easy
to under-estimate its value; there must have been a large number of men
in it fully armed and equipped for war; but they were never properly
drilled and exercised together, and were mingled with half-armed
peasantry. Still, considering the large numbers of the men liable for
service, it must have been comparatively easy to collect a considerable
force of properly equipped troops, but it entirely lacked cavalry and
archers.
Mediæval feudal armies practically depended for supplies on plunder,
and were consequently always liable to dissolve. Here and there we find
men--great generals like William I. and Edward I.--who understood how
to organize a proper commissariat, but they were few and far between.
Apparently Harold II. was one of them, for there is no doubt that he
kept a large army together on the south coast for several months.
The defence of the north was, of course, entrusted to the earls Eadwine
and Morkere; no other course was possible. Nor, upon the whole, does it
seem that they failed to do their duty. Harold was in Northumbria early
in the year, and no doubt did his best to conciliate them. Otherwise he
seems to have been very active, and Florence of Worcester says that his
activity was highly beneficial, but significantly adds that his chief
efforts were for the defence of the country. In April Halley’s Comet
made one of its recurring appearances, and, needless to say, was looked
upon as the forerunner of coming evil.
Under the great West Saxon kings, as we have seen, England possessed
an effective navy, but it is very doubtful whether under Eadward the
Confessor any large force had been kept up. Harold’s defensive armada
must have consisted largely of levied merchant craft. It collected
off the Isle of Wight--obviously in Spithead--and there awaited the
coming of the invaders. The forces of the south were stationed ‘by the
sea’--presumably in divisions within easy reach of one another--and
the King himself with his guards formed a reserve which could be
transferred north or south at will.
The defects of this strategy are obvious enough. It was solely
defensive. No attempt was made to stop the sailing of the hostile
fleets; even Tosti’s puny armament was allowed to reach England
without molestation. The splendid marching and fighting feats of the
royal guards show that their efficiency was high. A commissariat
sufficient to supply a large force for several months had evidently
been organized; but all this proved useless owing to the bad initial
strategy of standing purely on the defensive.
[Illustration: THE CAMPAIGN OF 1066.
Showing the probable route of Harold’s dash to the north against Harald
Hardrada and Tosti, and his return to face William.]
In May Tosti appeared on the coast of Kent. Apparently Harold was
already on the south coast, for we are told that he at once moved
against him with a fleet and an army such as no King of England
had ever gathered. Tosti, who had made plundering descents on
the coast and had also endeavoured to increase his small force by
forced impressment, did not await the onslaught, but fled. His second
descent was made in the Humber. Earl Eadwine promptly set upon and
defeated him; his miscellaneous force broke up, and Tosti himself fled
northward to Scotland with only twelve ships. Here he seems to have
been sheltered by Malcolm Canmore; presumably the Scottish king dared
not eject him, when at any moment the formidable Harald Hardrada might
appear.
Harold and William lay watching each other across the Channel all
through the summer. When William’s host had at last gathered, the wind,
as we have seen, was contrary, and for nearly two months he could not
stir. This was fortunate for him; had he sailed in August, he would
have been attacked by Harold’s fleet, and his own flotilla, crowded
with troops and thousands of horses, would have fared badly. Even had
the Normans gained the day they would have hardly been able to land.
It was a trial of endurance. On September 8 the English fleet had
exhausted its stores, and was forced to return to London to reprovision
and refit. Still the land army remained in the south, but a week later
came the news that Harald Hardrada was in the Humber.
The consequences of Harold’s purely defensive strategy now stared him
in the face. The fleet was for the time entirely off the board, but to
concentrate against Hardrada was a vital necessity. Harold marched
northward without delay, and certainly strove to make up for strategic
errors by activity. From Portsmouth to York is over 250 miles, but the
distance was covered in ten days. Obviously Harold’s whole corps must
have been mounted; but even so it was a remarkable performance.
Hardrada, having picked up Tosti and the remains of his expedition,
proceeded southward along the coast of Northumbria, landing and
ravaging in the old Viking fashion. Scarborough was taken and sacked,
and the Norwegian fleet sailed up the Humber and landed its army, which
marched upon York. Eadwine and Morkere had united their forces, and
stood to fight at Fulford, two miles south of the Northumbrian capital,
where they were attacked by Hardrada on September 20, and completely
defeated. The remains of their army took refuge in York, and so cowed
were the Northumbrians that they offered 150 hostages as a pledge of
their submission. Hardrada probably thought himself secure; he withdrew
to the Derwent, seven miles east of York, and was encamped carelessly
on both its banks, about Stamford Bridge, when on September 25 Harold,
having passed through York, came upon him. No hint of his approach
seems to have preceded him. The speed and secrecy of the march are
alike remarkable.
The attack fell like a thunderbolt on the unprepared Norwegians.
Scattered, astounded, and without time to form order of battle, they
were massacred right and left, and driven towards the Derwent in a
confusion that can only have tended to grow greater. The bridge was
desperately defended, and under cover of the stand Hardrada’s personal
following seems to have been able to rally on the ‘Land-ravager’--the
raven standard of the Vikings. After a series of fierce attacks the
shield ring was broken, Hardrada and Tosti were slain, and Olaf, the
king’s son, surrendered, on promise of being allowed to depart with the
survivors. They are said to have been able to man only 24 ships of the
original 300. We may suspect exaggeration.
Harold returned in triumph to York, where he seems to have delayed for
a week or so; doubtless his troops, after their exertions, needed a
rest. The northern levies also must have required reorganization. In
the midst of toils and rejoicings came the terrible news that William
was in Sussex.
On September 27 the long-sought-for south wind blew at last, and the
huge unwieldy Norman fleet put out from St. Walaric. William’s flagship
was the _Mora_, a gallant vessel given to him by his wife Matilda. She
bore on her stern a gilded figure of a boy bearing a banner, as the
Bayeux tapestry clearly indicates.
[Illustration: HORSES BEING LANDED FROM TRANSPORTS.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM’S FLAGSHIP, THE ‘MORA.’
On the mast of the _Mora_ is shown the lantern which guided the fleet.
(_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)]
From St. Valery-en-Caux to Pevensey is less than sixty-five miles,
and the fact that the flotilla took, apparently, nearly two days to
cover it, gives some index to its encumbered condition. None the less,
it sailed in something like order, guided by a huge lantern at the
masthead of the _Mora_. On the 28th it reached Pevensey, and the
disembarkation was quietly effected. William himself stumbled and
fell on his face as he sprang ashore. A murmur of dismay rose from
the superstition-ridden barons behind, but he sprang to his feet and
showed them that as he fell he had clutched up the sand with both
hands. ‘See how I have taken possession of England!’ he cried, and his
followers hailed the omen of good as readily as they had trembled at
the accident. It was one of those incidents that mark the born leader
of men.
From Pevensey William moved to Hastings, which he occupied without
resistance. A palisaded fort is said to have been constructed; one
wonders why William did not encamp within the splendid Roman walls
of Pevensey. He then began to waste the coast districts in the
neighbourhood, partly perhaps in order to provoke his rival to an
engagement, but also, probably, in part for purposes of supply.
Wonderful as had been Harold’s march to York, his rush back to London
was yet more so. He covered the distance of over 190 miles in seven
days at the outside, perhaps in six, an average of 27 or 32 miles a
day! On October 7 he was in London. Eadwine and Morkere were still far
behind. They have been severely blamed for their slowness; but it is
only fair to point out that their levies had been sorely thinned at
Fulford and Stamford Bridge, and that the collection and organization
of reinforcements can have been no easy task. If the northern troops
started only a day behind Harold and marched at the very fair rate
of eighteen miles a day, they must have still been some distance from
London when he left it for the south. Probably Eadwine and Morkere
failed to realize the urgency of the crisis; but, on the other hand,
Harold’s precipitancy must have been disconcerting.
The King stayed only some four days in London. On the 11th he marched
again, presumably with the royal guards and the men of London and the
home counties. He again pressed forward with great speed; the rate of
marching was over eighteen miles a day. On the afternoon of the 13th
the head of the column was on Senlac Hill, eight miles from Hastings,
and there, no doubt, the King could question peasants and could
ascertain that William had concentrated his army.
That he had had hopes of repeating his feat at Stamford Bridge seems
almost certain. The authorities are practically unanimous in stating
or implying that his army would have been strongly reinforced had he
delayed a little, and that he did not do so is best explained by his
anxiety to execute another surprise attack on an unprepared enemy.
As this plan had obviously failed, it was to his interest to avoid
a battle; and the general opinion at the time evidently was that he
was unwise to risk one. The story that his brother Gyrth would have
dissuaded him from engaging, but that he declined to look on while
his people were pillaged by the Norman raiders, may be taken for what
it is worth, but it points to the prevalence of this opinion. The
most probable explanation is that the weary and ill-disciplined army
could not be withdrawn in the darkness from the ridge on which it was
bivouacking, and it was therefore necessary to remain there for the
night. William on his side was obliged to fight. His army subsisted by
pillage, and would starve if it were forced to remain long in a state
of close concentration. He had early notice of his rival’s advance,
and had his army in hand about Hastings. He was at Telham so early on
the morning of the 14th that to decline a battle was difficult, if not
impossible, for Harold. With disciplined troops a retreat would have
been practicable enough, but it was not so for the cumbrous English
host. Perhaps, too, Harold overrated the fighting power of his axemen.
In any case, it is clear that he stood to receive battle when retreat
was his wisest strategy.
Senlac Hill is an outlying spur of the South Downs, roughly parallel
to them, and connected with them by a short saddleback. The main ridge
is about 280 feet above the sea at its culminating point, and nearly
1,200 yards long. The road from London passes along the saddleback,
over the ridge towards its eastern end, and across a valley to Telham
Hill, about a mile distant. The slope of the ridge in front is fairly
gentle, but where the remains of the Abbey now stand it rises steeply
to a commanding knoll. The exact gradient is difficult to estimate,
for when the Abbey was built the slope was much altered by terracing,
which exists to-day. On both flanks--especially the left--and on the
rear, except where the road approaches, the slopes are steep. For over
half its length the front face of the ridge is covered by a brook and a
line of ponds. In 1066 in their place there was most probably a marsh,
almost impassable for cavalry. Even at the present day the ground
just below the ponds becomes extremely difficult for a horseman. The
western half of the position could probably only have been assailed
by the very dangerous process of filing horsemen round the end of the
marsh, and advancing them in front of it. This actually appears to have
been attempted by part of the Norman army; but it was only possible to
deliver direct attacks on a front of about 750 yards. In this narrow
space the deadliest fighting took place. Behind all was the forest of
the Andredsweald.
The strength of the English army can only be guessed at. According
to the earlier writers it was densely massed along the ridge, but it
is probable that the almost unassailable western end was not held in
force. On the other hand, the eastward portions were probably very
strongly held. There may have been in all about 15,000 men. About
half the troops were probably fully equipped men, and in their strong
position were capable of beating off an attack of any other army
in Western Europe, except the one that now faced them. As compared
with it the English, without archers or cavalry, were at a hopeless
disadvantage, but even as it was they came very near success.
The question of fortification has been often discussed. None of
the earlier writers mention any, nor are any shown on the Bayeux
tapestry, the workers of which would very probably have had William’s
own personal account to go upon. Wace appears to describe a sort of
wicker breastwork. So much is certain, that the English troops reached
the ground too late and too fatigued to be able to carry out much
entrenching work. The cries of ‘Út! Út!’ (Out! Out!), attributed to
the English, may perhaps indicate that they conceived themselves to
occupy an entrenched enclosure; but it may just as well refer to the
impatience of men pent up in the shield-ring under a storm of arrows.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.
The English are shown with black blocks, each representing
approximately 1,000 men. The Normans are shown with shaded blocks, each
indicating approximately 500 archers, 1,000 heavy infantry, or 500
cavalry.]
The Norman army advancing from Hastings reached Telham early in the
morning. An interesting detail is that the knights rode in their tunics
and did not don their armour until they reached the field. At the foot
of Telham the army deployed in three divisions, each of three lines
classified according to arms. The front line consisted of archers and
crossbow-men--there were some of these latter present; the second of
mail-clad infantry; the third of the cavalry. The right wing consisted
mainly of the French and Flemish mercenaries under Eustace of Boulogne
and the Norman baron Roger de Montgomerie. On the left were the Breton
Angevin and Aquitanian troops. William himself was in the centre
with his Normans. Ralph de Toesny, the hereditary standard-bearer of
Normandy, had begged to be allowed to ‘fight with both hands’ on that
day; and Walter Giffard de Longueville declined to bear the Pope’s
banner. He was old, he said, and would like to do a last good day’s
fighting. So the standard was borne at William’s side by Toustain de
Bec-en-Caux. William himself bore on this day not the lance, which
was still a light weapon often used for throwing, but a ponderous
iron mace, and with him rode his brothers Odo of Bayeux and Robert of
Mortain.
As the Normans marched down Telham, Senlac suddenly appeared to be
crowned with a dense line of axes and shields. The English seemed to
spring out of the wood, says Guy of Amiens. This may indicate that they
were taken by surprise, and hastily faced about to meet the unexpected
approach of the Normans. The royal guards were on the left centre, with
the Dragon of Wessex and the King’s Warrior banner planted where the
altar of Battle Abbey afterwards rose. With the guards almost certainly
were the Londoners, who were probably the best equipped troops of
the _fyrd_. They were under Esegar, the first ‘Staller’ (Marshal).
Everything seems to show that there was a solid mass of picked troops
in the centre. The King, with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, was on
foot by his standards surrounded by his incomparable footguards.
The Norman host advanced across the valley and began to breast Senlac
Hill, the archers shooting furiously as soon as they came within range.
For a while it was attack without defence, and it is odd that William
does not appear to have seen that the bowmen could be left to prepare
the way. The English could only suffer, and already, perhaps, impatient
warriors were beginning to cry ‘Out! Out!’ yearning to exchange blows
with their exasperating enemies. The archers, emboldened by their
bloodless progress, pressed forward to close range, and then came the
English reply. The leading ranks of the Normans were overwhelmed with a
perfect hail of miscellaneous missiles--spears, javelins, casting-axes,
and stones, some of the latter tied to clubs and hurled like hammers.
The archers came to a stand, still plying their bows; and the heavy
infantry pushed up between their intervals and came to handgrips with
the English. Their charge broke vainly upon the shield-wall; not a gap
could the Norman foot-soldiers tear in it. Javelins, taper-axes, and
stone hammers crashed among them fast and furiously; the great axes
swayed and fell with terrible effect. Do what they would they could
make no progress.
Probably the Norman infantry were already falling back when William
let loose his cavalry. No doubt the chivalry of France and Normandy
expected to ride down the English infantry with ease. Out in front of
the long moving line of horsemen, bright in their ringed mail shirts,
rode the minstrel Taillefer, chanting verses from the ‘Song of Roland,’
playing with his sword as he pricked up the slope. He was the first of
the knighthood to penetrate the shield-wall--also the first to fall.
The long lines of horsemen crashed against the shields; the shock
must have been tremendous, but their fortune was no better than that
of their despised infantry. The English front may have been pressed
back, even pierced in places, but the gaps were at once restored; man
and horse went down beneath the tremendous strokes of the great axes,
while from the rearward ranks of the English host the same tempest
of darts, throwing-axes, and stone clubs crashed upon the mail and
helmets of the charging cavaliers. After a furious struggle the Bretons
and Angevins were repulsed and driven downhill. After them poured the
ill-disciplined levies of the English right. The retreating horsemen
blundered into the marsh, which they had avoided without difficulty
as they advanced, and, with the English pressing furiously on their
rear, were in wild disorder, when the victors were suddenly charged in
flank by part of the Norman centre, turned against them by the watchful
Duke. The results were terrible. The scattered warriors, many of them
half-armed peasants, were overridden and cut down by hundreds, and only
a remnant regained the position which they had so rashly left.
This, however, was only the beginning. William rallied the broken
left wing, and again and again the fierce horsemen charged the
immovable English line--in vain. Never had the knights seen or heard
of such foot-soldiers as these. One tremendous charge led by William
himself did burst through the shield-wall; and the brave Gyrth went
down beneath the Duke’s terrible mace. Leofwine, too, was slain;
but the charge was beaten off by a rally of the English axemen, and
hurled downhill, and the cry went up that the Duke was slain. William
flung himself among the panic-stricken knights: ‘I live! I live!’ he
thundered, tearing off his helmet. ‘By God’s aid I will conquer yet!’
Out of evil came good--for Normandy.
Nearly the whole Norman line was apparently in disorder, but William
rallied it again and brought it up to the charge, though it is evident
that the attacks must have grown less and less effective as time went
on, owing to the fatigue of the horses. At his wits’ end, William
tried the expedient of a feigned retreat; and the French on the right
recoiled, to all seeming broken and beaten, down the slope. This was
too much for the greatly enduring Englishmen, and a great part of their
left and centre came pouring down in pursuit. The retreating horsemen
turned upon them; William assailed them in flank with troops from his
centre. The carnage was great, and apparently the whole English left
wing was annihilated. But the pursuing horsemen appear to have met with
disaster in an unexpected trench or watercourse, and Bishop Odo of
Bayeux had to ride among and steady them.
Still, the battle was far from over. The best part of the English army,
including the royal household, was still ranged in dense masses on the
crown of the hill. But their line was sorely reduced by the disaster
of the wings, and the Norman cavalry could charge in front and flank.
Inspired by the hope of victory, the knights hurled themselves again to
the attack, but still in vain. The line of shields was an impregnable
barrier; charge after charge recoiled from the steadfast front and to
the fierce Norman war-cry of ‘_Dex aie!_’ (Dieu aide!) the English
shouts of ‘Holy Cross!’ still thundered in defiant answer.
[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON THE ENGLISH SHIELD-WALL AT HASTINGS.
Norman cavalry charging from both sides, and bowmen skirmishing,
indicating the archery attack.
(_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)]
The Norman cavalry was growing more and more wearied and ineffective;
the victory was far from decisive as long as the English centre still
fought on. Then at last William did what he should have attempted long
before, and brought his archers to the front. Any East-Roman tactician
would have told him that the cavalry should never have attacked until
the English masses had been thoroughly shattered by their fire, and the
fact shows how low the art of war had fallen in the West. Between the
cavalry attacks the bowmen poured in their volleys, shooting with a
high trajectory so that the arrows were not wasted on the shield-wall,
but made havoc in the heart of the dense mass. The device had terrible
success. The picked warriors of England fell fast before the pitiless
rain to which they could not reply. For the most part they could but
suffer. Once or twice it seems that small bodies tried to charge out;
now and again desperate warriors sprang forth to contend hand-to-hand
with the Norman knights, but they only hastened their end. The splendid
guards stood shoulder to shoulder in the mass, never wavering or
faltering, but the losses were all on one side. Behind the unbroken
shield-wall was an ever-increasing weltering confusion of dead and
dying upon which the arrows beat pitilessly; and the King, mortally
wounded in the eye, lay in agony beneath the standards. The position
was desperate; but so long as the banners waved and the King lived
there was no thought of yielding. But at last the fatal gaps could not
be closed fast enough, and the Normans burst through the shield-wall. A
band of knights hewed their way through the dissolving mass, cut down
the faithful few round Harold, tore down the Dragon and the Warrior,
and literally hacked the dying King to pieces at the foot of his
banners.
And now the end had come. The noble English infantry, who had defied
the Norman chivalry all day, and but for the archery would have beaten
them to their ships, began--all that remained of them--to withdraw
sullenly but hopelessly. Even yet they were not demoralized, and some
were still in good order. As the little remnant got away across the
saddleback into Andredsweald they saw the Normans plunging rashly in
pursuit down the steep rearward slopes of Senlac. Turning to bay, true
even in that hour of despair, to their noble warrior strain, they set
upon the overweening horsemen, cut their leading squadrons to pieces,
and drove them back on Senlac. Panic spread through the Norman army;
Eustace of Boulogne is said to have counselled retreat, and it was only
when William himself rallied his squadrons and brought them along the
ridge in a properly ordered pursuit that the English finally melted
away into the woods.
Looking at the battle after this length of time, it is clear that
William only gained the day by desperate exertions, and that more than
once success hung in the balance. Had the English army possessed a
proportion of archers the day would have been Harold’s. It has been
pointed out that not even a great fleet saved England from an attack
by an invader prepared to take the risk of destruction. But it should
be remembered that Harold’s flotilla was not a properly organized
force, and cannot be compared to a modern fleet able to keep the
sea for several months at a time. Even as it was, William was very
near destruction though, so far as we can see, he caught Harold at a
disadvantage. By calmly taking such risks as few men could contemplate
unshaken, William did land in England, but his success was due to a
very remarkable combination of circumstances which it would be well to
recapitulate.
1. The English fleet, owing to its urgent need to revictual, was absent
from the chief danger-point at the crucial moment, and at the rate
of sailing in those days the Thames, even with favourable winds, was
farther from Pevensey than Rosyth is to-day from Portsmouth.
2. The English army at the moment when the invasion was imminent was
called to the defence of the north.
3. The wind which had baffled William for some six weeks shifted in
his favour at the precise moment when the English fleet and army were
absent.
4. The extraordinary rapidity of Harold’s southward march after his
defeat of Hardrada left the disorganized Northumbrian and Mercian
levies far in the rear.
5. The English were probably surprised into giving battle when Harold
would have preferred to await support.
6. The English army was at a fatal tactical disadvantage owing to its
lack of archers.
William’s losses had been exceedingly heavy. The mediæval chroniclers
estimate that he lost 12,000 to 15,000 men out of 40,000 to 60,000,
and we may fairly estimate from this that his casualties were about
a fourth of his fighting strength. But only a mere remnant of the
English host survived the day, and with the King fell every man of note
in southern England, except Esegar the Marshal, who was desperately
wounded. This awful destruction of the leaders was the most disastrous
feature of the battle. There was, as after-events showed, a complete
dearth of men about whom the English might rally.
In many ways the Battle of Hastings was itself the Norman Conquest,
though the events of the following two or three years are rather those
which gave William his title of ‘Conqueror.’ The whole south-east of
England had been utterly crushed; there remained for William only
the conquest piecemeal of the west and north. Kent was conquered
with scarcely any resistance, and William, advancing to the Thames,
beat back a sortie of the Londoners, burned Southwark, and moved up
the river feeling for a passage. Detachments from his army occupied
Winchester and the neighbouring towns, and William, crossing the Thames
at Wallingford, marched upon London. Eadwine and Morkere, who were
there with the forces which had been too late for Senlac, lost their
nerve when the Normans threatened their line of retreat to the north.
They hurriedly withdrew, and the Londoners bowed to necessity. ‘They
submitted then for need, when the most harm was done,’ mourns the
‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.’
There is no reason to doubt that William, when he promised to govern
England well, had every intention of keeping his word. But he probably
found it difficult from the outset to control the greedy adventurers
who followed him; and in any case he was bound to reward them. When
his strong hand was temporarily removed by his return to Normandy,
the tyranny of Odo of Bayeux and the excesses of the foreign nobles
and soldiers soon produced revolt. Yet there was nothing national in
the various uprisings; north, east, and west acted independently,
and of cordial co-operation there was not a sign. In 1067 William,
returning from Normandy, subdued the west and captured Exeter. Then,
marching northward, he overran Mercia and Northumbria. Nowhere was
there anything like an effective resistance; such opposition as was
made appears to have been mainly inspired by King Malcolm of Scotland.
Strong garrisons were placed at York, Lincoln, Nottingham, and other
places, and earthworks thrown up, which later were to grow into the
frowning castles that have somewhat incorrectly been associated with
the Norman Conquest.
The year 1069 saw the only serious and determined attempt to overthrow
the Norman rule. A great Danish fleet, sent by Sweyn Estrithson,
arrived in the Humber, joined the Northumbrians, and marched on York.
It was stormed and captured, and 30,000 foreign soldiers, it is said,
were slain or taken. But that was all, and the peril died down before
William’s vehement energy. The Danish fleet was bought off--William
was as ready as Philip of Macedonia to use ‘silver spears.’ Then the
King reoccupied York, and, lest any succeeding Scandinavian invasion
should find a foothold, wrought the awful devastation of the north--the
worst deed that stains his otherwise not ignoble character. The north,
wasted and ruined, was at his feet, and the reappearance next year of
Sweyn with a great fleet ended in a mere fiasco. The Danes and the East
Anglian rebels did little but plunder abbeys, and after sundry useless
demonstrations the Danes returned home.
There now remained in all England in arms against William only the
gathering in the Isle of Ely under the famous outlaw Hereward. Thither
came sundry English leaders, powerless and discredited, who now could
only swell the band of an erstwhile obscure chief. Eadwine had already
disappeared--slain, so says the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ by his own
men. Morkere succeeded in reaching Ely; but at best the leaders were
but a poor remnant. The position of Ely, surrounded by its waters, was
strong; but the garrison was not sufficiently numerous to take the
offensive with any hope of success. William fixed his headquarters
at Cambridge; a fleet was collected and brought up the Wash, and the
lines of investment were steadily drawn round the doomed stronghold.
A causeway was driven across the fens, and when at last it reached
firm land, after many checks and surprises inflicted by the watchful
Hereward, Ely was forced to surrender. Legends have clustered thickly
about the figure of Hereward ‘the Wake.’ He was certainly taken into
William’s favour, and was commanding troops for him on the Continent
some years later. The mass of the rank and file, however, were treated
with what seems to us horrible barbarity, being maimed and mutilated
wholesale. The punishment of death the ‘stark’ and terrible Conqueror
was always very chary of inflicting. Famous as the defence of Ely has
become, it is noteworthy that the Chronicle does not seem to regard
it as other than an isolated incident in the struggle. It is at any
rate clear that it could never have done more than temporarily check
the progress of the Conqueror, just as eighteen centuries before the
defence of Eira could only delay the Spartan conquest of Messenia.
With the fall of Ely the Norman Conquest of England was complete. The
country settled down beneath the yoke of William with resignation if
not cheerfulness, and the lack of further outbreaks seems to indicate
that after all his rule was not worse than that of his immediate
predecessors. Perhaps one explanation of this submissiveness is that
the English thegnhood emigrated to Constantinople in large numbers, so
that the nation lacked its natural leaders, but something must be set
to William’s credit despite his many faults and crimes. The fear of
foreign invasion died away; the Danish attacks in 1075 and 1085 were
utterly futile. Englishmen, while they hated William as the destroyer
of their independence, could not forget ‘the good peace that he made
in this land; so that a man of any account might fare over his kingdom
unhurt with his bosom full of gold.’ To keep the peace in a land was
no slight thing in those days of feudal anarchy; and if the Norman
Conquest was very far from being an unmixed benefit, it at least
brought about a better sense of unity than had hitherto prevailed in
England.