The Normans: From Raiders To Kings Part 2

It's not surprising that William would finally emerge as a formidable personality. He must have had reserves of strength to survive such a childhood, and he had little patience for the fractious guardians who had held the reigns of power for him. Dismissing them en ma.s.se he surrounded himself with new advisors, mostly young and talented individuals who would stay with him for the rest of his life and become some of the largest landowners in England.

William, however, was playing a dangerous game. Most of the dismissed counselors were members of the ducal family, and they found it impossible to endure both the loss of their prestige and the humiliation of watching 'new men' get promoted over their heads. Some of them had as good a claim to the throne as William and an idea began to form that perhaps he could be removed after all.

At first they tried to respectfully pet.i.tion that they be restored to their posts, but when William continued to show unmistakable signs of independent thought, they realized that the ground was shifting. For Yves II and his ilk there was only one course of action now available: the duke had to die.

An abortive a.s.sa.s.sination attempt was made in 1045, largely failing through the disorganization of its members, but this only served to increase their determination. Choosing Guy of Burgundy, an older cousin of William as ringleader, they made further plans to a.s.sa.s.sinate William. Speed was of the essence. By 1046 William was nearly eighteen, and they could feel their chances slipping away. When William left for a hunting trip in western Normandy, the conspirators made a solemn vow to murder him when he returned to the lodge for the night.

Fortunately for William, a jester overheard the conversation and warned the duke not to return home. Wary of his companions, William immediately fled, avoiding main roads and towns, fording rivers where he could and plunging through forests at full speed. At Ryes he met a friendly local lord who gave him a fresh horse and his three sons as an escort, and the four of them managed to make it safely to Falaise where he took refuge in the castle.

With half the duchy in revolt, William didn't know whom he could trust, so in desperation, he appealed to his feudal overlord, King Henry the 'Castle-grabber'. This surprising decision turned out to be a shrewd move. The history between the two men was not so important as alliances shifted quickly in feudal Europe. A king was only as strong as his control over his va.s.sals, and Henry had good reasons to support William. A weak duke propped up by royal power was infinitely preferable to a strong candidate like Guy of Burgundy, so he marshaled his army and joined William in Falaise.

The combined army met the rebels at the plain of Val-es-Dunes, and risked everything in a pitched battle. Even with several defections, the rebels had numbers on their side, but they lacked coordination as Guy failed to impose himself and each n.o.ble disposed of his forces as he saw fit. An early skirmish managed to knock the king off his horse, but the royal forces rallied and after several hours of fighting the rebel army broke apart and was slaughtered as it tried to flee across a nearby river.16 Although Guy of Burgundy managed to escape to the castle of Brionne and hold out for a few years, the revolt was effectively finished. The lesser n.o.bility was exiled, and the more important ones were pardoned and returned chastened to court. William, for his part, wanted to make good use of the victory and moved quickly to consolidate his power. Oaths could be a potent force in medieval Europe and William perhaps motivated by the dim memories of his father's Christmas ceremony held a great 'peace council' near the site of his victory. It was an open-air meeting where the banks of the River Orne, so recently choked with rebel bodies, served as a potent reminder of the duke's power, and William invested the full weight of his office in the proceedings. Monks solemnly processed carrying precious relics belonging to a nearby abbey, and the a.s.sembled n.o.bility swore to respect the peace.

It was a momentous achievement, and to commemorate it William built a little chapel on the site dedicated to Peace.

The young duke had good reason to be proud. Still only twenty years old he had survived his childhood and against the odds had become a force to be reckoned with. The lawlessness and infighting had not quite ended - some still saw him has a p.a.w.n to be controlled - but he had taken great strides to stabilize the duchy. Now for the first time, his thoughts began to turn towards marriage to ensure the future of the dynasty.

Medieval marriages among the powerful were political matches chosen by others feelings rarely if ever entered into the equation but William had the rare luxury of independence. His father was dead, his mother wasn't in a position to influence anything and his advisors were either his age or had been discredited and removed. He was one of the few rulers of his time who got to choose his own wife, and he was determined to have it sanctioned by the Church to avoid the mistake of his father.

If William wanted to marry for love, he was also practical enough to make it politically advantageous for himself as well. After some searching, his eye settled on the beautiful17 Matilda, daughter of his powerful neighbor the Count of Flanders and niece of the king of France. She would prove an inspired match. Nearly the same age as William, she was a formidable personality in her own right and they would apparently remain faithful to each other their whole lives. Uncharacteristically for a Norman duke, there would be no mistresses or illegitimate children.

Before they could get married, however, a potential problem arose. William and Matilda were fifth cousins and the Church forbade unions to the seventh degree. It was also discovered that Matilda's mother had been betrothed for a time to William's uncle and although the marriage hadn't been carried through, it was still seen as a violation of the accepted familial distance.

Such issues were common enough in the Middle Ages. Since marriages were usually contracted between members of the same cla.s.s, the royal pool had become somewhat shallow; nearly everyone was related to everyone else, and unless there were political reasons to object, most times a polite blind eye was turned.

Pope Leo IX, however, had a number of reasons to make life difficult for the Normans. As one of the first great reforming popes he believed that rulers should provide an example for the ma.s.ses, and Normandy was notorious for the bad behavior of its clergy. Along with rampant simony - the practice of buying church offices - the worldly clerics often showed a complete disregard for their flocks. A steady stream of complaints about Norman abuses came to the attention of the pope, and he had reasons of his own not to ignore them.

For one thing he depended on the German18 emperor, Henry III, for support, and Henry was currently quarreling with Matilda's father. More importantly as far as Pope Leo was concerned was the fact that the Norman mercenaries who had arrived in Italy were becoming quite a nuisance. Led by a ferocious pair of brothers named Humphrey and Robert Guiscard, they had so alarmed everyone with their growing power that Leo himself was about to personally lead a coalition army to chase them out of Italy. Therefore, when the request came from William for permission to marry Matilda, the pope responded by holding a council condemning simony instead a clear message of his disapproval.

Not surprisingly, most of the Norman bishops skipped the event. They were almost certainly guilty and had no desire to face condemnation for their concubines and other indiscretions. Those that did attend returned to Normandy with the unwelcome news that the pope had specifically forbidden the marriage.

William went ahead anyway, and the next year married Matilda in a private ceremony. He didn't have long to wait for the political winds to change. The Norman brothers Humphrey and Robert smashed the pope's great army and took him captive. A year later Leo was dead and the next pope decided it was wiser to make peace with Norman power. In exchange for a commitment to build two abbeys and several charitable inst.i.tutions, William's marriage was officially sanctioned.

By that time William had other things on his mind. The Count of Anjou had moved into neighboring Maine and had seized some of its castles on the border. This threatened both Normandy and its neighbors, and King Henry, always wary of over-mighty va.s.sals, arranged a joint expedition with William to check him. When William arrived, the inhabitants of an adjacent town made the poor decision to hang animal hides on the walls and beat them with sticks, chanting "the skin of the tanner belongs to his trade" a less than subtle taunt about William's low birth and his mother's occupation. The furious duke responded by capturing thirty-two members of the garrison and having their hands and feet cut off in full view of the town. They promptly surrendered.

The whole campaign was just as short, and (if Norman sources are to be believed) William proved so gallant and masterful on his horse that even the Count of Anjou was impressed. At one point the Norman duke evicted a garrison by having two children sneak into a castle and set it on fire. This kind of resourcefulness, however, ultimately backfired. King Henry, unnerved by the speed at which William progressed, became convinced that his ally was now too powerful. Abruptly switching sides, he made an alliance with Anjou and wheeled around to crush the presumptive duke.

The royal treachery was particularly dangerous because it happened to coincide with yet another rebellion by two of William's uncles, so he resorted to a policy of falling back and biding his time. The king, finding no resistance and confident of success, divided his forces in half, sending one column under the command of his brother to Rouen, while he mopped up any resistance in the countryside. Unfortunately for the royal forces, however, the king's brother proved to be totally incompetent.

By the time he reached upper Normandy, the royal sibling had stopped making even the most preliminary nightly precautions. While bivouacking in the little village of Mortemer, his soldiers got their hands on the wine supplies and decided to sleep off its effects without bothering to post a guard. The Norman army fell on them in the middle of the night, leaving few survivors. William informed the king of the debacle by having an envoy climb a tree and shout news of it into Henry's camp. The king prudently withdrew and without his support the rebellion collapsed.

If anything, the abortive invasion had strengthened William. The duke was left in firm control of his domain with a burnished military reputation that cowed his va.s.sals and made rebellion less likely. He could afford to be magnanimous in victory. Both of his rebellious uncles were exiled but they were given generous stipends as befitted sons of a duke.

King Henry, however, wasn't finished with William. He had clearly underestimated this dangerous young man, and needed to undermine his reputation before he grew too powerful. In 1057 he again allied with the Count of Anjou and marched into southern Normandy, determined to topple the duke from his throne. This time, the allies formed one army and headed for the coast.

With no rebellion to worry about William was in a much stronger position, but he didn't intend to risk his new credibility in a battle against a larger army. He was content to play his waiting game, refusing to engage the royal army until an opportunity presented itself. This tactic paid off once again. The king wasn't knowledgeable about local tides, and while he was crossing a marshy estuary, the rising water cut his army in half. William pounced, and the stranded soldiers panicked, many drowning in the sea. King and count were powerless, forced to watch impotently from the other side as the disaster unfolded.

The defeat dealt a serious blow to the king's prestige, and although he managed to extricate himself from Normandy, he was never the same again. Three years later, both king and count were dead and the political situation of France had changed drastically. The new king was only eight and the Count of Anjou died childless. Two of the count's nephews started a civil war to seize power; a state of affairs that the crafty William did his best to prolong. For the first time in his life Duke William was free from external threats.

Normandy had never been more confident. Despite the unrest, the duchy was richer than its neighbors, and distinguished immigrants began to wander in. Lanfranc, a celebrated teacher from Pavia, brought a young St Anselm, helping to start a literary revival that would soon spread to all of France. A large Jewish community settled in Rouen, making it a center of commerce, and a luxury wine trade began to flourish. The increased revenue trickled down to the n.o.bility, who in turn built new abbeys and churches, further spreading the revival of learning.

William was now uniquely placed for the great opportunity of his life. Unchallenged at home or abroad, in his early thirties with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g treasury, and a confident princ.i.p.ality at his back, it must have seemed as if anything was within his grasp. Buoyant and self-a.s.sured, he turned his eyes towards the rich kingdom across the Channel.

Chapter 6.

The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom England was a ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. King Edward the Confessor, now in his early sixties and in poor health, had no children of his own, and wasn't expected to last much longer. Even better for William, the old king clearly had Norman sympathies and had surrounded himself whenever he could with Norman advisors, appointing Frenchmen to at least three bishoprics and an earldom. Although twenty years older than the duke, Edward was William's first cousin and had spent a long exile in Normandy establishing close ties with the ducal family. The two men were probably reasonably close, and Edward may even have held out the suggestion that William should be his heir.19 The duke of Normandy, however, was not the only claimant to the English throne in 1066.

Real power in England had been held for a long time not by the king, but by the family of a remarkable figure named G.o.dwin. His origins are unknown he seems to have deliberately kept them vague and he first appeared during the crisis that occurred when Edward the Confessor's father Ethelred the Unready was expelled from England. The Viking king, c.n.u.t, invaded, and in the ensuing struggle G.o.dwin chose to back the Anglo-Saxon resistance. This should have spelled the end of his career, but the wily Englishman won over c.n.u.t by arguing that his stubborn opposition really proved his loyalty. After all, the prominent men of England had sworn an oath to be faithful to their native king and yet most of them had deserted to c.n.u.t at the first sign of trouble. Who was to say that they wouldn't do the same to their new king? G.o.dwin, on the other hand, stuck by the oaths he gave.

Impressed either by the reasoning or by the man, c.n.u.t made G.o.dwin the Earl of Wess.e.x and kept him as an advisor, even taking him on trips back to Denmark. When c.n.u.t died in 1035, G.o.dwin, now one of the most powerful men of the kingdom, remained in place, advising both of c.n.u.t's sons as they reigned in succession. It was during this period, that he first became involved with Edward the Confessor.

Edward and his brother Alfred were living in Normandy, as they had been since their father's exile and the fact that two possible rivals for the throne were alive and well across the Channel annoyed c.n.u.t's son Harold Harefoot. A letter was dispatched inviting the exiled princes back to England, hinting that some accommodation might be made to share power. Edward seems to have run into trouble raising a suitable escort, but Alfred immediately went to England where he was promptly arrested by some of G.o.dwin's men. G.o.dwin was in the delicate position of having the fate of the rebellion in his hands. If he chose to back Alfred's bid, he would probably be handsomely rewarded by the new administration. On the other hand, he already enjoyed significant power and prestige and it made little sense to risk it all in favor of a naive, unseasoned exile. So G.o.dwin dutifully turned Alfred over to the authorities where he was blinded so viciously that he died.

It may have been the correct political move, but the murder outraged popular opinion and stained G.o.dwin's reputation for the rest of his life. He protested his innocence in the affair, pointing out rather disingenuously that he hadn't carried out the deed himself, but was never able to clear his name. This emerged as a significant problem, because Viking rule of England proved unexpectedly short. Harold Harefoot died of disease within five years of taking the throne and his brother expired somewhat more memorably as he was rising to toast the bride and groom at a wedding feast.

This left the king of Denmark as the closest male heir, but the English had grown tired of Viking rule and began to look for a return of the native dynasty. G.o.dwin, ever the political survivor, threw his support to the unlikely Edward, still exiled in Normandy. It was a shrewd move. The new king was in his late thirties, with a weak personality that was easily dominated, and the ambitious G.o.dwin had big plans. There were six great Earldoms in England and he had six sons that he intended to make Earls. Even more promising was the fact that Edward was still a bachelor, and G.o.dwin happened to have an available daughter. If he couldn't gain the throne himself, he could at least co-found a dynasty.

For the first few years everything went according to plan. His daughter became queen, two-thirds of the land in England fell into his family's control, and two of his sons were made powerful Earls. What he hadn't counted on was the king's smoldering hatred of an overbearing counselor especially one who had had a very public hand in the death of a close family member.

Edward also had other reasons to resent G.o.dwin. Wherever he looked, he found a member of the detested family. They were hanging around his palaces, in his council rooms, even in his bed. He was too weak to rule without them, but he struck back where he could. When G.o.dwin's eldest son Svein, the black sheep of the family, kidnapped and raped a nun, Edward seized the chance to openly criticize his powerful advisor. When the disgraced Svein ignored the censure and murdered his own cousin, the king exiled the young n.o.ble, despite G.o.dwin's formal protests. Things got even worse for the earl the following year. One of the king's Norman advisors was involved in an incident in Dover that claimed the lives of several townsmen. Since Dover was in G.o.dwin's territory, the king cleverly ordered him to punish the town. Realizing that they had been provoked, and sensing public sentiment running against Edward's foreign advisors, G.o.dwin refused and gathered his army.

Tensions may have been high against the Normans at court, but for once the earl had badly misjudged the situation. Despite the mutual animosity, the practical English were not willing to risk civil war over a few unpopular Frenchmen, and when the king showed up with an army, G.o.dwin's forces started to melt away. Shaken by his eroding support, the earl asked the king what he needed to do to restore the peace. Edward's answer must have terrified him. "Give me my brother Alfred back," he reportedly said.

G.o.dwin took the only course available to him and fled the country with most of his wealth which by this time nearly rivaled that of the king. Despite this setback, the earl had a number of things working in his favor. The king may have had momentum on his side but that couldn't last forever, and G.o.dwin had powerful allies in the country working for reconciliation.

The most important factor, however, was the king himself. Edward wasn't built for confrontation. He would often fly into a rage, but when it pa.s.sed he would subside into meekness and more often than not pardon everyone. He was far too weak to hold his ground; sooner or later G.o.dwin would be back.

As it turned out, the exile only lasted a year. While G.o.dwin took refuge in Flanders, his capable son Harold traveled to the family estates in Ireland to raise additional support. The two of them then jointly sailed the England where they were greeted as heroes as they landed on the coast. Public resentment against Norman influence at court had risen again, and men flocked to G.o.dwin's banner. Once again the two sides armed themselves with G.o.dwin loudly protesting his innocence but this time momentum was against the king. His summons to gather his forces were largely ignored, and it became obvious that he would have to come to terms with the earl.

G.o.dwin handed over two hostages a son and a grandson and again swore that he was innocent of Alfred's murder. In return, the king begrudgingly announced that he was restored to full favor. The only thing that marred G.o.dwin's triumph was the fate of the hostages. They were given to a Norman archbishop for safekeeping, but due to the anti-French mood prevalent at court, he fled to Normandy taking the boys with him. There they were seized by Duke William who immediately announced that they had been given to him to support his claim to the throne. At that moment, however, that appeared to be a remote threat and he was largely ignored.

The stress of this latest campaign took its toll on G.o.dwin, and his health began to rapidly decline. At the Easter court the next year he suffered a stroke and, after a short period of incapacity, the sixty-year-old Earl died.20 Fortunately for the family, there were still four sons of G.o.dwin in the country, the eldest of which Harold easily stepped into his father's shoes. Under his smooth handling, tensions at court subsided. The new Earl was in his early forties, tall, handsome, and most importantly, too young to be implicated in Alfred's murder. His main character trait seems to have been an easy-going bonhomie and an ability to put people at ease. According to a biography written in his lifetime, he "could bear contradiction well and never retaliated for it" a quality rare in men of power at any age.

Harold was too subtle to roughly dominate the king the way G.o.dwin had. Instead he seems to have used his considerable charisma to apologize for Edward's frequent outbursts, placating offended n.o.bles or neighbors, and soothing the king's ruffled ego. Highly educated by eleventh-century standards, he owned a collection of books on falconry, probably knew French, Norse, Flemish, English, and some Latin, and founded and endowed a secular college at Waltham. He traveled widely and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, 'pa.s.sing' as one contemporary wrote 'with watchful mockery through all ambushes as was his way'.

As Edward aged, he turned the daily running of the government over to Harold so he could concentrate on the great building project of his reign Westminster Abbey. Harold's role in controlling the affairs of state was widely recognized by the population. He was commonly known as 'subregulus', literally 'under-king' or even 'Dei Gratia Dux' (Duke by the Grace of G.o.d), an appellation usually reserved for royalty. He proved to be a careful steward, far more vigorous in foreign affairs than Edward ever was, largely because he led with a firm hand. Unlike the king he was also an accomplished warrior who was willing to fight when he had to. He cut his teeth on the formidable Welsh Marches21 and was rewarded for his prowess by the gift of the head of his most fearsome enemy as an offer of peace. Like any capable ruler, however, he knew the limitations of brute force. If possible he always preferred to come to terms without bloodshed. No less than three rebellions were settled by Harold without fighting; a tribute to his diplomatic finesse.

By 1057 it had become quite clear that Edward the Confessor would never have children. Either because of a personal inclination or a physical impairment, the king probably never consummated the marriage to G.o.dwin's daughter. It's been suggested that this was Edward's small attempt to defy G.o.dwin by repudiating his daughter in this way, but the practical result was that the search for an heir had to begin. A surviving male relative of the royal family was found living in Hungary and a delegation was sent to retrieve him, but he died shortly after reaching England leaving only a five-year-old son named Edgar. The boy was clearly too young to inherit the kingdom, but the crisis seemed to have been averted. Edward only had to survive long enough for Edgar to become an adult.

With things seemingly in order, Harold fatefully left England for Normandy. Why exactly he did so isn't clear the Bayeux Tapestry merely shows him getting into a ship without an explanation as to what he was doing. The Normans later claimed that he had come to confirm William's claim to the throne, while some English apologists advance the equally improbable scenario that he was on a fishing trip and got blown off course. A more likely motivation was that Harold was trying to secure the release of his brother and nephew who were still in captivity in Rouen. Regardless of the aim, however, the trip was a disaster. Caught in a storm off the Norman coast, Harold's ship was forced to land in the neighboring county of Ponthieu where he was seized by a local count and thrown into prison.

William could hardly believe his luck. His main rival for the throne had quite literally fallen into his lap. The duke quickly forced the Count of Ponthieu to hand over Harold, escorted him to Rouen, and feted him in style. Then he personally presented Harold with arms and invited him to join in a campaign against neighboring Brittany. Harold showed his usual flair, impressing his hosts during the maneuvers the Bayeux Tapestry shows him hauling two Norman soldiers out of quicksand but he can have had no illusion about the danger he was in. Despite the attention being lavished on him, he was a prisoner and everyone knew it. The moment they arrived back at Rouen, it became clear what William would demand in return for his release.

Harold was forced to swear that he would support William's claim to the throne and do everything in his power to see that William became the next king of England. After the ceremony Harold was released, and although he had to say goodbye to his brother they would never see each other again he could at least console himself with the presence of his nephew whom William had allowed to go free. Nevertheless, it was probably a gloomy trip back to England.

He arrived to find yet another crisis brewing. His younger brother Tostig had been appointed Earl of Northumbria, but had so mismanaged affairs that his annoyed subjects had broken into his home, stolen everything that wasn't nailed down and killed those too slow to escape, adding for good measure that if he showed his face in York again they would do the same to him. Tostig, who was hunting with the king at the time, was taken completely by surprise. Edward, who seems to have had a close personal relationship with Tostig, flew into his characteristic rage and immediately called out his army, but got only a lukewarm response. A military campaign clearly wasn't possible. Since Harold personally knew everyone involved, including the leading men of Northumbria, he was sent as an official emissary to deal with the rebels. There he was faced with a personal dilemma. The rebel leaders made it clear that under no circ.u.mstances would they accept Tostig back and wouldn't lay down their arms unless he was exiled. Harold either had to support his family and plunge the kingdom into civil war, or betray his brother and send him into exile.

After some deliberation, Harold chose the latter course. Tostig would have to be sacrificed for the good of the country and go into exile. The king was apoplectic, suffering the first of the seizures that would kill him, but there was nothing he could do. Tostig, who never forgave his brother, fled to Scotland22 and tried to raise an army to invade Northumbria.

The English had no time to think of the disgraced Earl, or worry about a threat from the north. Edward the Confessor was dying and an official successor had to be chosen. The leading men of England the Witan met in December of 1065 and desperately looked to the king for guidance. The trouble was that there was no obvious choice. Harold was the most popular candidate; he had carried the burden of government for the last decade and clearly had the qualities of a good king, but he had no royal blood. The boy Edgar, on the other hand, had the right pedigree, but they could not in good conscience turn over the kingdom to a child in such dangerous times. William of Normandy of course was shouting that he had a claim, but it was fairly weak, and in any case the Normans were terrifyingly alien. No member of the Witan seriously considered him.

Edward, vacillating to the end, refused to give any direction. He suffered another seizure on Christmas Eve, and although he rallied enough to attend the yearly celebrations, a few days later he was too sick to attend the consecration of his life-long project, Westminster. He slipped into a coma, but revived briefly on January 4th long enough to speak. Taking Harold's hand he named him as his successor and begged him to look after his queen. The next day he was dead.

Harold was crowned the same day that Edward was buried, disregarding the scandalized protests of the Normans who branded him an oath-breaker. The English countered that a vow made under duress wasn't binding, although they admitted that Harold tended to 'give oaths too easily'.

The new king tried to defuse the situation by moving immediately to strengthen his position in the North. He issued coins bearing the single Latin word 'PAX', although ironically he would see little peace in his reign. Word arrived almost immediately that William of Normandy was raising a huge army and Harold summoned the 'fyrd', a public levy of all free men, to defend the coast.

As the spring turned into summer, however, no invasion fleet was seen on the horizon. Harold couldn't keep his militia a.s.sembled forever, they were only obliged to serve for a limited time, and most had to get back to the more important task of bringing in the harvest. Harold kept them as long as he could, but on September 8th, with provisions running out and men deserting daily, he officially disbanded the army.

Medieval armies didn't fight in the winter, and it was now too late in the campaigning season for a serious invasion as autumn storms made the Channel crossing especially treacherous. The king retired to London, but a week and a half later stunning news arrived. England had been invaded, but not from Normandy. Without warning, the terrifying Viking king Harald Hardrada had struck from the North and with him was the traitor Tostig.

Chapter 7.

The Conquest of England The news that Tostig had reappeared with an army of Vikings in tow must have seemed almost too sensational to be true. It probably even surprised Tostig himself. During his exile he had made appeals to several rulers for help, but had been turned away at every turn with humiliating regularity. Finally, desperate and alone, he sailed to Norway and somehow gained an audience with its king, Harald Hardrada.

The old Viking needed no convincing to look for a battle. He was a unique figure, even by the standards of his time. Fifty years old in 1066, he had been first wounded in battle three and a half decades earlier and showed no signs of slowing down. The name 'Hardrada' can be roughly translated as 'hard-bargainer', and those who didn't respect his cunning usually ended up on the receiving end of one of his famous ruses. Norse poets were already singing of his exploits in his lifetime. Enormously tall with large hands, a booming voice, and a reddish blonde beard, he appeared every inch a Viking king. His personal banner was a snowy white field with a single black raven appropriately named the 'Landwaster', and although nominally a Christian (his half-brother would become the patron saint of Norway) he nevertheless had two wives and led a life dedicated to the twin goals of fighting and h.o.a.rding gold.

At the age of fifteen he entered the losing side of a battle and had to hide in the forests until his wounds healed enough for him to travel. Limping his way into Russia, he spent one year in the service of the Prince of Novgorod, where he fell in love with his employer's daughter. Asking for her hand in marriage, he was rejected because he had no throne or wealth, so he left for Constantinople to remedy the situation. There were plenty of opportunities in the Queen of Cities for an ambitious Viking. The empress Zoe, daughter of the last great Macedonian emperor,23 offered him service in the famed Varangian Guard, the elite corps of Scandinavian mercenaries that provided the empire's best troops. The energetic Hardrada quickly rose to become captain of the Guard, spending his time sacking and raiding in North Africa and Sicily. It was there that he first gained a reputation for cunning. While unsuccessfully besieging a town in Sicily he noticed birds nesting in the thatch of houses and flying out by day to the woods to find food. Ordering his men to catch the birds, Harald tied chips of wood to them, set them on fire and released them. The panicked birds flew to their nests, setting the town on fire. During another siege he fell sick, and while recuperating he decided to stage his own funeral. His men dressed themselves in mourning clothes and begged for a Christian burial within the walls of the city. The townsmen foolishly agreed, arguing so we are told about who would get the rich gifts the Nors.e.m.e.n were sure to leave with the body. The moment Harald's men were in the town, they dropped the coffin, blew a war blast for the rest of the army concealed nearby, and slaughtered everyone.

After a decade of fighting for the empire, Harald had ama.s.sed more wealth than any other Viking before him and decided that the time had come to go claim his Russian bride. He had already sent most of his plunder to Novgorod for safe keeping and after concluding affairs in Constantinople24 he collected his treasure and new wife and returned to Norway.

Hardrada's nephew was ruling the country at the time, so Harald started a civil war to elbow him aside. The nephew magnanimously offered to split the kingdom to prevent further bloodshed, and five years later he conveniently died leaving Harald as the sole king. This may have satisfied any other man, but after a summer or two without fighting, he decided that he should be king of Denmark as well. The Danes were perfectly happy with the king they had, however, and resisted him with a stubbornness that matched his own. After fifteen summers spent fruitlessly trying to ravage his way to the throne, Harald realized he was getting nowhere and made a rare truce. Two years later Tostig arrived dangling the wild promise of the English throne in front of him, and the bored Hardrada jumped at the chance. Calling for his army, he boarded his longship, the Dragon, and set sail for England.

On the Tuesday after Easter a 'hairy' star Halley's Comet had been seen in the sky and this was widely interpreted as an ill omen. Now, just weeks after its disappearance the Norse arrived and seemed to confirm everyone's worst fears. The teenaged northern Earls, Edwin and Morcar, had never fought a battle before, but they gathered the local levee and met the invaders at Fulford, a mile outside the city gates of York. The fighting lasted less than an hour, but it was a disaster for the English. Harald's beserkers tore into the Anglo-Saxon lines, driving them into a nearby marsh where Norse poets claimed that so many were killed that the Vikings could cross it on English corpses and keep their feet dry.

The battle effectively sealed York's fate, and the city immediately surrendered to prevent further slaughter. Harald and Tostig, who seemed to believe that they had conquered the entire north of England at a blow, demanded five hundred hostages. Since it would take time to round them up, Harald agreed to give York four days to find them, stipulating that the hostages should be brought to Stamford Bridge, seven miles east of York. With that accomplished they returned to their ships and spent the next days drinking and feasting.

The ships were moored fourteen miles from Stamford Bridge, and when the appointed day came, it was warm so most of Harald's soldiers left their mail shirts behind and leisurely made their way to the site. When they saw a cloud of dust approaching from York they a.s.sumed it was their prisoners, but as it approached Harald saw weapons 'shimmering like ice'. Tostig, deluded to the end, a.s.sured him that it was probably his kinsmen coming to pledge their support, but it soon became clear that it was nothing of the sort.

King Harold of England had been in London when he heard of the Norse invasion and he had managed to accomplish one of the most extraordinary military feats of Anglo-Saxon England. a.s.sembling his elite housecarls he immediately started riding, gathering more recruits as he went, both day and night, covering the two hundred miles in an astonishing four days. Entering York before anyone knew he had even left London, he posted guards on every major road so no news of his arrival would leak out.

The next day he rode out to confront his enemies. Trying as always to come to terms peacefully, he asked his brother if he would lay down his arms in exchange for his old earldom. "And what will you give my ally, Hardrada?" Tostig asked. "Six feet of English soil," was the reply, "or since he is a tall man, a little more."

Hardrada should have retreated to his ships where he had fresh reserves, but his blood was up, and after sending three runners to get the men from the longboats, he went roaring into the attack, wildly swinging a battle axe with each hand. Even with his forces half-armed, Hardrada was a formidable foe and the battle lasted most of the day. By the time the men from the ships arrived Hardrada was dead, hit in the throat with an arrow, but the survivors grimly fought on refusing to surrender, some even throwing off their armor and giving in to a berserker rage.

When night fell there was hardly a Viking left alive on the field. The next day Hardrada's son, Olav, came and asked for mercy, and Harold wearily let him go after a promise never to return again. The Hard-Bargainer had come to England with two hundred and forty ships, but only twenty-four were needed to carry the survivors back to Norway.

There was little time to savor the victory. A week was spent sorting out the situation in York where the easy capitulation to the Vikings had inspired bitter feelings among those who had wanted to resist. Harold held a great feast to sooth tensions, but in the middle of it a messenger burst in to announce that the Normans had landed at Pevensey, on the south coast of England.

William's invasion, although minutely planned, had run into a string of problems. He had raised an impressive force from all over France, and built a fleet of Viking style ships that supposedly numbered nearly seven hundred. Men and material flowed to the meeting point, but delays kept bogging the endeavour down. The weather refused to cooperate, preventing the intended late summer crossing, and wrecking several ships with sudden squalls. On top of that, William faced the same problem that had caused Harold to disband his army. Normandy's feudal forces were only obligated to appear for forty days; after that they had to be paid like everyone else, and the cost was growing prohibitive. The longer William had to wait, the more people doubted his chances of success. In mid-September, with his ships still moored to the coast, and seemingly endless rain and fog, the entire project threatened to descend into farce.

Then on the 27th of September the weather unexpectedly cleared. William boarded his magnificent flagship the Mora a gift from his wife and cast off at once. The night crossing was relatively calm. Early the next morning the lookout caught sight of the ma.s.sive walls of the old Roman fort of Pevensey, and William's soldiers disembarked without incident. Remarkably, the long delays had worked in the duke's favor. Had they arrived at the beginning of August as William intended, they would have come face to face with the English army. Now, however, they were unopposed and since a medieval army's options were to move or starve, they ravaged their way towards Hastings.

Two hundred miles away, Harold was already on the move. Repeating his epic march, he was back in London within four days to plan the defense of the realm. But the king was very near emotional and physical exhaustion. Of the last two weeks, eight days had been spent in hard riding, one full one in a bruising battle, and the remaining five in desperate diplomacy. It was only now, fatigued and vulnerable, that he got word that William had brought with him both the relics that Harold had sworn on in Normandy, and a papal bull of excommunication giving the pope's blessing to William's invasion.

It was a devastating blow, a vivid reminder of Harold's broken oath and horrible confirmation that G.o.d's judgment had gone against him. Harold's brother, Gyrth, begged him to stay behind and not risk battle, pointing out that if Harold died all was lost. He further suggested that he would take his brother's place, since he was expendable; Harold could stay behind and gather more men while stripping the country of supplies. If fighting didn't overcome William, starvation surely would. This was a sensible, even a brilliant plan, but Harold rejected it out of hand and on October 14th he a.s.sembled his men on a narrow ridge overlooking the field of Hastings.

William's plan of battle was relatively simple. Since the English fought on foot in their traditional shield-wall, he would soften up the line with arrows, then send in the infantry. When the English line showed signs of wavering he would order a cavalry charge to finish them off. However, when he put this plan into action, the shield-wall unexpectedly held. When the knights came storming up the hill they met the English housecarls, elite forces who fought with huge battle-axes, and after sustaining horrendous wounds it was the knights who broke and fell back. Some of the English, seeing their opponents scatter, ran down after them, and had the whole army followed the battle may have ended there. A rumor started that William had been killed, and the Normans started to panic. But William, who was alive and well, lifted his helmet to show that he was unharmed and led a rally, trapping and slaughtering the English who had come racing down the hill.

As the day wore on the battle became one of attrition. Norman arrows and cavalry charges began to take their toll, depleting the English line, and it gradually began to shrink in on itself. Both sides began to suffer setbacks. Harold's brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine, were killed as they commanded opposite wings of the army, and William had three horses killed underneath him. The Norman archers began to angle their arrows up over the shield-wall so they fell on the unsuspecting men behind, and if we are to believe the usual account in the late afternoon one of these struck Harold in the eye. As the king lay in agonizing pain from this dreadful wound, a group of four Norman knights burst through and hacked him apart.

When Harold's standard fell the end came quickly. Some English made a last stand in the woods, killing many pursuing Normans in the gathering dark, but most simply fled. William called off any longer pursuit and began to search for Harold's body, identifying it the next day with the help of Harold's mistress. He had the body washed, and according to legend, wrapped it in a purple shroud and buried it under a pile of stones overlooking the coast with an epitaph that read "By command of the Duke, you rest here a king, O Harold, that you may be still guardian of the sh.o.r.e and sea".

It's been famously said that William overthrew the strength of England in a single day, but that isn't quite true. He had won an important battle and killed his rival, but was still in a very precarious position. As far as he knew there were huge native armies gathering against him, while he was isolated in the middle of a hostile country with limited supplies and no reinforcements. He was also running short of wine a serious problem since the local water had given his men such severe stomach flu that several died from it. In London meanwhile, the young Edgar was elected king and the secular n.o.bility there swore to fight for him.

Unfortunately for the English, however, there was a conspicuous absence of leaders, and virtually no one of standing above the age of twenty. The boy king couldn't inspire much effective leadership, and by the time William arrived in London with his army the will to fight was gone. The gates were opened and William entered in triumph. His coronation was marred somewhat by his soldiers who mistook the shouts of acclamation for the beginnings of a riot and set fire to the city, but he received the customary oaths of loyalty from the a.s.sembled populace and n.o.bility and he swore to be a good king.

William no doubt hoped to rule a willing, peaceful people, but he would have little peace in his reign. Harold's sons tried several times to invade from Ireland, the boy king, Edgar, fled to Scotland and stirred up trouble to the north, and freedom fighters like the legendary Hereward the Wake repeatedly tried to throw off the Norman yoke. It took five years of ruthless oppression to bring the north of England under his control, and few years pa.s.sed after that without some disturbance. In 1083 his wife Matilda died, removing a moderating influence on him, and William grew increasingly tyrannical. He did make a number of significant reforms, most important of which was the Domesday Book a vast accounting of what everything in the kingdom was worth. But William never liked the people or the countryside of his adopted country. He never bothered to learn the language, and his habit of rewarding land to followers had the effect of alienating his subjects. To the English he remained a cruel, and foreign tyrant for his entire life, best symbolized by the ma.s.sive structure he built in London the White Tower heart of the Tower of London.

William spent as much time as he dared at home in Normandy, and it was there that he died in 1087. He had been besieging a castle when his horse suddenly reared, throwing him against the pommel of his saddle and fatally rupturing his stomach. After pardoning his political enemies, the fifty-nine-year-old monarch died, splitting his kingdom among his three sons. Tellingly, to his oldest, Robert, he gave his favorite part, the Duchy of Normandy, to his second, William Rufus, he gave the throne of England, and to his youngest, Henry, he gave about 5,000 pounds of silver.

His corpse, too fat to fit into the coffin and left unattended for a few days while his sons squabbled for their inheritance, burst when it was forced into the crypt, and was buried as quickly as possible with little ceremony. His stunning conquest of England the last time a foreign invasion successfully conquered the country tied England to the Continent and in the long run proved a great benefit to both Europe and the West. But none of that was any comfort to those who had had to go through it.

Within twenty years of the conquest it's been estimated that two hundred thousand French and Normans settled in England, and one in five of the native population were either killed or starved by the seizure of farm stock or land. French replaced English as the court language and nearly every major Anglo-Saxon figure disappeared. The English were forced to watch as their leaders were reduced to poverty, thrown into dungeons, mutilated or killed. Heavy taxes were imposed, huge swaths of the country were depopulated to act as royal hunting forests, and vindictive laws were pa.s.sed to the disadvantage of the natives. Most hated of all were the castles that William had built all over England, visible symbols of their oppression which were constructed and paid for with English labor and wealth.

The conquest of England also had another legacy. The ruler of Normandy had always been a va.s.sal of the French king, and the addition of England didn't change that. Now the English king would have to perform the ceremonial acts of homage for the lands of Normandy, something that no British sovereign was ever going to do. For the moment the French monarchy was weak, but when it eventually a.s.serted itself it would spark a century-long war to evict the English from France.

As for King Harold, the English began to look back on his brief reign with longing and inevitably a legend started that he had survived Hastings and lived out his life as a monk. His family, as can be expected, suffered horrendously at Norman hands. They had been among the most wealthy and prominent before the Conquest, but after it they rapidly disappeared. Harold's sons and brothers were hunted down and either killed or imprisoned, and his wife and daughters were scattered in exile. Harold's daughter, Gytha, fled to western Russia where she married the Grand Prince of Kiev. Their granddaughter married a Danish prince, and gave birth to a son who became the king of Denmark. One of that king's descendants is Queen Elizabeth II of England. Fittingly enough, the royal family now has the mingled blood of both Harold and William.

As a final post script, Great Britain erected a monument in Bayeux to the soldiers who had died storming Normandy's beaches in World War Two. Beneath it they left a plaque which reads "We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror's native land".

Chapter 8.

Bras de Fer The conquest of England profoundly changed Normandy. The old, chaotic days had been receding for nearly a generation with the exception of William's childhood and the price of stability was the ma.s.s exodus of a good number of the duchy's younger sons. The minor n.o.bility that was used to having things its own way soon discovered that life under a strong duke meant much less freedom, opportunity and power. As personal castles were torn down and the power of local strongmen evaporated, more and more of them began to look for opportunities abroad.

The eleventh century would prove to be the great period of Norman adventure, and although it was already half over by the time William the Conqueror first entered London, its greatest conquests still lay ahead. Remarkably enough they would largely be the achievement of a single family, not a n.o.ble or wealthy one, but that of a simple knight named Tancred de Hauteville. He was a second generation Norman whose grandfather had arrived with Rollo, and he settled in southern Normandy on a small plot of land. Virtually nothing is known about him other than the fact that he was remarkably fertile. In addition to an unknown number of daughters, he had five surviving sons by his first wife, and another seven by his second. This was a problem since the family was relatively poor; once they came of age there was not nearly enough of an inheritance to go around.

Traditionally there were only two ways to resolve the issue. The boys could either divide the inheritance twelve ways making it too small to support anyone, or they could slug it out and let the victor claim the entire thing. Fortunately for the younger sons, at this point an uncle returning from pilgrimage in Italy advised them to try their luck there.

The first Normans had arrived in the peninsula as pilgrims at the beginning of the century. On their way to Jerusalem they had paused in the little town of Monte Sant'Angelo. Perched on the slopes of a limestone ma.s.sif jutting up from the rolling Italian countryside of Apulia, the town had always seemed a place of special importance. The ancient Romans set up a popular shrine to a son of the healing G.o.d, Asclepius, and legend had it that the mountain was also sacred to Chalcas, the great Greek seer of the Iliad. Thanks to a timely fifth-century appearance by the archangel Michael, the waning of paganism did nothing to dent this mystical aura and its reputation, if anything, continued to grow. By the eleventh century the cave where the angel emerged had become a major stop on the pilgrim route. Popes, kings, and saints all came calling, eager to share in the celestial mysteries, and the walls of the adjoining chapel were soon covered with the offerings of those who had been miraculously healed. Even the most powerful secular rulers felt the pull. The German emperor, Otto III, walked barefoot from Rome, while his less pious successor, Henry II, hid in the grotto overnight to see if there was any truth to the rumor that the Archangels Michael and Gabriel would appear at midnight to celebrate the ma.s.s.