3

The Norman Invasion

William was nothing if not a man of action, so it didn’t take him long to come up with a plan. He immediately arranged a war council at Lillebonne Castle and invited all his Norman barons. Their support would be crucial if William were to actually pull off his ambitious plan. At the meeting he announced his intention to sail to England that summer to mount his own invasion and dethrone King Harold.

Such a large-scale venture had never been seen before in Europe, not even during the Viking invasions. It was a crazy idea really. The logistics of moving a huge army and thousands of war horses across the English Channel had never been attempted in these kinds of numbers. Plus, Normans were not known to be the best sailors and in order to cross the Channel they would have to contend with strong headwinds in boats that weren’t designed to do that, as opposed to the superior Viking longboats. At first, his barons at first were doubtful, but then his friend William fitz Osbern gave an impassioned speech which persuaded nearly all of them to support William’s conquest of England.

William spent the spring and summer of 1066 travelling across Normandy personally overseeing preparations for his English invasion. Of utmost importance was the construction of a fleet to transport the soldiers, horses, and war supplies across the channel. There was an existing Norman fleet of ships but it was insufficient for an operation of this size. William pressed his Norman barons to contribute towards the cost of building up to 1,000 ships which was incredibly expensive and a massive undertaking, especially on such a short time frame.

William also wanted to make sure his duchy of Normandy would be safe while he was away in England so he publicly proclaimed his eldest son Robert as his heir and had the barons pledge fealty to him. Additionally, William set up his wife Matilda and son Robert to rule as regents while he was gone on his quest.

William next turned his attention to building up his army. Although he had a decent-sized army of Norman soldiers, it simply would not be enough to defeat the king’s army so he hired foreign mercenaries from Flanders, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Brittany, and France. He set about training this undisciplined group over the next few months so they would be ready to execute his plan in the fall.

His next step was a masterstroke of genius and without it, his conquest of England would have very likely failed. Religion in medieval Europe was the focal point of life for nearly all its people and their daily routines revolved around it. Most would have attended church services at least once a day and stopped to pray several other times throughout the day. They also strongly believed that God’s hand was in everything, from the approval of a king to the destiny of a labouring mother. William was smart enough to know that to get the support of the people, the blessing of the church would be necessary so he quietly sent a small envoy to Rome to plead his case and ask for the pope’s support in his conquest. Without hearing Harold’s side of the story, Pope Alexander II affirmed William’s claims that Harold had unlawfully usurped the crown and he further publicly proclaimed his approval of William’s quest to unseat Harold and take the throne for himself.¹

By Easter 1066, King Harold of England knew he had big trouble on his hands because his spies had reported the massive operation that was now underway in Normandy. In response, Harold called up the men in southern England to man the shores and serve watch for Norman invaders. He must have been seriously scared at the impending invasion by William because he also called in his naval fleet and all 2,000 of his housecarls (the king’s bodyguards) to man England’s defences. By the time the call-outs were done, King Harold had between 10,000-12,000 soldiers and 300-400 ships. All that summer his troops encamped on the southern shores of England watching the Channel but Duke William and the Norman invasion fleet never materialised.

After eight months of meticulous preparation, William was finally ready to launch the invasion. By 10 August 1066 he had gathered all his soldiers and his considerable fleet of ships in the River Dives just east of the city of Caen in Normandy. All told William had about 10,000 soldiers, 3,000 horses, and as many as 700 ships.² Since the victory of the papal proclamation of support, scores of people had flocked to him in Normandy to join his conquest and he would need every single person he could get. He was well aware that King Harold had forces stationed all along the English coast so when William’s fleet landed, they would have to go ashore together as one cohesive force and they would have to be ready to fight the minute they stepped on English soil.

In order to pull this off, William had to be very calculated about crossing the English Channel. If he left when the winds were blowing too hard or in the wrong direction, there was a very real chance his fleet would be scattered, maybe even shipwrecked. William could be patient, he was not a hasty man like Harold, so he resolved to wait until the wind changed in his favour. Once the wind conditions were agreeable, he would only have a narrow window of one to two days to lead his army across the channel before the weather was likely to change again.

As William waited to set sail, Harold was dealing with the inability to maintain the army he had stationed on the coast. Apparently after three months of waiting, the English soldiers had used up all the local resources and there was no food left to feed the army. Plus, they technically only owed the king two months of military service each year and they had already surpassed that by six weeks. On 8 September 1066, Harold dispersed his army and returned to London with his housecarls.

King Harold was in London for less than two weeks when he received shocking news that an invasion fleet had landed, but it wasn’t the one he had expected from Normandy. This invasion force was led by his own estranged brother, Tostig. Tostig had managed to get King Harald Hardrada of Norway to support his English invasion which immediately made it a very serious threat to King Harold’s throne. The rebels landed in northern England on 20 September 1066 and burned the town of Scarborough down to the ground. Next, they marched to the northern stronghold city of York but two northern earls, Mercia and Morcar, raised their own troops against the rebels. After a brief but bloody battle, the city surrendered to Tostig and Hardrada. As part of the conditions of surrender, Tostig and Hardrada demanded hostages from York and the handover was scheduled for 24 September at Stamford Bridge. They anticipated a peaceful changeover, so they did not bother wearing their chainmail, nor did they equip themselves for any type of fighting.³

Suddenly out of nowhere came King Harold’s royal army. He had been over 300 kilometres away in London on 20 September 1066, when he received news of his brother’s invasion and somehow managed to race his army the entire distance in only four days. The royal army immediately engaged in battle with the unprepared invaders who fought bravely in Viking fashion but were no match for the king’s army. The Battle of Stamford on 24 September 1066, was the longest battle on English soil at that time, lasting from dawn until dusk. Not only was Tostig’s and Hardrada’s army decimated, both rebel leaders were slain on the battlefield. In one fell swoop, King Harold had eliminated the rebels in the north and the threat of further Scandinavian invasions.

As Harold and his men recovered from their gruelling battle, there was no way he could have known that another invasion was about to descend on his kingdom, this time in southern England, hundreds of kilometres away from his weary and wounded army. Duke William had been patiently waiting to lead his army across the Channel to challenge Harold for the right to rule England. On the evening of 27 September 1066, the winds suddenly changed and William determined the conditions were as good as they would ever be to make the crossing so his fleet on nearly 1,000 ships set out that night.⁴ Foul weather churned up the seas as they made their journey, scattering a few ships, but the vast majority of the fleet made a landing at Pevensey the following morning. At this point, William would have received news that the king had gone north to fight King Harald Hardrada, but he wouldn’t have known the outcome at the time he sailed to England, therefore, he did not know which Harold/Harald he would be facing.

As soon as he landed in England, he set his men about quickly building a fortification within Pevensey’s town walls. Only a few days later he determined that this small market town would not be enough to support his large number of troops, plus the only route in and out of the town was a marshy road which was not conducive to moving a large army with war horses and various military equipment. William mobilised his troops and marched them to Hastings, a town he probably chose because he knew more about it than any other English town from his friend the Abbot of Fécamp.⁵ On their march from Pevensey to Hastings, William’s army harried every area they passed through, leaving a massive trail of destruction. They killed nearly half of the inhabitants of Pevensey and levelled four villages on their way to Hastings.⁶ William had encouraged his men to cause as much chaos and destruction as possible in order to provoke the king to come fight him and that proved to be a winning strategy. As soon as Harold received news of the Norman landing, he raced south with as much of his army as he could organise quickly.

Just as fast as he had raced north to fight Hardrada and Tostig, King Harold raced south to fight William arriving in London in only four days time. Harold spent one week in London readying himself for the crucial upcoming battle and tried to buy more time to gather his army. It was during this week-long stay in London when he found out about Pope Alexander’s confirmation of William and excommunication of himself and his followers. This was truly devastating to Harold. As a pious man, he believed God had ordained him to be king of England but now he felt God was turning against him. He was so shaken that he spent the entirety of the day at Waltham Abbey in spiritual contemplation.⁷

After King Harold recovered from his spiritual crisis, he pulled his advisers together to plan out a strategy to rid themselves of William’s army. The most pressing problem was the sorry state of the royal army. The king’s forces were seriously depleted due to the loss of life at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the exhaustive marches they were forced to endure. He needed time to rest his troops and muster more men before he could consider facing off with William’s army. To buy time, King Harold dispatched a messenger from London who travelled over 100 kilometres to William at Hastings. The messenger brought this message from King Harold:

He recalls that King Edward first appointed you as his heir, and he remembers he was himself sent to Normandy to assure you of the succession. But he also knows that the same King, his Lord, bestowed on him the kingdom of England when he was dying. With justice, therefore, he bids you go back to your country with your followers. Otherwise he will break the pact of friendship he made with you in Normandy. And he leaves the choice entirely to you.⁸

William’s response was definitive: ‘I am ready to submit my case against Harold’s for judgement either by the law of Normandy or the law of England, whichever he chooses.’ Further messages were exchanged but the two sides were in a stalemate. King Harold was the first to make a move. Although his councillors encouraged the king to wait as long as possible to gather more troops, Harold wanted to strike quickly before the news of the pope’s decree spread throughout his kingdom.

Against the advice of his councillors, Harold led his small army out of London on the morning of 12 October 1066 and marched them nearly 100 kilometres to Hastings in less than two days. The exhausted army encamped the evening of 13 October on a high ridge near Caldbec Hill, just north of Hastings. This location was chosen because of its defensive nature and because it blocked the two main roads to London. As soon as Harold’s army came into view, William called his men together and ordered them to prepare for battle the following morning. William’s army was made up of 7,000-8,000 men and King Harold’s army was only slightly larger.⁹ Although the numbers were fairly equal, William had an advantage over Harold in that approximately 3,000 of his men were on horseback whereas Harold’s disorganised army was comprised of men on foot who were not experienced in the art of warfare. William’s army was also much better equipped and trained than the king’s forces.

In the early morning hours of 14 October 1066, William’s army marched toward the ridge upon which King Harold’s army was lined up in battle array. William commenced the Battle of Hastings by sending in his archers who found themselves unable to cause much damage because they had to shoot up the hill. The king deployed his own archers who rained down arrows upon William’s front line. To help the archers, William sent in his knights and they engaged the king’s men in fierce hand-to-hand combat for several hours, but the Normans struggled to make any ground against Harold who had the advantageous spot high on the ridge.

Having made no progress in breaking the king’s lines, William recalled his troops off the hill so they could regroup. Harold’s army watched the Normans withdraw down the hill and mistakenly believed they were fleeing the battlefield, so they went running down the hill to ambush William’s retreating army. Now that they were on common ground, William’s mounted knights swung their lines around and charged on the English foot soldiers, cutting them down easily. Seeing how effective this faux retreat had been in luring Harold’s men off the ridge, William tried the new tactic again. He ordered a line of his soldiers to feign retreat and the Englishmen came running down the hill yet again. William’s knights quickly cut down the front lines while William’s archers finished the job by unloosing a barrage of arrows with devastating effect. This manoeuver was repeated several times and the fighting went on until sunset that evening.

Finally, the archers found their true marks. King Harold, along with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, were killed on the battlefield the unrelenting Norman arrows. Harold was shot through the eye and the arrow penetrated his brain.¹⁰ Upon seeing their leader slain, the English soldiers fled the battlefield in fear of their lives. The decisive Battle of Hastings had been won by the Norman invader. A vengeful William ordered his slain Norman soldiers to be buried but left the English corpses to rot on the battlefield. William had lost approximately 3,000 soldiers while the English dead numbered 5,000, including included many members of the nobility. A spiteful William refused to hand over the deceased King Harold’s body to his mother despite her promises of a vast amount of gold in exchange. To this day, no one knows exactly where King Harold’s body is buried.¹¹

Although William had decisively won the showdown battle with the king, the England was not yet his. Next, he would have to get control of London which would be no easy feat. The citizens of London were not likely to welcome a foreign invader with open arms unless they hated their existing king and by all accounts Harold was a very well-liked ruler. So as William rested his troops overnight in Hastings, word reached London of the king’s demise and his councillors took swift action by recognising the young Edgar Ætheling as Harold’s heir.¹² However, they did not enact a hasty coronation for Edgar as they had done for Harold. Perhaps they doubted this move in light of the pope’s declaration that William was the rightful king of England.

After five days of rest, William gathered his army and started marching towards London, capturing and harrying town after town along the way. He manoeuvered his troops around London until they encircled the entire city. With no royal army left to defend them, Londoners were helpless against the fierce Norman army. It was at this point that William received his first submission of fealty pledged by Edith, widow of Edward the Confessor. Next, Edgar Ætheling, Harold’s heir, and Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, submitted to William and pledged oaths of fealty. With the support of the archbishop of Canterbury whose job is was to coronate kings, everything else fell into place for William. He was not forced to attack the city. Instead, the Witan invited him to become the next king of England.¹³

A few days before Christmas 1066, William and his most loyal retainers made their official entry into the city of London. He was coronated as King of England on Christmas Day 1066. Shortly thereafter he held many meetings with many English noblemen and demanded that they each pledge oaths of fealty to him. Then his builders began constructing the White Tower within the grounds of the Tower of London in order to provide a defensible base in the heart of the city. In Normandy it was much more common to have castles and fortifications in each large town and William was responsible for bringing this innovation to England. In fact, throughout his reign as king, he built nearly 100 castles throughout England, a monumental achievement even by modern-day standards.

By March 1067, William felt England was under control enough for him to return to Normandy and celebrate his monumental victory over King Harold. He left his trustiest Norman magnates back in England to run things in his absence, primarily his brother Odo of Bayeux and his steward William Fitz Osbern. In Normandy he received a hero’s welcome and he put on a dazzling display for all the people to see, showing off the riches he had acquired in England, including lavish clothes made of cloth of gold. He spent the next few months on progress in Normandy, showing himself to the people and exhibiting his magnificence. Nevertheless, he was forced to return to England in 1067 when the first serious threat of rebellion arose.