THE NORWEGIAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF STAMFORDBRIDGE.[928]
[Sidenote: Course of events before the actual invasion of William.]
The clouds were thus gathering in the direction of Normandy, but it was not from Normandy that the first storm was to break upon England. Or rather it was Normandy which sent forth those first few drops which were the forerunners of the tempest to come. The first drop of English blood that was shed, the first rood of English ground that was harried, during this memorable year, was the work of men, not indeed fighting under William’s banner, but acting at least with William’s connivance, perhaps under his direct commission. But that first scene of the drama was the mere prelude to two acts as stirring and wonderful as any to be found in the whole range of history. Of the two enemies of England, the first was last and the last was first, and the more haste was emphatically not the better speed. The fortune of William changed a mighty rival into an useful pioneer, and changed an invasion which might have destroyed him into a mere diversion in his favour. While the wary Norman was, as ever, biding his time, another more impetuous enemy was to make his venture and to fail in it. Before we come to the fall of Harold of England, we have yet to see him raised to the highest pitch of his glory. Before we tell of the voyage of William and of the campaign of Hastings, we have to tell of the voyage of Harold Hardrada and of the campaign of Stamfordbridge.
§ 1. _The First Expedition of Tostig. May, 1066._
[Sidenote: Harold of England in full possession of his Kingdom. Easter, 1066.]
We left King Harold of England undisputed master of his whole Kingdom. He had won over the malecontents of Northumberland; he had held his Easter Feast and Gemót at Westminster; and the hearts of England and of the world had been stirred and affrighted by the awful token which shone over them in the heavens. It was about the beginning of May, perhaps before the warning star had ceased blazing, that the misfortunes of this terrible [Sidenote: May, 1066.] year began. The first blow came from the traitor Tostig. [Sidenote: Tostig lands in Wight.] He came from beyond sea—that is, as we have seen, from Normandy with the licence of William—and, at the head of his ships manned with Flemish or Norman adventurers, he sailed first to the Isle of Wight. The inhabitants, willingly or unwillingly—far more probably the latter—supplied him with money and provisions.[929] He then sailed along the [Sidenote: His ravages in Sussex and Kent.] South Saxon and Kentish coast, the coast along which, fourteen years before, he had sailed with his father in his glorious return. He thus passed on as far as Sandwich, marking his course, wherever he went, by ceaseless and wanton ravage; he did harm everywhere where he might.[930] [Sidenote: Great preparations of Harold. May–September.] But King Harold was now making ready for the great struggle. No view of his position can be more false than that which describes him as making light of the danger from Normandy, and as making no preparation for defence except with a view to the expected invasion from Norway.[931] The truth is exactly opposite. The King was busily engaged in preparations for the defence of his Kingdom against the Norman before there was any reason to look forward to any sort of danger from the Northman. To Harold at least his great rival’s purpose was known from the beginning. He was already, as his panegyrist tells us, labouring by land and by sea for the defence of his country.[932] He was gathering such a land-force and such a sea-force as no King [Sidenote: He hastens from London to Sandwich.] had ever before gathered in this land.[933] He was still in London[934]—that is probably at Westminster—when he heard the news of his brother’s appearance at Sandwich. He therefore hastened his preparations, and leaving London, probably under the command of Leofwine, as Earl of the neighbouring shires, he himself hastened to Sandwich. [Sidenote: Tostig sails from Sandwich,] But before the King reached Sandwich, Tostig had sailed from thence, taking with him a body of the sailors of that haven, some by their own consent and some by force.[935] It is only among professional sailors, who might be tempted by promises of pay and plunder, that the rebel Earl seems to have found any English followers. The cruise of Tostig along these shores must have struck him as a sad contrast to those days of hope when the whole population of the maritime shires came flocking to the coast ready to live and die with Earl Godwine.[936] With his force thus increased to [Sidenote: and ravages Lindesey.] sixty ships, Tostig sailed northwards; he then entered the Humber and ravaged the coast of Lindesey in the Earldom of his enemy Eadwine.[937] Here he acted like Swend himself, or like the earlier destroyers of the days of Ælfred. He burned [Sidenote: He is driven from Lindesey by Eadwine and Morkere,] towns and slew many good men. The two Northern Earls were not wanting to their duty on this occasion. Indeed their interest and their duty too exactly coincided to allow of any remissness. They had no chance of finding their own profit in treason, like the traitors of an earlier time. Eadwine and Morkere hastened to the suffering districts with the levies of the country, and drove away Tostig and his plunderers.[938] The sailors who had followed him, willingly and unwillingly, from Sandwich, now forsook him.[939] The one class saw no further chance of pay or plunder; the others were doubtless glad of the opportunity to escape [Sidenote: and takes refuge in Scotland.] from a service which they disliked. Tostig, with twelve small vessels,[940] now sailed for Scotland and sought shelter with his sworn brother King Malcolm. The tie of brotherhood had not preserved Northumberland from ravage while Tostig was still discharging his duty as an English Earl;[941] but his position of hostility to his country now earned him a hearty welcome at the Scottish court. Malcolm received his brother, and supplied his force with provisions; and Tostig remained under his protection during the whole summer.
§ 2. _Tostig’s applications to Swend and Harold Hardrada._
[Sidenote: Saga of Harold Hardrada.]
We have now reached a most fascinating, and at the same time a most difficult, part of our story. We are landed in the famous and magnificent Saga of Harold Hardrada. The tale, as it appears in Norwegian legendary history, is so complete, and it is told with such thoroughly poetic spirit, that it goes deeply against the grain to have to suggest that nearly every detail must be mythical. It is painful to have to turn from the glowing strains of the Norwegian prose epic to the meagre entries of our own Chronicles, and to pronounce that all that is not distinctly confirmed by English testimony is, to say the least, untrustworthy. A void is left which history cannot fill, and which it is forbidden to the historian to fill up from the resources of his own imagination. My only course will be to follow the story in the Saga, so far as it is recommended either by intrinsic probability or by its conformity to our own annals, and at the same time to point out those particulars in which authentic evidence shows that the details must be fabulous.
[Sidenote: War between Harold and Swend.]
The renowned Norwegian King was just now enjoying, or, what to his mind it more likely seemed, suffering under, an unusual state of quiet. The greater part of his reign had been spent in a constant struggle with Swend of Denmark. The details of their warfare do not concern English history. Yet an English historian must feel a certain satisfaction in recording the gallantry and perseverance with which a man so closely connected with England as Swend was had, for a long series of years, withstood, and at last [Sidenote: Peace between them. 1064.] successfully withstood, so formidable an enemy. Two years earlier than the time which we have now reached, a peace had been concluded between the two Kings on perfectly equal terms.[942] Now the war had been wholly defensive on the part of Swend, while Harold had been seeking to annex Denmark to his own dominions. It was therefore a distinct triumph on the part of the prudent Danish King, when Harold acknowledged his title and engaged to cease from all further attacks on his Kingdom. Harold thus had his hands free; disputes with his own subjects, arising out of the harshness of his government, were constantly occurring,[943] but they did not seriously weaken his power. The whole force of Norway, under the most valiant and adventurous of her Kings, a force practised rather than weakened by the long war with Denmark, stood ready for some new enterprise, and such an enterprise was before long suggested by the banished English Earl.
[Sidenote: Contradictions between the English, Norman, and Norwegian accounts.]
That Harold Hardrada invaded England in partnership with Tostig is certain; but the circumstances of their agreement are involved in much difficulty and contradiction. The authentic English narrative says nothing of any personal application to Harold on the part of Tostig before they met on the Scottish coast. And it is by no means easy to make the alleged voyages of Tostig to Denmark and Norway fit in with the English chronology. Indeed the English account might rather suggest that Harold Hardrada had planned his invasion of England quite independently of Tostig, and that the junction of their forces happened quite incidentally, after the Norwegian King had already set sail. On the other hand, the voyage of Tostig to Norway is asserted in the Norman version, and it is the very soul of the Norwegian Saga. I shall discuss the details of these different versions elsewhere.[944] It is perhaps not absolutely impossible to reconcile Tostig’s voyage with the English narrative, but it can be done only by wholly giving up the chronology, and perhaps some other details, of the Saga. The English account at least shows that, if Tostig made any application to Harold at all, it must have been made after he had taken shelter in Scotland, and it would suggest that it was made by messengers rather than personally. With these cautions, I tell the tale as I find it in the Saga, warning the reader that I do not pledge myself to a single detail.
[Sidenote: Norwegian account. Tostig asks help of Swend of Denmark, which is refused.]
The Norwegian story makes Tostig, on his banishment, which, it must be remembered, is placed after his brother’s election to the Kingdom,[945] take the course so familiar to banished Englishmen a few years earlier.[946] He goes first to Flanders, and thence to Denmark, by way of Friesland.[947] His object was to get help from his cousin King Swend to enable him to recover his Earldom. The prudent King offered him an Earldom in Denmark instead. For this Tostig had no mind; he wished to recover Northumberland at all hazards. If Swend would not give him forces for that purpose, he was ready to go a step further. He proposed to Swend to revive his old claim to the Crown of England, and to undertake the conquest of the country. He, Tostig, would help him in such an enterprise with all the force that he could command. Swend could not fail to succeed in an attempt which had been so successfully accomplished by his uncle Cnut. But the Danish King had learned to distrust his own power for such an achievement, and he had seen enough of the world to put little faith in an exile’s estimate of his own influence in the country from which he has been driven. Cnut was a great man and a lucky man; he, Swend, laid no claim to either the greatness or the good luck of his uncle. Cnut had inherited Denmark;[948] he had won Norway without striking a blow; but in order to win England he had to strike many blows and to put his life in great jeopardy. Swend, on the other hand, found it a hard matter to keep Denmark safe from the attacks of the Norwegian King. He would therefore stay at home and would not run any desperate risks. Tostig left him with an expression of contempt for his lack of enterprise and his neglect of the interests of a kinsman. Swend might have answered that Harold of England was a kinsman no less than his brother, and that the gratitude which he himself undoubtedly owed to the memory of Godwine passed much more naturally to the head of the family than to one engaged in treason against his house and country.
[Sidenote: Tostig goes on to Norway, and asks help of Harold Hardrada.]
From Denmark Tostig, so the story says, went on to Norway to seek help from its King Harold Hardrada. He found him in Viken, the south-eastern corner of the Norwegian Kingdom. He opened his errand to Harold in the [Sidenote: His first proposal: Help to recover his Earldom.] same order in which he had opened it to Swend. That is to say, he at first simply asked for help to recover his Earldom. [Sidenote: Harold’s refusal.] This proposal found as little favour from Harold as it had found from Swend. The Northmen, so said their King, would have no mind for a war in England under an English leader; common report said that the English were not men in whom it was safe to put much trust.[949] The massacre of Saint Brice, the deposition of Harthacnut, the refusal to hearken to the claims which Magnus had founded on his agreement with Harthacnut, may all have passed across the mind of Harold Hardrada. He had little mind for an undertaking which promised so much danger, and [Sidenote: Tostig’s second proposal; Harold to be King over all England, and Tostig Under-king over Northumberland.] so little profit in case of success. Tostig had therefore to tempt him by the same bait which he had before offered to Swend. Let the King of the Northmen enter England, not merely to restore an English Earl, but to place the Imperial Crown of Britain upon his own head. Let Harold be King over the whole land; Tostig would ask only to be Under-king of half England, no doubt of its northern half. He would become King Harold’s man, and would serve him faithfully all the days of his life.[950] He then set himself to answer the objections to the enterprise which had been raised by the Norwegian King. Tostig seems really to have believed that, after all that happened, he still reigned in the hearts of his faithful Thegns in Northumberland. [Sidenote: Arguments of Tostig.] The expedition, he argued, would be one of a widely different nature from the expedition of Magnus against England or the expeditions of Harold himself against Denmark. The main obstacle to success in those undertakings would not be present in that which Tostig now counselled. Why was the agreement between Harthacnut and Magnus set aside? Why did not Magnus venture to make good his claims on England against Eadward? Why had Magnus overcome Denmark with ease, while Harold himself had failed in the same attempt? Success or failure in such attempts depended wholly on the disposition of the chiefs and the people of the invaded land. Magnus had succeeded in Denmark, because the chief men of Denmark were on his side: Harold had failed, because the whole Danish nation had been against him.[951] So Magnus had shrunk from asserting his claims against Eadward, because Eadward was the King whom the whole people of England had chosen to reign over them. But now the state of things was changed. He, Tostig, deemed himself the equal of his brother in all but his kingly title. He would support the cause of Harold of Norway, and his support—so the exile said, and perhaps thought—would bring with it the allegiance of all the chief men of the land. Harold Hardrada, so all men allowed, was the first warrior of northern lands; he had spent fifteen years in an attempt to seize on Denmark; would he refuse to seize on England, now that England lay ready for him, only waiting for him to take possession?
[Sidenote: Harold determines to invade England.]
The arguments of Tostig, we are told, gradually carried conviction to the mind of Harold. The proposed expedition was novel and distant; it bade fair to be successful, and, if successful, it would bring unbounded glory. As such, it had every attraction for a prince, who now, at the age of fifty, had lost nothing of the spirit of his Wiking youth. The expedition was determined on, and it was ordered to [Sidenote: No mention of the consultation of any Thing by Harold Hardrada.] take place in the course of the summer. It may be merely the omission of our Saga-maker, but it is worth noting that we hear nothing of the consultation of any Thing or other Assembly by Harold Hardrada. In England it came within the constitutional functions of the Witan to approve or to forbid any interference in the concerns of another country. Twice had it been proposed in an English Gemót to take a part in the wars of Swend and Magnus, and twice had the majority of the Assembly rejected the proposal.[952] Even in Normandy, whether as a matter of constitutional right or of personal prudence, William had thought it needful to consult an Assembly of his Duchy before he determined on the invasion of England.[953] But in Norway we find no mention of any power which had to decide upon such questions, except the arbitrary will of King Harold himself. There can be no doubt that Harold reigned in Norway as the despot which his surname implies, and the utmost that his panegyrist can say for him is that his heavy hand pressed equally upon all.[954] But the proposed scheme was at least freely discussed by the [Sidenote: Different opinions in Norway: estimate of the English Housecarls.] public opinion of Norway. Some deemed that the valour and good luck of Harold the son of Sigurd must be successful in every land and over every enemy. Others shrank from an encounter with Harold the son of Godwine and with the resources of the land over which he reigned. England was a land perilous to attack; it was a land fertile in warriors; there, above all, were the Thingmen, the Housecarls, men ever strong in battle, men ever ready of heart and hand, men any one of whom was a match for two of the choicest warriors of Norway.[955] This is indeed a speaking witness to the efficiency of the force which had been called into being by the wisdom of Cnut, and which had lost nothing in strength or in reputation under the government of Harold. The fame of the conqueror of Gruffydd had no doubt been sounded throughout the North, and men shrank from the prospect of meeting a chief and an army so ready to adapt themselves to every requirement which the accidents of war might suggest. Whether the details of the story are true or false, this traditional estimate of the English Housecarls must at least be genuine. Nothing however is described as taking place to hinder the expedition, or to cause any relaxation in the levies and preparations of Harold Hardrada. Tostig, it is added, sailed in the spring to Flanders, to collect forces both from that country and from England. We here at once see the confusion of the Norwegian chronology. If we can suppose these visits of Tostig to Swend and Harold to be true in their main outlines, they are at least altogether moved from their right place.
§ 3. _The Invasion of Harold Hardrada. September, 1066._
[Sidenote: Great preparations of Harold of England. May–September.]
It is not clear how far the danger which threatened him from the North was known to King Harold of England. It is certain that the appearance of the Norwegian fleet was unlooked for at the actual moment of its coming.[956] But this need not imply that no hint whatever of the great preparations of Harold of Norway had reached England. It is certain that the attention of the King of the English was at that moment altogether concentrated on his preparations to withstand a nearer and really more formidable enemy. The fleet, the news of whose approach had driven away Tostig from Sandwich, was part of a vast system of preparation for the defence of southern England. The probability is that, when England was thus threatened by two enemies at once, the King, together with his brothers, undertook the immediate defence of Wessex and [Sidenote: The North probably left to its own Earls.] East-Anglia, and that he entrusted the defence of the North to its own Earls. Harold himself could not be everywhere at once; if he had to choose between one part of his Kingdom and another, his first duty clearly was to that part which was more specially his own, more immediately under his personal government. It might surely seem safe to leave Northumberland and Mercia to the defence of their own Earls, the men who, of all men in the island, were the most concerned to keep Tostig out of it. Eadwine might pass in Mercia almost for an hereditary prince; Morkere was the special choice of the Northumbrian people. To trust them to fight for their own was surely no mark of neglect on the King’s part, but rather a sign of the confidence which he placed in his loyal and affectionate [Sidenote: The King’s measures for the defence of southern England.] brothers-in-law. At all events, King Harold was doing all that mortal man could do for the defence of southern England. For he knew well that William Bastard, King Eadward’s kinsman, sought to come and win this land.[957] And he knew better than any other man in England with what a foe he had to deal in him, and how the strongest efforts of every man in the land were needed to keep the [Sidenote: Difficulty of the defence, arising from the nature of the _Fyrd_.] land from being won by the Norman. No story better illustrates the difficulties which in those days attended the general who had not merely to fight a battle, but to plan a campaign, and a defensive campaign above all. Harold had no standing army except the Housecarls; still, as having the Housecarls, he was so far better off than Æthelred, who had no standing army at all. But the efficiency of the Housecarls was almost wholly confined to the day of battle. Face to face with an enemy, each of them might be equal to two other men; but neither the numbers nor the nature of the force made them at all fit to guard the whole coast of Wessex and East-Anglia. For that purpose Harold had of course to trust to the _landfyrd_, the militia of the shires. What the nature of this force was we have often seen before. Harold, or Eadmund, or any other chief in whom men had confidence, could easily raise an army of this kind, an army patriotic and brave after its own fashion, an army perfectly ready to fight a battle, but which, after either winning or losing a battle, insisted on going home again. We have seen that, after all the battles of Eadmund, with one exception,[958] his army disbanded, and he had to gather a fresh army to fight the next battle. Harold had a still more difficult task before him. He had to gather his militia, and to keep them under arms for an indefinite time, without fighting any battle, and when the main object of their being in arms was to hinder any battle from being fought. We do not read of any earlier King even attempting such a scheme of general defence. Harold got together such a fleet and army[959] as no King had ever got together before, and he kept them together during four months of inaction. The fleet cruised in the Channel; the land-force was placed at various fitting posts along [Sidenote: Harold in the Isle of Wight.] the coast. The King first sailed to the Isle of Wight, and then spent the summer in simply waiting for the approach of William. No kind of service could have been so irksome for an unprofessional, and seemingly unpaid, force. There was absolutely nothing to do but to watch; the excitement of battle, the attraction of plunder, all the usual motives for which men left their homes and families and private affairs, were denied to men who had simply to guard the shores of their own island. Then they were to be fed, not, as in a hostile country, at the expense of the neighbourhood in which each division was quartered, but by some means which to the imperfect finance and imperfect commissariat of that age must have been difficult indeed. It is no small proof of Harold’s skill and forethought, and of the influence which he must have had over the nation generally, that he was able to keep and feed a greater army for a greater time than any King had ever done before him. There is certainly no other record of such a host being kept so long under arms without either fighting or plundering. At last, at the end of [Sidenote: The army disbanded. September 8.] four months, the strain was too great to be any longer borne. Food for so great a multitude was no longer forthcoming. If the crop was early, it may have already suffered from the absence of so many of those who were accustomed to gather it in. If the crop was late, men were probably eagerly clamouring to go home and reap each man his own field. At all events, early in September, it was found impossible to keep them together any longer.[960] The authority and influence of Harold broke down before the [Sidenote: Harold returns to London with the fleet.] stronger force of necessity. The army was disbanded; the King rode back to London, for which haven the fleet also was ordered to make. Many of the ships were unluckily lost or damaged on the voyage.[961] The English account would seem to imply that they returned without having [Sidenote: Question of naval operations against the Normans.] seen any actual service at all. But some expressions of the Chronicles, and some remarkable entries in the Norman Survey, might be taken to imply that some naval engagement between English and Norman ships did take place at some stage or other of this wonderful year. If so, it is hard to find any later stage of the war to which such an event will so well fit in as to the days when Harold’s fleet was cruising in the Channel.[962]
No vexation can be conceived greater than Harold’s must have been at seeing his whole labour thus thrown away. He must have turned away from the coast with a heavy heart, with a feeling that the land now lay open to the stranger. The King had most assuredly not failed his people, and we cannot fairly say that the people had failed their King. The force of circumstances had been too strong for King and people alike. A few weeks more of endurance, and the Norman fleet might have never reached the English shore. But those few weeks more of endurance were seemingly too much to ask of human nature. The south coast of England was left undefended. It does not indeed follow that every fort and every watch-tower was left absolutely without guardians. We shall find that such was not the case. But there was no longer any force by land or by sea which could offer any effectual resistance to the landing of the Norman invader.
[Sidenote: Harold in London.]
Harold had ridden to London, a fact which again marks the growing importance of the city. I have already[963] pointed out how marked was the influence of the events of Harold’s reign on the process which gradually made London, what we may now almost begin to call it, the capital of the Kingdom. So far as Harold, during his reign of little stillness, could be said to have any special dwelling-place, that special dwelling-place seems to have been Westminster. But it was hardly in search of repose that he now came thither. Threatened as he was by two enemies, London was a central point from which he could march northwards or southwards, as his presence might be called for in either quarter. The wealth and loyalty of its citizens made the city an excellent point for the collecting and provisioning of armies. And, as a port lying far inland, it was a point no less suited to be the centre of operations which were to take in land and sea alike. But Harold’s sojourn in London now was not a [Sidenote: Harold Hardrada sets sail.] long one. Before he had left the southern coast, his namesake of Norway was afloat. Whether his voyage took place at the instigation of Tostig or not, there is no doubt either as to the fact of the voyage or as to the greatness of the preparations which had been made for it. Harold Hardrada is said to have called out a levy of half the fighting men of his Kingdom.[964] His fleet is variously reckoned at two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, and even a thousand ships,[965] and the numbers of the host were increased at almost every point where the fleet touched. He set sail from the Solen Isles at the mouth of Sogne [Sidenote: He designs to reign in England.] Fiord, near Bergen on the west coast of Norway. It would seem that he had resolved to transfer the seat of his government to the land which he looked forward to conquer.[966] His expedition bore the character, if not of a national, at least of a domestic migration. Harold Hardrada, like the Merwings in Gaul,[967] allowed himself a kind of open polygamy, which he may possibly have learned in the Mussulman lands which he had visited as [Sidenote: His wives and children.] a warrior and as a pilgrim. Besides his Queen, the Russian princess Elizabeth, who was neither dead nor divorced, one Thora, the daughter of Thorberg, is also spoken of as his wife.[968] Elizabeth was the mother of his daughters Mary and Ingigerd; Thora was the mother of his sons Magnus and Olaf. Thora was left in Norway with her son Magnus, who received the title of King.[969] [Sidenote: Comparison with Cnut.] In this Harold might seem to follow the precedent set by Cnut with regard to Ælfgifu of Northampton and her son Swend.[970] Norway was again to be ruled by an Under-king subordinate to a Northern Emperor reigning in England. The rest of his family, Queen Elizabeth and her daughters, and Olaf the son of Thora, accompanied Harold in the fleet, no doubt to receive establishments in [Sidenote: Harold’s treasures.] the realm which was to be won. Among other treasures, he is said to have brought with him a vast mass of solid gold, part of the plunder or the reward of his campaigns in the Imperial service. This huge ingot, which twelve strong youths could hardly carry, passed from one conqueror to another till it formed part of the boundless wealth of William the Bastard.[971]
[Sidenote: Greatness of the expedition.]
Such a fleet had not for years gone forth from any Scandinavian haven. Cnut had kept the Northern world in comparative peace beneath his Imperial sceptre. Since his death, the strength of the Scandinavian powers had been frittered away in the endless bickerings between Denmark and Norway. But now, as in the days of Swend and Olaf, a royal fleet, manned with the whole strength of a kingdom, sailed forth once more to bring the Isle of Britain into subjection to a Northern master. The fleet was commanded by a warrior whose fame was spread from Africa to Iceland. It sailed forth to attack a realm which was no longer under the rule of an Æthelred, but under that of a King whose renown in arms, within his own narrower [Sidenote: Chances of the two invaders.] sphere, sounded as high as that of Hardrada himself. And in the far distance, beyond the defender of the land, lay its other assailant. We can hardly believe either that the preparations of the King of the Northmen were utterly unknown at Rouen,[972] or that the preparations of the Duke of the Normans were utterly unknown at Trondhjem. William must have set sail, hardly knowing which of the two Harolds he would meet on the South-Saxon hills, and Harold Hardrada must have set sail, hardly knowing whether he would find the shores of Northumberland guarded by the axes of England or the lances of Normandy. [Sidenote: The expedition of Harold the last Scandinavian attack on England.] It was the last and greatest of those great enterprises of the Scandinavian powers under which England had suffered for so many ages. The Raven of Denmark was yet to float more than once over the stream of Humber, and the [Sidenote: 1069–1071.] Land-waster itself was to float over the shores of Anglesey.[973] [Sidenote: 1098.] But the ensign once so terrible to Englishmen had then become an ensign of promised deliverance; under the yoke of utter strangers the old foe was felt to be a brother. But now the Land-waster of Norway came, for the last time, purely and avowedly on its old errand of devastation and conquest.
King Harold of Norway set forth for England to reign there, but he came to reign without the good-will of a single native partizan, save one traitor whom the land had cast forth for his evil deeds. The last of his class, the last royal Wiking, who knew no home so dear as the wave, no enjoyment so keen as the delights of battle by sea and land, he came to stake his crown and life on the most terrible of chances. The legends of his nation set him and his followers before us as setting forth on their great venture in no joyous or hopeful mood. The shadow of its doom seemed already to spread itself over the mightiest fleet that Northern King had ever gathered in [Sidenote: Omens on the voyage.] a Northern haven. Dreams and omens of no cheering kind weighed upon the mind both of the King and of his followers. The sway of Saint Olaf and of Cnut had not wiped out all traces of old heathendom, and strange beliefs in weird and superhuman powers still lingered, then and long after, among the Scandinavian people. Men told in after days of the dream that came to Gyrd,[974] the King’s comrade, as he lay in the King’s ship; how he stood in the ship and saw on an island a woman of dæmon birth,[975] vast and fearful; how ravens and ernes sat on the stern of every ship, and how the woman sang gloomy songs of the King who was lured to the west, to leave many bones behind him to glut the ravenous fowls. They told how Thord saw the host of England marching to the shore; how another dæmon-woman rode before them on a wolf, how she fed her strange steed with the bleeding carcases of men, and how, as fast as his dripping jaws swallowed one body, she had ever another ready to throw into his open mouth. And, clearer warning than all, King Harold himself saw in a dream his martyred brother, who told him that his doom was near, and that he too would become the food of the steed that bore the fearful witch-wife. Tales like these are no doubt, in their details at least, the creation of after times; but they show well the spirit, at once bold and gloomy, enterprising and meditative, of the race with which England was now for the last time to struggle for her being.
[Sidenote: Harold Hardrada lands in Shetland and Orkney &c. 1014–1064.]
The first part of the British Islands where the Norwegian fleet landed was the Isles of Shetland and Orkney. These, it must be remembered, together with the northern districts of the mainland, now formed a powerful Scandinavian [Sidenote: Thorfinn Earl of Orkney, &c. 1014–1064.] state. Its Earl, Thorfinn, had, in a reign of fifty years, greatly extended the power of his Earldom.[976] Succeeding, like William, in his childhood, he and his state had grown up as it were together. He had withstood various attacks from the Scottish Kings; he had, some say served, some say warred, in England;[977] he had won the friendship, perhaps submitted to the superiority, of Magnus and Harold of Norway; he had made the pilgrimage to Rome, and had founded the great church of Orkney, which in after times received the name of the martyred Earl Magnus. This prince had died about two years before this time, leaving two young sons, Paul[978] and Erling, in possession of the Earldom. Their mother, Ingebiorg, had remarried with Malcolm of Scotland. The Celtic and the Scandinavian portions of Northern Britain were thus just now on unusually good terms, and Scotland and Orkney alike combined to swell the fleet of Harold Hardrada. Paul and Erling accompanied the prince who, both as King of the Northmen and as future Emperor of Britain, doubtless looked on himself as doubly their overlord.[979] Harold left his wife and daughters in Orkney, and [Sidenote: Harold Hardrada in the Tyne. September.] sailed southward to the mouth of the Tyne. There, it would seem, was made the second great muster of his fleet. There he was joined by his one partizan among the natives of [Sidenote: He is joined by Tostig, and by contingents from Orkney, Scotland, and Ireland.] the realm which he hoped to conquer. Thither came the traitor Tostig, whether Harold had indeed set forth at his bidding, or whether Tostig now for the first time in his Scottish shelter heard of his approach, and hastened to join himself to any enemy of England. With him came whatever force he had either before brought from Flanders or had since collected in Scotland. There he did homage to the invader whom he was leading against his brother and his country, and he sailed on with the Norwegian King as his man.[980] [Sidenote: Policy of Malcolm of Scotland.] Whether Malcolm of Scotland joined the force of Harold in person does not appear for certain, but of the presence of a Scottish contingent in the fleet, whether distinct from the followers of Tostig or not, there seems to be no doubt.[981] The sworn brotherhood of Malcolm and Tostig was now fully acknowledged, but it is hard to see what motive of sound policy could have led Malcolm to give help to Harold the son of Sigurd against Harold the son of Godwine. Whoever might prove successful among the three princes who were contending for the English Crown, the victorious candidate was sure to claim the Empire of Æthelstan and Eadgar in all its fulness. A foreign conqueror too was far more likely than a native Englishman to press his rights as Father and Lord in a strict and perhaps exaggerated shape. But the pleasure of fishing in troubled waters, the hope of gaining some momentary advantage at the expense of England, seems to have been enough. Malcolm, the King who owed his crown to English help, appeared for the second time as an enemy of England. An Irish potentate, no doubt of Danish descent, also joined the muster;[982] Iceland too, the great Norwegian colony, sent help to the mother country; the presence of Godred the son of Harold, a chief of that island, and the future conqueror of Man and Dublin,[983] shows that the remotest North sent forth what was doubtless far from the least formidable contingent of the host of Hardrada. That host was thus swelled by reinforcements from the whole north-west of Europe. Norway, Scotland, Orkney, Ireland, Iceland, all sent forth their sons to the great enterprise of the last and greatest of the Wikings. No such mingled host had threatened the shores of England since wolves and ernes and ravens held their mighty banquet on the day of Brunanburh.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE CAMPAIGN OF STAMFORDBRIDGE
September, 1066.]
[Sidenote: The fleet sails along the Yorkshire coast.]
The fleet now again sailed southward. Its course was swift,[984] but not so swift as to forbid the work of plunder on the way. The coast was utterly defenceless. A land under the guardianship of Eadwine and Morkere was in a very different case from a land under the guardianship of Harold of England. The fleet had entered the Tyne unawares, and the shores of Yorkshire were not lined with warriors, as the shores of Wessex had been but a month before. The invaders landed and harried where they listed. [Sidenote: Cleveland ravaged.] The coast of Cleveland was ravaged, and the district submitted without resistance.[985] At Scarborough a better spirit was shown; some valiant man was doubtless in local command.[986] [Sidenote: Resistance of Scarborough, and burning of the town.] When the Northmen landed, the men of the town, neglected by their Earl, dared, in the spirit of Brihtnoth or Ulfcytel, to meet the invaders in arms. But Harold, according to the legend, easily found means of bringing them to submission and to destruction. The elder town of Scarborough lies on the slope of heights which lead gradually up to a bold peninsular cliff, dashed on three sides by the waves of the German Ocean. Above the town rises the mutilated minster. Above the minster again, the peninsula itself is crowned by the defences of an ancient castle, whose shattered Norman keep remains as a relic of the age next following that with which we are now dealing. On these heights the Northmen raised a vast pile of wood, and set fire to it. They then hurled the burning timbers down upon the town; house after house caught fire; the town now surrendered, but it was none the less given up to [Sidenote: Resistance of Holderness.] slaughter and plunder. The whole coast now submitted; the men of Holderness, like the men of Scarborough, ventured, bravely but unsuccessfully, on local resistance. Of naval operations on the English side we hear nothing. Somewhat later in our narrative we shall find that northern [Sidenote: The Northumbrian fleet retreats into the Wharf.] England was not wholly unprovided with ships; but when we hear of them, it is, strange as it appears, in the inland waters of the Wharf.[987] The naval force of Northumberland was probably quite inadequate to contend with so fearful an enemy; the fleet had most likely retired before the invaders as they doubled Ravenspur and entered the great [Sidenote: The Norwegian fleet sails up the Humber.] estuary of the Humber. Unopposed, it would seem, either by land or by water, Harold and his host directed their course straight upon the capital of Northumberland. They passed by the desolate flat where the genius of the great Edward was one day to call into being the great haven of Kingston-upon-Hull. They passed by the pathless forest where the bounty of the next invader of England was to [Sidenote: They disembark at Riccall.] lay the foundations of the great minster of Selby. At last they cast anchor at a spot on the left bank of the Ouse, not far from the village of Riccall.[988] They were now at a distance by land of about nine miles from York, but the windings of the river make the distance by water considerably greater. This may have been among the motives which led them to choose their halting-place at this particular point. Another obvious motive was to watch the entrance to the Wharf, the stream in which the English fleet had sought shelter, and which empties itself into the Ouse a little way above Riccall. It is not easy to judge of the exact condition of the landing-place at the time. There can be no doubt that the bed of the river, and its whole aspect, has been greatly changed since it has been affected by locks, dykes, and the drainage of the land on its banks. But it is clear that Riccall was a good central position. A fleet moored there could at once bar the ascent of the Ouse and the descent of its tributary; and it was at the same time near enough to give help, if help were needed, in the main operations against the capital. At Riccall, then, the vast fleet of the Northmen was left. Filling up the river, as it must have done, for a long distance, it formed an unwonted and terrible object in waters where no invading fleet had been seen for fifty years. A detachment, under the command of Olaf the son of the Norwegian King, of the two Earls of Orkney, and [Sidenote: Harold and Tostig march on York.] of the Bishop of those islands, was left to guard the ships, while the main body, under Harold and Tostig, prepared for their decisive march on York.
The two Earls were at last roused from their inaction, when the great city of Northern England was thus directly placed in jeopardy.[989] Even Æthelred had thought it needful to do something when a Danish host came too [Sidenote: Eadwine and Morkere march to meet them.] near to his Imperial resting-place at Winchester.[990] So [Sidenote: Eadwine and Morkere, who had left Cleveland and Scarborough] and Holderness to their fate, deemed themselves at last called upon to strike a blow in defence of York. They had by this time collected a large army, consisting, it would seem, mainly of the general levy or militia of the district. Among these a large body of priests had not scrupled to obey the summons to arms.[991] It may be doubted whether this is simply a sign of the warlike habits of the Northumbrian people in general, or whether it points to a special feeling of the special exigency of the case. At the head of this force, the two English Earls set forth from York, while the Norwegian army advanced to meet them from the point where they had left their ships at Riccall. The course of both armies led them along the slight ridge which forms the line of communication between York and Selby, a narrow path between the river and its marshy banks on one side, and the flat, and still to some extent marshy, ground on the [Sidenote: BATTLE of FULFORD. Wednesday, September 20.] other. On the spot known as Gate Fulford,[992] about two miles from the city, the armies met. Harold Hardrada, pressing on no doubt with all the vehemence of his nature, had reached the place from Riccall before the English had accomplished the shorter march from York. He was therefore able to make ready his line of battle before they drew near to attack.[993] The present village stands on a low elevation, sloping gently to the river on the left hand and to the marshy flat to the right. This doubtless was the site occupied by the [Sidenote: Arrangements of the Norwegian army.] invading army. The royal post was by the river; there the line of the shield-wall was thickest; there was pitched the Land-waster, the significant name of Harold’s royal standard. And there stood the King himself, his giant form towering alike over friends and enemies. The right wing stretched across the rising ground as far as a ditch, beyond which lay the marsh, which is described as broad and deep.[994] Here the line was weakest, and here, whether by accident or by design, the English made their first attack. The fight was a hard one; the Angles and Danes of Northumberland were no contemptible enemies for any man, and reckless, and even traitorous, as was the whole conduct of the brother Earls, they showed no lack of the courage of [Sidenote: Vigorous charge of the English on the Norwegian right.] the mere soldier. The charge of the Northumbrians on the Norwegian right was vigorous and, for a while, successful. The enemy gave way, and the banner of Earl Morkere pressed on valiantly.[995] But it was only where the line was least strong that the English could make any impression; and the chances of war presently [Sidenote: Decisive charge of the Norwegian right under Harold.] changed. For now King Harold of Norway caused the charge to be sounded, and he himself led on the left wing, with the Land-waster borne beside him. He charged at once on the troops which were already beginning to boast of their victory; before his two-handed sword all went [Sidenote: Defeat and flight of the English.] down; the Northmen pressed on around their King; the English gave way before their onslaught. They still for a while resisted, but presently they turned and fled. The slaughter was fearful, but the Norwegian sword was not the only enemy. In that wild flight and wild pursuit, men were hurled into the river, the ditch, and the marsh; here corpses were borne down the stream; there the ditch was so filled with the slain that the pursuers, so their poets say, could march as on solid ground over their carcases.[996] The Norwegians had possession of the place of slaughter, and the remnant of the English were driven to find shelter within the walls of York.[997]
[Sidenote: Surrender of York. Sunday, September 24.]
The battle of Fulford was fought on Wednesday. Its immediate result was the surrender of York. On Sunday, it would seem, the city capitulated.[998] A local Gemót or [Sidenote: Harold Hardrada received as King, and the Northumbrians agree to follow him against southern England.] Thing was held, in which it was agreed to make peace with Harold of Norway, and to receive him as King of the English, or at least as King of the Northumbrians. His new subjects even agreed to join him, as their fathers had agreed to join Swend, in his further warfare against the south of England.[999] Provisions were supplied to the army; hostages were given to the Norwegian King, and, what [Sidenote: Hostages exchanged.] would hardly have been expected, we read, on trustworthy authority, that Harold in return gave an equal number of hostages to the men of York.[1000] What follows will show that this treasonable engagement by no means represented the real wishes of the Northumbrian people; there is still less reason to think that it represented the real wishes of Eadwine and Morkere. But it surely implies a lack of zeal and courage for a great city to surrender on the fourth day, especially as we read nothing of any actual assault on the walls. Such was at least not the conduct of the citizens of London and Exeter sixty years before. No doubt both the city and the surrounding country were greatly weakened by the slaughter at Fulford; still, with stout hearts and strong walls, it might surely have been possible to prolong resistance beyond the space of four days. On the other hand, the conduct of Harold Hardrada seems milder and more politic than might have been looked for from the character either of himself or of his English companion. But we may be sure that, in this mild treatment of York, we see the counsel of Harold and not of Tostig. The banished Earl was seeking revenge; the invading King was seeking a Crown; and he must have known the policy of winning subjects by fair means rather than by force whenever fair means would avail for the purpose.
§ 4. _The March of Harold and the Battle of Stamfordbridge._
The hostages, one hundred and fifty in number, which were now given to the Norwegian King were to secure [Sidenote: Hostages from the shire to be delivered at Stamfordbridge.] the fidelity of the city of York only. Hostages from the whole shire were to be given at some future day, and the place for their delivery was appointed to be at Stamfordbridge.[1001] The spot which bears this name, a name which [Sidenote: Notice of Stamfordbridge and Aldby.] the events of those few days were to make illustrious, lies about eight miles north-east of the city. As its name implies, the main feature of the place is the bridge over the Derwent, a tributary of the Ouse, which joins the main stream at a considerable distance below Riccall. The site has been conjectured to be the Roman Derventio, but it is perhaps a more lucky guess which places that site, a site so hallowed in the early religious history of Northumberland, within the modern park of Aldby. There stood a royal house of the Northumbrian Kings, the apparent site of which, or of some of its outposts, a mound surrounded by a fosse, still looks down on a picturesque point of the course of the river. There it was that the faithful Lilla gave his life for the Northumbrian Bretwalda, and there Eanfled, the Bretwalda’s first-born, was the first of Northumbrian race to be received into the fold of Christ.[1002] This spot lies at a distance of less than three miles above Stamfordbridge, on the right bank of the river, at a point where another bridge now at least [Sidenote: Cause of the movement from York.] spans the stream. If Aldby, the ancient dwelling-place of the Northumbrian Kings, remained, as is highly probable, a dwelling-place of the Northumbrian Earls, some light is perhaps thrown on what otherwise seems the incomprehensible movement of the Northmen from York to Stamfordbridge.[1003] We instinctively ask why such a comparatively distant spot, one especially which removed the army still further from their naval station at Riccall, should have been chosen for the delivery of the hostages. Why should Harold leave York so far out of his immediate grasp, when one would have thought that the hostages might just as easily have been delivered in York itself? The probable cause is to be found in the necessity of finding new quarters and a new place of subsistence for the army. The Northmen had doubtless by this time consumed all that was supplied by the hanks of the Ouse; they were not to be indulged with the sack of York; the provisions furnished by the city could hardly maintain them till the coming of the hostages, whose collection from all parts of the shire would necessarily be a work of time. But if there was a royal house in the neighbourhood of Stamfordbridge, we at once see a motive to direct the choice of the invaders to that neighbourhood. Such a position would afford manifest advantages in the way of quarters and provisions. Its occupation would also present a sentimental attraction. The first-fruits of victory would already seem to be enjoyed by Tostig as he sat again as master in the halls of his brother. And Harold Hardrada might feel himself already Lord of the Isle of Britain, as he placed himself in the seat of the King who seemed to have left his Kingdom open to his arms.
[Sidenote: Description of the site.]
The spot which, by reason of this almost accidental movement, became the scene of one of the great events of our history, though not one of those spots which nature seems to have marked out as the almost necessary place of some memorable deed, is one which is far from being void of interest. The great tale of which it became the theatre [Sidenote: Origin of the name.] is legibly written on its natural features. The name of the place is a history in itself.[1004] The stones are still to be seen from which the spot drew its first name of Stamford. That name is shared with it by not a few other places, a name which reminds us of days when the primitive stepping-stones, supplied either by art or by nature, supplied the earliest means of crossing a deep or rapid river. Those stones, at a later day, became the supports of the wooden bridge which one deed of that memorable week was to make immortal. The wooden bridge has, in modern times, given way to a successor of stone, and other changes have greatly modified the condition of the stream and the general aspect of the place. But the main features are still there, as when the Norwegian host pitched their camp upon its banks. The modern bridge stands on a different site from the early structure of wood, but the position of the true Stamfordbridge is still to be seen. Its memory is preserved at once by local tradition and by the clearer evidence of the course of the roads converging on either side. The ground on each side of the Derwent forms at this point a nearly flat plain, but a plain placed at some elevation above the stream. In the distance the bold outline of the Yorkshire Wolds forms a prominent object, but the country nearer to the river is not marked in any special way. The Derwent itself, a reedy and somewhat sluggish stream, winds between the higher levels on each side, its immediate banks forming those alluvial flats which are locally known as _ings_. But at Stamfordbridge itself the higher ground slopes gently to the river on both sides. This higher ground, on the left bank of the stream, bears the historical name of the _Battle Flats_. On the other side, the ground, in an approach from York, is nearly flat, with a slight rise, as far as Gate Helmsley, a village a mile or more west of the river. From this point the road gradually descends to Stamfordbridge. An army therefore advancing from York would be able to make the greater part of its march unperceived by the enemy. An army encamped on the lower ground immediately on each side of the Derwent might easily, if somewhat careless guard were kept, remain unconscious of the enemy’s approach till they had begun the descent from Helmsley.[1005]
The events which followed lead us to believe that the [Sidenote: Arrangement of the Norwegian army.] Northmen, in the full consciousness and pride of victory, were encamped on both sides of the stream, probably in no very certain order or discipline. If a neighbouring royal dwelling-place at Aldby formed one of the motives for the choice of the position, it is possible that the head-quarters of the Norwegian King were placed at that point. At any rate, the bridge itself and the ground immediately right of the river were kept by an advanced detachment. It would seem that the whole of the army which had received the submission of York, and which was expecting the submission of all Northumberland, retired from the banks of the Ouse to the banks of the Derwent. The ships still remained in the larger river, seemingly at their original landing-place at Riccall, still guarded by Olaf and the Earls of Orkney. Meanwhile Harold himself, with Tostig and the main strength of the army, awaited the coming of the hostages at Stamfordbridge.
[Sidenote: The news of the Norwegian landing brought to Harold of England.]
They waited for what they were never to receive. One day more of endurance, and York might have been saved from the humiliation of her ignominious treaty with the invader. The news of the approach of the Northern fleet had been carried with all speed to King Harold of England.[1006] Placed between two enemies, the King’s position was indeed a difficult one. His preparations for the defence of the South had been brought to nothing by events over which he had no control. To march to the defence of the North was to leave the South unguarded. But it was impossible for him to leave the North to a guardianship which was plainly inadequate. Eadwine and Morkere had failed to save Cleveland; they had failed to support the gallant local resistance of Scarborough and Holderness. The huge host of Hardrada, gathered from so many lands, was one with which the force of Northumberland alone could never grapple. The occasion called for the presence of the King [Sidenote: He determines on an instant march to the North.] and for the whole force of the Kingdom. The more immediate danger dictated the more immediate duty. Duke William had not yet landed; he had not even sailed; a thousand accidents might hinder him from ever landing or ever sailing. But King Harold of Norway was already in the land; he was ravaging and burning at pleasure; whole districts of Northumberland, deserted by their immediate rulers, were submitting to him. The call northwards was at the moment the stronger; a swift march, a speedy victory, and Harold of England might again be in London or in Sussex before the southern invader could have crossed the sea. The King chose his plan, and the plan that he chose he carried out with all the tremendous energy of his character. He gave orders for an immediate march to the [Sidenote: Legend of Harold’s sickness and recovery through the prayers of Eadward.] North. According to a legend which probably contains some groundwork of truth, the King was at this moment suffering from severe bodily sickness.[1007] But his strong heart rose above the weaknesses of the flesh, and he hid his sufferings from all men. By day he in no way relaxed in the labours imposed by the duty of gathering together and marshalling his army.[1008] The sleepless night was spent in prayers and sighs, as Harold implored the help of the relic whose sworn votary he was, the Holy Rood of his own Waltham.[1009] His endurance in the cause of his country was rewarded, so the story runs, by supernatural help and comfort. The deceased King, the holy Eadward, did not, in his now happier state, forget the Kingdom which had been his in his mortal days, nor yet the King to whom he had made fast his Kingdom. In the visions of the night he appeared to the Abbot Æthelsige,[1010] and bade him bear his message to King Harold. Let Harold, he said, be strong and of a good courage, and go forth to battle with the enemies of England. He himself by his prayers would guide and defend his people, and would direct their righteous warfare to certain victory. If the King should doubt of his mission, let him know that he, Eadward, knew well by how great an effort he had that day gathered up his strength for the duties of his calling. The holy man delayed not to discharge the errand of his departed master. He sought the King; he told him the message of his predecessor; and Harold, recovered from his sickness,[1011] and made more hopeful by the cheering words of Eadward, applied himself with redoubled energy to the work that was before him.
[Sidenote: Value of the legend as illustrating English estimate of Eadward and Harold.]
This tale, legendary as it is, is worth recording; for it is evidently of genuine English growth, and it shows how the English people contrived to unite reverence for the deceased saint with admiration for the living hero. The men who believed that a saint, and above all that Eadward, interfered on behalf of Harold clearly did not hold Harold for an usurper or a perjurer, or for a man who had failed in his duty to Eadward when living. Harold was under the ban of Rome, but Englishmen did not therefore hold him to be unworthy of the divine favour, just as in after times the same ban availed not to hinder Simon of Montfort from receiving worship or from working miracles. As for the historical value of the tale, Harold may possibly have been delayed by illness at this critical moment, but he hardly needed visions and prodigies to urge him to the discharge of [Sidenote: Harold begins his march.] his kingly duties. With all the speed that human energy could supply, he set forth upon that great northern march which must rank among the greatest exploits of its kind that history records. Not a moment was to be lost, if Northumberland and England were to be saved. Those whose memories could go back for fifty years might deem that the spirit of Ironside himself was once more leading the hosts of England to battle. At the head of his Housecarls, those terrible Thingmen whose name carried awe beyond the sea, the King of the English set forth from his southern capital. A subordinate command was held by Bondig the Staller, and we cannot doubt that Gyrth and Leofwine were found now, as a few weeks later, side by [Sidenote: Gathering in recruits from various districts.] side with their royal brother.[1012] On their march they pressed into their service the forces of the districts through which they passed.[1013] Volunteers, even from distant shires, hastened to join the muster. But, save its chiefs, two men alone in the host are known to us in their personal being, and even of them we cannot record the names. A Thegn of Essex, a benefactor of King Eadward’s church at Westminster, is recorded in the Norman Survey as having gone to the battle at York with Harold.[1014] Another aged Thegn of Worcestershire, a tenant of the church of Evesham and uncle of its Abbot Ælfwine, is also handed down to us, in the dry formulæ of the Survey, as having followed his King on the great march and as having given his life for Harold and for England.[1015] Such men doubtless did not stand alone; the whole strength of southern and central England took part in that great campaign, and we may be sure that Harold entered Northumberland at the head of a force equal or superior to that of the Northern invader. The English army, ranged in seven divisions,[1016] marched on along the great Roman road from London to York. The still abiding traces of the ancient conquerors of the land made, it would seem, communication between distant parts of the island easier and speedier then than they became in somewhat later times.[1017] News of the rout of Fulford and of the danger of York would doubtless still further quicken the speed of the march. In the doubtless proverbial, but marked and emphatic, language of the Chroniclers, King Harold and his army rested not day or night.[1018] They passed the Northumbrian frontier; the King had no time to diverge or tarry at his own lordship of Coningsburgh, where the famous castle of a later age has usurped the site once occupied by the house of Harold.[1019] They marched on through the great province which was now the seat of war; and on the Sunday evening, on the very day of the capitulation of York, the English army reached the last stage of the ordinary route between the two great cities of southern [Sidenote: The English reach Tadcaster. Sunday, September 24.] and northern England. This was at Tadcaster, the Roman Calcaria, a town on the Wharf, best known from its neighbourhood to the later battle-field of Towton. It was in the Wharf, it will be remembered, that the English ships had sought shelter when the Northern armada sailed up the Ouse. It is a broad and rapid stream, still navigable as high as Tadcaster for the small craft of the river, whose local name of _keels_ suggests the memory of the first vessels which landed our fathers in the Isle of Britain.[1020] We can hardly doubt that it was equally accessible to such light war-ships as an Earl of the Northumbrians would be likely to keep in his service. At Tadcaster then King Harold found and reviewed the English fleet,[1021] doubtless with an eye to possible future operations against the ships at Riccall, which the events of the morrow rendered needless. The army [Sidenote: Harold passes through York. Monday, September 25.] then marched on by the last stage of the Roman way, locally known as the _High Street_. At last, on Monday morning, King Harold of England entered his northern capital, the city which, only the day before, had bowed in ignominious homage to Harold of Norway. He was received with joy; provincial jealousies were lulled for a moment in the actual presence of the enemy, and the Danes and Angles of York pressed eagerly to welcome the West-Saxon deliverer.[1022] But the King had other work before him than either to repose after that terrible march or to enjoy the congratulations of a rescued people. He had to make sure that they were rescued; while an enemy was in the land, Harold knew but one duty, to press on to the place where the enemy might be found. He had to save the land from further desolation; he had to smite before the expected hostages could be gathered together; he had to smite, once and for ever, the enemy who lay before him, that he might turn and meet the yet more fearful enemy to whom his southern shores lay open. He pressed on through[1023] the rejoicing city, he pressed on to the Norwegian camp; and he reaped the reward of his energy and his labours in the glorious fight of Stamfordbridge.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE. Monday, September 25, 1066.]
Of the details of that awful day we have no authentic [Sidenote: The Norwegian Saga.] record. We have indeed a glorious description, conceived in the highest spirit of the warlike poetry of the North, but it is a description which, when critically examined, proves to be hardly more worthy of belief than a battle-piece in the Iliad.[1024] The tale is one of the most familiar in our early history. We have all heard how the Northmen, rejoicing in their supposed victory, were going forth, light-hearted and careless, unprotected by defensive harness, to take full possession of their conquest. That very morning King Harold of Norway was to hold his court, and to assemble his new subjects, within the walls of York. He was there formally to assume the government, to dispose of offices, and to proclaim laws for his new realm. [Sidenote: Approach of the English army.] On his march a cloud of dust is seen in the distance; presently shields and arms glistening like ice[1025] are to be seen beneath it. It is the host of King Harold of England. The heart of Tostig fails him; let them hasten back to their ships, let them gather their comrades, and put on their coats of mail. Not so the hero of Norway. Messengers on swift horses are sent to summon the party who are left by the ships, and meanwhile Harold Hardrada marshals his army for the fight. The shield-wall is formed in the shape of a complete circle, with the Land-waster waving in its centre. A dense wood of spears bristles in front of the circle, to receive the charge of the English horsemen. King Harold of Norway rides round his host; his black horse stumbles, and he falls; but his ready wit wards off the evil omen; a fall is lucky for a traveller. But the eye of his rival is upon him; King Harold of England sees his fall. “Who,” he asks, “is the tall man who fell from his horse, the man with the blue kirtle and the goodly helm?” “It is King Harold of Norway.” “A tall man and a goodly is he, but methinks his luck [Sidenote: Meeting of the two Harolds.] has left him.” Then follows the yet more striking scene where the two Kings, alike in name and in might, meet face to face before the battle. Twenty of the Thingmen, clothed horse and man in armour, ride forth to the host of the Northmen. One of them bears to Earl Tostig the greeting and message of his brother King Harold. Let him return to his allegiance, and he shall again have the Earldom of Northumberland; nay he shall have a third of the Kingdom to rule together with the King. “What then,” asks Tostig, “shall be given to King Harold of Norway?” “Seven feet of ground,” is the famous answer, “or as much more as he is taller than other men.”[1026] “Go then,” says Tostig, “and tell King Harold of England to make him ready for the battle. Never shall men say in Norway that Earl Tostig brought King Harold Sigurdsson hither to England, and then went over to his foes.” The horsemen ride back to the host of England, and Harold Hardrada asks who is the man who spoke so well. Tostig answers that it was King Harold of England. “Why then,” asks Hardrada, “was it not told me? he should never have gone back to tell of our men’s slaughter.” Tostig, with some traces still left in his soul of the days when he went forth with an honest heart to curb the freebooters of Northumberland, answers that he could never be the murderer of the brother who came to offer him friendship and dominion. “If one of us must die, let him slay me rather than that I should slay him.” To this sentiment the Norwegian King vouchsafes no answer, but he turns to his comrades with the remark that “the King of the English was but a small man, but that he stood well in his stirrups.”
[Sidenote: Mythical character of the story.]
If this famous dialogue is plainly mythical, the glowing narrative of the fight itself is so still more plainly. [Sidenote: Misconception of the details of the battle.] The main strength of the English is conceived to lie in their horsemen; they charge in vain against the Norwegian circle, the dense shield-wall and the bristling spears. One assault after another is beaten off; at last the Northmen, proud of their resistance, become eager for more active success. They break the line to pursue the English; as soon as the shield-wall is broken, the English horsemen turn and overwhelm them with javelins and arrows. King Harold of Norway stands at first by his standard; the inspiration of the scald comes upon him; he sings of the fight to be won by the hand and the sword of the warrior, though his breast be unguarded by the corslet. When the shield-wall is broken, the Berserker rage seizes him, and he leaves, like Eadmund, his post by the standard; with his huge two-handed sword he bursts upon the ranks of the English; helmet and coat of mail give way before that terrible weapon; the English are well nigh driven to flight by his single arm; but an arrow pierces his throat; the mighty form falls to the ground, and his chosen comrades die around him. The battle pauses awhile; each side alike rests, as it were, to do honour to the fall of one so mighty. Tostig takes the royal post by the Land-waster; Harold of England again employs the momentary lull once more to offer peace to his brother and quarter to the surviving Northmen. A fierce cry from the Norwegian ranks is the answer; as one man they will die rather than receive quarter from the English. The war-shout is raised, the fight begins again, and the second act is closed by the fall of Tostig.[1027] The reinforcement now arrives from the ships. They come in full harness; their chief is Eystein Orre, the personal favourite of the King and the promised husband of his daughter Mary. He is the hero of the third act of the fight, the Storm of Orre, as it was called in Northern song. He and his men come up wearied with the swift march from the ships; still they begin the third struggle, the most terrible of all. Eystein takes the post by the Land-waster, which had been held by Harold and Tostig; the fight is waged more fiercely than ever; the English are well nigh driven to flight. At last the Berserker rage seizes on the Northmen; they throw away their coats of mail; some are slain by the English, some fall of sheer weariness and die without a wound. Still the fight is kept up till night-fall; by that time the chief men of Norway have fallen, and the remnant of the host escapes under the cover of the darkness.
[Sidenote: Meagreness of the genuine accounts.]
Such is the magnificent legend which has been commonly accepted as the history of this famous battle. I shall elsewhere examine the whole story in detail; it is enough to say here that the geography of the campaign is, in the Saga, wholly misconceived, and that a story which represents horsemen as the chief strength of an English army in the eleventh century is at once shown to be a tale of later date. And it is disappointing that, for so detailed and glowing a tale, we have so little of authentic history to substitute. Still, from such accounts as we have, combined with our knowledge of what an English army of that age really was, we can form a fair general idea of the day which beheld the last triumph of Harold the son of Godwine, the last triumph of pure and unmixed Teutonic England.
[Sidenote: Sudden advance of the English.]
King Harold then marched through York, and found a portion at least of the Norwegian host on the right bank of the Derwent, wholly unprepared for his attack. It is quite possible that they may have been, as the story represents them, going to a peaceful meeting at York. Anyhow, the invaders, rejoicing in the victory of Fulford, in the capitulation of York, in the promised submission of all Northumberland, had no idea of the suddenness of [Sidenote: Loyalty of the country.] the blow which was coming upon them. The speed and secrecy with which Harold was able to accomplish this memorable march not only bears witness to his own skill and energy, but also speaks well for the discipline of his army and for the general loyalty of the country. Fast as Harold may have pressed on, individual spies or deserters, had there been any such, could always have outstripped him, and could have borne the news of his approach to the enemy. But no such treason marred his well-conceived and well-executed scheme. He came on the Northmen unawares;[1028] the men who deemed that all Northumberland, perhaps that all England, was their own, suddenly found themselves in the thick of a new Brunanburh, a happier Assandun. A leader, the peer of Æthelstan and Eadmund, commanded a band of tried and chosen warriors such as Æthelstan and Eadmund never knew. Eadwine and Morkere, with their hurried levies, had doubtless done their best; but the invaders had now to deal with a very different enemy. King Harold of England was upon them; they were face to face with his personal following, with those terrible Thingmen, each one of whom, men said, was a match for any other two. But Harold Hardrada and his varied host showed no lack of gallantry; the victory was won only by the hard fighting of a whole day.[1029] The English, invisible, [Sidenote: The battle begins on the right side of the Derwent.] it would seem, till they reached the low brow of Helmsley, came at once upon that portion of the Norwegian army, utterly unprepared and seemingly not fully armed,[1030] which found itself on the right, the York side, of the Derwent. They were of course unable to bear up successfully against so sudden and terrible an attack. But the resistance which they made no doubt gave time for their comrades on the other bank, with their King at their head, to form in the full array of the shield-wall. This division, on account of the slight slope down to the river, would even have a certain advantage of ground over the English. The fight then began by the sudden attack of the English on the detachment to the right of the river. Yielding, but not flying,[1031] the unprepared and half-armed Northmen were driven across the stream. English minstrels, fragments of whose songs crop out in the narrative of colder annalists, again told how the living crossed the river over the bodies of their slain comrades which choked its stream.[1032] The bridge defended by a single Northman. [Sidenote: And now an act of daring devotion placed a nameless Northman.] whose deed is recorded not by his countrymen but by his enemies, on a level with Horatius on the bridge of Rome and with Wulfstan on the bridge of Maldon.[1033] Alone for a while he kept the pass against the whole English army; forty men fell beneath his axe;[1034] an arrow was shot at him in vain;[1035] at last an Englishman found means to creep under the bridge and pierced him through beneath his [Sidenote: The English cross the bridge, and the main fight begins.] corselet.[1036] The hindrance offered by this valiant enemy being removed, the English host, their King at their head, passed the bridge, and now the fiercest fighting of the day began. Details are lacking, but it needs no special flight of the imagination to see the slight slope above the present village, where a newly-built church has lately risen, covered by the bristling ring of the Northmen, the fortress of shields, so often sung of alike in English and in Scandinavian minstrelsy. We may picture to ourselves how the axes of England rang on that firm array of bucklers; how step by step, inch by inch, up the slopes, on to the Battle-flats, the Housecarls of King Harold [Sidenote: Obstinacy of the fighting on both sides.] clave their way. We may see how, step by step, inch by inch, dealing blow for blow even in falling back, Northman and Scot and Fleming[1037] gave way before the irresistible charge of the renowned Thingmen. We may see the golden Dragon, the ensign of Cuthred and Ælfred, glitter on high over this its latest field of triumph. We may hear the shouts of “Holy Rood” and “God Almighty” sound for the last time as an English host pressed on to victory. We may see two kingly forms towering high over either host; we may, if we will, bring the two Harolds face to face, and hear the two-handed axe of England clashing against the two-handed sword of Norway. We may see the banished Englishman defiant to the last, striking the last blow against the land which had reared him and the brother who had striven to save [Sidenote: Complete victory of the English.] him from his doom. We may call up before our eyes the final moment of triumph, when for the last time Englishmen on their own soil had possession of the place of slaughter,[1038] and when the Land-waster of Norway was lowered before the victorious Standard of the Fighting Man. At least we know that the long struggle of that day was crowned by complete victory on the side of England. The leaders of the invading host lay each man ready for all that England had to give him, his [Sidenote: Death of Harold Hardrada,] seven feet of English ground. There Harold of Norway, the last of the ancient Sea-Kings, yielded up that fiery soul which had braved death in so many forms and in so many lands. The warrior of Africa, the pilgrim of Jerusalem, had at last met his fate in an obscure corner of Britain, whose name but for him might have been [Sidenote: of Tostig,] unknown to history. There Tostig the son of Godwine, an exile and a traitor, ended in crime and sorrow a life which had begun with promises not less bright than that [Sidenote: of the Irish King.] of his royal brother. There died the nameless prince whom the excitement of battle or the hope of plunder had led from the land which had once sheltered the English King in his days of exile. The whole strength of the Northern army was broken; a few only escaped by flight, and found [Sidenote: Escape of Godred.] means to reach the ships at Riccall.[1039] Among these was the Wiking who had come from the remotest North to win his share in the plunder of conquered England. Godred survived when Harold and Tostig fell; but he returned not to his Iceland home; he found a nearer shelter with his namesake the son of Sihtric. He fled to the Isle where he was himself to reign as a conqueror, and to make his Kingdom of Man the centre of victorious warfare against [Sidenote: Utter destruction of the Norwegian army.] Dublin and all Leinster.[1040] But the great mass of the vast host of Hardrada lay dead on the banks of the Derwent.[1041] Beside those who fell beneath the English axes, many were drowned in the river; others died, we know not how, by fire.[1042] Only a few of that great host could have found even that small allowance of English earth which was to be granted to their leader. We need not believe the tale which told how the heads of Tostig and Harold of Norway were brought, as savage trophies of victory, into the presence [Sidenote: The body of Tostig found and buried at York.] of the English King.[1043] We know on better authority that the body of his fallen brother was sought for and found among the slain by a distinctive mark of his body.[1044] The wounds dealt by the Danish axe were deep and ghastly; a head cloven to the chin with the full strength of the two arms of an English Housecarl would show but few features by which Gytha or Judith could have recognized the slain. The giant form of Hardrada doubtless needed no mark to distinguish him from lesser men. We know not where he found his promised allotment;[1045] but the tie of kindred pleaded for Tostig, and the body of the banished Earl of the Northumbrians found a grave within the walls, no doubt within the primatial minster, of the city where he had ruled so sternly.[1046] But no funeral rites fell to the lot of the meaner dead of the invading army. The bones of the slain remained on the ground for many years,[1047] bearing witness, in the days of England’s bondage, how hard fought had been the last victorious fight of her last [Sidenote: Heavy loss of the English.] native King. For in truth the vanquished invaders had sold their lives dearly. The English host was far from coming forth scatheless from that awful struggle. Many a faithful Housecarl, many a noble Thegn,[1048] had given his life for England and for her chosen King. But the victory was a victory as decisive as any to be found in the whole history of human warfare. Harold had swept from the earth an enemy compared with whom Ælfgar and Gruffydd might seem but as the puppets of a moment. He stood victorious after a day of slaughter, compared with which the hardest struggles of his Welsh campaigns might seem but as the mimic warfare which men wage against the stag and the wild boar.[1049]
[Sidenote: Harold’s mild dealings with Olaf and the remnant of the Northmen.]
But the conqueror of Stamfordbridge, during the few days of life and kingship which still were his, had to show himself in a light yet nobler than that of a conqueror. That mild and conciliatory spirit, which was as marked in the character of Harold as his valour and energy, was now, as ever, extended to enemies who could no longer resist. He had shown forbearance to domestic traitors; he had shown it to rebellious vassals; he had now to show it to men who had borne their share in an unprovoked invasion. The Norwegian ships still lay in the Ouse. After the utter defeat of the land army, naval operations were hardly needed against them; the fleet which had been arrayed at Tadcaster was not called into action, but the King of the English sent to Olaf and the Orkney Earls, and offered them peace.[1050] “They came up to our King,”[1051] seemingly to his court at York; they gave hostages and swore oaths that they would for ever keep peace and friendship with this land. In four and twenty ships, the remnant of the host of Hardrada sailed away from the shores of Northumberland. Since the day of Stamfordbridge the kindred nations of Scandinavia, bound to us by so many ties, have never appeared on English ground in any guise but that of friends and deliverers.[1052]
[Sidenote: Harold at York.]
This negotiation may have occupied the two or three days immediately following the battle. Urgently as Harold’s presence was needed in the southern part of his Kingdom, he could not refuse a few days for the needful rest of himself and his host. His presence too was needed for the settlement of the troubled affairs of Northumberland, and even for the mere celebration of his triumph. His victory was saddened by the fate of his brother; it was purchased by the blood of many of his valiant comrades; his mind must have been weighed down by the thoughts of the toils and dangers which were yet in [Sidenote: The Feast of Victory.] store for him elsewhere. Still the victor could not shrink from the accustomed celebration of so great a victory. The [Sidenote: News brought of the landing of William. [Thursday, September 28.] October 1?] King was at the banquet,[1053] when a messenger appeared, who had sped, with a pace fleeter even than that of his own march, from the distant coast of Sussex.[1054] One blow had been warded off, but another blow still more terrible had fallen. Three days after the fight of Stamfordbridge, William Duke of the Normans, once the peaceful guest of Eadward, had once again, but in quite another guise, made good his landing on the shores of England.