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The figure of Edward the Confessor comes down to us faint, misty, frail. The medieval legend, carefully fostered by the church, whose devoted servant he was, surpassed the man. The lights of Saxon England were going out.
and in the gathering darkness a gentle grey-beard prophet foretold the end. When on his deathbed Edward spoke of a time of evil that was coming upon the land, his inspired mutterings struck terror into the hearers. Only Archbishop Stigand, who had been Godwin's stalwart, remained unmoved.
and whispered in Harold's ear that age and sickness had robbed the monarch of his wits. Thus, on January 5th, 1066, ended the line of the Saxon kings. So that was the audiobook of The History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and that was read by none other than Sir Winston Churchill, Tom, the top Briton of all time.
And that book, interestingly, was published in 1956.
But I read from a very reputable historian, that's you, that Churchill wrote those words, or I quote, reportedly wrote those words. Supposedly. In April 1940, when England were preparing to stand alone against Mr. Hitler and his Nazi thugs. Yes. And when Churchill, he wasn't yet prime minister, he was first Lord of the Admiralty. And so he was surrounded by maps of the English coastline.
And of course, he was pondering the risks of divided leadership, of antiquated defences, of threats of invasion from overseas. And so it's no wonder that he wrote about 1066 and the fall of Anglo-Saxon England, perhaps in tones of slight foreboding. Yeah, I mean, he's got one terrible foreign menace on his mind.
by the Normans, and another looming just on the horizon. Yeah. Well, I mean, also, of course, his mind is on Norway. And as we will see, the threat of invasion from Norway as well. And 1940, the year in which he is writing that, in itself, of course, will become a fateful and famous year in British history. And Churchill's role in that, because he becomes Prime Minister the following month, means that he doesn't really have much time
during the defence of Britain and the Blitz and so on, to ponder the Norman conquest. The events of that year are themselves now part of British history, and 1940 is one of the most famous dates in British history. But I would say that even so, not 1940, not 1815, not 1805, not 1588, not 1415, all of which are years
which show Britain and or England in a very good light. Yeah. Defeating foreign enemies, smiting them. Smiting Germany, the French, or sometimes the Spanish. Or the Germans. Yeah. A whole range of people getting defeated. A whole range of historical villains. And yet the weird thing is, is that none of those dates can compare for resonance or fame with 1066, a year which sees England invaded, defeated, defeated.
and conquered and i don't know whether uh arthur has yet reached the stage of of studying it he's done it he's got exams on it next week on 1066 i mean all the time we're talking about harold ardrada and william and harold and all that stuff because when when my daughters went from primary school to secondary school the first history that they did in secondary school was 1066 i mean that's what that's that was their introduction basically to you know the history of england and
It struck me at the time, I can't imagine French or American students being introduced to their country's history with a record of their country being defeated, occupied and humiliated. It speaks to our extraordinary self-confidence and self-assurance as people that we enjoy this story so much. Well,
It also speaks to the fact that 1066, I mean, it is an incredibly decisive year and we will be doing a bonus on just how decisive the kind of the long-term consequences of 1066. But also, and we, again, we talked about this before, it is so dramatic. So,
So it's a showdown between three great warlords, all of whom we've mentioned in our previous episodes. So Harold Hardrada, we've just done two episodes on his extraordinary story. William of Normandy, Harold Godwinson, and each of those are representing three deeply fascinating, deeply...
kind of menacing powers. So Viking Scandinavia with its dragon ships and its hard rulers, Normandy with its knights, its castles, and Anglo-Saxon England with its mead halls and its moustaches. And a bit like in the Harold Hardrada episode where you have Vikings going to a Roman capital.
There is a sense that you, you know, this is a year where a guy who's representing knights and castles is invading an island at the same time as a guy who is having dragon ships and giant axes and things. Yeah. It's again, it's like one of those computer games where people from different periods are kind of rubbing up against each other. Well, it was like, I mean, Game of Thrones, right? Whereas armies from different continents are suddenly all fighting for the same, the Iron Throne. I mean, this is clearly one of the inspirations for that. Rival warlords competing with their vast army
armies that represent different civilizations for one prize, and only one is going to win. And that prize is England. And so as the new year dawns, as 1065 slips into history, England is the focus of obsessive interest across the whole of Northern Europe, and specifically one place in England, namely Westminster, which previously...
undistinguished settlement to the west of the city of London, the old Roman city with its great walls. But for several years now, several decades, it's been a great hive of activity because it is the centre of a massive palace complex, which has been sponsored by Edward the Confessor, King of England, for the past two and a half decades. Westminster is celebrated above all for its abbey or
in Old English, it's Minster. So it is a Minster to the west of London, so hence Westminster. And it's absolutely, as Churchill hinted in that opening, I mean, it is an expression of his piety. Confessor is a soubriquet given to him as an indication of his devotion to the church. But it is also an expression of his relative impotence because Edward the Confessor is old, he is sick, he is childless, and for most of his reign,
This man who is descended supposedly from Woden via Kurdic, the legendary founder of the West Saxon line, from Alfred the Great, from Athelstan.
He has been in the shadow of a single upstart family. The Godwins. Yeah. So just to remind people, we talked about the Godwins and we talked about Edward the Confessor's reign before we got into Harold Hardrada. So you had Godwin. He was a great collaborator with Cnut, wasn't he? Basically a self-made man who had risen as Cnut's, not exactly his right hand, but one of his hands. Subtle, ruthless, plausible. That's like me, Tom. Yeah.
Then you had the Godwinsons. So Harold, he's Earl of Wessex. He's succeeded his father. Yeah. So at the end of 1065, he is the Earl of Wessex. Yeah. And he's got two brothers, both of whom are earls. So kind of dominant magnates in England. So you've got Giff, who is the Earl of East Anglia. And you have Leofwine, who is basically Earl of the Home Counties. Right. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. So all those garden centres and things. Right. Very nice. And Edith. Remind us who Edith is. So Edith is their sister and
and she is married to Edward the Confessor. And the Abbey really is a way for Edward to sidestep his political impotence and kind of lay down a spiritual marker that he hopes will endure for all time, which up to this point it has done. Westminster Abbey is still standing there. And although the Abbey built by Edward the Confessor was effectively demolished and rebuilt in the reign of Henry III, so several centuries later, nevertheless,
The building that Edward the Confessor sponsors is huge. I mean, it is much larger than any building ever before commissioned by an Anglo-Saxon king.
And so it is a hugely impressive legacy that he knows that he will lead. And by the end of 1065, it's not quite finished. So the porch still needs to be done up, you know, liquor paint, that kind of thing. But it's clear that Edward probably isn't going to see it finished because as Christmas 1065 approaches, he is clearly terminally ill.
And so it's decided that the celebration of Christmas should be combined with the dedication of the Abbey. So that Edward...
we'll get to see it. So Christmas Day, a great feast is held. Edward presides at the table, but he's really not well. He can only toy with his food. He's not enjoying Christmas in any way. And on the 28th of December, which is the day that Westminster Abbey is dedicated, he's too ill to attend the service. And so Edith, his queen, Harold Godwinson's sister, stands in for him at the service.
And for a week after that, Edward is going downhill, slipping in and out of consciousness, occasionally revivering, muttering about terrible times coming for England. So that's what Churchill was alluding to. And the end comes, as Churchill said, on the 5th of January, 1066. So 5th January, my birthday. So two famous things happen. Yeah, very famous. So Edward is then buried the following day, but...
That is not the only momentous thing that happens on the 6th of January 1066, because it is notable as well for a great assembly in Westminster of the Witan. The Witan are the great magnates and bishops of England. Of course, they had gathered in Westminster for the Christmas celebrations, for the dedication of the Abbey, and they had then stayed on partly to celebrate the feast of a
but also in expectation that the king is going to die because it is their duty to elect the next king. The Anglo-Saxon monarchy is elective. Right, let me just stop you there. So the Anglo-Saxon monarchy does not proceed on the automatic assumption that
that the next person in the, you know, as it would now, the next person in the family tree automatically, unquestionably gets the crown. There is a degree, there is maybe an expectation that they'll be seriously considered, but there is a degree of flexibility in the arrangements. Is that right? Yes. As you say, the likelihood is, is that the hereditary principle would kick in. But if there is not a suitable candidate to hand, you know, if there is not a son of eligible age, then,
then discussions are hell. So now we have this kind of conclave style scenario where the different earls, bishops and whatnot are gathered in Westminster. They have to decide and they have to do it obviously pretty quickly because nobody likes nature abhors a vacuum. So the Godwinsons are obviously the key players. Harold, Goethe,
and Leofwine. They've never been unchallenged, have they? Because there's always been a counterbalance, which is this Mercian dynasty that goes back all the way to, what was his name? Leofric. Leofric, who was married to Lady Godiva, who rode through Coventry naked on a horse. Exactly. So a fun grandmother. And they've been serious players all through this period, the Leofric people. So it's basically for three generations. And...
In 1066, you've got two heirs to this dynasty, and both of them are earls. So you have Edwin the Elder Brother, who is the Earl of Mercia, so that's the Midlands. And then you've got Morcar, who has just become the Earl of Northumbria. And both of these earls are present in Westminster. Adding to the swirl of tensions between the Godwinsons and these two earls, Edwin and Morcar, is the fact that less than two months previously,
Edwin and Morca had been in armed and open revolt against the power of the Godwinsons. So scope for tension there. There is also tension in the upper ranks of the church because you've got the bishops, abbots, and the kingdom's two archbishops. The most senior of the archbishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a guy called Stigand, the guy who
Churchill said had been a close associate of the Godwins. Churchill is not wrong. Stigand basically had been a protege of Earl Godwin. And when Godwin had been driven into temporary exile by Edward the Confessor in 1051, he's said to have wept over the departure of his patron. And when Godwin returns, Edward has brought in a Norman confederate.
Robert of Jumièges to be Archbishop of Canterbury. But when Godwin comes back, Robert of Jumièges flees to the continent and Stigand is installed in Canterbury as his place. The other Archbishop, Eldred, the Archbishop of York, he too is close to the Godwins, but also had been very, very close to Edward the Confessor and so is a more neutral figure than Stigand.
And York itself had been Viking Jorvik, a city traditionally very sympathetic to the Scandinavian world, quite hostile to the Godwinsons. So again, there is scope there for tension. So this is the balance of forces. These people assemble on the 6th of January, and as they survey the scene,
They effectively have three main candidates, I would say, for the throne of England. Well, possibly four. Possibly four. Let's say three and a half. Okay. So they've lived in the shadow of a conquest already, which is the conquest of Canute in 1016. Yeah.
From the moment they assemble, they must be thinking, well, we don't want that to happen again. And there is a slight possibility that could happen again, isn't there? Because they know that there is a very powerful contender across the North Sea in Norway. And that person is Harald Hardrada. And he does have a little bit of a claim, doesn't he? Harald Hardrada. Kind of, because there had been an agreement back in the days of the secession conflict.
between Harthacnut and Magnus, who had been the king of Norway, that if either one of them died without an heir, then the other would become successor to that person's kingdom. So there is just a sniff of a claim that Harold Hardrada might be able to leverage. But I think it's generally felt implausible and there's no real suggestion that Harold Hardrada is interested in the English throne. Then there is another Scandinavian king in the form of Svein
who is the nephew of Canute and who...
People in England are well aware of how predatory Canute's family can be. Might he fancy coming back and getting his uncle's kingdom? But I guess they think the Norwegians and the Danes have been fighting each other in the war, which we described last week as one of the most boring wars in history. So they probably think, well, they're too busy worrying about each other to be interested in England. And the bottom line is they don't want a Viking king. I mean, they've had enough of Viking kings. Right.
Then another candidate, of course, is William the Duke of Normandy. And he has several kind of pros in his favour. So...
Edward almost certainly had promised him the throne 15 years previously when the Godwins had been in exile. The Godwins had then come back, of course. Harold Godwinson had ended up in the hands of William and had sworn on the bones of saints that he would support William's claim to the throne. Everyone
everyone in England knows that William is a ruthless and brilliant soldier and that there is a very, very strong risk that if he is denied the throne, then he will invade what he sees as his rightful kingdom. So that is, you know, something else to bear in mind.
But there is, again, a huge con, which is that just as the Witan don't want a Scandinavian king, they don't want a Norman king either. Well, they're probably even less keen on a Norman king because a Scandinavian king would be at least a vaguely known quantity, whereas the Normans represent something unsettling and new, right? Well, I mean, the Normans have been part of English life ever.
because William's great aunt Emma, of course, had married Athelred. So they are there. But I think what they've seen of the Normans, they don't really like. So yes, they don't want William either.
So what about another descendant of Kurdic and Alfred? Alfred the Great, right. So there are a few people hanging around from that family, aren't there? Because although Edward the Confessor famously had no children, he does have a nephew. So Edmund Ironside, so people may remember him from the series we did before Harold Hardrada on the kind of last days of Anglo-Saxon England. Edmund Ironside had a son called Edmund.
Edward, had gone off to Hungary. Yes, where he gets to be called by the English Edward the Exile. And he had married Agatha, who may well have been the sister-in-law of Harold Hardrada. So we were talking about the strange networks of marriage alliance that span the whole of Europe. And Edward the Confessor had definitely wanted to groom
nephew as his heir. So in 1054, he had sent Aeldred, who in due course is going to become the Archbishop of York, to go and fetch Edward the Exile. But Edward the Exile doesn't want to come. I mean, he's basically a Hungarian exile. He's perfectly happy eating his goulash, whatever. He doesn't want to come over. So 1056, two years later, it's the turn of Harold Godwinson to go and
and try and sort things out. So he travels to the continent and this time he is successful. And the following year in 1057, Edward the Exile arrives in England and he's been there for about two days. He hasn't even met Edward the Confessor and he dies. He drops dead. So another, another mysterious death.
And he leaves behind two daughters and crucially one son, a guy called Edgar. So what about Edgar? He's still on the scene. He's clearly what the English call Atheling, which essentially means that you're eligible to inherit the throne. So he's called Edgar Atheling. He's been raised by Edith. So maybe he'd be acceptable to the Godwinsons. But there is a massive problem, and that is that he's only 13.
And the Witan are agreed, I think, that if they're going to ignore the claim of William, then they will need a honed warrior who is able to defend his throne and his kingdom. And that, in effect, means that there is only one candidate. And that person, Tom, is obviously Harold Godwinson.
the Earl of Wessex. But just before Harold Gobinson. So they know that they're going to face an invasion, right? Which means that they must take William's claim very, very seriously. And at least know that William takes it incredibly seriously. So right at this point, they know if we don't choose William, he is definitely going to invade. Is that fair? I think that is almost certainly their perspective. Yes. It depends really how opposed they are to a Norman King.
are they sufficiently opposed that they are prepared to risk invasion? And if they are, then they have to choose someone who is able to withstand that invasion. I mean, that is essentially...
bind they find themselves in. And it is clearly the case that there are problems with choosing Harold. So firstly, he may be the brother-in-law of Edward the Confessor, but he has no blood link to the traditional royal line of the West Saxon monarchy. He's not a lineal descendant of Alfred the Great, as say Edgar the Atheling is. So the solution to this problem is to insist that Edward the Confessor had nominated Harold on his sickbed. And
We have no definitive account of what Edward the Confessor said. So there are various versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is the historical record that is being written as events happen in Old English. And two versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle say that Edward appointed England to Harold's protection. So does that mean he's appointing
Harold as king or perhaps as regent for Edgar Atheling. I mean, it's unclear. But there is one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which does say that Edward specifically granted Harold the throne. And what's interesting is that actually the Normans
tend to acknowledge this, the Norman historians we have. And the Bayeux Tapestry, which is a key source for the events of 1066, this great series of illustrations showing the events of that year. And
we are shown Edward the Confessor lying on his deathbed and speaking to his advisors. And then in the next illustration, so it's a bit like a strip cartoon, you have one of the men who is then offering Harold the crown, pointing back at this illustration of Edward the Confessor talking to the people around his bedside. So suggesting that Edward has said, go and give the crown to Harold. And then you see the crown being given to Harold.
So the Witan obviously think, well, I mean, that's sufficient legitimacy. Now, the question is, what about Edwin and Morca? Who are the two earls who belong to the family that traditionally have been the great rival of the Godwinsons? I think it's pretty clear that they have been squared before Edward dies. And the proof of this is that very shortly after the Witan elect Harold as king,
He marries their sister. And listeners will be thrilled to know that the name of this sister is also Edith.
So Harold's sister is called Edith. Yeah. His wife, you know, the sister of Edwin and Morka is called Edith and his girlfriend stroke concubine stroke wife stroke mistress stroke, whatever you want to call it is also called Edith. And she has rejoices in the magnificent name of Swan neck. So Edith Swan neck and Harold in the kind of the best tradition of, of Danish Kings, because he is half Danish. His mother is Danish. Um,
sets Edith's swan neck aside, but still lives with her. But he now also has Edith, sister of Edwin and Morka, as his queen. Kind of confusing for him, but also convenient they're both of the same name. Kind of. Yeah. It helps with Valentine's Day, I guess. And of course, if Harold and Edith, the sister of Edwin and Morka, have a son, then he will unite the two great rival dynasties of England. So that would be brilliant. We mentioned that Harold has sworn an oath on the bones of saints that he will back Edith
William's claim to the throne and it does require him to break that but there is a sense that Harold is a man who is less bound by oaths than perhaps a more conventionally religious person would be I think this reflects very well on Harold he's like yeah whatever who cares he takes the same attitude towards the bones of saints that I would Tom I think it's fair to say so brilliant
Though not brilliant in another way, because as you say, Harold must know, as everybody else knows, that once he accepts the crown, it makes invasion as close to inevitable as you're going to get. So presumably that's why they're in a great rush. They want to get this done and dusted and they get on with their military preparations. So Harold is crowned on the 6th of January, the day he is chosen. And this is very unusual. There's usually a kind of much longer time.
separation of time between a king being elected and being crowned. And the haste is often described as unseemly, but I don't think it's unseemly at all. I think it's entirely understandable because everyone knows that his status as king has to be made manifest absolutely as soon as possible. And also the Witan are all on hand in Westminster to witness the coronation. And although we're not told that he's crowned in Westminster Abbey, he almost certainly is probably the first king to be crowned in Westminster Abbey.
And so Harold now, you know, he's been crowned, he's been anointed. He has a good case to make that he is a legitimate king. He's been supposedly nominated by the confessor. He's been elected. He's been anointed.
But as you say, that legitimacy is a crucial part of the armour that he needs to put on because he knows that his rule of England is absolutely going to come under attack. And in fact, not just from William, because the election of Harold as king is a red rag election.
as well to someone else, someone who has been lurking beyond the channel, twisted with hatred for Harold and resolved to have his revenge. Right. And this is Harold's brother, Tostig. So tell us a little bit about Tostig. So we mentioned how Morcar has been Earl of Northumbria only since the late autumn of 1066.
And he's become Earl of Northumbria in succession to Tostig, Harold's own brother, who had been forced into exile by an alliance between the Northumbrians and the Mercians, led jointly by Morcar and by Edwin. And Tostig had been forced not just from office, but into exile. Hmm.
and absolutely stunned by the unexpectedness and rapidity of his overthrow he's convinced himself that actually the person behind it was his own brother harold and of course the spectacle of harold marrying the sister of edwin and morca the two men who had overthrown him only confirms tosti in his darkest suspicions and like pretty much everyone else in this story
he wants to make a comeback. He is not content with exile. And he has fled to Flanders, partly because it's very close, partly because it's traditional for people in exile from England to go to Flanders, but also because his wife is from Flanders, as actually is the wife of William of Normandy. And there is a tradition that's reported that Tostig had made overtures to the Duke of Normandy and had visited him. There is also another report
report probably three, four decades after 1066 that says that he had sailed to Denmark to try and persuade Svein to join with him in that invasion. Definite sense that Tosli's kind of looking around for allies. And
It is evident that Tostig, like William, is out for vengeance and is keen to obtain backing for it wherever he can find it. So what does all this mean for England? Because it means not only is there the looming threat of William, there is the possible threat, at this point seems quite unlikely, of an attack from Scandinavia. But there's also Tostig hanging around. So there must be a massive sense of...
uncertainty, anxiety, dare I say dread, as the months pass. Yeah. And then Easter comes and goes. So the campaigning season is now upon England. And then it was, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded in its entry for 1066, that a portent was seen all over England, such as no man had ever witnessed before. Some called it a comet, others the long-haired star. And
It generates much dread and there is no more infallible portent of a looming crisis than a fiery tailed star blazing day after day across the sky. Oh my word. What a terrifying moment. So that's Halley's Comet, isn't it? Halley's Comet has appeared. Everybody knows what that means. Bloodshed is coming. And you know what? We might have a little bit of it after the break. See you then.
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Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are in the weeks after Easter 1066. England has just been visited by Halley's Comet. So Halley's Comet was named after the astronomer Edward Halley, who in 1705 calculated that this comet reappeared about every 75 years. However, that's not how people view it in 1066, is it Tom? Because they say, Comets!
is coming. Yeah, absolutely. And sure enough, even as the tail of the comet is flickering away into the inky vastness of space, it's
ominous news is being brought to Harold from the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight? Oh, no. That's the place you don't want to get news from. So it is reported that an enemy fleet has landed there and extorted money and provisions. Is it the Normans? No, it's not the Normans. It's Tostig.
So to quote the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from the Isle of Wight, he then sailed onwards and ravaged everywhere he could make landing along the south coast until he came to Sandwich. But at Sandwich, he finds that Harold is ready for him, that Harold has gathered, again, to quote the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a larger force, both in terms of ships and land forces, as no king in England had ever done before. So Tosti feels, well, I can't make a landing here. So he
Press gangs, sailors from Sandwich and the coast around it to serve in his fleet. And he then heads northwards and he sails with 60 ships, we're told by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, up the Humber and he starts ravaging Lincolnshire.
But Edwin and Morka, his great bane, the two people who kicked him out, they raise the various kind of levies from their own lands and they confront him. And Tosti finds his own men melting away. So it's evident that...
The people of Mercia and Northumbria want nothing to do with him. Basically, everybody hates Tosca. Everyone hates him. And so he escapes the Humber, and we're told that what had been a fleet of 60 ships is now only 12 ships. And so, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and there are later sources which give further detail, and we'll be coming to them in our next episode, but according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he then sails northwards for Scotland and the court of King Malcolm, who of course had succeeded to the throne in the wake of the overthrow of Macbeth.
And this is very humiliating for Tostig because Malcolm had swallowed up a large chunk of his earldom of Northumbria in the form of Cumbria, the Lake District. And he'd raided Lindisfarne, you know, and now Tostig's having to go and kind of... Do you know what he's like? He's like Ted Cruz paying homage to Donald Trump, isn't he? That is what he's like. Yes. Yeah. And, you know, maybe this is the end of the road for him. Doesn't really seem a comeback, does it?
Or is it? We will see. Right. So Harold has this big force that he has assembled to defend his kingdom. He has raised the fiat. He's raised the levies. And of course, he's done it partly because, you know, Tostig is hanging around. But there is a much more formidable opponent than Tostig. And this, of course, is William of Normandy. And Harold...
everybody should remember, has met William of Normandy. He has been to Normandy when he was messing around with the saints' bones and stuff. He has seen at first hand how formidable the Norman war, and how modern the Norman war machine is with its knights, its cavalry, its castles and so on. So he must really, you know,
He knows this is going to be a very, very stern test. Yeah, and I think there can be no doubt that Churchill writing about this must have felt a sense of identification with Harold. And what happens in due course must have cast a slight shadow. Because William, when he is brought the news of Harold's election as king, is furious. And he sees it not just as a political challenge, but directly as a personal affront to
So we know what his response to this is because we have an account of 1066 and its aftermath by a knight who had served William and then gone on to become his personal chaplain, a man called William of Poitiers. And William of Poitiers writes,
and regain his inheritance by force of arms, despite many who used clever arguments to dissuade him from such an arduous enterprise as being well beyond the power of the Norman forces. So you have there resolve from William, but also clearly a certain nervousness on the part of many of the people in his court and the broader dukedom. So to look at the nervousness first,
Why would there be so many in Normandy anxious that they lack the capabilities to conquer England?
And William of Poitiers is very contemptuous of them. He says, inspired by cowardice, they exaggerated in discussions the strength of Harold's army and the weakness of their own. But actually, you know, the Normans who are nervous about attacking England are not wrong to be nervous, because as we've been talking throughout the first series we've been doing on this, England is a very wealthy and powerful country.
It has a very precociously efficient system of government and it has a military infrastructure to match. And it may surprise listeners to hear this insisted upon. Because England was conquered in 1016 by Cnut and there have been succession crises and there's been lots of internal feuding. So could you not look at England from Normandy and say, well, they lost exactly 50 years ago. They were conquered, so it's doable. Plus,
You know, a lot of these earls actually hate each other. We might be able to pay them off. You know, once we get in, this might not be so difficult after all. That would be my counter argument. But I think the other way of looking at it is to say England has gone through conquest. It has gone through all these upheavals and turbulence. And yet the frameworks of governance and the military infrastructure, which had been set up by Alfred the Great, honed by his heirs, you know, they are still going strong.
So because of these reforms that Alfred had set in place and which have endured for almost two centuries now, the depth of manpower that an English king can command and muster remains extremely impressive and much greater than anything that a Norman Duke could do.
And under a competent king, which Harold definitely is, there are armies potentially in the tens of thousands that can be summoned. And we know this because we have a record of the military obligations that are imposed upon the various lords of the kingdom. So to be the lord of an estate, a thane,
is to owe military service. So to quote from an early 11th century tract about this, to equip freemen with arms and to stand sentry on the coast and to guard one's lord. Now that lord might be the king, but it might equally not be. Like an earl or something. Yeah, the king doesn't own all the lands. There are earls who have their own lands. And so there are lots of Thanes who own duties to, I don't know,
Gith or Morkar or whatever. And these lords, they're thanes, many of the kind of the wealthier freemen, the churls as they're called, you know, these would be quite as well armoured as Norman knights. They'd be skilled in the use of swords, of spears, of axes. They would even own horses. In addition to these men who can be raised as needed,
the king would have paid specialist troops. So the equivalent, I guess, of the Varangians who defend the emperor in Constantinople. And these are the Housecarls, which is a celebrated name. I mean, anyone who knows anything about Hastings knows about the Housecarls. And again, these seem to date back to the time of Alfred, who had raised
troops paid troops to serve kind of as his bodyguard the great earls of the kingdom they have their their house carls as well and these are probably the most formidable infantry in northern europe perhaps one difference though between the house carls and their norman equivalent is that england has been turbulent and there has been feuding between the different earls and stuff but
Life in England is surely relatively peaceful compared with the very competitive arena of northern and central France and its environs. So might it be the case that even the best trained house car, their skills have not been, as it were, honed in competition as much as those of their Norman equivalent? I mean, I think there are very particular reasons why the Normans are...
are menacing in a way that the English aren't, that we'll come to in due course. I mean, are they not always fighting in Brittany and in Maine and all these kinds of places? But Harold has been fighting against, say, against the Welsh. Right. I mean, Harold is a very practiced and experienced warrior. Yeah. And he commands troops who have done a lot of fighting. So these are very, very...
formidable forces. Do you know what's happened, Tom? What's happened is that once again in the rest of history, we've forgotten about the Welsh. I haven't forgotten about the Welsh. I'd forgotten about them though. And that's sad. I feel bad now. I think that it does not pay to underestimate the enormous reserves of really quite skilled manpower that Harold can command. And also, of course, he has the right in the time of national emergency, which 1066 patently is, to essentially summon every able-bodied Freeman in England and
and that is about 90% of the population. So 10% are slaves, 90% are free. And, you know, the kind of the lower orders are not well armed, but they can do sentry duty, garrison duty, whatever. They can wave a pitchfork. That kind of thing.
And I think that these troops would feel a sense of duty as well as of obligation. So one of the great, the famous old English poems about the battle of Malden, which we talked about in one of our first episodes, Earl Britnorth standing against the Viking invaders. And he pledges himself to the defense of what he calls folk and Foden, his people and his native soil. And,
And we're told by an English chronicler writing in the early 12th century that Harold had drawn on these sentiments, that he had called his people to exert themselves by land and sea for the defense of their country. So maybe kind of Churchillian rhetoric is being employed by Harold. Do you know what it is, Tom? It's a...
Now is the hour, riders of Rohan, oaths you have taken, now fulfil them all to Lord and land. That's basically what this is. And William of Poitiers, William's chaplain, would agree. He says the English are absolutely motivated by patriotism. And just to quote Michael Lawson, who wrote the definitive book on the Battle of Hastings itself, an absolutely, I mean, amazingly detailed book.
subtle treatment of all the sources and the evidence. I mean, it's a passage that really struck me when I read it. The more that becomes known about the ways in which English armies assembled and fought in this period, the more it may become apparent that it saw the mobilisation of the country and its resources for war to an extent that was not to be repeated until the total wars of the 20th century. Tom, do you know what that reveals?
Michael Lawson has never heard of the Napoleonic Wars. Well, I was thinking that, but the militia in the Napoleonic Wars, I mean, it's pretty minor. The Napoleonic Wars is a massive total war. It's a total mobilisation of English society, British society. He's talking about the manpower.
All right. I'm just being mean to Michael Lawson for no reason. I mean, I did kind of ponder, you know, what would Pitt say about that? What would Nelson say of that, Tom? Unbelievable scenes. But the Navy, I mean, the Navy is really where England does its fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Yeah. Anyway, so essentially it would be foolish to underestimate the resources that Harold can command and William does not underestimate them. And so it is that far from rushing into an attack on England...
He prepares for it with a kind of remorseless care and attention to detail. So he needs to organise quite a lot before he can have a hope of invading England. So most obviously he needs ships ready.
These are not just to transport his army, but to guard against the English fleet. The Normans who were hostile to William's plans had explicitly cited a dread of English naval superiority. They say of Harold, for he had a numerous fleet and seamen expert in nautical matters. That's William of Poitiers there.
The fleet is presumably not built entirely from scratch, although if you look at the Bayeux Tapestry, it seems to suggest as much. But it was clearly a huge effort. And so you would imagine all the way through the summer, the dockyards of Normandy are echoing to the sound of hammer blows. This is like Adventures in Time. It's unbelievable. It's great prose, Tom. And then, of course, he needs men and...
William is not like Harold. He has to recruit essentially an ad hoc force. He doesn't have a military apparatus that he can just click his fingers and it all leaps into being. These are men fighting not for love of land and patriotism, Tom. They're fighting for money and greed. Oh, they're fighting for love of land. It's just... Other people's land, yeah. And there are lots of people in France who are very interested in getting a bit of England...
So William of Poitiers lists men who come from the royal heartlands of France, so Paris and Orléans, from Maine, from Brittany, from Aquitaine. And when on the Bayeux Tapestry, you know, there are those kind of Latin stitching describing what's going on and it shows William's army. He describes it not as an army of Normans, but of Frankie, of Franks, of French. And
The fact that William is able to recruit so many people from so many different parts of France beyond his dukedom, I think, is tribute not just to the greed and avarice of a Frenchman for English wealth and land, but also to William's fame as a warrior. I mean, it's a tremendous tribute to his renown and charisma.
And then on top of that, of course, William is a very, very able strategic planner. And he knows that if you are going to recruit large numbers of men, loads of whom are going to be bringing horses, the huge challenge is to keep them supplied while you're waiting to sail. And there's a famous essay by Bernard Bachrach. So not related to Bert. Yeah.
Yeah. Which demonstrated the challenge of stabling horses for one month. So he supposes that there were two to three thousand horses. And he says that this would have generated 700,000 gallons of urine, five million pounds of dung, and it would have taken 5,000 cartloads to remove.
And it has to be said that clearing dung kind of absolutely plays to William's strength. This is the kind of detail that he's all over. He's not just about leading battle charges. He's also about... They all want to say the natural metier of a Frenchman. So even with all this, even with all his carts of dung and his hard-faced...
greedy Frenchman and whatnot. It's still a big, it's still a challenge, isn't it? He's got to basically get them across the channel. He's got to land. He's got to win battles. He's got to get to London, all of that stuff. That I think is the key thing. He, the only way he can hope to win is to force a battle, which means effectively to gamble everything, his life,
everything on a single decisive encounter. And the truth is, is that he's only fought one battle really before. And that was back in 1047 when he was about eight. He'd fought that pitch battle against the rebels, against his rule. And so it's a huge gamble. And-
You might wonder, well, why would he take such a risk? I mean, he's built up so much in Normandy. Why would he risk it all? And I think it's because despite his respect for Harold and his military capabilities, William is confident that he will win. And that confidence is founded on various factors. The first is he is...
very aware of what he commands. He knows that Normandy is the most disciplined warrior society in Europe. And he knows that the Normans are capable of feats of conquest that is beyond the capacity of anybody else in Christendom. And he knows this because by 1066, the
Those Normans who we talked about in the previous series who traveled to southern Italy and started attacking the Byzantines and the Muslims, they have crossed the Straits of Messina and embarked on the conquest of Sicily. And it's going very, very well. So Norman adventurers, not even backed by Norman state power,
have conquered most of southern Italy and are well on their way to conquering the whole of Sicily. William does appreciate, however, that this isn't just down to the qualities of Norman prowess, but also to factors that are common across France, but not England. And these are heavy cavalry, so people who the English have come in to call knights,
the construction of castles, not just as defensive, but as offensive structures, and crossbows, which are kind of new innovation that the English haven't really caught on to. And if the Byzantines and the Muslims in southern Italy and Sicily have, you know, they have no idea what's hitting them when the Normans fight them.
then the likelihood is that neither will be English. So to quote a wonderful book, Predatory Kinship, The Creation of Norman Power, by the great scholar Eleanor Searle. And she wrote,
England lay open without the new technology of warfare. So that's what you were saying, that even though Harold and his house girls have been fighting, the mass of people in England are not organised for warfare in the way that the Normans are. She, like me, has forgotten about the Welsh. Anyway, obviously this is now Tom Holland bingo. Yeah, right. Because not only is there military technology that puts the Normans ahead, but dare I say there's also spiritual technology or at least a sort of ideological technology. Yeah.
As you say, it's not just a military revolution that Latin Christendom is undergoing. It's a religious one as well. And it's a process that is called reformatio, a convulsive and deeply contested
attempt to remake Christian society by cleansing and purifying it. And what that means in practice is a conviction on the part of leading figures in the Roman church that the church should free itself, not just from sin, but from the grubby fingerprints of sinners, which in effect means kings and emperors. And
In the conviction that this is what God wants, they are pushing through a program of reform. And to do this, effectively, they're a kind of cadre of revolutionaries who have seized control of the commanding heights of the Roman church. And by 1066, the most formidable of these revolutionaries, the most influential, isn't the Pope, but an archdeacon by the name of Hildebrand.
And there is lines that are said of him that is very popular by the 1060s, that if you would thrive at Rome, say this at the top of your voice, more than the Pope, I obey the Lord of the Pope. So that is Hildebrand. And actually within seven years, Hildebrand will become Pope and he will take the name of Gregory VII and he will take on the emperor himself and convulse the whole empire.
of Europe. But already in the 1060s, you have a sense of this great earthquake that is to come. And there is immense enthusiasm in France for this spirit of reform. And the Normans, especially, are absolutely signed up to it. And they're very much Hildebrand's kind of people. They're very devout. They're very effective at toppling people that Hildebrand doesn't like.
The Normans in Italy have basically become the sword of the papal reformers. So these revolutionaries, obviously, they need men in mail with horses and spears. And the Normans are there, and it's absolutely brilliant. And so in 1063, Hildebrand had got the Pope, Alexander, to send Count Roger de Hauteville, the guy who will lead the conquest of Sicily.
to send him a papal banner. This effectively is sanctifying his invasion of Sicily, ruled by the Muslims, as a holy war. They have also given a blessing to Normans who are fighting the Muslims in Spain. You have there the sense that something very novel and radical, the idea that
armed warfare can be blessed by the church is starting to coalesce as an idea. And the problem about this for the English is that they are very much not Hildebrand's kind of people. They are now ruled by a king who has broken an oath sworn on the bones of saints. You don't care about this. No. But Hildebrand doesn't.
Absolutely does. The more I hear about this Hildebrand, the less I like him. He's a man who plunges England into 500 dark years only reversed in the 1530s. I think it's fair to say, Tom. That is as may be and to be discussed. There is also a further problem with the English church, which is that Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is the embodiment of everything the reformers hate. So as well as being Archbishop of Canterbury, he's also the Bishop of Winchester. He's venal. He's avaricious.
He's cynical. Yeah, he's great. I love Stigand. The reformers in Rome keep excommunicating him and Stigand keeps snapping his fingers at this and saying, well, so what? Who cares about a load of excommunications and saints' bones? Come on. And he's so toxic that Harold has actually almost certainly refused to be crowned by him because he doesn't want William to take advantage of this, although the Normans will. I mean, they will say that he'd been crowned by Stigand. So he seems to have been crowned by Eldred instead. And
All of this means that when William's ambassadors travel to Rome in the summer of 1066 to request a papal blessing for the invasion, Hildebrand behind the scenes is busy pulling strings to ensure that that is exactly what the Normans get. Like a corrupt and cruel spider. Or like a man determined to purge the Christian people of sin.
Dominic, I mean, it depends on your perspective. Where's he now? I know we're good, I'll tell you. And the upshot is that William is given the standard of St. Peter the Apostle, and it's been blessed by the Pope himself. And it has to be said that this is massively controversial across Europe, but also in Rome itself. To equate the English with infidels and to sanction the overthrow of an anointed king is a massive, massive deal.
And Hildebrand himself acknowledges this. He writes to William, there are many among my brothers who revile me for this judgment and charge me with laboring to bring about a terrible sacrifice of human lives. So that would be your take, I guess. But Hildebrand's own conscience is clear because he thinks that a reformed, cleansed, purified England exists.
is a prize well worth fighting for. He sees it as a bog of sin that needs to be drained. And if William can affect this, then William will not only have served the cause of the reformers in Rome, but also of the sin-steeped English themselves. Yes, Hildebrand is awake to sin and the English are sleeping. And obviously this is great news for William because
who is unbelievably ruthless, but also unbelievably pious. And it's the combination of the two that throughout this period makes the Thorpons so terrifying and effective. He's going to be killing an anointed king, more Tom Holland bingo. And killing an anointed king is a big deal.
but not maybe if this king is steeped in sin. Is that basically the claim? Well, he's going to put it to the test, isn't he? Because God is going to decide. And it is at massive high stakes for William. It's not just about will he die in battle if he's defeated, but where will his soul go? Because as you say, to aspire to kill an anointed king, and then of course in due course, William wants to become king and be anointed himself. I mean, if God is not on his side,
then that is a fateful thing to be planning. You could burst on your deathbed. That could happen to you. And let's see if that happens to William. And I think that the shadow of anxiety about this must have grown over William over the summer, because throughout August and then into September, the winds are against him. And he keeps praying, you know, let the winds turn, give us a favourable wind to get us to England, but they don't.
And in England, where Harold's levees are stationed, waiting for this invasion, and it doesn't come, by early September, provisions are running out. It's harvest time. And Harold must be thinking, well, I don't think he's going to come this year. I mean, it's too late. I don't think he's going to risk it, crossing the channel this late in the season. And so on the 8th of September, Harold decides to gamble again.
that William will not be coming and he sends his men home and he also sends his fleet to London so from the south coast and as it is sailing up the channel there is a terrible storm and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports many perished before they reached London so that is a blow England's naval defences are not what they might have been had that storm not blown.
However, Dominic, this is not the worst news to greet Harold, because when he arrives from the south coast in London, he is informed that what he had thought would not happen this late in the season has happened, that England has been invaded. It is not, however, a Norman invasion, and it has not happened on the south coast. Instead, it has happened in the north.
The great war fleet has sailed into the Humber. Tostig is back. And with him, your hero.
Harold Hardrada. Oh, my word. Harold Hardrada is back. Unbelievable scenes. What a bombshell. Do you know, I'm so excited that if I was a member of the Rest Is History Club, I'd listen to the next episode right away to see what happens when Harold Hardrada lands. What's Harold Goldwinson going to do? Well, I know. Amazing stuff. Heart-stopping drama. And if I wasn't a member of the Rest Is History Club, I would head immediately to therestishistory.com because I would be a gog.
with excitement to find out what happens next in this extraordinary epic story of 1066. So Tom, that was, that was so exciting. I just can't wait for the next episode and on that bombshell. Yeah. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.