War Walks Hastings

The family lived here at bosom on the Sussex coast. Their whole has long gone. But the Saxon church in which Harold worshiped still survives. In ten 64, King Edward the confessor sent Harold to Normandy. He was shipwrecked. Fell into William's hands and swore an oath to the Norman duke. Harold promised that when King Edward died, he would support William's claim to the English throne. With a Harold made his promise freely or under coercion, no one knows. But the story of his oath, and of the battle itself, is told in the Bayer Tapestry. This replica panel from the Tapestry shows a long haired mustachioed Harold. He was by all accounts a fine figure of a man, riding here, at bosn ecclesia, to bosom church. He's about to set out on the journey during which he'll swear that fatal oath. The oath was broken two years later. When Edward died in January 10 66, Harold himself was crowned king of England. When William heard the news, he decided to invade and spent months preparing a fleet. On September 27th, the invaders set sail in 300 ships. 

On the 28th of September, the invaders landed here on the beach at pevensey in Sussex. Their cavalry was a force to be reckoned with. And I've brought my own war horse thatch who's got a bit of Norman blood in his veins. It can't have been easy, bringing 2000 horses, the hundred miles from Normandy in open top wooden boats. Harder still, getting them ashore. This was the biggest amphibious operation since Roman times. As Williams scrambled up the shingle, he slipped and fell. Trying out both hands to protect himself. When he got up, there was blood on his face. There were some mutterings amongst his followers. But one of them shouted out that it was a good omen. He'd taken hold of England with both hands and meant to guarantee it to his descendants with his blood. This mishap apart, it was a bloodless landing. The Normans spent their first day in the Roman fort at pevensey. Then it jutted out into the sea, now it lies a couple of miles inland. This was an important game, but one thing must have worried William. His invasion had been expected. 

So where were the saxons? A week earlier, Harold had received disastrous news. His country had been invaded. Not in the south by the Normans, but in the north by the Vikings, who'd landed near York and decisively beaten the local forces. Harold's army marched out of London on September 20th, and on the 25th, advanced on the unsuspecting Vikings at Stamford Bridge. Harold pounded up this road at the head of 6000 men. He knew all too well who his opponents were. Harold hardrada, king of Norway, and his own brother, Earl tostig. Both had claims to the throne. Harold's plan was to take the Vikings by surprise. His scouts had reported that they were some distance from their ships, where they'd left their armor. When the Vikings saw the sun, glinting off the weapons and armor of Harold's host, it looked like sunlight gleaming off broken eyes. In order to get at the invaders, Harold's army had to cross the river derwent. In ten 66, there was a wooden bridge across it somewhere here. One of the Vikings had worn his mail shirt that morning, and he stood on the bridge, armed with a mighty axe. He cut down dozens of saxons and nothing could be done about him. 

Eventually, one of Harold's men got into a barrel, went underneath the bridge, took a spear, and as the Anglo Saxon chronicle tells us, he brought the giant from below. The way was now clear for Harold's men to pour across the river and take on their enemies on the ridge opposite. The battle was ferocious. At its end, both tosti and had rather were dead. The invaders had arrived in 300 ships. The survivors needed only 24 to carry them home. Harold had destroyed a mighty army. Which is hello. The written accounts of this battle are very sketchy, but archeologists, like Richard Kemp, can give us a vivid sense of what it must really have been like. What happened to the warriors who were killed in a battle like this? Well, we actually have done an excavation of a local churchyard and found people who were actually buried on the church are two undoubtedly fell in the battle. I've actually brought an example along. 

One of the skulls that was actually excavated from this and it shows the signs of the battle in the form of the injuries here. You can see this is undoubtedly a sword, whereas this very straight line down here may well have been caused by an axe, and if you'd like to handle it, you need to wear those gloves because this is mid 11th century and therefore rather precious. The sort of injuries that we're getting are mostly to the skull region like this. So we've got straight down wounds. We've got several wounds that have just taken the top of the skull like this. We've even got one if you'd like to turn your head slightly that comes down against the jaw and then hits the collarbone as well. So mostly to the upper part of the body in other words, not people with helmets because obviously a helmet would protect you from this sort of wound. And then another major area of injury is down here, the upper leg and the pelvic region. So someone would have been hit by spears going in under the shield wall. Exactly. To bring a wire down and once he's fallen, he then gets hit in the head. Exactly. 

Once there's a gap in the shield wall and you can actually get through. You take advantage of that fat by just finishing the person off who's lying presumably face down with a hack and these are evidence perhaps that there were two separate people making the point. So we're going to bring the reality of a place like this. Absolutely. That is a considerable injury. And this was a field of major slaughter. Just three days later, the Normans landed. When Harold received the terrible news, he ordered his exhausted army to begin the 230 mile march back to London. With Harold away in the north, the Normans moved their base along the coast to Hastings and built a temporary fortification. This castle was built a few years later. Williams problem was a simple one. He had to beat Harold and Tate London. But he couldn't move north. He didn't know where the saxons were, and his fleet would be vulnerable if he left it. Yet if he stayed put, he risked being bottled up in the Hastings Peninsula with the sea to his back. Williams only hope was to force Harold to come to him. And the way to do that was to sting Harold into action, using sword and fire.

Williams sent patrols out all over the area and remorselessly burned and pillaged the surrounding villages. The inhabitants took refuge in the churches. This is a village of crowhurst, a few miles from Hastings, and in the crucial weeks before the battle, it was utterly destroyed. The doomsday, written 20 years later, has one word for the villages William wiped out. Vaster. Wasteland. Williams strategy worked. As soon as Harold reached London, he received news of the ravaging of the villages. He was Earl of Wessex. These were his people under attack. He summoned a council of war, probably to Westminster hall. His brothers and advisers urged caution and begged him to let his brother girth lead the army against William, while he stayed back to raise fresh troops. This was not Harold's style at all. He told them, it was never my won't to lie in a lair while other men fight. William the bastard shall never hear that I dare not look him in the face. On October 12th, Harold marched out of London at the head of his depleted army. An army that historian Steve pollington understands very well. How has Harold's army organized? Beneath the king, who was the supreme commander one might say. We had his personal followers. 

These are the men known as the House calls. Beneath them, we have the safeness, the signs. These are men possibly a little like medieval knights. Bound by duty to follow the lord into battle and not to leave the field if he didn't. Beyond that, we have the Anglo Saxon feud, which is the mobile army, the army in the field. Steve, this business about not leaving the field of your lord had fallen. Fine for poets, but did it really happen in the real world? There is evidence from a poem recording events at Malden in Essex in 9 91 in which the one of the old retainers of the elder man there, a chap called birch north. Utter some memorable lines from old English verse, which go. He shows to her dress. More Chelsea mare said urinary. Thought she'll be the harder. Hearts are keener, mine shall be the stronger as our strength diminishes. Their leader was down, they had no hope of getting away alive, but they stayed behind. They stayed on, they fought on until their last mound was down.

Formidable man up there. It's hard not to like them. Harold ordered his army to rendezvous at a well-known landmark. The whole apple tree on called Beck hill in Sussex. As night fell, on the evening of Friday, October 13th. His men made camp. A normal chronicler tells us that the saxons spent the night before the battle carousing up here. And gives us an account of their toasts. Bubbly, they cried. And wassail and drink heil, he wasn't actually here. And he may simply have been contrasting the wild English with the pious Normans who spent the night at watch and prayer. Whatever the truth, many of the saxons must have known that this would be their last night on earth. For tomorrow, they would fight. Early on the 14th, William heard mass and warned his men that they were fighting not merely for victory, but for survival. He hung around his neck, the holy relics on which Harold had sworn his oath in ten 64. And at about 6 o'clock set off to fight what he knew would be the campaign's decisive battle. As they reached the crest of tell him hill, the Normans were confronted by an awesome sight. Over there, on senlac ridge, the saxons were forming up. 7000 men, the early son glinting off swords and axes behind a wall of shields. 

To get an idea of how Harold's men would fight. I'm talking to Alan Jeffrey. Expert on Saxon tactics, and known to his friends as Alan the axe. And I always think of the axe as being the Saxon weapon. How important was it? It was probably the most important weapon of the time. Technique is the only way I will survive in that kind of conflagration. I have to have a style that will keep me moving and principally keep you away or get you dead. Now that was a figure 8. In a wide form or a high form, it basically takes this shape. Now, that's on a wide arc and to take it on a higher arc, left hand or right, it takes nowhere for at all for me to do that for a reasonable time. What is worth bearing in mind, though, essentially when this hits you, I get a rest. But if I want to get closer to you, it's not too difficult to raise it up and take your shield away from you. Yeah, I think I get the point. Now, talk me through the exit itself. Okay. It's largely iron, a very, very precious commodity at that time. It then had a tempered steel edge, put along here, heat welded on. It has a diamond section there, which gives it more steel at that end. It is extremely sharp. In the hands of a skilled person, this could fell a human or a horse with a little effort at all. 

This was the center of Harold's line on sendai ridge. He himself stood up here with his half guard about him. His men fought on foot, shield to shield and shoulder to shoulder like their fathers before them. Feigns and House calls well armed, were probably in the front rank, there were some feared men behind them. 7000 men, on a front, maybe a mile across. Officially, the army's war cries were holy cross and God almighty. But when the Normans came in sight, these Shaggy bearded warriors beat the bats of their shields with their weapons, and barked out the older, pagan war cry. Out, out, out, out. Out, out, out. William had God on his side, and a banner to prove it. He had secured the blessing of the Pope for his expedition. Arguing that Harold had broken an oath, sworn on holy relics. William's army formed up with the papal banner, facing the shield wall on the ridge opposite. The Normans were here in the center. The bretons were on the left and the flemings on the right. Williams plan was simple enough. First, his archers and crossbowmen would wear down the shield wall. Then his infantry would tag great gaps in it. Finally, he'd send in the cavalry to break it. To the accompaniment of the braying of trumpets from both sides, his archers moved forward and let fly. 

The Norman arrows had little effect. Either sticking in the shields or passing over the line to four harmlessly behind. And the saxons held firm under heavy farm. William would have to mount a frontal assault against Harald's well chosen defensive position. Battle Abbey was built later. On the ground held by Harold's men that day. And it's construction as flattened out the slope. But it's still pretty steep, and it must have been much worse than for the infantry and cavalry, particularly with 7000 saxons up on top. The infantry attack was a disaster, and the saxons pushed the Normans back down the slope. All Williams hopes no rested with his cavalry. And I are being given some hands on training by Anne highland. Thank you. She's an expert on the medieval war horse. Shield first, I think. The enormous shape shield. Okay, what? What about the rains? Hold those in your left hand. And a little bit above the horse's neck. So that the shield actually covers the upper part of your body. Okay. So how do I actually use the Lance? You can either use it over arm as was the normal way, or else, as was becoming much more common, couched. That's tucked under my arm. Tucked under your arm. With a third of the length, probably behind your body. And the rest of it pointing at your enemy with all the force you've got. Your spirit will give you a good platform to steady your aim. 

Now don't point it down as if you're going to poke a hole in the ground. You want to level it at your opponent. And when you set your horse in motion, it's the weight of the horse. Married with the speed of the horse that delivers the shock. Get your rain sorted. Because you're going in for the real thing now and get your shield so that you are covered. Keep your head pulled in. So when you're charging, you can eye along and aim. But don't take your head off center. Because you'll move your horse off center. Like so many things in life, it's easy when you've done it once or twice. Let's have a go. Up with the Lance. On Williams order, all three cavalry contingents, Flemish, Norman and Breton, charged at once. A thousand horsemen thundering up the slope towards the shield wall. The Brett was hit the shield wall first. They charged here on Williams left, where the slope is gentlest. So made better progress than the rest of the cavalry. Their impact must have been terrific, but the saxons fought back hard, bringing men and horses crashing down. Eventually the battles could bear it no longer, but began to fold back down the slope, with some of the saxons roaring down after them. This wasn't part of Harald's plan, but these men were fighting mad. 

The panic spread across the whole front, Williams men recoiled down the slope. A Norman chronicler admits almost the whole of the duke's army yielded. A cry went up that William had been killed, chaos followed, with his infantry and cavalry streaming away. For a few minutes, it looked as if William's army would collapse, giving victory to Harold. As the fate of the battle hung in the balance, William rose to meet the crisis. He galloped forward, pushing his helmet back so his features could be seen and driving the fugitives back into battle. Look at me, he shouted. Look at me. I'm alive and with God's help will be the Victor. His will prevail. The retreating Normans turned to fight, and the saxons who had pursued them suddenly found themselves outnumbered and vulnerable. The saxons were cut to pieces on this mound well in front of the shield wall. The Bayer Tapestry suggests that it was here that the king's mother's girth and Leo fine were killed. As enemy horsemen swirled in around them, hacking and stabbing. 

This was the battle's decisive moment. Only Williams superb personal leadership had rallied his army. And Harold had lost hundreds of his best men. It was now about 11 o'clock, and both sides paused to regroup. Medieval battles rarely lasted more than an hour also. Hastings had already raged for two. At about 12, battle recommenced. William of poitiers, one of the chroniclers called it an unknown sort of battle, in which one side launched attacks and maneuvers, the other stood like rocks fixed to the ground. Poitier tells us that William launched a number of feigned retreats, drawing the saxons down from the shield wall and killing them out in the open. Exactly as it happened before. I don't believe that the whole army was well enough trained for that sort of thing. Horses and notoriously difficult to stop when they start moving fast en masse. Probably what happened is that small groups of knights wheeled up and down these slopes, eating away at the edge of the shield wall and gradually wearing down Harold's strength. It was now late afternoon with dusk coming on fast. If the Normans were winning, they hadn't yet won. Harold was still on his feet, and his men, although depleted, still held the ridge behind me. At about 7, William turned again to his archers. 

Ordering them to shoot high so that their arrows fell over the tattered shield wall onto the men behind it. If the Tapestry is to be believed, one of them hit Harold in the eye. A group of Norman knights then forced their way into the knot of house gulls surrounding harrell. And hacked the king to death. With the king dead, panic swept through the English ranks. The bayard Tapestry tells us simply the English fled and many of the feared men must indeed have slipped away. Not so the feigns and house gulls who'd fought all day with Harold. Like the heroes of Anglo Saxon epic poems, they remain true to their lord. Here, on grass already greasy with the blood of the slain, they swung sword and axe until they too were killed. There may have been as many as 4000 dead on this dreadful field. Although the king's brothers could be identified, Harold himself could not. His mistress idiot swan neck had followed Harold de Hastings and spent the day on callback hill. As night fell, she came up here to send lack, and with the lover's eye, identified the body she knew so well. This stone marks the spot where Harold died. William was reluctant to burial in consecrated ground to a man whose ambition had he argued, caused so much suffering. But Harold probably lies at Waltham Abbey, in Essex. 

He was luckier than most of his followers, whose bones whiten where they lay. They were few in number, wrote a monkish chronicler, but brave in the extreme. Soon after Hastings, most of the surviving English magnate surrendered, and William advanced on London, crushing resistance as he went. The conqueror was crowned king in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day ten 66. Invasion now became occupation, and the country was carved up among William's followers. Hundreds of castles were built to enforce their will. In modern England, we are never far from evidence of the conquest. They had been few castles here before ten 66, but the Normans nailed the country down with them. The white tar in the Tower of London was begun in the conqueror's reign. But the conquest was more than a change of military architecture, or an exchange of ruling dynasties. It brought a new language and a new ruling class. 4000 Saxon fans were replaced by 200 Norman barons, whose dominant sneered out from these great square keeps. It was small wonder that a Norse poet wrote cold heart and bloody hand now rule the English land.