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The Norman Conquest

Pevensey Bay, where the Normans landed on 28th September 1066.

Sometimes the Battle of Hastings is presented as a battle between the English and the French, but this is to place the pattern of modern times onto the world of the past. Harold Godwinson, king of England, was the son of the Anglo Saxon Earl Godwin, and Gytha, sister of Earl Ulf, the most powerful of Danish earls. The Anglo Saxons and the Danish were themselves old enemies, who lived uneasily together, following a long history of conflict between the Angle Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and the Danes who controlled the east of the country. Meanwhile the Normans were not really French. France was not the country we know today. The French kings ruled a territory in the middle of what is now France, called the Ile de France. The Normans were actually Norse men who had been given the area of Normandy in 911 as a bribe to end their siege of Paris. They had become Frenchified of course, but they were not French, and did not think of themselves as so. They were Normans, a word derived from 'Norse Man'.

Harold's father, Earl Godwin was a powerful man, who had been exiled from England to Flanders in Belgium after falling out with the then king, Edward the Confessor. Godwin and his sons staged their own invasion of England in 1052, forcing Edward to return Godwin's lands to him. Following the invasion Godwin was now the most powerful man in England and when he died in 1053 his son Harold took over his power base, and was a strong candidate for the throne when Edward died. So Harold the traditional defender of England was himself an invader of it.

The Battlefield from the English side

Harold was also a one time friend of William of Normandy. In 1064 Harold was wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, and eventually found himself released to William. Harold fought with William against Conan of Brittany, and was knighted by William for his services at Bayeux, the Norman capital. During the ceremony Harold took an oath to help William become the English king once Edward died. Harold also agreed to marry William's daughter Eadmer. In return William promised Harold half of England. So when the time came for Harold to go back on his promise, he was actually married to the daughter of the man who was invading England. You have to wonder about the conversation at tea time between husband and wife.

 

 

The battlefield from the Norman side

In January 1066 King Edward died, and the ruling body of England came together to consider the claims of the four main pretenders to the throne, Harold, Edgar Etheling, Harald Hardrada and William of Normandy. When Harold was given the throne two of the other candidates pressed their claims. Harald Hardrada invaded from Norway, and was supported by Harold's brother Tostig. At the same time William prepared an invasion from Normandy. Harold had to first defeat Harald Hardrada and Tostig at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, and then dash south to counter William's invasion,who had landed at Pevensey on the 28th of September. Harold finally came to face William at Senlac Hill near Hastings on the 4th of October 1066. Senlac means river, or lake, of blood, and it was here that battle raged all day, where Harold was killed and England defeated, by a man who had been on the short list of English kings only a few months earlier.

 

Lakes at the bottom of the battlefield

The usual image of invasion is of a struggle between natives of one country fighting foreigners. In the Battle of Stamford Bridge Harold had actually fought his brother Tostig, who was supporting Harald Hardrada. Then in the battle that followed at Hastings, the most famous in British history, the struggle raged between two lots of people whose leaders had once been friends. The daughter of one leader was the wife of the other, and both groups were strongly linked to the Vikingsof Scandinavia. Wandering through the peaceful meadows of Senlac Hill this gives pause for thought.

Throughout the Norman period the ironies continued, England becoming a battleground between Norman factions following William the Conqueror's death. Many of the Norman nobles were unhappy with the way the Conqueror had divided up his dominions in 1087. They supported the claim of the Conqueror's elder son Robert to the English throne, over that of the younger son William. Rochester became a headquarters for the rebels, who included Odo, Bishop of Bayeux amongst them. The younger William marched on Rochester, recruiting Englishmen to his cause as he went. It was almost as though William's cause was an "English" cause, whatever that meant. In May 1088 this army of Englishmen and Normans lay siege to the fortifications at Rochester. The defenders soon surrendered, and William the Second secured his crown. England was now separate from Robert's Normandy, due more to personal animosity between the sons of the Conqueror than anything else. In 1100 on William's the Second's death, the Conqueror's youngest son Henri took advantage of the fact that Robert was away fighting crusades to grab the throne to become Henry the First. Henry then managed to reunite Normandy and England. But rather than this unification being seen as some kind of threat to England most people respected Henry's competent rule, and divisions began to break down between Normans and Saxons. Henry himself married the daughter of an old royal Saxon family. Trouble only returned with the death of Henry's son and heir in a shipwreck. When Henry the First died rule passed to his daughter, the Empress Matilda, who was quickly ousted by the Conqueror's grandson Stephen. Stephen took advantage of the fact that Matilda was out of the country at the time of her father's death, crossed the Channel, and was crowned king in 1135. Stephen, a pleasant man, was seemingly completely unsuited to twelfth century kingship. England descended into virtual civil war. This war did not end until the arrival of Matilda's son Henri Plantagenet in 1153. Confused? Well you might be. Henri Plantagenet's flag featured three lions, and those three lions, associated with England ever since, truly reflect the vagaries of national identity. They represent the end of the Norman period, and the "invasion" of England by a man who controlled Normandy. It was almost as though Normandy was reinvading itself. Anyway, Henry the Second turned out to be a very effective king. England's developing sense of itself following the chaotic end of the Norman period lies with him, the son of the Count of Anjou who invaded from Normandy. And just to add another twist to the story, his invasion was a bit of an accident. Read more on our Early Plantagenets page.

The three Plantagenet lions of England, originally from the flag of Henri Plantagent, a Norman noble