William made preparations for the great fleet to be collected on the Channel coast at Dives-sur-Mer by the middle of June 1066. 14,000 men were summoned for the onslaught. Harold, knowing of the naval threat, stationed his fleet at the Isle of Wight and posted land forces along the Channel coast. Yet the French army was kept in port by contrary winds. On eventually taking sail for England it was blown off course and was obliged to take shelter in the port of Saint Valéry-sur-Somme. There it remained until the last week of September. Never has an invasion been so bedevilled by bad luck, and it must have seemed to William’s commanders that divine help would not necessarily be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, Harold waited. For four months he kept his forces prepared for imminent attack. Then on 8 September, he disbanded them. Provisions were running out, and the men needed urgently to return to their farms. He may have been informed of the abortive sailing of William’s fleet and calculated that, with the season of storms approaching, there would be no invasion this year. Soon after his return to London, he learned of a more immediate danger. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts it, ‘Harald, king of Norway, came by surprise north into the Tyne.’ On 20 September, Harald Hardrada descended upon York. On hearing this unwelcome news Harold mustered his retainers; he marched north very swiftly, riding night and day, picking up local forces as he went forward. The first that the Danish army knew of his arrival was the sight of the dust thrown up by the horses. On 25 September he engaged the enemy at Stamford Bridge where he obtained a complete victory. It was a measure of his competence as a military commander. Harald Hardrada was killed in the course of the battle, marking the end of the Viking interest in England. ‘A great man,’ Harold said of Hardrada, ‘and of stately appearance. But I think his luck has left him.’
Harold’s own luck was soon dissipated. He was, in effect, the last of the English kings. As soon as he had celebrated the victory over the Norwegians, he received news that William had launched his invasion force. The duke had put a lantern on the mast of his ship, leading the way across the Channel. The Norman force landed in Pevensey Bay at nine o’clock in the morning on Thursday, 28 September 1066. It was the most fateful arrival in England’s history. From Pevensey Bay the Normans rowed around the coast to Hastings, which they considered to be more favourable terrain. William built a makeshift castle here, and proceeded to ransack the adjacent villages. But he did not march along the road to London; his position was essentially defensive, close to his ships.
Harold received word of William’s invasion two or three days after the event and immediately marched southward with the core of his army to meet the enemy in Sussex. He acted very promptly, but his troops had just fought an arduous battle in the course of which their numbers had been reduced. Haste may have precipitated defeat. He was hoping, perhaps, to catch the Normans by surprise just as he had surprised Harald Hardrada; he was undoubtedly trying to confine them on the little peninsula of which Hastings was a part. He knew the territory well; Sussex was his native country, and he possessed large estates there. By 13 October he had attained this objective. He had told the local Sussex militia to meet him at ‘the hoary apple-tree’ on Caldbec Hill, but William received word of the forthcoming assault. He was able to lead his forces against an English army that was not properly assembled.
The Norman troops were marched in sight of the English force waiting on Caldbec Hill, the highest ground available; the Normans took up battle order on the southern slope of the hill, in what was theoretically an inferior position. The location of the English, on the summit, was later marked by the high altar of Battle Abbey; they were pressed tightly together, whereas the Normans were in more military formation. The English had some 6,000 or 7,000 men, but they were outnumbered by the Normans. The English were on foot, according to their normal practice, whereas the Normans had a large force of cavalry waiting in the rear.
So battle was joined. The Normans cried out ‘God is our help’ as they ran against the enemy, while the English called upon ‘Christ’s rood, the holy rood!’ William wore sacred relics around his neck. As the Normans advanced upon them, the English put up their shields in order to form a ‘wall’. They were essentially in a defensive formation, and it seemed that they were rooted to the spot. But the Normans had another tactic. On two occasions they pretended to flee from the enemy, only to wheel around and cut off their pursuers. The core of the English army, however, held its ground and fought all day. Then Harold was killed, at dusk, by a stray arrow. With their leader gone, the soldiers weakened. They fled into the night. If Harold had not fallen, his forces might have prevailed. But ‘if ’ is not a word to use in history.
William and his army rested for five days, and then advanced on London by way of Dover and Canterbury. He was now in a foreign country still governed by men who were unwilling to submit to him; he was surrounded by foes. The earls of the northern shires were implacably opposed to him, as were the people of London itself. So he trusted his violent instincts; he took the offensive and began a campaign of terror. He was beaten back at London Bridge, and in revenge he burned Southwark to the ground. He then lit a circle of fire around London, ravaging the countryside all around; he left a trail of destruction and rapine through Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire. The entries for ‘waste lands’ in Domesday Book tell the story of his progress. The leaders of the English, trapped in London, now agreed to submit. A delegation came to Berkhamsted, in Hertfordshire, and formally yielded to his power. The English were accustomed to foreign kings, after all, and the transition from Canute and the half-Norman Edward the Confessor to William was not considered unacceptable. Surrender was preferable to resistance and further bloodshed. With the death of Harold, too, they lacked an effective war leader.
William then led his troops into the capital. There may have been some local resistance among the Londoners, but his victory was complete. He was crowned king of England on Christmas Day in Westminster Abbey. As duke of Normandy, however, he was still in theory a vassal of the king of France. This dual status would bear bitter fruit in the years, and centuries, to come. From this time forward England would be involved in the affairs of France, and of western Europe, with many bloody battles and sieges that did not really come to an end until the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.
8
The house
The British roundhouse, the Roman villa and the Anglo-Saxon hall – many of them built in the same place through successive centuries – have gone into the earth. A few ruined villas remain as evidence of ancient civilization, but most of them are now part of the land on which they once rested.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the standard house consisted of one square room on the ground floor, with another square room built above it; access to the latter was generally granted by means of an external staircase. The furniture was simple, and scarcely varied at all from that of the Anglo-Saxons. A board laid on trestles acted as a dining table, and a wooden bench was the primary form of seating. In the houses built of stone, alcoves or recesses in the wall could be used for the same purpose. There were very few chairs or stools, except for the chair of state in noble households. Some of the richer families might own chests, coffers and cupboards; the bed was essentially a bag of straw laid upon a carved frame.
Only the wealthy possessed houses of stone with a ‘hall’ on the ground floor. A larger proportion of families owned houses built of wood and thatched with straw or reeds or heather; the windows boasted no glass, but wooden shutters could be barred at night for safety and comfort. Nevertheless the wooden house was always draughty and smoky. It was generally on two floors, like its stone counterpart, with a living room and kitchen on the ground floor; on the upper storey was a bedroom for the master of the house and his family. In the poorer dwellings the inhabitants would sleep on the floor, with heather or straw as their bedding. There might be a wooden booth in front of the house, where goods and produce could be sold; behind the house might be located a warehouse or small factory where those goods were manufactured.