Trollheart

Another who supported the legitimisation of Bernard was a Benedictine monk called Notker the Stammerer, but nobody paid him any attention, as you could never tell what he was saying. In fact (drum roll) you could say that the did Not ker about his views! Ba-tish! Yeah, well anyway, Charles continued to try to circumvent the fact that he had no actual legitimate children by attempting to cook the books, inserting the word proles (offspring) into the charters, but nobody was fooled. Specially as he did it in blue biro possibly. He then chummed up to Hadrian’s successor, Pope Stephen V, but though he agreed to meet him the new pope pulled out at the last minute, possibly claiming he was washing his cassock or something. Charles then plumped for adoption, making Louis of Provence his heir for some reason, but Pope Stephen wagged his finger and said no way pal, not blessing that line of succession!

All this bumbling and fumbling around, trying desperately to get someone to carry on your dynasty, from a man who had never been a great king anyway (well, great in the sense of being fat, but it’s widely reported most if not all of his crowns fell to him without any real effort, and he never waged any proper war or got his nose bloodied like any self-respecting monarch) people began to look elsewhere for an heir. Odo headed down to his palace in 887, and may have been confirmed heir there. Either way, there was trouble a-plenty at Chez Charles, as he first accused his wife of infidelity. Having proven her innocence through trial by fire, she quite rightly told him where he could stick it and sodded off to a nunnery. Then he pounced on his hated enemy, Liutward his archchancellor, first minister and also bishop of Vercelli, with whom he had accused his - now proven innocent and convent-bound - wife of having an affair. Nobody liked him, so it was not any hardship to kick his ass out of court. Which he did. Probably with relish. He then replaced him with Liutbert, which really makes me think it was just the archchancellor wearing a funny wig. I mean, come on!

Proof that he was either desperate or losing it, or both, surfaces when you realise that Louis II, Louis of Provence, whom he wished now to make his heir, was, well, blind, as evidenced by that quaint French custom of naming someone after their main trait, so he was called Louis the Blind. Blind drunk? No, just blind. I wonder what they would have called me? Trollheart the Arsehole, probably. Anyway I digress. Adding to old Fat Boy’s woes, one of his nephews decided he fancied the throne and went to war against him. History doesn’t record what happened, but it probably involved a lot of huffing and puffing on Charles’ part, a sort of “hold on till I get my breath, would you, there’s a good lad” and stuff like that. In the end, to nobody’s surprise, and probably not even his own, he was deposed, and that was that.

His fall wrecked the Frankish empire, as claimants and challengers to this and that throne popped up all over the place, and the empire disintegrated into separate kingdoms and countries, one of which became West Francia and later France. Which brings us back to our mate Odo.

Elected as the new king of that new country, he went about tearing the Vikings a new one, but as ever, heavy rests the head or something, and yet another Charles wanted to be king. Simple. Yeah. Charles the Simple. Doesn’t sound like the kind of guy you want sitting on the throne, does it? I don’t know if his title meant simple in the way of the brain, or that he was an uncomplicated man. Tell you what: let’s find out, shall we? Well he was also called Charles the Straightforward, so I think we’re looking more at a sort of direct, Meerkat Market sort of simple than the drooling, idiotic smile variety. Charles is however important, so we will come back to him very shortly. Meanwhile, Odo was crowned in 888 and would rule for ten years, though as I say his reign would be marred by his struggle against Charles.

In fact, I can’t see that he had that great a time after saving Paris. He ended up looking for the support of the king of East Francia, Arnulf, but he must have insulted his wife or his wine or something (Frenchman, more likely the wine) as Arnulf instead threw his lot in with Charles, and Odo was forced to concede territory on the Seine to him. He had battled Arnulf for three years, and on the fourth he died, in 898. That left the throne Charles’ for the taking. And he took.


Charles III, Charles the Simple (879 - 929)

We’ve already spoken a little about him above, but here are some more funny facts. He was preceded by - wait for this - Louis the Child, who wasn’t a child. Though he was when he ascended the throne - probably with a bit of a bump-up from someone; he was only six, and died at eighteen. What a bummer. What did he die of? He died of a Tuesday. No, seriously, let’s see. Died of terminal depression, it says here. Wow. If an eighteen-year old king can die of depression, how many of his subjects must have kicked the bucket? Anyway enough about him, as he’s really not important except for me to point a finger and laugh at. Back to Charles the Simple. His dad was another stammerer, Louis the Stammerer - was he king? Yes. Yes he was, and by all accounts, though not a man to make waves or any impact of any sort, you kind of can’t argue with the words of Herman Munster, sorry Sebastian Munster that “he was a sweet and simple man, a lover of peace, justice and religion.”

Oh for the love of - another child! This time Charles the Child, whom Louis succeeded as King of Aquitaine. He also died at age 18, though not from depression, unless you count being depressed by having been hit in the head by a sword while fooling around in mock combat with your own men! The incident left him a little doolally, and he passed away in 866. But as for Charles the Simple, well, he was destined to make his mark on history. Hey, at least he had a mother with a decent name - Adelaide of Paris, because, you know, she was from Paris. In the year 911 (shut up) Paris was again besieged, and again by Rollo, who had come back to finish the job. After Charles had kicked his arse he decided to negotiate with Rollo, and granted him all the land between the river Epte and the sea, and the Duchy of Brittany, naming it all as the new Duchy of, you guessed it, Normandy. Anyone singing “Pass the Dutchie” can leave right now, I’m serious. We don’t need your kind here. Where was I? Oh yeah. In return for this grant, Rollo and all his men were to swear fealty to France, and he himself was to be baptised as a Christian and take Charles’ daughter Gisela as his wife.

It was quite clever of Charles to grant Rollo and the Vikings-soon-to-be-Normans the Duchy of Brittany (yeah, you can go too. You! The one singing “Hit Me Baby One More Time”! Out!), as this was at the time an independent kingdom he had been trying without success to conquer. Now all he had to do was sit back and let his new Viking/Norman allies conquer it for him. Well, for them, but it amounted to the same thing. That year, 911, is also the one in which our friend Louis the Child comes, briefly, back into the picture. With his death, the East Francians elected him king, as they didn’t fancy Conrad I. Well, this is not quite true. Bloody fragmented kingdoms within fragmented kingdoms! Right. Lotharingia was part of East Francia, and they were the ones who elected Charles their king, but essentially saw him as king of all East Francia. This didn’t bother Conrad too much, not because he didn’t care but because he was too busy fighting off claims to his throne, and not only from Charles, but within his own kingdom. So in one way - probably a very wrong way - you could make a very tentative case for Charles the Simple, being technically but not really king of both East and West Francia as being the first actual king of all of France. But you’d be wrong. Also it didn’t last. After Conrad kicked it, it looks like Saxons or some form of Germans anyway took East Francia, and it then either became Germany or was subsumed into it.

Despite six tries, our Charles just couldn’t muster up a son - daughter, daughter, daughter, daughter, daughter… hold on, hold on! Could it be? Is it poss - nah. Another daughter - so like kings everywhere at that time he blamed it on his wife and dumped her to marry another woman, this time the daughter of an English king. English gels knew how to do it right, and out popped an heir, first time of asking. Jolly good show! This boy would go on to rule as Louis IV, but I don’t think he was one of the Bourbon dynasty kings, the likes of Louis the Sun King XIV and zut alors! Where’s me head Louis XVII, and since I’m not writing the history of France (yet!) I don’t really care.

A sad end really for Charles. His own brother Robert marched against him, with the backing of the nobles who had really got pissed off at him for doling out land that was theirs by right, and though Robert was killed in the ensuing battle, Charles was captured and died in prison in 921. Not a very fitting way to end your reign, even if it was a simple one.

But one thing Charles would always be remembered for was for the basic creation of the Norman state, which would go on to cause such misery and hardship in England (and, by extension, Ireland, Scotland and Wales) but which would also fundamentally change Europe and most of the western world.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Rollo (c. 835/87- - 928/933)

All right, let’s just get this out of the way, for those of you who have seen Vikings and think “Oh yeah, that’s Ragnar’s brother!” He wasn’t. At least, so far as history can ascertain (and you can see from the dates of his birth and death that there’s not even agreement on those), Ragnar may or may not have lived (I think I went into this earlier, pretty sure I did) but if he did, he wasn’t around at the same time Rollo was. Rollo can be definitely traced to a proper historical figure though, and so we have a lot more certainty about him than we do about Ragnar. Some facts about him that Vikings got right are that he was a giant of a man, nicknamed “The Walker”, as it was said he was too big for any horse to carry, that he did attack Paris (as we’ve seen above) and was the father of the Norman dynasties. He also contributed to the history of England in a way which will link us back to 1066, if you’ll just bear with me.

But to understand the Normans, and why they so easily defeated the English at Hastings, as I said, we have to know more about them, and it starts with Rollo. We’ve already seen a pencil sketch of him; we know he was a Viking lord who changed tactics from harrying the English to harrying the French (no doubt to a great big “huzzah!” from the English, one they would live to very much retract and regret) and that he besieged Paris. Unable to take it he came to a compromise with Charles the Fat and settled in the area of France (well, West Francia as it was known at the time) which came to be known as Normandy. But they’re only the barest bones, so let’s put the flesh on this skeleton.

Although he is definitely believed to have come from Scandinavia (duh, historians!) nobody can say for sure if it was Norway or Denmark where he was born. He was referred to as “Rollo the Dane”, but then, Dane was a general catch-all label for all Vikings that Europeans used, regardless of their country of birth (which they were unlikely to have known anyway; it’s not like they would ask, as they fended off a blow from a huge axe with a shield, “By the way, where was it you said you came from again?”) so that’s no proof of anything. There does seem to be evidence to suggest he was chased, harried out of or exiled from Scandinavia though, and the first time contemporary history picks him up is attacking Paris in that siege. There are other accounts, but you know historians: two or three corroborating sources at least please, or we’re not interested.

So whatever he did before arriving on the shores of France is mostly unknown, and kind of unimportant anyway, as it is really from the time he became a Norman - the first, you could say - that we’re interested in him. So what happened after Charles said to him “That bit there, down to there, that bit, that, you might have to fight for that bit, they don’t like me and I haven’t been able to subdue them but I’m sure you could. Oh, and that bit too. But not that one. That’s mine.”? We know Rollo was baptised and became a Christian, and that he then took the daughter of the king for his wife. Before this, there is an account of him carrying off the daughter of the Count of Rennes (well, what self-respecting Viking - still a Viking at this point, 876 - wouldn’t carry off a beautiful woman? Went with the territory) and marrying her, she giving him a son, but our friendly historians believe this may be what they term “quasi-bollocks”, meaning it might or might not be true, depending on how many rounds you’re prepared to buy.

Stories, too, of his friendship with an English king, originally identified as Alstem, later seemingly confirmed as Athelstan, (look, just don't start, all right? The things that show got wrong...) the Danish leader Guthrun whom Alfred the Great baptised and then renamed. Again, this could be true or just “qb”, and again it really doesn’t matter, because dial the emergency services or stand outside Ground Zero: 911 is the year we’re most interested in, as this becomes Year Zero for the creation of the Norman State.

Once the lands had been granted to him, Rollo (now baptised as Robert, but it doesn’t seem like he’s ever referred to as anything other than Rollo) decided it was time to put manners on the other Vikings in France and show them who was boss. When Charles the Simple was kicked off the throne though, Rollo thought his deal was over, and so it was hell for leather across West Francia as he pushed the borders of his new realm outwards. Eventually the new king sued for peace, giving Rollo more land. Because of their close connection with the native French, Rollo’s descendants clove to the Catholic tradition, one of many reasons why England would become, for almost four hundred years, a Catholic country.

Rollo died, cause unknown, sometime between 923 and 928. His great-great-grandson was called William, and this is where we return, as it were, by a circuitous route, to the end of English rule and the coming of the Normans to England in 1066.

But of course, it wouldn’t be like me to just go for Hastings now would it? Of course not. First we need to talk about himself.



William I, aka William the Conqueror (1028 - 1087)

The man who would change English politics and start a dynasty that would last centuries lost his father early, when the Duke of Normandy, Robert I (also known humbly as Robert the Magnificent) died on the way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035. Before departing, Robert had declared William his heir, and extracted from all his nobles a promise to uphold his claim, therefore WIlliam became Duke on the death of his father at the tender age of seven years. There’s no such thing, so far as I know, as a regent for a duke, so though he was far too young to rule, William had to take on the job. He did however have allies, in Archbishop Robert, his great-uncle, and the king himself, Henry I. Things took a turn for the worse though when Robert died in 1037, and the duchy descended into anarchy.

William fell under the protection of various guardians, including Alan of Brittany and Gilbert of Brionne, and others, all summarily slain as the young duke’s enemies tried to get to him. He eventually had to seek the protection of the king, but when grown he returned with him in 1047 and retook Normandy, defeating his enemies. He spent five years hunting them down and consolidating his power, but then that power became just a little too consolidated for the king’s liking, and, fearing the power the young duke was building up in Normandy, Henry teamed up with his enemies against William. William proved himself an able commander and a charismatic leader, resulting in some of his former enemies joining him against Henry (turnabout is, after all, fair play) and his battle finally came to an end when both the king and his main ally Geoffrey of Anjou died in 1060.

In 1049 William had married Matilda of Flanders, cementing his alliance with Germany, though His Holiness Pope Leo IX, for some reason, refused to allow the marriage. He went ahead anyway, sort of taking a future page from one of his successors, Henry VIII, though he stopped short of creating his own Church.

Eve of the, um, Battle

It’s always struck me as odd that a simple duke should decide to invade England. Was this not the prerogative of the king? Was it not kings who invaded and tried to take crowns from other kings? I suppose it’s quite possible that if you look through history there have been some instances of other nobles invading foreign countries, but I would have thought that would have been a prelude to their king coming over and sitting on the throne? Did the French king give his blessing to, or even permission for, such a huge and potentially world-changing action? Who was even king at this time? Let’s see. Hmm. Philip I is shown as being “king of the Franks” but there’s no reference to his being involved in William’s campaign. I suppose it’s possible he had other things to worry about. William probably didn’t feel he owed him any real fealty anyway, as Normandy was essentially all but a separate state, and powerful, so maybe Philip just let him go his own way. I’ll try to research that a bit further later, because I find it strange. Would, for instance, say maybe Cnut or Alfred the Great allowed one of their dukes or barons to boogie over to France and try to take the crown? Sounds unlikely.

Then again, perhaps given the story that William had been promised the English crown, his boss thought maybe it gave him that right. Perhaps Philip was too busy fighting (or, considering his suffix, “the amorous”, engaged in other activities) and just said “Sure if he promised ye the crown, you go and take it like a good man there, and leave me alone.” Why he should have suddenly gained a Dublin accent we will never know. But there is no mention of him, whether he approved, disapproved or was totally oblivious to the ambitions of the Duke of Normandy, and it does appear, on the surface anyway, that he just left him to it.

Winding our way across the Channel and back to Merry Old England, it will possibly be remembered that we left the country in a state very much other than merry, as King Harold Godwinson was somewhat less than secure on the English throne, having in total three claimants to the Crown, one of which was his own half-brother. Four, in fact, if you include Edward Atheling, though he was only fourteen at the time. Tostig, the other brother, had been exiled, and we’ll have a shufty at him in a moment. The third claimant, as already discussed in the previous chapter, was the king of Norway, Harold Bastard Hard, I mean Harold Hardrada. He had made an agreement with his uncle, King Magnus, that should Harthacnut die without an heir, then his son would take the crown, but should Magnus do the same, then his heir would be next in line for the throne.

It’s been almost a year, and I’m getting a little confused, so let’s recap on all these people and sort things out before we go any further.

First, Harthacnut: as everyone knows (and if you didn’t know, then you would from his name) he was the son of Cnut, one of the wisest and longest-reigning kings of England, and the first ever Viking one. Harthacnut succeeded to the throne on the death of his half-brother Harold Harefoot, who had come to power after the great Cnut had passed away, he being his son by Aelfgifu, and Harthcnut being busy with trying to establish control in Norway. When Harold died, Harthacnut returned and took the throne, but only lasted seven years, dying, it appears, of terminal alcohol poisoning at a wedding.

Next up was Edward the Confessor, and he died childless, having decided to take a vow of chastity, which kind of threw the succession into chaos. They really needn’t have worried, as William was on his way to sort out all their problems for them and take away forever the burden of ruling England. But anyway it was his brother, son of the late great Earl Godwin, and last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, did he but know it, Harold II, known as Harold Godwinson, who became his heir. Harold had to fight off an attempt by his namesake with different spelling, King Harald of Norway, then, having kicked his arse, may have thought, this French William will be a piece of cake. Shoot out my eye if - oh wait: I’ve done that one, haven’t I?

So for whatever reason he was allowed, ignored or just went anyway, William decided the time was ripe to cash in on that “IOU 1 crowne of ye Englishe” and headed west, with a rather large army. His wife may have complained about not wanting to live in such a miserable rainy country, but history records his reply as “I’ll give you miserable, you moaning old…” (the rest of the manuscript has sadly been lost to the ravages of time) and Hastings-bound he came.

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Trollheart

Back to Harald we go. No, the other one. When he came over from Norway to kick the son of the Earl of Godwin (Godwinson, get it?) off the just-vacant English throne, he brought with him another enemy of the then-king, but paradoxically also a claimant, so not quite sure how that worked. Tostig has already been mentioned, Harold’s brother whom he exiled from England, but who believed he jolly well had just as much a right to the crown as his sibling, dash it all, and decided to support the Norwegian king, perhaps in the hope he might be granted a duchy or a baronetcy or some damn title with a lot of land anyway. Okay, let’s unpack this.

Tostig had come with his army to take the throne but had been driven off by his brother, and instead decided to head north, where there were always arses to kick. Unfortunately, these arses kicked back, so to speak, and Tostig was harried by the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, and he lost most of his men. He decided to go to Scotland and lick his wounds, and maybe see if he couldn’t scare up some support there. The Scots were always on for a fight, after all, and there was little they hated more than the English. Of course, he was English too, so there was that. As it went, King Harald, the Norwegian one, was cooling his heels on the south coast, looking at his watch and wondering where the hell this WIlliam character was, said to meet him on the south coast 1066, and here it was and no sign of him. It was then that his men came to him and said “Look Your Majesty, we’d love to stay and die horribly in your service, get mutilated and maimed for life all to get you this throne your heart seems set on, but the thing is, we’re militia, see, and, well, we have these crops that need to be harvested.” So off they went to return to a much safer life as farmers (unless you happened to get in the way of the local lord, who might just that morning have arisen with an insatiable desire to mow down farmers, the things these lords get up to, I don’t know) and Harald was kind of left armyless.

So he moseyed on up north, which seemed to be the in-place to go, where he met a rather despondent Tostig. “How many men you got?” he asked him possibly over a few pints of good dark ale (or, being the north, possibly grey ale, and also possibly not good). “Not much,” belched Harald maybe. “A mere 300 ships, no more than 15,000 men.” Tostig may have grinned and the two may even have clinked glasses, who knows? “That’ll do for me,” it’s possible Tostig may have said, having perhaps spent too long among northerners, and so they banded together and went to kick the king out of the royal palace. As for William, well, Harald may have thought philosophically, he may turn up, he may not, but this guy has an army here and now, and I’ll be buggered if I’m spending another season pulling my dick in this cold climate waiting for him.

At York, at the end of September, Tostig was able to have his revenge on the two earls, whom he and his new ally sent running like girls maybe as they roundly defeated them at the Battle of Fulford. Had they waited for Harold Godwinson, who had texted ahead saying there was heavy traffic on the A40 maybe, they might have triumphed, but as ever in English politics (and not just English of course) nobody trusted anybody else, and the two earls thought maybe Harold would set Tostig up as Earl of Northumbria. The other earl, Edwin of Mercia, may have shrugged that that would suck, but what had it to do with him, and may have been answered by the reminder that there was also a Norwegian bastard involved, who might fancy Edwin’s earldom. So stung into action, the two decided **** Harold, we can take these two pussies.

They were wrong.

So when Harold did finally huff and puff his way up the motorway he found his allies nothing more than a rapidly-receding cloud of dust, with Harald and Tostig there going “Now, about this throne.” They met at Stamford Bridge, and in true Chelsea home style, there was a massacre. 2-0 to the English king as he not only defeated Tostig and Harald, but killed them both. The exertion, however, left his forces depleted, and all he could probably think was that this would be the worst time for, say, an attack to come from across the sea.

He had barely a month to wait.

Of course, I’m sure we all understand well enough that it wasn’t as if William texted Harold - “You, me, Hastings. Be there.” In fact, neither probably had any idea where the decisive battle would be, and like any king (or in this case, duke, but soon to be king) landing on foreign shores he was invading, William had a lot of raiding and harrying and possibly raping to do as well before he got to grips with his enemy. His power had obviously grown by now, and I don’t know whether you could call him the de facto king of France, but he was certainly able to muster men from Flanders, Brittany and other parts of France to fight for him, and though as ever historians disagree over the size of his force, it’s generally accepted to have been somewhere between the 7,000 and 10,000 mark. Hard to be sure, as contemporary historians and present ones never get on: if they see each other at the bar, watch out and hold onto your pint. Naturally, those on William’s side would have been exaggerating to make him look more of a threat than he was, but it’s never possible to be sure. So we stick with this range.

Doesn’t seem that huge really. King Harald only brought about 15,000, and his army was considered large. Well, as they say, it’s often not how big it is but where you stick it, and William stuck it to the English. Let’s not forget Harold’s men were also shagged out after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and a fresh army with a duke eyeing his crown was really the last thing he needed right now. Right now though, was exactly when William came, and he landed in England only a few days after the battle, Harold’s army limping home and looking forward to putting their feet up with a cuppa and a copy of Soldier Times or whatever. Sussex was where he made his invasion, setting up a wooden castle (huh?) at Hastings and using it as a base for attack. Since this was Harold’s stomping ground, the idea was to lure him there by wrecking everything around, levelling his relative’s castles and basically causing **** all through the neighbourhood till the king came to ask them nicely to keep it down if they wouldn’t mind, there were people trying to sleep, and Mildred at number ten had a newborn that just would not ****ing stop crying.

But when he got the e-vite that was it, and it would be rude not to respond, so off he went to Hastings. He set up defensive camp on Saulac Hill, hoping to surprise William, but the duke’s scouts were out and about and had probably recognised Harold due to the crown on his head or something. Anyway, they legged it back to tell their master the English ruler was on the way, and William rode out to meet them. It was October 14 1066, the day everything changed for England. In a stunning piece of irony, those little quirks history is wont to throw up from time to time, the place where the battle actually took place was called, um, Battle. It still is, and I assumed it had been renamed for the famous confrontation, but it seems it has always had that name. So in effect, it wasn’t really the Battle of Hastings, but then, the Battle of Battle 1066 would just be silly, wouldn’t it?

Anyway the battle lasted pretty much all day, and as you know, I don’t do all this battlefield historians ****e; not interested in who made a pincer movement or who cut off who from their forces, who took this flag or that ridge or any of that bollocks. But I’ll see what I can pick out from the details, see if there is anything I should be writing and telling you about. Okay, I see there was a rumour started that William had been killed, and the army began to panic and retreat, the English pushing forward until the man himself appeared, shouting rather unnecessarily that he was alive, and led the counter-offensive as the English wet themselves and fled. Incredible as it may seem to us, but perhaps a totally English thing (and observed by the French too) the two armies appear to have broken for afternoon tea, taking a rest and getting their strength back. Bah! Wouldn’t have happened at El Alamein, I can tell you that!

Nevertheless, once Harold went down that was that. Again with the differing accounts, but whether it’s the truth or just the accepted one, the later Bayeux Tapestry has the famous drawing of the king being shot in the eye by an arrow and thus being killed. That may not be the case, but it’s passed down into legend and popular history, and who am I to dispute it? Although some of his men rallied around the king’s corpse and fought to the end, as in most battles, once the leader is slain the army is out of here, and so they were. William had won the day, and the last English king had bit the dust. A lot of long-winded explanations and theories over how and why William triumphed, but they seem to be mostly centred on the English attacking when they should have been defending (Newcastle United anyone?), being fooled by the feigned retreats the Normans pulled off during the battle, only to be led into an attack, and their lack of cavalry, which would always remain one of the Normans’ biggest advantages.

A decisive and stirring victory it may have been, and indeed the beginning of the end for English rule, but if William thought the country was going to fold like a pack of cards and meekly accept a frog as their new sovereign, well, he was about to find out he was in error.

Edgar Atheling (1052 - 1125 or possibly later)

We’ve heard of him before. He was the son of Edgar the Exile who, once his exile was over, returned to England only to earn a new name: Edgar the Dead. With so many powerful claims to the throne on the death of Edward the Confessor, and he being so young, still in his teens, at the time, Edgar Atheling was not really considered a runner, and Harold Godwinson was crowned instead. When Harold fell, and William began his march towards London in order to take the crown that was possibly rightfully his but never mind if it wasn’t, he had won it by right of combat, the English elected Edgar as king. He never ruled though. In Southwark he fought with the English for control of London Bridge, unable to gain access to the city, he expected to encounter only token resistance at the bridge, but one of the leaders of the defenders, a man called Ansgar (or Esegar), the sheriff of Middlesex, had been with Harold at Hastings, and had returned to Southwark to organise its defence.

William, somewhat nonplussed to see such a force arrayed against him - even the townsfolk were armed and joined the effort - offered Ansgar the sheriffship under his rule if he would submit to him, but Ansgar told him where to stick it and they attacked. You have to give it to this guy: he was so badly wounded he had to be carried around in a litter, and had been offered pretty generous terms by the victorious duke, soon to be his king. If he recognised him not only would he be allowed retain his lands, but he could also have a seat on the council. Now, you can’t say fairer than that, can you? But England doesn’t like invaders, especially ones who rub out their kings, and so there was no compromise.

It’s possible those two earls, he of Mercia and the other of Northumbria, were there defending the town too, and though William’s cavalry broke through, they faced such stiff opposition that they could not hold the bridge, so they set it ablaze, and Southwark was virtually razed to the ground. London continued to put up stiff resistance until the clergy, convinced by William that they should concede, swore their fealty and he was allowed enter the city. He was crowned the first Norman king of England on Christmas Day.

His first few years, however, were far from easy or peaceful. England had been battered into submission, with the only real alternative to William - now known forever more as “the Conqueror” - being the weak and ineffectual and inexperienced Edgar Atheling, and really nobody wanted to rally behind him. When William returned to Normandy in March though, the English took their chance and revolted here there and everywhere, leaving his half-brother Odo, and his partner, William Fitzosbern with rebellions to put down, which they did. William was back at the end of the year and took a hand in suppressing the revolts himself, the great strength of his policy being what would become a feature of Norman conquest, not only in England and Ireland but everywhere: he built castles and installed garrisons there, so that there was no chance of rebels getting too uppity again. If they did, there was a ready-made force there to take care of them.

But then there were rebellions and there were rebellions, and one definitely demanded his own personal attention.

The Harrying of the North: No Mercy from the Normans

In late 1069 the north rose. To almost paraphrase and parallel Game of Thrones, winter was coming and the north had united behind Edgar. I don’t know if they proclaimed him “King in the North” or anything - most likely not; they’d have wanted him to have been recognised and acknowledged as king of all England - but they rallied and stood against William, still more or less at this point seen as an invader, and a Frenchman to boot. England had not forgotten the old rivalry with France, and this guy might call himself a Norman, but he came from France, and that was good enough for them. England - and Ireland - would of course have cause to hate and revile the word Norman over the next few hundred years, even more than it had hated the word French. What became known as “the harrying of the north” was only the beginning.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

I suppose at this point it might be helpful to explain what “the north” comprised at the time. Borders and boundaries would be redrawn during William’s reign, but at the time of his accession to the throne the north was Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmorland (see map above). Many of these places, you may remember, had been part of Danelaw, and occupied by Vikings in the time of Alfred and Aethelred and so on, and they had little taste to bend the knee to a French king. They possibly saw their Norman cousins as Vikings who had submitted themselves to France, and were no longer worthy of the warrior race. Or maybe they just didn’t like William, who knows? Either way, they weren’t having it.

One of the main points of contention was the earldom of Northumbria. This area had been a trouble spot since the days of Danelaw, often allying against the king, and by this time it had changed hands three times since the days of Tostig (remember him?). The first had been when a supporter of his, with the unlikely name of Copsi (sounds like a character from Beatrix Potter!) took over, swearing fealty to William, having fought Harold with Harald, as it were, on the side of Tostig at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But the north was against William, and within weeks of being made the new earl Cosplay sorry Pepsi sorry Copsi was killed, replaced by Osulf, who was in turn murdered and the earldom then bought by his cousin, Cospatrick. Who promptly offered his allegiance to Edgar. And so here we were.

William, having had quite enough of these Ango-****ing-Saxons and their treachery and treason (there’s always an excuse for it) rode to Northumbria and Edgar and Cospatrick and assorted allies all scattered, making a beeline for Scotland, where the king, Malcolm II, always happy to stick it to an English monarch, especially a new one finding his feet, said “Come on in, all o’ ye! Sure ye’ll find braw shelter at mah hearth, ye ken!” or something. William then solved the problem of the Earldom of Northumbria by conferring it on someone he could trust, a Norman. Job done.

Or not quite. Secure now in his new position, Robert de Comines rode into Durham and swiftly adn brutally learned that the one thing the north did not like was a ****ing Frenchman trying to lord it over them. So that was the end of him, and the beginning of a resurgence of the revolt. The rebels then burned York castle, which really ticked William off and he rode back, snarling “That ****ing castle cost me a lot to build, you English bastards!” And someone may have whispered in his ear so that he added, shrugging “Oh. Right. Yeah. And you killed my newly-appointed earl, too!”

As it often does, rebellion spread, so other towns rose in support of Edgar, who turned to a Viking, Sweyn II, a nephew of Cnut the Great, who was probably none too pleased to see what a pig’s breakfast this William head was making of his uncle’s ex-kingdom, and sent a large fleet against him. They retook York, but when William came again to make them give it back, they quipped “Didn’t want your stupid castle anyway!” and ran back across the border to Scotland. Possibly seeing what a useless wimp this Edgar Atheling was, Sweyn headed back down the coast, William bought him off in the time-honoured fashion and he buggered off back to Denmark with all his ships. You could probably hear the sound as William clapped his gloved gauntlets together and eyed the north.

“Right!” said he, probably. “Now let’s sort this ****ing place out once and for all!”

And so he did.

The people would remember it forever as the Harrying of the North. Historians would call it genocide. Even later, more sympathetic writers of Norman descent would opine that it was cruel and merciless, but that William had no choice. Basically, it was a slaughter. The Viking blood that pulsed in his Norman veins was up now, and William had had just about enough of these English. He set to ensuring they would learn their place, would stay there, and would never rise again. Nobody was spared: towns, villages, households; men, women, children, animals, possibly even furry toys - all fell to the sword, the arrow and the fire. The North was set ablaze from border to border, the fires possibly reflected in the eyes of the king and his men as they went about their business like demons from Hell. Well, they wouldn’t be demons from anywhere else, would they, but you know what I mean.

An Anglo-Norman chronicler wrote in 1116 of the fury of the king, and how savage - and indeed, unjust - his reprisals were: "The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. This made a real change. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people perished of starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him."

It may not really have been the best policy. If you’re trying to establish your rule on a foreign land, trying to (presumably) create alliances and win allies, torching half of the country is probably not the way to go. Then again, it was only the north. This would, however, instil forever in that half of the country a hatred, resentment and resistance to William’s rule which would come back to haunt him. English kings had raided and go on the rampage before, but not, it would seem, in such an indiscriminate and murderous way. Villages were torched, crops destroyed, livestock killed, the whole land laid waste. In the ensuing and inevitable famine, it was said, with some support, that people turned to cannibalism in order to survive. I don’t believe this had happened in England before this, so there’s a mark of shame William was never able to remove from his reign.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018