The Empire Writes Back: 1066 and the arrow

by Ben Patterson

Following on from the last instalment: Cnut The Great

Our last instalment covered the Danelaw, from its zenith under Cnut the Great to its waning as the reign of Edward the Confessor began in 1042. One would not be remiss to think of this as the end of the Viking Age, but that would come twenty-four years later, in the fateful year of 1066 – the year when the fate of England was set, when the King of England desperately fought to protect his people from being forced to speak French for the next century (a most noble cause, if you ask me), and an Anglo-Saxon and Norwegian battled to decide whether Harold was spelled with an a or an o (spoiler alert, neither of them won).

For some background as to why the War of 1066 is relevant to our little Viking saga, one must look to the Norwegian claimant to the throne of England; Harald Sigurdson, often known by his epithet of Harald Hardrada (‘Hard-Ruler’). In his youth, Harald spent his years first in the court of the Kievan (Kyivan) (modern-day Ukraine) grand prince Yaroslav (the Slavs have some funky names, don’t they?), before eventually moving into the service of the Byzantine Emperor Michael IV, as part of the Varangian Guard. Which, contrary to how it sounds, is not something from Star Wars, but rather an elite unit of Germanic (Norse or Anglo-Saxon, usually) mercenaries under the direct employ of Constantinople.

Upon his return to Norway in 1045, Harald assumed kingship with his nephew Magnus (which is such a cool name), with the aforementioned coolly-named Norwegian dying two years later and leaving Harald the sole ruler. Now, aforementioned nephew had made an agreement with the last of Cnut the Great’s heirs (Harthacnut) before the latter’s death, that if one died heirless the other would inherit their kingdom (Norway or England, respectively). Of course this did not happen, as Edward the Confessor became England’s king after Harthacnut, but it did provide Magnus (and his successor Harald) a legitimate claim to the crown.

But now, let’s briefly go through the other two contenders in the ring. We won’t dwell on them long, but it feels prudent to mention:

In the Norman corner we have the to-be-Conqueror himself William the Bastard, coming in at 38 years of age and sporting the most tenuous claim of the three; according to Norman propaganda he was secretly promised the throne by the late Confessor, and this was agreed to by Harold (it should be noted that Harold denotes Godwinson the Anglo-Saxon, and Harald denotes Hardrada).

In the English corner we’ve got old arrow-eye himself, Harold Godwinson, coming in at 44 years of age and having the strongest claim to England. After the death of the Confessor, the Witenagemot (noble council) of the realm elected him to be the next ruler, which was when the other two staked their claims and invaded.

Unfortunately for the Norse enthusiasts amongst you, Harald was the first to be defeated. The Norwegians had seen initial success in the Battle of Fulford on the 20^th of September, securing a foothold in York. The main army under Harold’s command was stationed in the south when the Norwegians first struck, preparing to defend against the oncoming Normans, but after Harald’s decisive victory the King and his men rode north to combat them. After Hardrada had demanded hostages and supplies from the Northumbrians to the north (funnily enough), and the Anglo-Saxons learned of where this exchange was going to go down shortly thereafter – Stamford Bridge. Dun dun DUN!

Yes, as many of you may have heard in the past, this marked the infamous Battle of Stamford Bridge that saw the decisive end of Scandinavian kingly ambitions in England. It is uncertain how exactly the battle began, but according to King Harald’s Saga it starts in the coolest way possible. A solitary horseman approached Harald and his brother Tostig a little time before, offering the latter the chance to abandon his sibling and be re-granted an earldom in England. Tostig, ever the loyal brother, asked what Hardrada would have received as part of this offer. Allegedly, the rider said, “six feet of ground, or as much more as he needs, as he is taller than most men.” Metal. What made this threat even cooler was that Tostig identified the rider as Harold Godwinson himself.

Regardless of whether this bold display happened or not, the events of the battle are fairly concrete afterwards. The Anglo-Saxon armies took the Norwegians completely by surprise, who didn’t even know a battle was coming until they saw the English upon the horizon. While possibly apocryphal, a handful of accounts state that, upon trying to filter through the chokepoint of the Bridge itself, a single Norwegian with an axe faced down the Anglo-Saxon armies and slaughtered more than 40 of the enemy soldiers, only being felled by a spearman getting a cheap shot on him from underneath the bridge.

Regardless of whether that particular Viking’s last stand was true or not, the delay that the chokepoint caused gave the Norwegians time to form up and charge. The battle raged for hours after this, but as time went on the Norwegian formation began to break, and the Anglo-Saxons took advantage, outflanking their Norse adversaries. Norwegian reinforcements did arrive under Harald’s son-in-law Eystein Orre, and for a brief time it seemed that this may have turned the tide, but eventually the English recuperated and counter-attacked; the Norwegian armies were annihilated, and Harald Hardrada was killed with an arrow to the windpipe.

While there were sporadic attempts by further Scandinavian rulers to extend influence in the British Isles after this, Harald’s death and his army’s defeat at Stamford Bridge largely ended Norse ambitions in England and the Viking Age as a whole, with the King being widely considered ‘the Last Viking’. At least he went out in a blaze of glory, I suppose.

Thus marks the end of our Viking tales, for now at least. What will come next? Will it be set before the Vikings? After? Who knows! Not me, I haven’t decided yet… but, y’know, I look forward to it!