We're almost on the last leg of our tour and today it's all about the date - 14th October. Over to Helen:
On this day, 14th
October 1066, there was a unique, for its time, battle at a place that, then,
had no name. The battle raged from around 9a.m. until dusk and was bitter and
bloody. Since that day the location has been known by various names – Senlac Hill, the Battle of Hastings, and just Battle, which is the name of the present
town which came into existence when Battle Abbey was built by order of the victor,
Duke William of Normandy. Was it built to commemorate a victory... or to pay
penance for the murder of England’s rightful king? Harold II died defending his
kingdom against an arrogant, psychopathic
tyrant who had no right to the English throne. Who invaded England with
the intention of taking what he wanted, by force. Unfortunately, he won.
 |
| looking across where, it is believed, one wing of the Battle of Hastings took place |
Excerpt from
Harold the King (UK edition title) / I
am the Chosen King (US edition title)
the story of the events that led to
the 1066 Battle of Hastings
Harold reached London late in the
evening of the ninth day of October. The news was bad. His brother Leofwine, awaited him at Westminster, was first down the Hall steps into the torch-lit
courtyard as the King rode in.
“Well?”
Harold demanded as Leofwine ran up.
“He
has fortified himself within that area of marsh-edged land known as the
Hastings Peninsula. It would be difficult to take our army in there – boundaries of marsh and river are as effective as any palisade wall. For the
moment he has no lack of supplies, is living off the land, looting all he can
and destroying what remains.”
Harold
tossed the reins of his stallion to the nearest servant, unbuckled and removed
his war cap as he strode up the wooden steps leading into his Hall. Alditha,
his wife, stood at the top, the cup of welcome in her hand. She offered it to
him, he took a quick gulp and passed it back, pressing a light but inattentive
kiss to her cheek. “I have no time for formal welcome, lass, but would
appreciate a tankard of ale and something to eat, cheese will do.” He kissed
her a second time, more fondly. “You look tired. Does the child
bring discomfort?”
“No,
my lord, the child is well,” Alditha answered him, her hand on the bulge of her belly. But he did not hear, for he
was talking again to Leofwine and others of his command who were gathering
around the table set beside the eastern wall, already cluttered with maps and
parchments. His queen, for want of something to do to help, went to fetch ale
and cheese.
“I
have been studying the route south, and the entire Hastings area,” Leofwine
said, pointing to one map unrolled and spread, a salt box, tankard, ink pot and
wooden fruit bowl anchoring the four persistently curling corners. “From what
we have already learned, these villages” – he indicated three – “have been
burnt, razed to the ground.”
“Casualties?”
Harold snapped.
Leofwine
cleared his throat, glanced at his own captain of housecarls, knowing Harold
would not be pleased at the answer. “Several.”
“Aye,
I would expect the Bastard to butcher the menfolk.”
“’Tis not just the men. There are bodies of
women and children – bairns, some of them still at the breast.” Leofwine
swallowed hard, reluctant to continue. The brutality of the battlefield was no
stranger to any of the warrior kind, but this, this was sickening. Quietly, his
voice hoarse, he said, “Many are only charred remains, they burnt with their
houses. Nothing has been left standing. No one left alive. It seems he has not
come merely to conquer England, but to destroy everyone and everything in the
process.”
Harold
was standing with his palms resting flat on either side of the map, looking at
the markings of river, coast, settlement and hill. He set his jaw, said
nothing. He dared not. The words that were sticking in his throat would have erupted
into fury had he released them. He swallowed down his anger with a gulp of ale
from the tankard that Alditha fetched him, his mind turning to campaigning in
Brittany... William’s determination to succeed, whatever the cost in human life
or suffering. His manic obsession with winning. Too clearly could Harold see in
his mind the past, that smouldering ruin of Dinan. The senseless killing of the innocent.
Of women and babes. Heard in his ears the screaming as women and their
daughters, innocent of men, were violated. Now it was happening to his own; to
English people. People he knew – and knew well, for he held estates in that
coastal area, had hunted there often as boy and man grown. He had a stud of
fine breeding horses at Whatlington, and Crowhurst held a mews with some of the
best hawks in the country. His hawksman there was a loyal and good-humoured
man, his wife and four daughters all exceptionally pretty. Crowhurst had been
one of the places Leofwine had pointed to.
After
a while, when his breathing had calmed, Harold asked, “Do we know the extent of
his supplies? The Hastings land will not feed him for ever.”
“With
the number of ships he has brought with him, I would say he is capable of
withstanding a siege through the winter at least.”
William
could devastate the area in that time, and aye, it would be difficult to flush
him out. The Hastings Peninsula might be no stone-built fortress, but it
mattered not. A siege was a siege, whatever the defensive circumstances, and
Duke William was well versed in siege warfare. Nor, Harold reflected grimly,
was he likely to make fatal mistakes through arrogance, as had the Hardrada up
there in the north.
“I
say leave him to rot!” That was Gyrth, who had just entered the Hall, stripping
off his riding gloves as he did so. Like his elder brother Harold, his
beard-stubbled face was grimed with white dust, his clothes sweat-stained, eyes
tired. Twice, in a matter of weeks, had they made the journey between London
and York in six days. Once in itself was feat enough for any man, but twice?
Surely this king deserved the respect and loyalty of his subjects!
“We
shall ensure he cannot get reinforcements; therefore he will run out of food
eventually – perhaps his men will not stand firm if we starve them out,”
Leofwine suggested.
Harold
pushed his weight from the table, hooked a stool forward, sat. He was so weary.
His body felt a dead, limp weight, but he could not afford the luxury of paying
mind to it. “We need to consider this carefully,” he said. “I know Duke
William. Know some of his vile tactics. He hopes to goad me into hasty action
through what he has ordered done to my people in Sussex.”
“He
intends to draw us into the arena, do you think?” Leofwine spoke his thoughts
out loud. “Is waiting for us to go in after him, lure us into an ambush?”
“Or,
once he has burnt and plundered everything in sight, will he march out towards
the Weald?” a housecarl captain asked, indicating a possible route with a
grimed nail. “Could he have designs on Winchester, or Dover?”
“That
we must wait and see.” Harold selected a chunk of soft goat’s cheese and bit
into it, not tasting its tangy saltiness. “I do not care to let him run riot in
the Weald. With only one narrow road in through dense woodland and impassable
marsh he is safe from any land-based attack, but equally, that makes only the
one route out for him. Within Hastings, we have him contained, can choose our own time
to attack.” He ruffled his hair then brought his hand down over his nose,
across his chin. “It is easier to spear a boar while it is trapped. Only a fool
would prod such a creature out into the open.”
“How
long do we wait?” Leofwine queried. “A few days, weeks?”
Harold
answered him with a vague shrug. His mind was too tired to think, to make
decisions. He forced the drowsiness aside. “We wait as long as we can. We are
all tired, many of the men are wounded and are still straggling south – we were
too short of horses for us all to ride with haste. My poxed brother’s treachery
has placed us at a disadvantage. Let us just hope William is as uncertain what
to do next – he cannot have made plans, for he would not have expected us to be
occupied in the North.”
Not
for the first time during the dash south did Harold wonder at that. Had
William known? What if Tostig had made an ally of Normandy as well as Norway? There was no
reason, save that of family honour, to have prevented him from doing so. And honour was a
quality the exiled and shamed, now dead, Tostig had been grotesquely lacking. But there was no
way, now, to ask him.
“The
fyrd, I assume, is alerted?” Harold asked of Leofwine.
His
brother nodded. “The war horns await your orders for their blowing.”
All
summer had the fyrds of the south and eastern counties been on alert,
alternating their patrolling of the coastlines. Now they were to be called out
again. They were not obliged to come, for already they had served their
compulsory time. Before Stamford Bridge, Harold might have doubted their
eagerness, but not now. They would join together under his banner, for no
warrior would miss the chance of a good fight, a good victory. Especially when
their own homes, lives and families, their freedom, depended upon it.
© Helen Hollick
Helen Hollick is the author of Harold the King (UK edition title) / I am the Chosen King (US edition title) the story of the events
that led to the 1066 Battle of Hastings, and one of the authors included in 1066 Turned Upside Down an anthology of short stores exploring the 'what if' alternative versions of the year 1066
Available via Helen’s Amazon AuthorPage
* * *
Follow the tour - a joint venture with
Annie Whitehead
and
Helen Hollick
1st October Annie Whitehead - hosted by Helen Hollick
Lady Godiva – Who Was She, and Did She Really?
2nd October Helen Hollick - hosted by Nicola Cornick
Why Do We Do It?
3rd October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Lisl Zlitni
Who Was the Lord of the Mercians?
4th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Tony Riches
5th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Pam Lecky
Murder in Saxon England
6th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Derek Birks
King Arthur? From Roman Britain To Saxon England
7th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Samantha Wilcoxson
Æthelflæd's Daughter
8th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Cryssa Bazos
An Anthology Of Authors
9th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Elizabeth St John
Anglo-Saxon Family Connections
10th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Judith Arnopp
Alditha: Wife. Widow. Mother.
11th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Brook Allen
Roman Remains - Did the Saxons Use Them?
12th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Amy Maroney
Emma Of Normandy, Queen Of Anglo-Saxon England – Twice
13th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Simon Turney
Penda: Fictional and Historical 'Hero'
14th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Annie Whitehead
15th October : Annie - Casting Light Upon The Shadow
and Helen - Let Us Talk Of Many Things
joint post hosted by both of us
and Helen - Let Us Talk Of Many Things
joint post hosted by both of us
We hope you will enjoy 'Stepping Back Into Saxon England'
with us!
Thank you Annie. October 14th is a sad day for those of us who think highly of King Harold II. If only it had rained that day - the outcome might have been different!
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonderful excerpt Helen - I really must read the book again; it's been a while. Any chance you could change the ending though? ;-)
DeleteI wish I could Annie!
Delete