chapter 6._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (September). The invasion of Tostig and Harold Hardrada and their overthrow at Stamford Bridge.

"Harold [the English king], as one of his misfortunes, had to face two powerful armies, in distant parts of the kingdom, almost at the same time. Rumours concerning the intentions and preparations of the Duke of Normandy soon reached England. During the greater part of the summer, Harold, at the head of a large naval and military force, had been on the watch along the English coast. But months passed away and no enemy became visible. William, it was said, had been apprised of the measures which had been taken to meet him. ... Many supposed that, on various grounds, the enterprise had been abandoned. Provisions also, for so great an army, became scarce. The men began to disperse; and Harold, disbanding the remainder, returned to London. But the news now came that Harold Hardrada, king of Norway, had landed in the north, and was ravaging the country in conjunction with Tostig, Harold's elder brother. This event came from one of those domestic feuds which did so much at this juncture to weaken the power of the English. {792} Tostig had exercised his authority in Northumbria [as earl] in the most arbitrary manner, and had perpetrated atrocious crimes in furtherance of his objects. The result was an amount of disaffection which seems to have put it out of the power of his friends to sustain him. He had married a daughter of Baldwin, count of Flanders, and so became brother-in-law to the duke of Normandy. His brother Harold, as he affirmed, had not done a brother's part towards him, and he was more disposed, in consequence, to side with the Norman than with the Saxon in the approaching struggle. The army with which he now appeared consisted mostly of Norwegians and Flemings, and their avowed object was to divide not less than half the kingdom between them. ... [The young Mercian earls Edwin and Morcar] summoned their forces ... to repel the invasion under Tostig. Before Harold could reach the north, they hazarded an engagement at a place named Fulford, on the Ouse, not far from Bishopstoke. Their measures, however, were not wisely taken. They were defeated with great loss. The invaders seem to have regarded this victory as deciding the fate of that part of the kingdom. They obtained hostages at York, and then moved to Stamford Bridge, where they began the work of dividing the northern parts of England between them. But in the midst of these proceedings clouds of dust were seen in the distance. The first thought was, that the multitude which seemed to be approaching must be friends. But the illusion was soon at an end. The dust raised was by the march of an army of West Saxons under the command of Harold."

_R. Vaughan, Revolutions of English History, book 3, chapter 1._

"Of the details of that awful day [Sept. 25, 1066] we have no authentic record. We have indeed a glorious description [in the Heimskringla of Snorro Sturleson], conceived in the highest spirit of the warlike poetry of the North; but it is a description which, when critically examined, proves to be hardly more worthy of belief than a battle-piece in the Iliad. ... At least we know that the long struggle of that day was crowned by complete victory on the side of England. The leaders of the invading host lay each man ready for all that England had to give him, his seven feet of English ground. There Harold of Norway, the last of the ancient Sea-Kings, yielded up that fiery soul which had braved death in so many forms and in so many lands. ... There Tostig, the son of Godwine, an exile and a traitor, ended, in crime and sorrow a life which had begun with promises not less bright than that of his royal brother. ... The whole strength of the Northern army was broken; a few only escaped by flight, and found means to reach the ships at Riccall."

_E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England, chapter 14, section. 4._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (October). The Norman invasion and battle of Senlac or Hastings.

The battle of Stamford-bridge was fought on Monday, September 25, A. D. 1066. Three days later, on the Thursday, September 28, William of Normandy landed his more formidable army of invasion at Pevensey, on the extreme southeastern coast. The news of William's landing reached Harold, at York, on the following Sunday, it is thought, and his victorious but worn and wasted army was led instantly back, by forced marches, over the route it had traversed no longer than the week before. Waiting at London a few days for fresh musters to join him, the English king set out from that city October 12, and arrived on the following day at a point seven miles from the camp which his antagonist had entrenched at Hastings. Meantime the Normans had been cruelly ravaging the coast country, by way of provoking attack. Harold felt himself driven by the devastation they committed to face the issue of battle without waiting for a stronger rally. "Advancing near enough to the coast to check William's ravages, he intrenched himself on the hill of Senlac, a low spur of the Sussex Downs, near Hastings, in a position which covered London, and forced the Norman army to concentrate. With a host subsisting by pillage, to concentrate is to starve, and no alternative was left to William but a decisive victory or ruin. Along the higher ground that leads from Hastings the Duke led his men in the dim dawn of an October morning to the mound of Telham. It was from this point, that the Normans saw the host of the English gathered thickly behind a rough trench and a stockade on the height of Senlac. Marshy ground covered their right. ... A general charge of the Norman foot opened the battle; in front rode the minstrel Taillefer, tossing his sword in the air and catching it again while he chanted the song of Roland. He was the first of the host who struck a blow, and he was the first to fall. The charge broke vainly on the stout stockade behind which the English warriors plied axe and javelin with fierce cries of 'Out, Out,' and the repulse of the Norman footmen was followed by the repulse of the Norman horse. Again and again the Duke rallied and led them to the fatal stockade. ... His Breton troops, entangled in the marshy ground on his left, broke in disorder, and a cry arose, as the panic spread through the army, that the Duke was slain. 'I live,' shouted William as he tore off his helmet, 'and by God's help will conquer yet.' Maddened by repulse, the Duke spurred right at the standard; unhorsed, his terrible mace struck down Gyrth, the King's brother, and stretched Leofwine, a second of Godwine's sons, beside him; again dismounted, a blow from his hand hurled to the ground an unmannerly rider who would not lend him his steed. Amid the roar and tumult of the battle he turned the flight he had arrested into the means of victory. Broken as the stockade was by his desperate onset, the shield-wall of the warriors behind it still held the Normans at bay, when William by a feint of flight drew a part of the English force from their post of vantage. Turning on his disorderly pursuers, the Duke cut them to pieces, broke through the abandoned line, and was master of the central plateau, while French and Bretons made good their ascent on either flank. At three the hill seemed won, at six the fight still raged around the standard, where Harold's hus-carls stood stubbornly at bay on the spot marked afterward by the high altar of Battle Abbey. An order from the Duke at last brought his archers to the front, and their arrow-flight told heavily on the dense masses crowded around the King. As the sun went down, a shaft pierced Harold's right eye; he fell between the royal ensigns, and the battle closed with a desperate mélée over his corpse."

_J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People, chapter 2, section 4._

ALSO IN: _E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England, chapter 15, section 4._

_E. S. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,