Read Battle of Hastings, The Online
Authors: Harriet Harvey Harriet; Wood Harvey Wood
In one sense, Harold’s experience of William’s conduct of war in Brittany in 1064 may have been misleading. John Gillingham suggests that it was.
Perhaps if Harold had witnessed William’s sudden strike against Alençon in 1051 he might have been more on his guard in 1066. As it was, however, what he saw
was a very typical example of William at war – a campaign in which the duke seems to have been prudently content with a small gain. . . In 1064 there was no sign of an aggressive,
battle-seeking strategy. On the contrary it was a struggle of attrition in which, more than anything else, questions of supply seemed to dominate the course of events, a campaign very much in
the style of all the other campaigns of the last fifteen years – a good guide, Harold might have thought in the summer of 1066, to the kind of war he was facing now.
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If he thought this, he might well have considered that a defensive, bottling-up strategy on his side would be the most effective and the least wasteful of
his own men. But he might more prudently have reflected that William’s very act in invading indicated an aggressive, battle-seeking strategy.
It is helpful at this point to look at the various accounts of the battle in the different sources, and the reasons given or implied for Harold’s defeat, bearing in mind that none is
written by an eyewitness and that all date from well after the event and share the benefit of hindsight. William of Jumièges gives no explanation and the briefest of accounts. William of
Poitiers and the
Carmen de Hastingae Proelio
, as we have seen, ascribe it to Harold’s overweening pride in thinking that he could take William by surprise, and Orderic Vitalis adopts
this version from William of Poitiers. Of the English sources, which are more interesting in this context, the Chronicle (D) says that
William came against him by surprise before his army was drawn up in battle array. But the king nevertheless fought bravely against him, with the men who would remain with
him, and there were heavy casualties on both sides.
The E text says that Harold fought ‘before all the army had come’. Florence of Worcester is more expansive: he says that although Harold
well knew that some of the bravest Englishmen had fallen in the two former battles, and that one-half of his army had not yet arrived, he did not hesitate to advance with
all speed into Sussex against his enemies. On
Saturday. . .before a third of his army was in order for fighting, he joined battle with them. . . But inasmuch as the
English were drawn up in a narrow place, many retired from the ranks, and very few remained true to him. Nevertheless from the third hour of the day until dusk he bravely withstood the enemy,
and fought so valiantly and stubbornly in his own defence that the enemy’s forces could make hardly any impression.
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The Waltham Chronicle (the authors of which may even have had an eyewitness to help them since there is a legend that two of the canons of Waltham followed the English army to
the battlefield) follow the E Chronicle and Florence of Worcester, lamenting that
the king who was the glory of the realm, the darling of the clergy, the strength of his soldiers, the shield of the defenceless, the support of the distressed, the protector
of the weak, the consolation of the desolate, the restorer of the destitute, and the pearl of princes, was slain by his fierce foe. He could not fight an equal contest for, accompanied by only
a small force, he faced an army four times as large as his.
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What these accounts boil down to is that a) William took Harold by surprise, before his men were drawn up in battle array, b) Harold fought on a sit too constricted for his
numbers, c) Harold fought too precipitately, before most of his men had arrived, and was outnumbered, and d) there were desertions. There are problems with these explanations, some of which are
mutually contradictory and all of which, indeed, are the sort of accusations
that tend to be levelled at commanders after a defeat. It is unlikely that he was outnumbered,
though it must certainly have been true that his strength had been weakened by the events of the previous fortnight; his housecarls, who were reputed each to be as strong as two ordinary soldiers,
must have stood the main brunt of the fighting at Stamford Bridge and many must have fallen. In numerical terms, it seems that the two armies were fairly evenly matched, and this is supported by
the unusual length of the battle – eight to nine hours – arguing two forces very close in size, neither of which had a clear superiority over the other. We do not know what Florence of
Worcester meant by ‘one half of his army’: half the full force that technically he could have called out (which could have been 40,000 men or more); or did he mean half of the levies
whom he had actually summoned? Or half the force that he took to Stamford Bridge, many of whom may have been unfit for further service? If he had waited to fight, he could undoubtedly have had more
men. On the other hand, if he had waited to fight, he might not have needed them.
However, the charge that William came on Harold before his men were properly arrayed does not make much sense. Harold is thought to have left London on 11 October on the sixty-mile march to the
battlefield, reaching it in the evening of 13 October; if he left on the 12
th
, it does not affect the timetable much, it merely means that he and his men would have had less rest. He
would have bivouacked overnight before the battle at the rendezvous he had appointed, the hoar apple tree, and formed up at daybreak on the 14
th
on the site he had chosen. According to
William of Poitiers, the duke was told of Harold’s approach by his scouts on the 13
th
(which in itself implies a departure from London on the 11
th
) and hastily ordered
all those in the camp to arm themselves (for, says the chronicler, a great many of his men had been sent
out foraging). According to William of Jumièges, the duke was
so worried about the possibility of a surprise attack (which may be why William of Poitiers got the idea that Harold intended one) that he kept his men under arms all night just in case. What is
not clear from any of the chronicles is whether he started from his camp at Hastings to meet Harold (who would be advancing by the London road) on the morning of the 14
th
or whether he
marched at least part of the way to the battlefield the previous night. If the former, it has been estimated that he would have started his six-mile march from Hastings at approximately 6 a.m. on
14 October, which would have been first light, and that the head of his column would have reached the battlefield at about 8 a.m. If the latter, he could, of course, have been there earlier. Since
there is no certain information, this is another occasion when we have to guess. It seems improbable, however, that he would have started his march to meet Harold while large numbers of his men
were out foraging. But at this stage, it seems clear that the agenda was being set by Harold. He knew the country and had possibly already decided where to make his stand. It seems unlikely that
William, given a free hand, would have chosen ground so unsuitable for cavalry.
The Battle Abbey Chronicle says that William halted his march at Hedgland (or Hecheland) where his troops put on their armour; this is a very late source, but it would have been a reasonable
thing to do. He would not have wanted his men to arrive tired on the field from marching in armour. According to the Chronicle, it was while they were doing this that they got their first sight of
the English; the Tapestry shows a scout arriving at that point to tell him of their position. According to the
Carmen,
William’s forces were close enough to the battlefield, whether at
Hedgland or further on, to see the English army emerge from the forest on to
the ridge that was to be its fighting position and that blocked the road to London. It would
therefore seem that both armies must have appeared virtually simultaneously on the field and deployed in full sight of each other. Harold cannot have been surprised by William’s prompt
arrival; he would have had his own scouts out, he knew where he was and would have been well aware how important it would be for William to offer battle as soon as possible. Indeed, if we are to
credit William of Poitiers’ version, William must, because of the uneven and marshy ground, have had to array his troops almost within stone’s throw of the English line, since if he had
done it earlier, they would have had to reform after they had negotiated the various impediments. This would normally have been considered an extremely hazardous proceeding since it would render
him vulnerable to attack while his men were not in fighting order. He must have thought it safe on this occasion since it was highly unlikely that the English would desert the strong position they
already occupied to attack or harass him while he was deploying, though it could have exposed his men to archery fire as they took up position; he could hardly have known at this stage that the
king was short of archers. None of this, however, supports the idea that Harold had been caught unprepared, nor does the course of the battle thereafter suggest that the English suffered any
disadvantage for such a reason. Indeed, William of Poitiers’ account makes it clear that the English were fully prepared for the opening onslaught of the Norman archers and infantry.
As far as desertions are concerned, there are desertions in all battles, especially in a battle lasting so many hours, and on the losing side and after the leader is killed. If any rumour had
been current that Harold had been excommunicated, this would certainly account for desertions, since no man was bound to fight
for an excommunicated leader; but there is no
evidence for that whatever. In the first place, it seems at least unlikely that there was any question of his having been formally excommunicated. Secondly, if he had been, William would certainly
have made what capital he could out of the fact, and one would expect it to be referred to in Chronicle entries written after the battle, since it would support the idea, clearly widely prevalent,
that the judgement of God had been given on William’s side. It would have been a particularly appropriate justification of the usual formula, used by the Chronicle to record any English
defeat from the wars of Alfred against the Danes onwards, that the Normans won ‘as God granted it to them for the sins of the people’ – or in this case the sins of the king. None
the less it remains likely that there were desertions that cannot be ascribed to the king’s death: the statement in the D Chronicle that the king fought bravely ‘with the men who would
remain with him’, implies inescapably that there were some who would not, as does Florence of Worcester’s statement that ‘inasmuch as the English were drawn up in a narrow place,
many retired from the ranks, and very few remained true to him’. William of Malmesbury’s story that Harold refused to share out the Norwegian booty captured at Stamford Bridge among his
men and placed it in the custody of Archbishop Ealdred until after the encounter with the Normans could offer another motive. If this were true (and William of Malmesbury is the only credible
authority for the story, and a late one at that), it could indeed have caused some men to fall away from him and refuse to serve an ungrateful lord, even if the king had strategically a good reason
for his refusal to distribute the loot immediately. No army marches fast or fights well when laden with booty, and he knew he would have to march fast and fight hard. The causes of the desertions
can only be guessed at; the main point is that
the entries in the English chronicles, especially the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, would have been written by men who were as
dependent as anyone else on reportage and hearsay after the event amid all the confusion of defeat. We cannot know how reliable their sources were.
A much more serious accusation is that Harold’s choice of ground was poor. It was, in fact, peculiarly suitable for the kind of battle we must suppose him to have had in mind. It was so
perfect that one can only suppose that, having been brought up in Sussex and knowing it as well as he did, he had picked it deliberately.
A longish watershed, roughly marked today by the course of Battle High Street, runs south, dipping slightly to a cross-ridge (rather like the head of a hammer). On either side of the watershed
the ground fell away steeply; behind it to the north on Caldbec Hill was the site of the hoar apple tree, a distinctive local feature marking the boundaries of three different hundreds; behind that
and all around was the primeval forest of Andredesweald. Such trees as this hoar apple frequently marked significant boundaries and were used as markers; they were easy places to appoint as a
rendezvous for troops. The battle of Ashdown against the Danes in 871was fought around an equally venerable thorn tree that was the meeting-place of the local hundred. The cross-ridge south of
Harold’s apple tree lay squarely across the London road. At its centre, the gradient was 1 in 15; at its west end, 1 in 33; at the east end, 1 in 22. At its foot, in front, was a brook, later
dammed to form fishponds, presumably for the monks of Battle Abbey built by William after the battle, then presumably boggy, especially when pounded by cavalry for several hours. Indeed, as a
result of the drainage of streams from the higher ground, both Caldbec Hill (on Harold’s side of the field) and Telham Hill (on William’s),
much of the ground
between the two armies seems to have been marshy and uncultivated.
It was along this cross-ridge, about eight hundred yards in length as far as one can tell today (the site has been altered by the building of the abbey), that Harold deployed his army. No
surviving English chronicler tells us how he disposed of his men, but we know roughly where he set up his standards since the place was marked by the high altar of Battle Abbey, and it would have
been on the slightly higher ground behind his front line, where he could see over his men’s heads to the enemy lines. It was a superb defensive position. His main front, where the gradient
was shallowest, would be occupied by the housecarls, his crack troops, with shire levies behind them, and the levies would presumably have defended the ends of the line where the declivity was
steepest, possibly with a stiffening of housecarls and the Danish troops sent (according to William of Poitiers, probably accurate in this case) by his cousin, King Sweyn Estrithson. The normal
English shield-wall formation was, in the words of Major-General J. F. C. Fuller, ‘an essential one for infantry against cavalry relying on shock’
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. This was where he may have been influenced by his experience of the Norman cavalry when he had campaigned in Brittany. The shire levies are described in many accounts of
the battle as unarmed peasants, equipped only with sticks and stones; there may have been many such present, burning to revenge the harrying the Normans had inflicted on them during the past
fortnight, but the shire levies proper were, as we have seen, seasoned soldiers, mostly thegns or king’s thegns, whose armour and equipment (as is testified by the Bayeux Tapestry) were
virtually indistinguishable from that of the Norman infantry. It was no amateur army.