THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ANGLO-NORMAN ENGLAND

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS 1066

Before daybreak on Saturday, 14 October, William the Bastard heard Mass, took the Sacrament and hung round his neck the sacred relics on which Harold had sworn his oath. A waning moon, twenty-two days old, hung in the sky as dawn broke at about 05.20; the sun rose at 06.48 and it was reported that the morning was unusually light. William was determined to meet Harold in open field and to strike first. The column moved out of the encampment and made its way along the Roman road as it wound northwards towards the great forest of Andredsweald. If the Normans had camped on the Baldslow Ridge above Hastings town and the column had begun its march at about 06.00, the head of the column could have reached Telham Hill within an hour. The summit, now called Blackhorse Hill, was then known as Hecheland; here the Normans probably halted and they began to don their armour. As William was helped into his hauberk those around him were disturbed to see it was reversed to the left, but William laughed off any idea of a bad omen. William of Poitiers reports the gist of the Duke’s pep talk to his men, but considering the column was stretched out for several miles it is more likely that his words were addressed to his commanders. A knight called Vital, one of Bishop Odo’s vassals, informed the Duke that he’d seen the English army moving his way. The spot from which this would have been made possible is somewhere about the 300 contour line, only 800 yards from the English. At the same time, armed English scouts reported the enemy to Harold.

From Caldbec Hill the London to Hastings road passed along a neck of land until it reached a broad ridge that opened out each side. The entire site was like a hammer, the head forming a ridge approximately 800 yards in length. In front of this ridge, the ground slopes down into what appears to be a valley, but in fact was a saddle of land between the headwaters of two brooks with marshy banks that cut across it. The road crossed the saddle between these brooks and climbed the slopes of Telham Hill in the direction of Hastings, seven miles away. It was along this ridge that Harold now deployed his troops, completely blocking the road to London. The ground sloping south from the ridge was called Santlache (‘Sandy Stream’) by the English, but would later gain the more appt name Senlac (‘Blood Lake’). This and the eastern slope may have been cultivated but the flanks dropped sharply, with a gradient of about one in twelve (one in four at the rear), while the thick undergrowth and the woody nature of the area added to the difficulty of any flank attacks, in fact it was all round a good tactical position to hold. Giving William the Bastard little room to move but one way, and that was frontal assaults uphill. Near the road the gradient is about one in fifteen, the gentlest slop, one in 33, being at the western end. North of the western brook, a low hillock rose about fifteen feet. Although the position was a strong one for Harold’s Englishmen, it was nevertheless crowded. Poitiers says there was scarcely room for the wounded to leave, while John of Worcester asserts that many deserted because of the constrained position. The only retreat lay along the neck of land to the rear. William the Bastard was equally ill served, however. Although the bottleneck had meant that he could be relatively sure of the direction of an enemy attack, the hill position and constricted space was not ideal for cavalry action that was further hampered by the marshy ground around the streams on the valley floor.

While it is plain that William had out guessed Harold and struck first. Contemporaries agree that the King was himself caught by surprise before his army was fully assembled, the penalty for concentrating his forces within striking distance of the enemy. It has been suggested that passages in the Carmen (a pro Norman history of the campaign,) imply that William used hand signals to recall knights perhaps stationed at advanced outposts on Telham Hill, and that Norman archers and crossbowmen were sent ahead of the main body in a vain attempt to prevent Harold’s seizure of the ridge, although the number of English troops in this vicinity would have made this difficult. However, William had done what he had set out to do, that was to force a battle, a battle he had to win, to survive, if he lost there is no doubt that few if any of the invading army would have got back to Normandy, and it is certain that William the Bastard, would not have, in one piece that is.

Harold had placed his Fighting Man standard on the highest point of the ridge. Out in front, his army formed their shield wall in a fairly level line extending along the ridge for about 800 yards, the King’s own position being somewhere near the centre of its length. Some authorities consider that the line was up to 200 yards shorter at the eastern end. William of Malmesbury says that Harold’s brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine, were with him, but since they were killed fairly early it seems more likely they were in the line, perhaps on the left and right. This further strengthens the idea that the best troops provided by the three brothers formed the front of the shield wall rather than surrounding Harold, as some have suggested. But it is certain that Harold would have had a bodyguard of Huscarls, held back to protect the King and the Standards, which were Harold’s personal Standard of the Fighting Man, and the Dragon Standard which would have been in the shape of a windsock of a type that can be traced back to Roman, Dacion and Sarmation Standards. The Bayeaux Tapestry shows it as red, but it may have been either white or yellow, perhaps decorated with gold and silver. The Dragon Standard would have been the Dragon of the House of Wessex, which most modern Englishmen look on as the birthplace of a United English Nation.

Behind the well armed and armoured professional warriors, the Huscarls, in the front-line of the shield wall, stood the lesser Thegns and in the rear the un armoured Fyrd, or levies drawn largely from Sussex and perhaps Kent, the whole would have pre-sented a phalanx perhaps ten ranks deep, along the slope of the hill allowing Harold to look over the heads of his warriors, it has been suggested that the wings of the English army were bent back although this would have served little purpose other than to place some men on lower ground. As Harold and his commanders marshalled their men now streaming across the neck of land to join the warriors along the ridge, they watched as the leading elements of the Norman army begin to descend the slopes of Telham Hill and move forward towards the saddle between the streams.

In order to form up at the bottom of the slope the Normans had to follow the road past the saddle between the streams. It is generally thought that, because of the boggy nature of the ground in the vicinity of the streams, which consists of heavy clay, the army passed the saddle in column before spreading out to form up in line.

This would necessitate deploying almost within bowshot of the English shield wall, but perhaps William believed that Harold would not sacrifice his position to risk a sudden onslaught. It is just possible, however, that a long spell of dry weather might have rendered the ground sufficiently hard to allow deployment short of the saddle and a subsequent advance in line.

The first troops reached the saddle at about 08.00 hours. The Bretons, who formed the largest non-Norman contingent, together with men from Anjou, Poitou and Maine, wheeled left and took up position at the western end of the valley most likely under Alan Fergant of Brittany, a cousin of the ruling count and William’s son-in-law. A low hillock north of the Asten Brook stood at their rear. On their right the Norman division, the largest, took position with the Duke in the centre. At his side was Turstin, son of Rollo, who bore the Papal banner, and around him were friends and kinsmen. The Pope had designated this campaign a ‘crusade’, thus consigning Eng-land to the same pressure from the Catholic Church that other countries were to suffer from. At the eastern end of the enemy force, forming the smallest division, were the contingents from France, Picardy, Boulogne and Flanders under the seneschal, Wil-liam Fitz Osbern, and Count Eustace of Boulogne. With them was young Robert of Beaumont, whose first battle this was. Each of the enemy divisions, or ‘battles’ was separated into three parts. In the front stood the archers and probably crossbowmen and a few slingers, mostly un armoured. Behind them, though not seen on the Bayeux Tapestry, were the infantry, many wearing mail coats. Behind them, stood the squad-rons of cavalry. From these dispositions it can be seen that William envisaged a pat-tern of attack. The archers would first soften up the English line with a barrage of ar-rows. This would be followed by an assault with his heavy infantry who would force gaps into the English line. Finally his best troops, the knights on their costly chargers, would break up the English defensive shield wall and pursue the defeated and broken English survivors, at least that was William the Bastards idea, but as the day would prove, it wouldn’t be that easy since the fight on that Blood Lake Ridge, would turn out to be perhaps one of the longest and bloodiest struggles fought on English soil, lasting all day, and well into the evening, and the English again proved themselves to be a stubborn fighting race, and hard to shift from a good strong defensive position. Despite his experienced cohort of mercenaries, the disaffected, and adventurers, Wil-liam would not have it easy.

Across the valley on the ridge above, the English watched. They had already formed their historical and ancestral ‘shield wall’, a term that has been seen and mentioned many times in our early story, a defensive formation as old as the English race and warrior, and interpretations are many. It finds mention in the famous 10th century poem the Battle of Maldon, and many times throughout this history of our people, it was a formation used long before our people came to these shores, when our people inhabited the first and earliest Homeland, southern Denmark, North Western Ger-many, Frisian Islands and the Jutland peninsula and before. It is seen on the Tapestry, the line of English Huscarls are shown with their shields overlapping. The comparison of the English Phalanx to a castle by Henry of Huntingdon (writing c. 1125 AD) to-gether with a confused passage in Wace, led the Victorian writer Freeman to assume that a palisade had been built before the English line, an idea ridiculed by his oppo-nents. The shield wall or ‘war hedge’ was formed by the front ranks holding their shields close together. Initially, as on the Tapestry, the English shields may have been overlapped, for which the English Warriors would have had to stand sideways. In this form it would have been an effective barrier against missiles. However, the wall would have had to be broken up in order to wield weapons in close fighting, espe-cially the great 2 metre long double-handed Danish war axe (Dane Axe,) that needed room to be swung. Possibly warriors worked in small teams allowing a Huscarl with a Dane Axe to suddenly become exposed from the shield wall to swing at a target.

_{1066 AD. The Battle Of Hastings opens with repeated charges at the Englsih Shieldwall by the Norman cavalry. Artist: Huscarl (permission by copyright only.)}

In Old English literature the shield is commonly called by the name bord, which can also mean ‘board’ and ‘table’. Some other names are lind ‘linden-wood’ (from which it could be made), rand and scyld. The shield is perhaps the most culturally significant piece of English defensive equipment. It was a long held disgrace for an English war-rior to lose his shield in battle, as it was with continental Germanic warriors. Once the shield wall is drawn up, and by implication, all those on the same side, or within the shield wall or behind are classified as ‘us’, and all those beyond it i.e. the enemy, are ‘them’. The ancient English poem of an English shield lamenting its treatment in battle is telling of the fury of a fight in a shield wall.

As the Norman army was taking position the English began their war cries, Wace de-scribes some of the English war cries, as, ‘Oli crosse!’, (Holy Cross!) which most likely would be in reference to Harold’s own church at Waltham, where it is said the church at Waltham contained a ‘Holy Cross’ in the form of a carving of the crucifixion with venerable and miraculous associations. This is the church that Harold had adopted as his own, the English war cry of ‘Holy Cross’ is mentioned in the Waltham Chronicle, though little now remains of Harold’s church in the current fabric of the building, most of which is of a latter date, and it is said to be the resting place of the last native English King, Harold. Other war cries were ‘Godemite!’ (God Almighty) as well as the old English battle cry or chant, that is as old as the English people themselves, and was heard on battle fields long before the English became Christian, ‘UT, UT, UT, UT, UT!!!’, (OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!!!), as the English warriors clashed their axes, swords, and spears against their shields, all resulting in a din that would rise to a crescendo as the enemy army would close with the English shield wall, and clash of steal on war board was at hand, all of which would bolster their own spirits as it would frighten their enemy.

A story is told by the Carmen, Henry of Huntingdon and Wace, that a minstrel rode before the Duke. His name was Taillefer (literally ‘Cut Iron’) and he juggled with his sword and sang the song of Roland, the epic of the well-known Frankish hero. Granted permission to strike the first blow, he galloped forward up the ridge and at-tacked a group of English Warriors who had presumably left the Shield-Wall to meet him. Felling one with his lance and another with his sword, he was soon surrounded and cut to pieces. The story may or may not be true. William of Malmesbury mentions the singing of the song of Roland, but omits mention of Taillefer. Or possibly he was such a fool so as better left un mentioned!