I wrote Harold the King because I'm fed up with idea that our history started in 1066 - we've a rich and wonderful Saxon culture. And William has got away with his propaganda for too long! I
think my leaning for novel writing seems to be heading for the "what might have really happened" scenario, with all the propaganda and justification stripped away - as the myth and magic was
stripped from my Arthur trilogy, so the Norman spin-doctoring was taken out of Harold. I just wanted to write Harold's story, I suppose.
This is the talk I gave at the Battle of Hastings re-enactment on 14-15 October 2000, the 934th anniversary. It was most odd being at the battle site on THE day - there was a distinct
atmosphere there.
"1066, the most famous of all dates - the Battle of Hastings. At school we learnt that Columbus discovered America, Drake preferred to play bowls rather than fight the Spanish Armada - and Harold was killed by an arrow in the eye when William of Normandy conquered England as its rightful king. Historical facts - or so we have always believed! Yet Columbus already knew how long the journey would take, and Drake knew he could finish his game because he could not sail until the tide had turned. And Harold - well, Harold may not have been killed by an arrow, and William was a usurper who had no right whatsoever to the English crown. Spin-doctoring is nothing new! The propaganda established by William's medieval media-managers has lasted an entire millennium. Even the term "conquest" is exaggerated. William was crowned king, but the English were never "conquered": we did not become Norman, the Normans became English. For proof, I am talking to you in English, not French.
Generally history tends to start at 1066 when Normandy swept the Dark Ages into irrelevance. Reigning monarchs are numbered from William: Edward I disregards three previous Saxon Edwards - the Elder, Martyr and Confessor. A future Harold would be Harold I not III.
Within twenty years of the Conquest, after the North was razed and Domesday compiled, Harold's reign of nine months and nine days was completely undermined. Despite legitimate crowning and anointing, he was systematically downgraded to his pre-1066 title of Earl, and portrayed as a loser - discredited because William had to justify political murder.
William's claim was that King Edward - later canonised and called the Confessor - had appointed him his heir. Despite swearing an oath to support William, Harold seized the throne and in indecent haste, was crowned on the same day as the old king's funeral. Outraged, William ordered an invasion of England, and while Halley's Comet blazed in the sky, a fleet was assembled. In September, he crossed the English Channel without mishap. In the meantime, Harold's brother, possibly supporting William, had invaded Yorkshire. Moving swiftly, Harold marched to Stamford Bridge near York and won a victory, but when he heard of William's landing, he had to return south.
Medieval spin-doctors would have us believe that Harold was a poor commander who fought with a tired and depleted army against the elite supremacy of a Norman cavalry. Victorious, William marched on London and was crowned in all splendour in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
In or around 1077, Duke William's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, commissioned a tapestry to depict these events. William of Poitiers was writing a detailed version, and William of Jumièges had recounted the Conquest in 1070. All three Norman sources are heavily biased. Their explicit purpose: to prove to a Papal inquiry concerned over the level of brutality and aggression, that William's conquest had been justified - in itself a need that screams foul play.
Strip away the Norman gilding, and what do you get? Edward was the eldest son of Æthelred "the Unready" and Emma, a Norman. Her father was William's great-grandfather; his grandfather had been a Viking, a North Man (Nor'Man) who settled in a corner of France, embraced Christianity and established Normandy. When Cnut invaded and conquered England, Emma sent Edward to her country of birth. Æthelred died and, wanting to remain queen, Emma promptly married Cnut - all of which is the basis of my new novel "A Hollow Crown", to be published in 2004.
Edward remained in exile for over thirty years, until he was recalled to England to become King.
Harold's father, Earl Godwine of Wessex, was the most powerful man beneath the king. Five of his six sons became earls and his daughter Edith became Edward's queen - but the union was never consummated: Edward, in his piety, declared himself celibate. Was this to curb Godwine's ambition or did he distrust women? Hardly surprising if he did after the way his mother had abandoned him. Was he homosexual? Whatever the reason, the consequence was a childless marriage.
Meanwhile in Normandy, no one had expected an illegitimate seven-year-old son of a tanner's daughter to succeed as Duke, but William's father, Duke Robert, died with no other son. Intrigue, plot and murder were to shadow the boy. To his credit, William survived into adulthood, although it is a shame that there was not an 11th-century equivalent of the social worker or behaviour therapist because he sure could have done with one!
Fighting with vigour and determination, William became a skilled commander and siege tactician. He expanded Normandy and gained independence from France. He was single-minded and ruthless: when he invaded England, houses and churches were burnt regardless of the innocent sheltering within. William was the inventor of death by incarceration in a dungeon and being left to starve.
Edward might have suggested to William that he be his heir in 1051/2 when the Godwines were temporarily disgraced and exiled, but William failed to realise one important aspect - primogeniture was in the ascendancy in Normandy, but things were different in England. Here, the most able, the most kingworthy, was elected, chosen as king by the Council. When Edward died on 5 January 1066, England was open to attack and Harold was the only man thought worthy to take his place.
Skilled in diplomacy and government, he was a proven and capable commander. It was Harold who first conquered Wales, not William's descendant, Edward I. He was the first king to be crowned in Westminster Abbey, founded by Edward. The coronation took place on the day of the funeral because, knowing the king was dying, everyone of importance had been at court for several weeks. They now needed to return home and England could not be left vulnerable until the next calling of Council at Easter. There was nothing untoward about accomplishing such important issues on the same day.
But what of that oath to William? In 1064, Harold went to Normandy, his voyage duly recorded in the Bayeux Tapestry - actually an embroidery. Norman sources declare he went to offer William the crown; more likely he was hoping to achieve the release of his brother Wulfnoth and nephew Hakon, held hostage by William since that temporary disgrace of Godwine back in 1052. He did return home with Hakon, but Wulfnoth never saw his freedom.
Harold went on campaign with the Duke, earning himself honours by rescuing two men from drowning near Mont St. Michel. But did he have any choice in that oath-making? What would have been the consequences for Harold and his men if he had refused? William, as his own vassals knew and Harold probably discovered, was not a man you said 'non' to.
For a Saxon nobleman it is a matter of honour to protect those you command. To place his men in danger by refusing William would therefore bring a greater dishonour to Harold. And anyway, an oath sworn under circumstances of coercion is not regarded as binding.
As for Harold's command at Hastings - he showed aptitude and courage, dignity and ability. Norman propaganda states that he fought with tired men, with only half the fyrd - the army - and without the support of the North. Tosh!
In mid-September, Harold had marched from London to York in five days to confront his jealous, traitorous brother Tostig, who had allied with Harald Hardrada of Norway. The southern fyrd, on alert all summer, had been stood down. He took only his housecarls - his permanent army - North. Undoubtedly, they were mounted for no infantry could cover that distance so quickly. Already the fyrds of the Midlands and the North had fought and lost in a great battle at Gate Fulford, outside York. Under Harold's command, they fought again - this time to win - at Stamford Bridge.
It was not that the nobility and the men of the fyrd did not want to support Harold at Hastings; they could not, for their numbers were savagely depleted, many of the survivors wounded and exhausted. It would have been impossible for them to have marched south when news came that William had landed. The northern earls did in fact follow Harold as soon as they could but, of course, by then it was already too late.
The battle that took place a few miles inland from Hastings is almost unique for this period. Fighting was usually over within the hour, two at most. This battle lasted all day. The English, for the most part, stood firm along the ridge that straddled the road out into the Weald, stood shield locked against shield, William's men toiling again and again up that hill. This was deliberate strategy on Harold's part. He and his men had marched to York and back, fought a battle in between. Doesn't it make good sense to make the opponent do all the hard work? Yes, perhaps Harold should have waited before committing his men to fight, but he probably had no choice in the decision: once out into the Weald, it would have been difficult to confront William. Within the Hastings peninsula, he and the damage he was doing were firmly contained. Harold had to keep him there, therefore he had to fight.
Three times William was unhorsed. Three times the Normans began to retreat; only the fear of William's wrath held them together, although the Norman writers portrayed their blind panic as strategic withdrawal.
Nor was William's crossing of the Channel as straightforward as his spin-doctors suggested. He had sailed earlier in the summer, but was turned back. Bodies and wreckage on the Normandy beaches were buried in secret. Why? If bad weather was the cause, why the need for a mass cover-up? It is more likely that he met with the superiority of the English warships, a disaster that subsequent propaganda would most definitely suppress!
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts a man wounded by an arrow in his eye, and another being felled by a sword, the words 'Here Harold is killed' above both. Which one is Harold? It is a controversy that has raged with heated argument!
Personally, I think the case against the arrow is more convincing. Stitch marks in the tapestry may indicate that the shaft of the supposed arrow was originally longer - a spear about to be thrown, not an arrow reaching its target. If that was Harold's death, why was it not more clearly shown? The trauma of such a wound would disable instantly, if not kill outright, yet we know that, although wounded, Harold fought on.
He died at the hands of four of William's noblemen who hacked him to pieces, dismembering and decapitating him. The truth of Hastings is that our last, most noble English king died slowly and bloodily, was savagely murdered on the battlefield.
Harold's 'common law' wife had to find and identify the bloodied remains. He had married the sister of the northern earls for political alliance early in 1066, but for more than twenty years had remained faithful to Edith Swan-neck from Nazeing in Essex. She bore him six children, nursed him through sickness and witnessed his building of Waltham Abbey. When the torso was found, his mother offered his weight in gold so that Harold might have Christian burial. William refused her.
William later did penance for initiating such wicked death by founding Battle Abbey - the high altar was placed where Harold fell. Those of us who dispute the Norman version of events will remember Harold for what he really was: Ðœt wœs göd cyning, that he was a good king who gave his life defending England from foreign invasion, and who has paid the penalty of deliberately twisted truth ever since."