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This is rather a long section as so much happened in this year. Between Christmas 1065 and Christmas 1066, England had three kings.
Edward the Confessor did not enjoy Christmas 1065 despite the fact that earlier that year his great church, Westminster Abbey, had been consecrated. The word consecrated means that the building was blessed by a bishop and became a holy place. As everyone was pulling crackers, putting on silly hats and singing the twelve days of Christmas, Edward only got as far as eleven as he died on January 5 1066. The Witan very quickly made Edward’s brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, the new king. In fact it all happened so quickly that Harold was crowned on January 6, the same day Edward was buried.
Now, if you have been reading all of this, you will know why Harold wanted to be made king pretty quickly. Edward had made a promise to his best friend, and playmate when they were young, William of Normandy, that he could become the next king of England after Edward died. William had become ruler of Normandy when he was 8 years old in 1035, somehow survived a power struggle till 1047 when he became the only ruler and defeated all his opponents. He was known as a strong ruler. He believed he had the right to be the next King of England.
Furthermore Harold had earlier been stupid enough to become shipwrecked on the Normandy coast and had been rescued by William who had made Harold swear an oath of allegiance while placing his hand on a box containing bones of old saints. This was a serious oath. William said it meant Harold was his junior and so William should be King.
On hearing that Harold had taken the English throne for himself, William sent his ambassadors to England to state that he should be king but they were rapidly sent back to Normandy. Not surprisingly, William set to gather an army to physically claim his “rightful” inheritance. Harold’s father Earl Godwin had placed his numerous sons around England as regional earls so Harold could easily get a powerful army for himself.
But Harold had previously fallen out with one of these earls, his brother, Tostig, the Earl of Northumbria, Northampton and Nottingham and Tostig, fuming, was living in Viking Denmark. Tostig, like William, wanted his inheritance, which in Tostig’s case was Northumbria. While William was gathering his Norman army, Tostig, with the support of the King of Norway, started to raise an army in Denmark.
Harold was getting ready for a Norman invasion and had his army waiting on the south coast. But the weather was bad, so Harold sent his troops off to their homes to bring in the harvest; soldiers were part time in those days. Then Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, and Tostig attacked in the north and Harold collected his army on his way north and defeated and killed the invaders in a major battle at Stamford Bridge, which was in Yorkshire. Apparently it was a good victory as the invaders had come in 300 ships but only needed 20 to take them home.
Then the weather got better in the English Channel and William set off. He landed at a place called Pevensey, carelessly fell over when he landed on the beach, so they say, and his soldiers thought that was a bad omen. But William stood up with a handful of sand, spat the rest out of his mouth, and said “Look I have grasped the soil of England already”, which made everyone feel better, except William who had the taste of seaweed in his mouth for a few hours. However he quickly built two castles nearby and waited. He actually had a big problem because if he couldn’t get supplies from the locals he was a bit stuck. He solved this by killing the locals and taking their supplies.
Meanwhile Harold marched back from York to London in five days, quicker than a Virgin train, picked up new recruits on the way and instead of stopping in London, as his mother told him, marched straight on to meet William at Hastings on the Sussex coast.
The two armies met on October 14th and the battle went on for over nine hours and no one seemed to be winning. The Normans had knights on horseback but the Saxons had a good defence, all standing together at the top of a hill so the Normans had to charge uphill. Then the Normans used the classic tactic of giving the opposition more space. Some Normans, possibly thinking William was dead, started running down the hill and part of the Saxon army chased after them. This opened up the Saxon defence and soon the Normans had found a way through. At the same time, William, who was quite not dead. ordered his archers to fire their arrows high into the air. Harold, sitting on his horse and giving orders, was trying to keep his eyes on all this. Sadly he kept one of them very close to the archers attack and an arrow went into it. He was killed.
Once Harold was dead the Anglo-Saxon army had lost its leader and they started to run away. William had won. Meanwhile when the news reached London, the earls immediately selected Edgar the Ætheling (which means royal prince) as the new king. Edgar was the grandson of Edmund Ironsides, who was the son of Ethelred the Unready. Edgar was also the last living male of Anglo-Saxon royalty.
However, William had other ideas. After resting his army for five days, he began to march to London. He took the scenic route through Dover and Canterbury and then was blocked from crossing the River Thames at Southwark. Having studied his satnav (not really) he knew there was another crossing further up river at Wallingford and took this. He then marched to Berkhamstead, why not, my aunt and uncle lived there (a bit later of course), and waited, possibly building a motte and bailey castle as something to do. On his march he had been very cruel killing people and burning villages, so people were quite frightened of this Norman Duke. In early December 1066 Edgar and the earls and bishops of London rode out and, not wanting further bloodshed, invited William to be King. He said “yes” or more likely since he spoke French, “oui”.
He was crowned King in London on Christmas Day in 1066. Although William came from Normandy in France, it was actually the Vikings who had settled in Normandy years before. You could say the Vikings were back again but don't because it ruins history. Oh, by the way, those clever historian people who know a thing or two about naming things decided that as William had conquered England he should be known as William the Conqueror. In actual fact he was William I of England, the third king to rule in 1066.
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