The Fateful Year: 1066
When William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold II on Senlac ridge on that chill autumn day in October 1066, he must have hoped that the whole country would submit to him without further delay. But he soon found out that little had changed with Harold’s gruesome death. It would be another ten weeks before he could truly call himself King.
A battle had been fought in which England had, admittedly, lost its head of state (along with two of his brothers) along with many warriors on both sides. But in that moment and, indeed, after his eventual coronation and for several years to come, William’s position was precarious to say the least.
Chief among his immediate problems was that his much-reduced army was still locked into a relatively small area in the southeastern corner of England and, with winter approaching, the notoriously fickle weather in the Channel would have made the opportunity to acquire fresh troops from France difficult at best. On top of that, the Anglo-Saxons still had many thousands of men that could be called upon to fight. King Harold had rushed south from Yorkshire (following the resounding success of the battle of Stamford Bridge) with just his loyal huscarls (his household warriors, in essence). On the way, he picked up the fyrdsmen (the farmers and craftsmen who owed military service to their Lords) from the southern shires and then waited in London for a week or so for more to come. When he did finally attack, he did so against the advice of many of his counsellors (including his brothers) who advised him to wait a while longer: William could only grow weaker (illness, desertion, skirmishes, reduced supplies), whereas Harold’s position would strengthen as more and more men from the west, the midlands and the north answered his call.
Those men, therefore, were still available – unbloodied and unbowed. Their lords (such as the great brother Earls, Morcar and Edwin of Northumbria and Mercia respectively) were also still in the game, gathered in London in the aftermath of the battle to decide what to do. To my mind, it was only the lack of a credible and effective leader around whom to rally, that William was able to secure the breathing space he needed to have himself crowned on Christmas Day that year. Edgar the Aetheling, the last scion of the House of Wessex and – in effect – the last Anglo-Saxon King of England (he was acclaimed but never crowned, which is all that counts under pre-Norman rules) was an untried teenager who could, perhaps, barely speak English, having been born and raised in Hungary.
It did’t help that Earls Edwin and Morcar displayed a remarkable lack of backbone by heading north, claiming to be preparing their armies for further resistance. With no viable support, Edgar (himself a largely ineffectual leader as it would prove) had no choice but to submit to the Duke at Berkhamsted sometime in early December.
But even once William had been crowned, he could not relax. The first few years of his reign saw uprising after uprising, two of which I featured in the third book of my previous trilogy: Thurkill’s Rebellion. That none of these revolts was successful speaks largely to the fact that they were localised in their scale and ambition and failed to capture the national imagination. For whatever reason – though the absence of an obvious and capable leader stands out – they could not attract anything like the support they needed to trouble William too greatly.
The uprising in Shropshire, led by Eadric the Wild, was not much more than one man’s attempt to rid himself of a local Norman Earl who ruled the shires on the border with Wales, thereby encroaching on Eadric’s lands. While the unrest that centred on Exeter was poorly led and confused in its ambitions. That this last one proved to be a damp squib was all the more surprising when one considers that its figurehead (at least for a time) was King Harold’s own mother who claimed to be waiting for the arrival of Harold’s three adult sons – who, frustratingly, never actually made it across from Ireland in time. The whole thing collapsed once William arrived outside the city gates with his army – but not before one legend of an Englishman, high up on the ancient Roman wall, dropped his trousers and farted in the general direction of the King. I can only wonder if his father smelled of elderberries.
All this (and other, more minor, disturbances) leads us to matters in the north of England – the subject of my new trilogy entitled, Rebellion (of which the first book is called Blood Feud).
For several generations, the West Saxon line of English Kings had been largely content to leave the north to its own devices, trusting in local lords to collect the taxes they needed to fund their wars. All that changed with King William, however. The Norman Duke – perhaps influenced by his challenging upbringing – was far more inclined to bring every inch of England under his firm control. This was a theme that was to continue throughout his reign, most readily seen in the stunning achievement represented by the Domesday Book.
Nevertheless, things had begun to change in the north back in 1055 when King Edward the Confessor had appointed the then Earl Harold’s brother, Tostig, to the Earldom of Northumbria. Within a few years, Tostig – and his Yorkshire henchman, Copsig – were roundly hated by almost everyone north of the Humber; Tostig’s aggressive taxation policy and Copsig’s even more punitive enforcement measures endeared them to no one. Eventually, in 1065, things reached such a climax that the King was forced to intervene, sending Harold to deal with his brother. Much to Tostig’s chagrin, Harold sided with the locals, sending his kinsman into exile.
It did not take long for the repercussions of this decision to be felt as Tostig quickly joined forces with the King of Norway to whom he no doubt dangled the carrot of the English throne. As needs no retelling, however, events in those three to four weeks in September and October of 1066 did not turn out well for either of the Godwinesons, leaving the way open for William to step into the void.
As mentioned earlier, William was an altogether different prospect from his Saxon predecessors. The continual likelihood of rebellions against his authority, combined with an unhealthy sense of paranoia from his own, tempestuous childhood in which several Norman lords sought to deprive him of his Dukedom, meant that he set about imposing his will with his customary ruthlessness.
With his attention firmly focussed on the southern half of his new realm, as well as the need to keep an eye on Normandy’s unruly neighbours (who would gladly profit at his expense in his absence), William was content at first to place trusted men in positions of authority to oversee the further reaches of his kingdom. But why, when Copsig petitioned the new king to be appointed Earl of Northumbria, did William agree? It can only be described as a mystery. Was he in any way aware of Copsig’s past, his reputation? As Tostig’s right-hand man, he had alienated much of the population north of the Humber, and so sending him to the region as his chosen man was always going to be like tossing a lighted match on to a petrol infused bonfire.
Perhaps, William was taken in by Copsig’s fawning demeanour and his claims to have a deep knowledge of the region. The money he no doubt paid for the title was also welcome at a time when there were soldiers to be paid. Perhaps it was a tactical stopgap until William could nominate one of his own men to do the job. Either way, Copsig set off north at the head of an army with which to stake his claim.
But no sooner had he arrived than he came up against the existing Earl, Oswulf, who ruled the northern half of Northumbria from the ancient fortress capital of Bebbanburh (Bamburgh). As one of the climactic scenes in my novel, I’ll not spoil what happened on that day, but suffice to say, Oswulf must have wondered later, what this new king – this, so far, unknown factor from across the Channel – might now do in response. And to find that out, you’ll have to wait until books two and three.
Paul Bernardi is a novelist and the author of Blood Feud.
