Three days later William landed in England. Harold hurried south with his army and, on 14 October, met William in battle near Hastings. A day-long battle ensued and Harold was defeated and killed, along with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine.
Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Norman archers then walked up the hill and when they were about a yards away from Harold's army they fired their first batch of arrows.
Using their shields, the house-carls were able to block most of this attack. Volley followed volley but the shield wall remained unbroken. At around The Norman army led by William now marched forward in three main groups. On the left were the Breton auxiliaries. On the right were a more miscellaneous body that included men from Poitou, Burgundy, Brittany and Flanders.
In the centre was the main Norman contingent "with Duke William himself, relics round his neck, and the papal banner above his head". The English held firm and eventually the Normans were forced to retreat.
Members of the fyrd on the right broke ranks and chased after them. A rumour went round that William was amongst the Norman casualties. Afraid of what this story would do to Norman morale, William pushed back his helmet and rode amongst his troops, shouting that he was still alive.
He then ordered his cavalry to attack the English who had left their positions on Senlac Hill. English losses were heavy and very few managed to return to the line. At about This gave both sides a chance to remove the dead and wounded from the battlefield. William, who had originally planned to use his cavalry when the English retreated, decided to change his tactics. At about one in the afternoon he ordered his archers forward. This time he told them to fire higher in the air.
The change of direction of the arrows caught the English by surprise. The arrow attack was immediately followed by a cavalry charge. Casualties on both sides were heavy. Those killed included Harold's two brothers, Gyrth and Leofwin. However, the English line held and the Normans were eventually forced to retreat. The fyrd, this time on the left side, chased the Normans down the hill. William ordered his knights to turn and attack the men who had left the line. Once again the English suffered heavy casualties.
William ordered his troops to take another rest. The Normans had lost a quarter of their cavalry. Many horses had been killed and the ones left alive were exhausted.
William decided that the knights should dismount and attack on foot. This time all the Normans went into battle together. The archers fired their arrows and at the same time the knights and infantry charged up the hill. It was now 4. Heavy English casualties from previous attacks meant that the front line was shorter. The Normans could now attack from the side.
The few housecarls that were left were forced to form a small circle round the English standard. The Normans attacked again and this time they broke through the shield wall and Harold and most of his housecarls were killed. With their king dead, the fyrd saw no reason to stay and fight, and retreated to the woods behind.
The Normans chased the fyrd into the woods but suffered further casualties themselves when they were ambushed by the English. According to William of Poitiers : "Victory won, the duke returned to the field of battle. He was met with a scene of carnage which he could not regard without pity in spite of the wickedness of the victims.
Far and wide the ground was covered with the flower of English nobility and youth. Harold's two brothers were found lying beside him.
He refused, declaring that Harold should be buried on the shore of the land which he sought to guard. The campaign of Stamford Bridge marks Harold Godwineson as a notable commander. Doubtless, the Norwegian host had suffered heavy losses at Fulford, but it was none the less a formidable army under the leadership of one of the most renowned warriors of the age. Moreover, the force at the disposal of Harold Godwineson had itself been hastily collected, and it had fought under the handicap of several days of forced marches.
What, however, stamps the campaign as exceptional is the fact that a commander operating from London was able to achieve surprise against a host whose movements since 20 September had been confined within twenty-five miles of York.
The Norwegian king, it is true, had after Fulford been engaged in arranging for the submission of York, in withdrawing his victorious troops to Riccall and then bringing them up again to the road junction at Stamford Bridge, which he probably did not reach until the 24th.
Even so, the achievement of Harold Godwineson in coming upon him unawares with an army hastily brought up from the south is very notable. His success was as deserved as it was complete, but it was yet to be seen whether it would be possible for him, after his victory, to return to the south in time to oppose the impending landing of the duke of Normandy. Many historians postulate that the Saxon army which encountered the Normans at Hastings was already greatly depleted by a forced march from the earlier Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire on 25 September Then, at the end of the month, the Saxon King received the unpleasant tidings that Duke William had landed on the south coast of Britain.
Turning his army about, Harold had no alternative but to march all the way back south in order to meet the new, but not unexpected, Norman threat. By contemporary Western standards this sounds like a tall order, and it is frequently argued that only the elite mounted Saxon housecarls would have been able to make the journey in time.
It did not. Because the Saxon army which fought the Normans at Hastings was not the same bloodied Saxon host which triumphed at Stamford Bridge. The lighting campaign Harold conducted in the north of England against the Norsemen of Harald Hardrada and Tostig was masterful in that it involved speed, surprise and overcoming very difficult terrain.
Northern Britain in the mid-eleventh century was divided culturally and politically from the rest of the nation, and was generally left to its own devices. Hard to reach — only a few roads traversed the Humber Estuary and the bogs and swamps of Yorkshire and Cheshire connecting the north and south — the north was an isolated and barren region. The mile km journey from London to York usually took two weeks, or more depending if the roads were passable.
Unfortunately for Harold, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a few days before he heard of the Viking incursion in the north, he had disbanded his army which he had assembled some months before in anticipation of an appearance by the hostile William Duke of Normandy. The army had to be broken up, since the customary 60 day enlistment period for most of his soldiers had come to an end.
It was also becoming more and more difficult to keep the army and navy intact due to the problem of supplying them. Prior to that alarming news the Saxon fleet had been sent to London, but, as reported by theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, it had lost many vessels as it made its way to the city around the south coast. The damage to his fleet may have been the prime reason the king did not sail for the north instead of making the arduous overland journey on foot.
Given favorable wind and tides a sea voyage would have taken about three days. Thus, Harold could have avoided much of the stress and strain on the troops making the move north, as well as the burdensome supply requirements i.
Regardless, the Saxons, after leaving London in the middle of September, arrived in Yorkshire, near Tadcaster, on 24 September. They had covered grueling miles in a little over a week, making an impressive 22 to 25 miles km a day. Having successfully disposed of one menace to his throne, sometime between 29 September and 1 October Harold was notified that the long awaited invasion of Saxon England by William of Normandy had taken place.
He now had no choice but to return to the south to deal with this new threat. With a fleet drawn from harbours along the south coast Harold took up a position on the Isle of Wight with the bulk of his army.
The remainder of his forces were spread along the coast. The object of this arrangement was that in the event of a landing the lookouts on the coast would signal the arrival of the enemy probably by lighting a beacon and Harold would then sail from the Isle of Wight with his army to fall upon the invaders.
Indeed, it was more than likely that the wind that would carry the invading fleet would be the same upon which Harold would sail, to land behind the invaders or on an adjacent beach.
Harold of England was faced with a double invasion from the North-East and from the South. In September he heard that a Norwegian fleet, with Hardrada and Tostig on board, had sailed up the Humber, beaten the local levies under Earls Edwin and Morcar, and encamped near York at Stamford Bridge. He now showed the fighting qualities he possessed. Within five days of the defeat of Edwin and Morcar, Harold reached York, and the same day marched to confront the Norwegian army ten miles from the city.
Taking his brother Gyrth with him, and with his housecarls and such other troops as he could spare from the distance of the south. Harold marched north in seven divisions, pressing volunteers as he went. The speed of his advance has always drawn superlatives from historians used to the ponderous pace of medieval warfare, but it may be that a good deal of his force was on horseback and that, as was the custom with Anglo-Saxon armies, they dismounted before fighting.
Such mounted infantry could manage twenty-five miles a day. There was one of the Norwegians there who withstood the English host so they could not cross the bridge nor win victory. Then an Englishman shot an arrow, but it was no use, and then another came under the bridge and stabbed him under the corselet. Then Harold, king of the English, came over the bridge and his host with him, and there killed large numbers of both Norwegians and Flemings, and Harold let the king's son Hetmundus go home to Noway with all ships.
The Norwegians who survived took flight; and the English attacked them fiercely as they pursued them until some got to the ships. Some were drowned, and some burned, and some destroyed in various ways so that few survived and the English remained in command of the field.
The king gave quarter to Olaf, son of the Norse king and all those who survived on the ships, and they went up to our king and swore oaths that they would always keep peace and friendship with this country; and the king let them go home with twenty-four ships.
Then came William duke of Normandy into Pevensey This was then made known to King Harold, and he then gathered a great force, and came to meet him at the estuary of Appledore; and William came against him unawares before his people were assembled. Harold ruled over a large portion of England, making him the most powerful man in the whole kingdom, after the King.
Harold Godwinson had three brothers: Tostig, Swegen and Gryth. He claimed to have been made King by Edward the Confessor. He returned south to fight Duke William's invasion. He was killed, it is generally assumed, by an arrow shot by one of William's archers, but some reports say he was cut down by many soldiers. Bayeux Tapestry This scene is stated in the previous scene on the Tapestry to have taken place at Bagia Bayeux, probably in Bayeux Cathedral.
It shows Harold touching two altars with the enthroned Duke looking on, and is central to the Norman Invasion of England. Archbishop Stigand". Scene immediately after crowning of Harold by according to the Norman tradition Archbishop of Canterbury Stigand d.
0コメント