1066: The Year of the Conquest PDF
Preview 1066: The Year of the Conquest
“Mr. Howarth is a brilliant writer, full of grace and wit and solid common sense!’ The New Yorker Everyone knows 1066 as the date of the Norman invasion and conquest of England. But how many of us can place that event in the context of the entire dramatic year in which it took place? From the death of Edward the Confessor in early January to the Christmas coronation of Duke William of Normandy, there is an almost uncanny symmetry, as well as a relentlessly exciting surge, of events leading to and from Hastings. There could be no finer chronicler of that year than David Howarth, one of today's masters of historical narrative. He brings alive the struggle for the English succession, won by the able and fated Harold, the separate invasion from Norway by raucous King Harald Hardrada and Tostig, the deposed Earl of Northumbria, brilliantly foiled by Harold at Stamford Bridge only days before William's landing, and vividly re-creates the invasion and battle them selves. Drawing brilliantly on the wealth of contemporary sources, Howarth gives us memorable portraits of the leading char acters and their motivations. At the same time, in what may be this book's most shining achievement, he makes us see the story from the common Englishman's point of view, telling us how he lived, worked, fought, and died—and how he perceived from his isolated shire the overthrow of his world. Jacket design by Neil Stuart io66 The Year of the Conquest DAVID HOWARTH Illustrations to chapter headings by GARETH FLOYD B a r n es {LNoble B O O K S NEW YORK Copyright © 1977 by David Howarth All rights reserved. This edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc., by arrangement with Viking-Penguin, U.S. 1993 Barnes & Noble Books ISBN 0-88029-014-5 Printed and bound in the United States of America M 19 18 17 16 Contents INTRODUCTION page 7 England - New Year s Day ii Death of a King - January 4 27 Coronation - January 3 49 Rouen - January 10 60 The Comet - April 18 77 Normandy - Spring 91 Norway - Summer 104 North Wind - August 10 - September 12 117 York - September 20-23 130 The English Channel - September 28 142 The Challenge - October 3-13 156 Hastings - October 14 166 London - October 13 - December 23 185 England - New Year s Eve 197 SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 202 INDEX 203 Maps and Diagrams Genealogy of the early Kings of England and Denmark, and the Dukes of Normandy page 30 The earldoms of England in 1066 and the invasion routes 46 Stamford Bridge 137 The Sussex coast 146 The Battle of Hastings 168 Introduction A few years ago I wrote a book about Waterloo and one about Trafalgar, and tried to describe those battles from the points of view of men who fought in them. Here I have tried to do the same thing with the year 1066: not only its battles, but also the peaceful life that the battles disrupted, and not only its kings and dukes and earls, but also its humble people. 1066 is the date that English people remember from history lessons at school long after they have forgotten all the others. But this book is not about the historical importance of the year, it is simply about the tremendous drama that began on January 6 with the burial of King Edward in Westminster Abbey, and ended on Christmas Day in the same place with the coronation of King William. The people who witnessed the drama could not foresee its historical results, so the results have no proper place in the telling of it, except as a postscript. Like those other books, this is not meant to be read as a work of scholarship, only as an evocation of the excitement, pleasures and miseries of that year; but I hope it is accurate enough to satisfy scholars. There is an obvious difference in going so much farther back in history: there are not so many contemporary sources. But there are more than one might expect. This account of the year is based on twenty others, of which twelve were written within living memory of 1066, and all except two within a hundred years. Many of them are mentioned in the story, and there is a list of them all with their dates on page 202. A less obvious difference is that all the early accounts are more or less prejudiced. Immediately after 1066, there were naturally three different versions of what had happened, Norman, English and Scandinavian. The rather later writers added new stories, either from earlier versions which are lost or from oral traditions, and these 7 io66: The Year of the Conquest already had the quality of legends when they were written. More over, most of the writers were monks who felt bound to draw moral conclusions, and some were writing for patrons who expected their own opinions to be confirmed. So any modern historian has to use his own judgement pretty freely.When he finds contradictory stories, he has to decide which is most probable, which writer had the best reason to know the truth - or which, on the other hand, had reason to distort it; and if he cannot decide, he has to tell all the versions. On the whole, all the early writers were more likely to be right about things in their own country, and were sometimes obviously wrong about things in other countries; so one tends to accept Norman stories about Normandy, English ones about England and Norse ones about Norway. Apart from that, I think it is fair to say that Normans were the least reliable, because they felt they had to make excuses for their invasion, and their writers were sometimes deceived by their own propaganda. Strictly speaking, every sentence in a story nine centuries old should include the word perhaps: nothing is perfectly certain. But that would be boring, and I have left out the qualification whenever things seem reasonably certain, either from the early sources or from deduction and inference. After all, factual truth is not the only thing that matters. It can be just as illuminating to know what people thought or pretended was true, if one can discover why they thought it, or why they had to pretend it. I do not despise a plausible legend, or totally disbelieve a miracle that everyone believed in. Sometimes I have made guesses, but not without saying so. Better scholars might say I have gone too far in trying to draw the characters of the people of 1066; but I think this is the most enjoyable part of history. To understand the things these people did, one has to do one’s best to understand the psychological reasons why they did them.Why, for one example, did William of Normandy ever contemplate the invasion of England ? It seems far too risky an action for any intelligent military man to take through greed, or lust for power, or revenge. I have suggested a more compelling reason which I think rings true. And why did King 8
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