Beorn
06-17-2009, 12:57 AM
Getting your kicks on Route 1066: Go past the pub and ignore ghost of man with hands cut off. We follow the footsteps of King Harold
A sleepy, sun-dozed autumn afternoon. I'm sitting outside a pub, about to begin the second of my journeys through history.
After following in the footsteps of Boudicca, I had moved forward a whole millennium, to a crucial turning point in Britain's history.
I would be tracing a journey that would take me nearly the length of England, and whose outcome would still be felt almost 1,000 years later.
Across the road some children are feeding ducks. Two mothers with pushchairs trundle towards the Co-op as the sun pushes its weak warmth across the street. Could this really be the site of one of the most decisive and bloody battles ever to have taken place on English soil?
I can see the memorial from here, a modern space enclosed by low brick walls, with benches flanking a small standing stone, on the edge of a car park dotted with fallen leaves. A bunch of dying, but vividly red, carnations has been laid on the plinth, one drooping forlornly over the edge. Set into the wall is a marble plaque, with two golden battleaxes crossed over the date 1066.
It's a date familiar to anyone with the slightest grasp of English history, but today I'm far from Hastings, around eight miles east of York. 'The Battle of Stamford Bridge', it says, 'King Harold of England defeated his brother Tostig and King Hardrada of Norway here on 25 September 1066'.
It was one of the greatest victories in English history, yet barely three weeks later it would be almost forgotten, as the man behind the victory lay dead in a field some 300 miles away, his kingdom lost. Harold Godwineson was destined to go down in history as the man who lost the Battle of Hastings.
Histories of the British monarchy nearly all start with William the Conqueror. Yet Harold was a brilliant man who, in the short time he ruled, steadied and united a turbulent nation and, here at Stamford Bridge, the start of my journey, saw off the Viking threat for ever despite having just marched his army north from London at terrific speed, before being obliged to turn around and head straight south to Battle, the town outside Hastings where history shuddered and shifted on its axis one autumn day.
Harold was crowned king on January 6, 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor. Edward had left no heirs, and the next in line was a small boy, too young to rule, so the throne passed, at least for the time being, to Harold, the most influential noble in the land. He had been the king's brother-in-law, chief power-broker, diplomat and a brilliant military tactician who had recently put down a Welsh rebellion using minimal force.
On coming to the throne, he was immediately popular, overturning unjust laws and uniting the kingdom. But Harold had his enemies. Across the English Channel, William, Duke of Normandy, believed the throne should be his, and would do whatever it took to gain it.
Then there was Harold's brother, Tostig, who had been a cruel and unpopular Earl of Northumbria, until he was ousted by rebels. To Tostig's fury, Harold had sided with the rebels and had him exiled.
But at the end of that month Halley's Comet, regarded as a prophecy of disaster, was visible across much of the country. William had been preparing to invade, but adverse winds kept his ships in Norman harbours. By early September, with winter coming, it seemed that the threat was over, at least until spring.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/12/article-1113582-0144F95D00001005-685_468x343.jpg
Meanwhile the vengeful Tostig had made an alliance with the King of Norway, Harald Hardrada - the 'thunderbolt of the north'. In the late summer of 1066 Harald's fleet of 300 ships joined Tostig's smaller force in the North Sea, before landing at Riccall, inland on the River Ouse.
The invaders fought a victorious battle against local forces at Fulford on 20 September, then occupied York. Harold marched rapidly with a large force from London and arrived in Tadcaster, south-west of York, four days after the battle. He learned that the Norse forces were at Stamford Bridge and set off immediately.
The Norse army was completely wrong-footed: most of them had left their chain mail on their ships. Medieval battles were usually brief affairs - a couple of hours at most - but this encounter lasted nearly the whole day, until it emerged that Harald and Tostig had been killed.
Harold had earned a magnificent victory. Only 24 of the 300-plus ships of Norse troops returned home. The Vikings never threatened Britain again and would make no further incursions into English territory until the advent of flatpack furniture.
Today the battlefield is hidden beneath a housing estate.* (:()I made my way towards the modern bridge, passing a public toilet block on which three schoolboys had painted the story of the battle in an impressive pastiche of the Bayeux Tapestry. On a local level at least, the battle has not been forgotten.
I followed the sun's progress west towards York, where Harold had headed after the battle. Before long the silhouette of York Minster was visible on the horizon.
Originally a small church whose origins stretch back to AD627, it was enlarged and remodelled over the centuries to its present majestic form, and by the time the sun set I was passing through the coolness of its shadow.
The next day I spent a while in the silence of the nave thinking about the walk ahead and the man I was following. It's almost certain that Harold would have prayed at this site after the Battle of Stamford Bridge. I noticed a rack of candles and lit one for Harold Godwineson.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/12/article-1113582-0144F91600001005-610_468x460.jpg
As well as praying, Harold had come to York to celebrate his victory and rest his weary forces. Within a few days, however, he had received some startling news. On 27 September the winds had shifted and William, taking advantage of Harold's absence in the North of England, had set off across the Channel, landed at Pevensey and moved on to Hastings.
Harold immediately gathered up his victorious army and set off south from York. It seems likely that he would have travelled by the old Roman roads, the most direct routes, which I set out to follow.
As I left the town, I passed the sites of the old Terry's chocolate and Rowntree's sweet factories and was soon in the countryside.
At Copmanthorpe I rested on a bench by the village's war memorial, a simple cross with the dead of the 1914-18 conflict listed on one side of the base, 1939-45 on the other. As I ran my eye down the list of names it struck me that Harold's army would have been made up of men like this, ordinary lads called to serve their country, heading off into the unknown with a sense of duty, excitement and fear, in the knowledge that there was a fair chance they'd never return. A millennium may have passed but for the local young men, at times of conflict little had changed.
I passed on through Doncaster and thence to the Great North Road, a once-major artery now replaced by the nearby A1(M). At Lincoln, after nearly a hundred miles of walking, I rested for a day before following the Roman road south again to the village of Etton, near Peterborough, where history had another surprise for me.
A lady told me that at nearby Woodcroft Castle, Charles I's chaplain was cornered by Cromwellian forces during the Civil War. He was chased on to the roof and over a parapet, only to cling desperately to a gargoyle. Uncharitably, the Roundheads loosened his grip by leaning over and chopping off his hands. Even then they had to beat him to death with musket butts as he emerged from the moat with stumps a-spurting. Some say they tore his tongue out and dismembered him alive.
You can apparently still hear his screams on the anniversary of his gory demise. This was the kind of place that underlines just what I have in mind when I claim that we are surrounded by history.
eps I travelled on to Peterborough, a city Harold would have known well, and where he would have spent the night, before heading south through sun-drenched countryside and a succession of market towns until eventually, footsore and weary, I reached Waltham Abbey.
The town was probably Harold's favourite place, somewhere he could escape the rigours and strains of political life. He'd been given the Waltham estate as a gift from Edward. A deeply religious man, Harold rebuilt the church there on a grander scale and had stopped there on his way south.
According to legend, it's also where his body is buried If I was ever going to get a tangible feeling for the man I'd come to admire greatly, it would be here. I sat in a pew and tried to imagine the king at prayer. Harold was an unquestionably a brave man and a great leader, but he can't have looked ahead to the coming confrontation without apprehension.
I left the abbey and followed a wooden fingerpost to King Harold's Tomb - a symbolic memorial, rather than an actual crypt. It was in the shade of a small tree, a raised slab with a rough-hewn stone marker at its head that read 'Harold King of England, Obit. 1066'.
On the slab lay a small bunch of red carnations, just like at Stamford Bridge. I dropped to my haunches, touched the stone, and set off again - until I found myself turning back a few hundred yards down the path. At a nearby shop, I bought a bunch of white carnations and retraced my foosteps to lay them on the tomb of one of England's greatest men, whose achievements I was determined to celebrate.
Then I turned towards London. For one night, I would sleep in my own bed, but my eventual destination lay another few days' route march ahead. When I eventually got there, walking up a steep hill into Battle, the sun was setting an appropriately sanguine shade of red.
Next morning I walked out on to the battlefield. Standing with your back to Battle Abbey, the well-maintained ruins of the church commissioned by William on the spot where Harold fell, and looking out across the grassy undulations, trees and ponds below, it's impossible to tell that here, on this hill, English history changed for ever.
On arrival, Harold moved quickly to assemble his men at the top of Senlac Hill, where I stood. It was a terrific position for the Saxons. The Norman archers would be rendered nearly impotent - from such a low position their arrows would fall short. The Norman cavalry and infantry would have to attack up the steep hill. Harold had neither reason nor desire to attack; he just needed to hold his position.
By around nine o'clock the two armies faced each other across the grassy expanse, the Saxons banging their shields and screaming their warcry of 'Ut! Ut! Ut!' It would have presented an unnerving sight to the Normans.
According to legend, William's minstrel, Taillefer, galloped out into the no man's land between the armies and performed an inspiring ballad before plunging into the Saxon shield wall and immediately being hacked to death. At this the battle began, the Normans launching missiles at the English followed by a charge up the hill.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/12/article-1113582-0144F9FB00001005-205_468x449.jpg
The Saxons responded with missiles of their own and the charge faltered. Next, William's knights attacked the English shield wall and their opponents responded by hitting out with axes. The wall stood firm. The English were holding out against everything the Normans threw at them. They were winning.
Then, around lunchtime, a rumour passed along the French lines that William had been killed - the Bayeux Tapestry reports that he removed his helmet to prove otherwise - causing a phalanx of Breton soldiers on the Norman left wing to break ranks and run back down the hill.
Harold's orders would have been firm. Maintain the shield wall at all times. But the right flank of the English shield wall broke and set off down the hill in pursuit of their fleeing opponents. The Norman cavalry quickly cut off the rampaging Saxons and hacked every last one of them to pieces.
It was a crucial point in the battle, but the majority of Harold's army still stood firm. All Harold had to do was hold out for the rest of the day. As the long, exhausting battle went into late afternoon things looked grim for William. Once darkness fell, all would be lost and his claim to the throne doomed.
William marshalled his remaining archers, cavalry and infantry and ordered them into one last push. The cavalry rounded and charged, the infantry gathered and the archers collected every fallen arrow they could find and launched them at the English forces.
Harold was killed at this point. No one can say for sure it was the falling arrow in the eye of legend. Others claim he suffered an even more barbaric death, being beheaded, castrated and hacked to pieces. Ultimately, of course, we cannot know how he died.
BUT, however he fell, word soon spread through the English ranks: Harold was dead. Their spirit was broken and so were their lines; the majority fled, pursued by the invaders. In a stroke of the illest fortune, the battle and the kingdom were lost.
I walked up the battlefield to the ruined abbey and crunched across the gravel to a stone slab on the ground. It represented the end of my 300-plus mile journey alongside the man who, in my opinion, deserves to be right up there in the pantheon of great men. A man whose abilities and far-sighted outlook led him to within a whisker of seeing off the challenge that changed the country for ever.
I approached the slab slowly, reluctantly, as if by avoiding it the outcome of the battle might become different somehow, and read the mildew-flowered inscription: '. . . to commemorate the victory of Duke William on 14 October 1066.
The high altar was placed to mark the spot where King Harold died.' A gust blew up and made the trees rustle. A wind-borne oak leaf danced into view, hung there for a moment, and dropped gently on to the slab with barely a sound. I bade a sad and silent farewell to Harold and turned away.
Through walking in his shoes, and those of Boudicca before him, I had learned so much about them, their plights, their hopes and fears, the motivations behind their actions that would ring down the centuries.
The places I had seen and the people I met along the way were all uplifting, gratifying evidence that history is irrefutably alive, not just in textbooks and museums, but in towns and villages, abbeys and pubs, and, perhaps most of all, in the footpaths, roads and thoroughfares along which people have passed for centuries, undertaking journeys that would shape their lives - and ours.
Source (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1113582/Getting-kicks-Route-1066-Go-past-pub-ignore-ghost-man-hands-cut-We-follow-footsteps-King-Harold.html)
* But Scottish and Welsh sites of historical importance get thousands of pounds thrown at it to preserve it for future generations; but the sites of importance for us English get concreted over, ridiculed and belittled built mind numbingly soul destroying estates on.
Next site is the actual area of the Battle of Hastings. :mad:
A sleepy, sun-dozed autumn afternoon. I'm sitting outside a pub, about to begin the second of my journeys through history.
After following in the footsteps of Boudicca, I had moved forward a whole millennium, to a crucial turning point in Britain's history.
I would be tracing a journey that would take me nearly the length of England, and whose outcome would still be felt almost 1,000 years later.
Across the road some children are feeding ducks. Two mothers with pushchairs trundle towards the Co-op as the sun pushes its weak warmth across the street. Could this really be the site of one of the most decisive and bloody battles ever to have taken place on English soil?
I can see the memorial from here, a modern space enclosed by low brick walls, with benches flanking a small standing stone, on the edge of a car park dotted with fallen leaves. A bunch of dying, but vividly red, carnations has been laid on the plinth, one drooping forlornly over the edge. Set into the wall is a marble plaque, with two golden battleaxes crossed over the date 1066.
It's a date familiar to anyone with the slightest grasp of English history, but today I'm far from Hastings, around eight miles east of York. 'The Battle of Stamford Bridge', it says, 'King Harold of England defeated his brother Tostig and King Hardrada of Norway here on 25 September 1066'.
It was one of the greatest victories in English history, yet barely three weeks later it would be almost forgotten, as the man behind the victory lay dead in a field some 300 miles away, his kingdom lost. Harold Godwineson was destined to go down in history as the man who lost the Battle of Hastings.
Histories of the British monarchy nearly all start with William the Conqueror. Yet Harold was a brilliant man who, in the short time he ruled, steadied and united a turbulent nation and, here at Stamford Bridge, the start of my journey, saw off the Viking threat for ever despite having just marched his army north from London at terrific speed, before being obliged to turn around and head straight south to Battle, the town outside Hastings where history shuddered and shifted on its axis one autumn day.
Harold was crowned king on January 6, 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor. Edward had left no heirs, and the next in line was a small boy, too young to rule, so the throne passed, at least for the time being, to Harold, the most influential noble in the land. He had been the king's brother-in-law, chief power-broker, diplomat and a brilliant military tactician who had recently put down a Welsh rebellion using minimal force.
On coming to the throne, he was immediately popular, overturning unjust laws and uniting the kingdom. But Harold had his enemies. Across the English Channel, William, Duke of Normandy, believed the throne should be his, and would do whatever it took to gain it.
Then there was Harold's brother, Tostig, who had been a cruel and unpopular Earl of Northumbria, until he was ousted by rebels. To Tostig's fury, Harold had sided with the rebels and had him exiled.
But at the end of that month Halley's Comet, regarded as a prophecy of disaster, was visible across much of the country. William had been preparing to invade, but adverse winds kept his ships in Norman harbours. By early September, with winter coming, it seemed that the threat was over, at least until spring.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/12/article-1113582-0144F95D00001005-685_468x343.jpg
Meanwhile the vengeful Tostig had made an alliance with the King of Norway, Harald Hardrada - the 'thunderbolt of the north'. In the late summer of 1066 Harald's fleet of 300 ships joined Tostig's smaller force in the North Sea, before landing at Riccall, inland on the River Ouse.
The invaders fought a victorious battle against local forces at Fulford on 20 September, then occupied York. Harold marched rapidly with a large force from London and arrived in Tadcaster, south-west of York, four days after the battle. He learned that the Norse forces were at Stamford Bridge and set off immediately.
The Norse army was completely wrong-footed: most of them had left their chain mail on their ships. Medieval battles were usually brief affairs - a couple of hours at most - but this encounter lasted nearly the whole day, until it emerged that Harald and Tostig had been killed.
Harold had earned a magnificent victory. Only 24 of the 300-plus ships of Norse troops returned home. The Vikings never threatened Britain again and would make no further incursions into English territory until the advent of flatpack furniture.
Today the battlefield is hidden beneath a housing estate.* (:()I made my way towards the modern bridge, passing a public toilet block on which three schoolboys had painted the story of the battle in an impressive pastiche of the Bayeux Tapestry. On a local level at least, the battle has not been forgotten.
I followed the sun's progress west towards York, where Harold had headed after the battle. Before long the silhouette of York Minster was visible on the horizon.
Originally a small church whose origins stretch back to AD627, it was enlarged and remodelled over the centuries to its present majestic form, and by the time the sun set I was passing through the coolness of its shadow.
The next day I spent a while in the silence of the nave thinking about the walk ahead and the man I was following. It's almost certain that Harold would have prayed at this site after the Battle of Stamford Bridge. I noticed a rack of candles and lit one for Harold Godwineson.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/12/article-1113582-0144F91600001005-610_468x460.jpg
As well as praying, Harold had come to York to celebrate his victory and rest his weary forces. Within a few days, however, he had received some startling news. On 27 September the winds had shifted and William, taking advantage of Harold's absence in the North of England, had set off across the Channel, landed at Pevensey and moved on to Hastings.
Harold immediately gathered up his victorious army and set off south from York. It seems likely that he would have travelled by the old Roman roads, the most direct routes, which I set out to follow.
As I left the town, I passed the sites of the old Terry's chocolate and Rowntree's sweet factories and was soon in the countryside.
At Copmanthorpe I rested on a bench by the village's war memorial, a simple cross with the dead of the 1914-18 conflict listed on one side of the base, 1939-45 on the other. As I ran my eye down the list of names it struck me that Harold's army would have been made up of men like this, ordinary lads called to serve their country, heading off into the unknown with a sense of duty, excitement and fear, in the knowledge that there was a fair chance they'd never return. A millennium may have passed but for the local young men, at times of conflict little had changed.
I passed on through Doncaster and thence to the Great North Road, a once-major artery now replaced by the nearby A1(M). At Lincoln, after nearly a hundred miles of walking, I rested for a day before following the Roman road south again to the village of Etton, near Peterborough, where history had another surprise for me.
A lady told me that at nearby Woodcroft Castle, Charles I's chaplain was cornered by Cromwellian forces during the Civil War. He was chased on to the roof and over a parapet, only to cling desperately to a gargoyle. Uncharitably, the Roundheads loosened his grip by leaning over and chopping off his hands. Even then they had to beat him to death with musket butts as he emerged from the moat with stumps a-spurting. Some say they tore his tongue out and dismembered him alive.
You can apparently still hear his screams on the anniversary of his gory demise. This was the kind of place that underlines just what I have in mind when I claim that we are surrounded by history.
eps I travelled on to Peterborough, a city Harold would have known well, and where he would have spent the night, before heading south through sun-drenched countryside and a succession of market towns until eventually, footsore and weary, I reached Waltham Abbey.
The town was probably Harold's favourite place, somewhere he could escape the rigours and strains of political life. He'd been given the Waltham estate as a gift from Edward. A deeply religious man, Harold rebuilt the church there on a grander scale and had stopped there on his way south.
According to legend, it's also where his body is buried If I was ever going to get a tangible feeling for the man I'd come to admire greatly, it would be here. I sat in a pew and tried to imagine the king at prayer. Harold was an unquestionably a brave man and a great leader, but he can't have looked ahead to the coming confrontation without apprehension.
I left the abbey and followed a wooden fingerpost to King Harold's Tomb - a symbolic memorial, rather than an actual crypt. It was in the shade of a small tree, a raised slab with a rough-hewn stone marker at its head that read 'Harold King of England, Obit. 1066'.
On the slab lay a small bunch of red carnations, just like at Stamford Bridge. I dropped to my haunches, touched the stone, and set off again - until I found myself turning back a few hundred yards down the path. At a nearby shop, I bought a bunch of white carnations and retraced my foosteps to lay them on the tomb of one of England's greatest men, whose achievements I was determined to celebrate.
Then I turned towards London. For one night, I would sleep in my own bed, but my eventual destination lay another few days' route march ahead. When I eventually got there, walking up a steep hill into Battle, the sun was setting an appropriately sanguine shade of red.
Next morning I walked out on to the battlefield. Standing with your back to Battle Abbey, the well-maintained ruins of the church commissioned by William on the spot where Harold fell, and looking out across the grassy undulations, trees and ponds below, it's impossible to tell that here, on this hill, English history changed for ever.
On arrival, Harold moved quickly to assemble his men at the top of Senlac Hill, where I stood. It was a terrific position for the Saxons. The Norman archers would be rendered nearly impotent - from such a low position their arrows would fall short. The Norman cavalry and infantry would have to attack up the steep hill. Harold had neither reason nor desire to attack; he just needed to hold his position.
By around nine o'clock the two armies faced each other across the grassy expanse, the Saxons banging their shields and screaming their warcry of 'Ut! Ut! Ut!' It would have presented an unnerving sight to the Normans.
According to legend, William's minstrel, Taillefer, galloped out into the no man's land between the armies and performed an inspiring ballad before plunging into the Saxon shield wall and immediately being hacked to death. At this the battle began, the Normans launching missiles at the English followed by a charge up the hill.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/12/article-1113582-0144F9FB00001005-205_468x449.jpg
The Saxons responded with missiles of their own and the charge faltered. Next, William's knights attacked the English shield wall and their opponents responded by hitting out with axes. The wall stood firm. The English were holding out against everything the Normans threw at them. They were winning.
Then, around lunchtime, a rumour passed along the French lines that William had been killed - the Bayeux Tapestry reports that he removed his helmet to prove otherwise - causing a phalanx of Breton soldiers on the Norman left wing to break ranks and run back down the hill.
Harold's orders would have been firm. Maintain the shield wall at all times. But the right flank of the English shield wall broke and set off down the hill in pursuit of their fleeing opponents. The Norman cavalry quickly cut off the rampaging Saxons and hacked every last one of them to pieces.
It was a crucial point in the battle, but the majority of Harold's army still stood firm. All Harold had to do was hold out for the rest of the day. As the long, exhausting battle went into late afternoon things looked grim for William. Once darkness fell, all would be lost and his claim to the throne doomed.
William marshalled his remaining archers, cavalry and infantry and ordered them into one last push. The cavalry rounded and charged, the infantry gathered and the archers collected every fallen arrow they could find and launched them at the English forces.
Harold was killed at this point. No one can say for sure it was the falling arrow in the eye of legend. Others claim he suffered an even more barbaric death, being beheaded, castrated and hacked to pieces. Ultimately, of course, we cannot know how he died.
BUT, however he fell, word soon spread through the English ranks: Harold was dead. Their spirit was broken and so were their lines; the majority fled, pursued by the invaders. In a stroke of the illest fortune, the battle and the kingdom were lost.
I walked up the battlefield to the ruined abbey and crunched across the gravel to a stone slab on the ground. It represented the end of my 300-plus mile journey alongside the man who, in my opinion, deserves to be right up there in the pantheon of great men. A man whose abilities and far-sighted outlook led him to within a whisker of seeing off the challenge that changed the country for ever.
I approached the slab slowly, reluctantly, as if by avoiding it the outcome of the battle might become different somehow, and read the mildew-flowered inscription: '. . . to commemorate the victory of Duke William on 14 October 1066.
The high altar was placed to mark the spot where King Harold died.' A gust blew up and made the trees rustle. A wind-borne oak leaf danced into view, hung there for a moment, and dropped gently on to the slab with barely a sound. I bade a sad and silent farewell to Harold and turned away.
Through walking in his shoes, and those of Boudicca before him, I had learned so much about them, their plights, their hopes and fears, the motivations behind their actions that would ring down the centuries.
The places I had seen and the people I met along the way were all uplifting, gratifying evidence that history is irrefutably alive, not just in textbooks and museums, but in towns and villages, abbeys and pubs, and, perhaps most of all, in the footpaths, roads and thoroughfares along which people have passed for centuries, undertaking journeys that would shape their lives - and ours.
Source (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1113582/Getting-kicks-Route-1066-Go-past-pub-ignore-ghost-man-hands-cut-We-follow-footsteps-King-Harold.html)
* But Scottish and Welsh sites of historical importance get thousands of pounds thrown at it to preserve it for future generations; but the sites of importance for us English get concreted over, ridiculed and belittled built mind numbingly soul destroying estates on.
Next site is the actual area of the Battle of Hastings. :mad: