tides and winds may bring havoc to their plans.’
‘Alphonso, your report is excellent. What do you make of the Normans’ morale?’
‘My Lord King, their morale is excellent. Early fears about the crossing have lessened, as everyone has seen the painstaking care being taken with the preparations. The farmers are being well paid for their produce; every town and village is flush with the Duke’s gold and silver and they are working night and day to provide everything that is needed. The fighting men have only one concern — the English housecarls. But every day of training makes them stronger and their confidence grows. The popular view is that the destriers will break the English shield wall.
‘Thank you, Alphonso, we are indebted to you.’
‘There is one more thing, sire.’
Alphonso looked at Hereward for reassurance. What he was about to tell the King would not please him.
‘Alphonso, the King needs to be apprised of everything, no matter how bleak.’
‘I have seen many exceptional armies prepare for war, but these Normans are impressive. Roger of Montgomery is quartering the men, horses and supplies like a Roman general, and families that have feuded for decades are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. They have the smell of conquest in their nostrils; they believe a kingdom which is theirs by right has been snatched from their grasp, so they mean to prevail by force of arms.’
The King stood solemnly. ‘I thank you for your honest account; it is invaluable to us. When you are rested, go to your comrades and family at Glastonbury. Regain your strength there; we are going to need you.’
‘Thank you, sire.’ Alphonso bowed and left the tent.
The King sat down with a sigh. ‘Hereward, you have found a good man in Alphonso. There was little in his account to comfort me, but he gave it lucidly and without hesitation. I feared that William’s threat would be grave, but he is not only bold, he is also careful and meticulous. Few men would attempt what he is planning; I never expected he would bring such a large force across the Channel.’
Hereward felt certain that Harold would have much preferred to have been Earl Marshal to a wise and generous liege, rather than carry the burden of kingship himself.
With every day that passed, Hereward’s admiration for the King grew. As Harold continued along the coastline into his lands in Wessex, Hereward knew that the time had come to entrust the Talisman to the man for whom he was sure it was destined.
After dinner one warm evening, Hereward reminded the King of its pedigree, and of Torfida’s interpretation of its meaning.
‘I will wear it with honour. Pray that it brings me the wisdom I shall need.’
It was early May when the first skirmish of the calamitous events of 1066 occurred.
Tostig appeared on the Isle of Wight with a modest force of 60 ships and 600 foreign mercenaries. It was a scouting mission, and an opportunity to fill his coffers for bigger expeditions to come. Having plundered as much as he could find in the south, he sailed eastwards to Sandwich in Kent. King Harold’s fleet-footed army was there to meet him and Tostig withdrew, to land later in his old earldom in the north. Again, he was given short shrift, this time by the earls Edwin and Morcar. Tostig’s mercenaries were soon disillusioned by the resolute defenders and withdrew, leaving him to seek refuge with King Malcolm of Scotland and await the arrival of his main ally, Harald Hardrada of Norway.
Fearing it was a feint to a bigger invasion, Tostig’s foray caused Harold to raise the Fyrd, a mobilization not undertaken lightly, given the cost to the Exchequer. The King’s problems were growing: although his rapid-reaction strategy had worked to repel Tostig’s invasion, keeping his elite housecarls and the general fyrd in the field for several months risked exhausting his granaries and emptying his treasury. Even more worryingly, if Alphonso was right, and the invasion did not come until September, or later, he would have to stand the army down so that the harvest could be collected.
By 8 September, no invaders had arrived and another long hot summer of training had passed, leaving the men tense and lethargic. Harold had no choice but to let the Fyrd go home. He released all but 1,500 of his housecarls and, so that they would not be caught in any autumnal gales in the Channel, ordered his fleet to anchor in the Thames.
It was what William had been waiting for. As soon as he received word of Harold’s decision to stand down his army, he made ready to strike. Within four days, the entire fleet set sail from Dives to St Valery. At almost the same time as news reached Harold that the Duke’s grand army and great armada were on the move, intelligence confirmed that Hardrada’s horde had also set sail from Norway. The worst possible scenario was unfolding for Harold and England: both of their enemies were gathering on opposite fronts.
Harold called a Council of War at Oxford for all the nobility of southern England. The earls Edwin and Morcar and the northern thegns did not attend because of the imminence of Hardrada’s invasion in the North.
There was a grave silence in the Great Hall at Oxford, as the King read a full and detailed report of Hardrada’s progress. He had called a general muster of his forces on the Isle of Askoy in the Byfjord at Bergen. His fleet had successfully navigated the North Sea and gathered in the Orkneys, where they had been joined by allies from Iceland, Ireland and all corners of the Norse world. This was to be an invasion of Norsemen reminiscent of the great sagas of old, and Harold’s estimate of the numbers involved made his earls shudder with alarm. It was thought that Hardrada had brought over 300 ships and at least 15,000 men. As the disquiet grew, Harold raised his voice to try to calm the earls. He was in the midst of describing the extent and quality of his preparations over the summer when a herald rushed into the hall, distressed and exhausted, and asked the King for permission to speak.
Harold nodded.
The man drew a deep breath and, in the clear and precise tones of his calling, made his announcement.
‘Sire, I come from the garrison at Nottingham. Yesterday, on the twentieth day of September, there was a great battle at Gate Fulford in Yorkshire. The armies of Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, have fallen to the Norwegians, commanded by their King, Harald, known as Hardrada. His royal standard, the Raven Land-Ravager, flies from the Great Hall of York.’
The King bellowed in anger at the herald. ‘Why did I have no reports of the Norwegian ships approaching, or of the landing of their army?’
‘Sire, it appears that the coastal lookouts reported directly to Earl Morcar, and he chose not to inform you. The first news we had in Nottingham was late last night when riders arrived from Tadcaster.’ He then paused and looked directly at the King, knowing that what he was about to add would be particularly hurtful to him. ‘Sire, your brother, the Earl Tostig, is with Hardrada in York.’
Harold was incandescent with anger, but he declined to comment on his brother’s treachery. He asked a vital military question. ‘What of the housecarls of Earls Edwin and Morcar, how many have survived?’
The herald hesitated for a moment. ‘The battle was fierce and many men died in the bogs and marshes of the river Ouse. Hardrada himself led the main attack. Edwin and Morcar survived and made peace with him, but his berserkers cut down hundreds of their housecarls. Survivors said the Ouse ran red with blood all the way to the sea.’
Harold took a deep breath, thanked the messenger and turned to address the Council. As he spoke, he mostly looked to Hereward for reassurance, especially as he was about to abandon the central tenet of his carefully planned summer strategy.
‘Command your constables to bring horses; we ride to the North immediately. I will take only the fifteen hundred men currently under arms and as many as I can gather on the way. We will revert to the cavalry tactics of my campaigns in Wales and cut down the Norwegians before they know we are among them. We must be there by the twenty-fourth. My brother Gyrth will ride with me, as will the Captain of my Hearthtroop, Hereward of Bourne. Go! Go quickly!’
The Saxon military machine sprang to life with remarkable efficiency. Almost 800 horses were in Oxford within twenty-four hours. A thousand more were gathered on the way north, to put a force of almost 2,000 men in the saddle by the time the Saxon army mustered at Tadcaster at midday on Sunday 24 September. It was a small force, significantly outnumbered by the Norwegians, but they were England’s finest, the embodiment of 200 years of Saxon military tradition.
Harold’s force had covered a huge distance in just three days. No other army in the world could have been assembled with such speed, covered such ground and been in such prime condition to fight. The months of training had paid off handsomely.
