Spear Havoc 1066 by C R May

Author:C R May [May, C R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781999669522
Published: 2019-09-20T07:00:00+00:00

Afterword

Having defeated Harald Hardrada of Norway on the 25 September outside York, Harold of England likely spent the following few days negotiating the surrender terms of the Norwegian survivors with sixteen year old Olaf, Hardrada’s son, and celebrating the victory in the city. The citizens of York had readily submitted to the Norwegians following Edwin and Morcar’s defeat at Fulford less than a week earlier, and no doubt Harold Godwinson wished to visibly remind them that he was their anointed king. King Harold was still in the city when news reached him of the Norman landing in the South, probably on the first or second day of October. Harold was back in London by the sixth, so he must have discharged the army who had fought so well at Stamford Bridge and raced south with the mounted elite: the housecarls, thegns, and the men sent by his kinsman King Sweyn Estridsson of Denmark.

Unfortunately we do not know for sure who accompanied the king to York, but it would seem unlikely that after all the preparations of the summer the Norman threat would have been completely disregarded at so critical a time. Someone must have been left in charge in the South in the king’s absence, and there were plenty of possibilities within the Godwin family itself. Harold’s mother Gytha was still politically active and was a major source of support in her grandsons attempts to regain the English throne after the loss of her sons in the battles of 1066. Harold’s sister Eadgyth was of course the widow of the late King Edward the Confessor and must have been well known to any man of rank.

A man known only as Wace writing in the eleventh century describes a scene in his Roman de Rou, whereby Harold’s brother Gyrth attempts to persuade Harold on his return from the north to remain in London to build up his forces, while Gyrth himself leads the initial confrontation with the duke’s army. Both Gyrth and Leofwine Godwinson held earldoms in the South, so either would be a natural choice to watch the channel coast while the king was away. If something like this had occurred the time available to re-muster the army expands from the few days following Harold’s return to London to a couple of weeks, making it entirely possible that the men of the western shires could have reassembled within striking distance of the invader. The town of Lewes would have been the ideal place to gather, located where Roman roads from Wessex and London meet a day’s march from the enemy camp.

The fight which we now know as the Malfosse Incident could then take on a whole new meaning. No longer is it the desperate last stand of a defeated host, but the first strike of a relief army. William of Jumieges in the Deeds of the Dukes of the Normans written shortly after the battle itself briefly mentions: ‘The long grass hid from the Normans an ancient bank where the

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