The Battle of Hastings by Harriet Harvey Wood

Author:Harriet Harvey Wood
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781848873094
Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd
Published: 2013-03-02T21:45:13+00:00

THE BATTLE

The battle of Stamford Bridge was fought on 25 September. On the day it was fought William was still at St Valéry, waiting for a favourable wind. The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, a slightly controversial source, partly because of problems of dating and attribution, partly because clearly written for entertainment, takes up the story at this point and gives a harrowing picture of his anxiety:

Here you had a long and troublesome delay, spending a fortnight in that territory waiting for succour from the Supreme Judge. You visited the Saint’s church often, devoutly, with sighs and prayers making pure offerings to him. You looked to see by what wind the church’s weathercock was turned. If it was from the south, you departed happily. But if, on a sudden, the North wind interrupted and held it at bay, tears streamed down your cheeks. You were forsaken. It was cold and wet and the sky was hidden by clouds and rain.lxxxix

William had gone so far as to cause the body of the saint to be removed from his tomb and carried around the town in procession to the accompaniment of prayers, to ensure, as William of Poitiers puts it, that the contrary wind became a favourable one. On the 28th, his prayers were answered. Christine and Gerald Grainge wrote an extremely interesting paper about the voyages from Dives to St Valéry and from St Valéry to Pevensey from the point of view of the sailor, in which they discuss the hazards William’s mariners would have faced in sailing from St Valéry. According to them, a typical series of Atlantic low pressures in the Channel would have brought the weather that so distressed William; this was succeeded on the 28th by a high pressure system that brought with it warm weather, clear skies and a southerly wind. By their calculations, high tide at St Valéry on the 28th would have been at 1514 hours.xc Since the fleet would have been dependent on the ebb tide to get them out of harbour, embarkation must have been undertaken at breakneck speed. Both William of Poitiers and the Carmen tell us that, by the duke’s orders, the fleet hove to once it had cleared the coast to enable the stragglers to catch up and the ships to assemble in some sort of order. William, however, also tells us that during the night the duke’s ship so far outstripped the rest of the fleet that he found himself entirely alone at daybreak. Needless to say, he behaved, according to his chronicler, with the greatest sangfroid, eating breakfast on board as if he were in his chamber at home, while waiting for the rest of the ships to catch up with him. Had Harold still had his fleet patrolling off the Isle of Wight, the duke might have been in some danger, though it would have been very much a matter of luck if one isolated ship had been spotted by them. As it was, the Norman fleet

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