The Invasion Establishes a Beachhead

Large numbers of ships had been built and the fleet prepared as soldiers and weapons were loaded onboard. They sailed with the tide and set out across the channel between England and France. 942 years ago today, they hit the beaches and the invasion began...

William the Bastard was the duke of Normandy, a region in northern France bordering the English Channel. He was called that for literal reasons: he was the illegitimate but only son of the previous Duke Robert and was made his heir despite that fact. In fact, just to make it confusing, he was technically considered William the II in Normandy, but would eventually be known as William I in England.

In 1065 the King of England, Edward the Confessor, was old, sick and -- most importantly -- childless. So naturally lots of nobles both in England and in neighboring countries were ambitiously maneuvering to get his job when it became available.

In January of 1066 Edward died and the battle for succession which had been gearing up for years finally began. There were lots of ambitious nobles but only three principal contenders with a real chance for the throne:

• Harold Godwinson, the powerful Earl of Wessex. Harold had been Edward’s enforcer in recent years, putting down rebellions and the like on the expectation that was was good for the king would eventually be good for him. He claimed that King Edward had made him heir on his deathbed and he had the backing of most of the other Anglo-Saxon nobles.

• Harald Hadråda, the Viking king of Norway. Harald was a conquering warrior-king -- he had spent years in the Byzantium Empire fighting in the Middle East and Northern Africa -- and his ambitions to the throne of England were based on distant relations through the Saxon nobility.

• William the Bastard in Normandy. William’s claim was based on two arguments. First, he claimed that King Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne when he was living in exile in Normandy years before during a period of turmoil in England. Second, he claimed that he (William) had knighted the young Harold Godwinson a few years before when Harold had also been a guest in his house in Normandy after being shipwrecked on the French coast, and that upon being knighted by William Harold had sworn an oath of loyalty to William over the relic of some saint’s bones.

Actually Harold's position was that the saint's bones were hidden under the table to trick him when he gave the oath... if he had known there were saint's bones he never would have taken the oath or would have kept it. Apparently Harold's position was that he took the oath of loyalty with the 11th century equivalent of his fingers crossed.

When King Edward the Confessor died the Anglo-Saxon nobles in the English court offered Harold Godwinson the throne: he was one of them. Harald Hadråda was ambitious and angry and ready to attack.

But William the Bastard felt betrayed: after all, he told everybody, Harold was his knight and leige-man and had sworn loyalty to him over the bones of a saint. That made Harold an oath breaker! He petitioned the pope in Rome for support on the matter and got the pope's blessing based on Harold’s sacrilege. This supposed betrayal was William’s best argument and he knew it, even going so far as to rebrand the new king of England “Harold-Oath Breaker” in all of his public relations/propaganda for years afterward.

Harold assembled a war council in northern France. Knights from Normandy, Brittany, central France and various assorted mercenaries and adventurers showed up. It was probably not collective outrage over Harold’s broken oath to William the Bastard that motivated them but rather the promise of titles and lands in England for anyone who would go to England and help William get his throne. William was offering them the investment opportunity of a lifetime: if they could take England away from Harold they could divide up the kingdom and the pope would legitimize their violence and new titles as necessary actions in a just cause to depose an oath-breaking upstart.

So they began building an invasion fleet. Around the coastal town of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme at the mouth of the Somme River trees were chopped, shipwrights shaped the wood into vessels, armor and weapons and horses were assembled. A large (for the time and place) force of 7,000 men and 600 ships were made ready. By the 12th of August, only eight months after Edward the Confessor had passed, William the Bastard’s army was ready to sail in his bid to become King William I of England. They sat, waiting for the winds to shift from north to south (their square sails couldn’t tack against the wind).

Meanwhile, the new King Harold had been busy as well. He assembled the Anglo-Saxon nobles with their knights (there were no national standing armies as we know them today) and their ships in southern England and spent the summer waiting to repel William’s inevitable invasion.

In September two things events two events would change the fortunes of England and France. The viking king Harald Hadråda landed on the east coast of England near York with a huge force of more than 15,000. And the winds in the English Channel would shift from north to south.

When Harold the new king of England heard that Harald the viking king had landed hundreds miles behind him he had no choice but to abandon his watch for William and raced north to meet him. It took him weeks to march there and defeat the Harald in the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25. Harald Hadråda, with a lifetime of fighting in far away places like Asia and Africa, was killed by an arrow through the throat along the river outside York, England. The Norwegians were so thoroughly defeated that even though they filled 300 ships when they landed, only 24 ships were required to carry away the survivors.

King Harold had defeated one of his two rivals, but now he was hundreds of miles -- as the crow flies -- from the Southern coast where William might arrive any time and his army was tired, bloody and aching to return home for the fall harvest.

A few days later the winds in the Channel turned around and began to blow from the south. After six weeks of waiting, William the Bastard and his 7,000 followers boarded their 600 longboats and sailed on the tide.

William and his army landed on September 28, 1066 -- 942 years ago today -- on the beach near Pevensey in Sussex, on the south coast of England. The knights and their horses poured out of the boats and immediately began to raid the surrounding countryside for supplies. They moved a few miles inland to the east and built a temporary wooden stockade to await Harold’s inevitable arrival. At a place called Hastings.

But what happened there is a story for another day.

There is a tremendous resource for the story of William’s conquest of England: the Bayeux Tapestry. The name is a bit misleading because it’s not a tapestry but a work of exquisite embroidery, and while it resides in the French town of Bayeux it was probably created in England and carried there. The tapestry is an elaborate piece of political propaganda created to tell the story of Harold’s oath-breaking, William’s righteous invasion and glorious conquest of England. I saw the tapestry in person a few months ago and I’m planning a separate post about it soon.

The image at the top of this post is the frame of the tapestry showing the disembarkation on the beach at Pevensey. And in our age of miracles and wonders, someone animated it. Enjoy...