Yet it is difficult not to judge that there have been life, and nation, altering events throughout recorded history to which we place a greater emphasis in assessing their importance and that these events are often ascribed to single individuals, or small groups of individuals, with some justification. The American Revolution which saw the Americans lead the way in casting off the yoke of British imperialism; the events of December 1941, which led to the American entry into the war in Europe, and subsequent victory against the Nazis; surely unthinkable before the beginning of 1942; 9/11 and the rise in collective hysteria and paranoia among rank-and-file Americans which has contributed to the gradual and on-going decline of American dominance of NATO-led 'Weltpolitik'; the Soviet revolution of 1917; 'the Battle of Britain' in 1940, which most certainly would have led to a Nazi invasion, and almost certain defeat for the British, if that particular battle for air supremacy had been lost; Solidarnosc in Poland in the 1980s which played a most prominent role in the final dismantling of Soviet hegemony not just in eastern Europe but throughout the former Russian Empire in the east; the rise of Maoism in China and finally, to end this brief and in no way complete list, the teachings of an obscure, little known, Jewish rabbi who lived at the very fringes of the former Roman Empire and who was to change the very course of European, and subsequently American, history in the most profound way.
Of course, there is a point to this list; a tale of a revolution. Not in any way a conventional revolution, in the manner of which we speak of such events in this day and age. The Soviet Revolution, the American, which in turn was inspired by the French, the Cuban or the Chinese; these are seen as popular revolts by a populace trodden down by an 'elite' ruling class, however led they may be by a 'middle-class' intelligentsia. The revolution I want to talk about is a revolution brought about by invasion; an invasion which led to the almost complete suppression of the indigenous culture which had preceded it. And no, I am not talking about the serial invasions of the Americas by the Spanish, or Africa by the French, British and Germans (well Italy did try as well but......) nor of the invading of India, the Philippines, the Indonesian archipelago by the British and the Dutch; this is a tale much older, a tale of the Norman invasion of England in 1066!
Most of the invaders throughout the centuries have, generally speaking, learnt the lessons of the Persian Satraps and the Alexandrian provinces only too well. Providing the natives do not get too 'uppity', leave them to their own devices. Leave them enough wealth be be satisfied but make sure you take the bulk of it out to your own coffers and, if at all possible, marry your nobles, high born, the elite to local nubile females of equal rank. The Norman invasion of England has none of the characteristics of a benevolent conquest.
The history of these times, as recorded by contemporaries, or near-contemporaries, is almost exclusively Norman; any Anglo-Saxon perspectives on the sorry escapade were destined for an audience of one (or perhaps two and then only in secret). However, it is possible to create a scenario which paints William the Bastard, the Conqueror, as a man obsessed with gaining the English Crown at any price as a means of obtaining a very tangible and influential power base as well as immeasurable wealth; not bad pickings for a bastard son of the Duc de Normandie,
In the years preceding the Norman invasion, England had experienced a great deal of turmoil in the century and a half since Alfred the Great's death in 899. By the time of Aethelred the Unready* in the mid-tenth century, England was effectively partitioned with the Anglo-Saxons inhabiting the western half of the country and the Danes settling around York (Jorvik) and in the area which comprises modern-day East Anglia but still making forays into Anglo-Saxon territory. It was Aethelred, or his advisers, who first came up with the idea of bribing the Danes (and Swedes and Norwegians) to 'keep the peace', the 'Danegeld'. It was an annual tax levied on land held by the Anglo-Saxons and amounted to thousands of kilogrammes of silver paid to the Danes each year. No wonder that they ceased to plunder, they had no need, it was being delivered to their doorstep!
However, that did not stop one Svein Forkbeard and his son, Knut (Canute) from grabbing the throne in 1013 to add to the one in Denmark and driving Aethelred into exile, probably in Normandy! (Such irony!) Upon Knut's death in 1035, Harthaknut, King of Denmark, succeeded his father Knut as King of England and Denmark but realising that he had little time remaining to him, invited Edward, soon to be known as 'the Confessor'**, back from exile as his heir. Edward was crowned in 1042.
Edward was initially a quite vigorous ruler early in his reign but appears to have withdrawn into a more priestly mode later; it was probably due to this withdrawal from active politics that led to the re-emergence of the House of Wessex during his reign; first Godwin of Wessex, who had a turbulent relationship with the king, and, after his death, his four sons, of whom Harold Godwinsson was the eldest. This family, for all intents and purposes ruled England in the years preceding Edward's death in January 1066.
Edward died childless and Harold Godwinsson had himself crowned king the day that Edward died. It is here that the tale becomes murky. Harold maintained that Edward had entrusted the kingdom to himself and Edward's wife, Edith, but William, Duc de Normandie, insisted that Edward has promised him the throne. You pays your money and you take your pick; there is little evidence either way and Edward may well have done both, changing his mind as one or the other pissed him off.
Whatever the truth of William's claim, he invaded across the channel and after his defeat of Harold at Senlac Hill in October***, the 'Battle of Hastings', and the customary meander through the rich lands of Kent pillaging, looting, raping and burning, finally arrived in London for his coronation**** some two and a half months after his victory in battle. To be fair to William, it was not entirely an exercise in acquiring the 'spoils of war'. There were pockets of resistance to the invasion and, after Harold's death at Senlac Hill, a new king, Edgar the Atheling, grand-nephew to Edward the Confessor, was proclaimed. Quite obviously, William had to quash all such proclamations, usually with the sword!
Those who possess power, influence and wealth are disinclined to throw all that away on a madcap invasion, not to mention the potentially perilous sea crossing, without some kind of reward for their efforts and that of their vassals. The Normans were no exception. William had promised the leaders of his army significant land, and wealth, in return for support and was in no position to renege on the deal. As a result, England's ruling elite was replaced almost at a stroke: landowners, who had not fallen at Senlac Hill, were dispossessed and the land parcelled up to the Normans; castles were built to protect the Normans' new-found assets, more that 700 'motte and bailey' castles were built in the years following the invasion; Norman French replaced Anglo-Saxon as the common vernacular among the ruling classes; what wealth remained in Anglo-Saxon hands was often redistributed to Normans by 'forced' marriages of widows or daughters; the higher offices of the Church were exclusively doled out to Normans; the King nominally owned everything in the country, hence the Domesday Book which was intended to be an inventory of what the King 'owned' and what therefore might be due from whoever was 'using' the property for the privilege of so using. The only reason that the actual mechanism of government and the legal system retained much of the Anglo-Saxon flavour was because it was, and was seen to be, far superior to the Normans' own.
Resistance by the Anglo-Saxon continued for some years after the invasion but this was largely unco-ordinated and was suppressed with relative ease. However, in 1068 rebels appeared in York and later in 1069 the 'rebellion', such as it was, gained support from Svein II, King of Denmark, who sent a fleet and an army; many of the inhabitants of York and the surrounding areas had Danish ancestry, a legacy of the Danegeld and the founding of the Viking town of Jorvik (York). Despite raiding all along the east coast of England, the Danes, upon arriving at the Humber estuary, were promptly brought off with more Danegeld! Deprived of their allies, the English rebels declined to enter into battle with William's forces; they had seen how badly their fellow rebels had fared at other 'rebellions' in other towns.
Unable to defeat the rebels in an open contest, William become increasingly frustrated and decided to act, swiftly and decisively; if the rebels would not do battle then he would deprive them of the means to continue their revolt in any shape or form. So started 'the harrying of the north'. All through the winter of 1069/70, William ravaged Yorkshire with fire and the sword; there was no escape for the serfs and peasants whether they supported the rebellion or not. In his Ecclesiastical History the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis wrote:
"The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. This made a real change.To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people***** perished of hunger.
I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him."
Needless to say, resistance to William and his kingship all but vanished from England in the wake of such ferocious reprisals.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that England might be very different from what it now is if Harold had had success at the Battle of Hastings. However, the train of events over nearly a thousand years would be impossible to even speculate on. One, as an Englishman, can only be thankful that this is the last instance of forced invasion suffered by these islands; long may the unbroken chain continue..
* The epithet meant 'ill-advised', not as Sellars and Yeatman wittily maintained in '1066 and all that' that he was never prepared for the Danes when they invaded.
** Edward was later canonised by the Pope in 1161.
***Senlac is old French/Norman for 'Lake of Blood'. It is pure speculation but I am inclined to the view that if Harold had not had to contend with 12,000 invading Norwegians near York in the month before Hastings and the three months spent waiting with his army around the coast in the summer waiting for William to arrive, Harold might well have won and driven William back into the sea. The Norwegians had arrived in 300 longships; they left in 24, such was the slaughter. True, the Normans came equipped with cavalry and archers, who were deployed to shoot at the unprotected men to the rear of the shield wall, but the French deployed the same tactics at Agincourt and that didn't go according to plan (for the French).
****William's coronation in Westminster Abbey turned into a fiasco when a shouting mob outside lit fires and a goodly proportion of the attendees rushed out to see what all the fuss, and the smoke, was about.
***** Estimates for the population of England as a whole at the time vary but a fair guess would be only about 2,000,000; one twentieth of the population of the entire country died in one single shire. This was not decimation, this was a massacre
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