0:00:03 > 0:00:08It was the hand of God that decided the outcome of battles,
0:00:08 > 0:00:14the fate of nations and the life or death of kings. Everyone knew that.
0:00:16 > 0:00:22It was winter, the season of frost and death, and a king lay dying.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25His name was Edward the Confessor.
0:00:25 > 0:00:32He was dying childless. And it was far from obvious who would succeed him.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36As there was no heir, many thought that they should be the next king,
0:00:36 > 0:00:41including some foreign princes, like Duke William of Normandy.
0:00:42 > 0:00:49But among those gathered round the bed of the dying Saxon king was the next most powerful man in England,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53Harold Godwinson, and he thought the crown would look well on HIS head.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58He was hoping for some sign that King Edward felt the same way.
0:01:00 > 0:01:07And then Edward stretched out his hand and touched Harold. But was he giving him a blessing or a curse?
0:01:07 > 0:01:12Was this the hand of God making Harold king? Nobody knew for sure,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16but Harold had no qualms. Harold seized the crown.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20The question now was for how long would he keep it?
0:01:22 > 0:01:29And then, in the April sky, the hand of God showed itself as a comet, the hairy star.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34Everyone knew this was no blessing, but an evil omen.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37The year was 1066.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Historians like a quiet life and, usually, they get it.
0:02:24 > 0:02:31For the most part, history moves at a glacial pace, working its changes subtly.
0:02:31 > 0:02:37In Britain, we like to think there's something about OUR history, like our climate and our landscape,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42that's naturally moderate, not given to earthquakes and revolutions.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47But there are times and places when history, British history,
0:02:47 > 0:02:52comes at you with a rush. Violent, decisive, bloody.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56A truck-load of trouble knocking you down,
0:02:56 > 0:03:02wiping out everything that gives you your bearings in the world - law, custom, loyalty and language.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05And this is one of those places.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12It doesn't look like the site of a national trauma,
0:03:12 > 0:03:18especially these days, when it looks more suitable for a county fair than a mass slaughter.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21But this is the battlefield of Hastings,
0:03:21 > 0:03:28and, here, one kind of England was annihilated and another kind of England was set up in its place.
0:03:33 > 0:03:38Some historians will tell you that, for most of the people of England,
0:03:38 > 0:03:45Hastings didn't matter that much, with Norman knights replacing Saxon lords.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50The peasants still ploughed their fields, paid taxes to the king,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54prayed to avoid poverty and disease and watched the seasons roll round.
0:03:59 > 0:04:03But the everyday can rub shoulders with the genuinely catastrophic.
0:04:03 > 0:04:10Yes, the grass grew green here again, but now there were bones beneath the buttercups.
0:04:10 > 0:04:16The governing class of the English had been dispossessed. Their men, land and animals taken from them
0:04:16 > 0:04:20and given as spoils to the victorious foreigners.
0:04:21 > 0:04:29You could survive and still be English, but now you belonged to an inferior race - the conquered.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33You lived in England, but it was no longer YOUR country.
0:04:45 > 0:04:52Anglo-Saxon England was no stranger to invasions. Viking raids had been part of life for a century.
0:04:52 > 0:04:58But since the days of Alfred the Great, the country was stable enough to soak them up.
0:04:58 > 0:05:02The longboats came and went, but still the king's law ran the Shires.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07His churches and abbeys were built more beautifully than ever.
0:05:07 > 0:05:14A town that would one day be called London was beginning to grow and prosper on the banks of the Thames.
0:05:14 > 0:05:20And then one invasion succeeded where the others had failed, and there was a Viking on the throne.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25His name was Canute, who we remember for trying to hold back the tides.
0:05:25 > 0:05:32And while he turned Anglo-Saxon England into part of his vast maritime empire, he changed nothing.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35He even chose as his closest advisor
0:05:35 > 0:05:41one of the most powerful Anglo-Saxon nobles - Godwin, Earl of Wessex.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46A scheming, ruthless man, Godwin became virtual co-ruler with Canute
0:05:46 > 0:05:50over what was still recognisably Anglo-Saxon England.
0:05:53 > 0:05:58But Canute's death in 1035 began a chain of events that would culminate
0:05:58 > 0:06:06in the one invasion that Anglo-Saxon England would be unable to swallow. And what a saga it was.
0:06:08 > 0:06:14It started with a bloody and unsparing fight for Canute's throne amongst the surviving elite.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18Treachery, murder and mutilation were par for the course.
0:06:23 > 0:06:29The last man standing with any kind of claim to the throne was a descendant of Alfred the Great,
0:06:29 > 0:06:31a prince of the Saxon royal house.
0:06:31 > 0:06:39He was called Edward and would be forever known as the Confessor. He was crowned on Easter Day 1043.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44But he inherited more than just the crown.
0:06:44 > 0:06:51He also got Earl Godwin, in no mood to lose power just because there was a new king.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56Unlike Canute, Edward had reason to hate the right-hand man forced on him,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00for Godwin had arranged his older brother's murder.
0:07:01 > 0:07:06But there was nothing he could do about his bloodstained rival - yet.
0:07:06 > 0:07:11King Edward knew that Godwin held the keys to the kingdom.
0:07:11 > 0:07:18And when Godwin offered Edward his daughter in marriage, what could he do but take her?
0:07:20 > 0:07:23Godwin was not Edward's only problem.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27He also had to learn how to govern a country he knew little about.
0:07:27 > 0:07:33For he'd grown up in exile, in a very different world across the English Channel in Normandy.
0:07:41 > 0:07:46We think of Edward the Confessor as the quintessential Anglo-Saxon king.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50In fact, he was almost as Norman as William the Conqueror.
0:07:50 > 0:07:56His mother Emma was a Norman, and he'd lived here in Normandy for 30 years,
0:07:56 > 0:08:02ever since she'd brought him as a child refugee from the wars between the Saxons and the Danes.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06But Normandy was not just an asylum for Edward,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10it was the place which formed him, politically and culturally.
0:08:10 > 0:08:18His mother tongue was Norman French, and his virtual godfathers were the formidable Dukes of Normandy.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23The Normans were descendants of Viking raiders,
0:08:23 > 0:08:28but had long since traded in their longboats for powerful warhorses.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32The Duchy of Normandy was in no sense just a piece of France.
0:08:32 > 0:08:38Though the Dukes did formal homage to the French king, in every other way they were independent,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42possessed of castles, patrons of churches.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54These warlords were constantly in the saddle - ruling vassals,
0:08:55 > 0:09:02fighting off revolts and forging shaky coalitions. But the Duchy was also humming with energetic piety.
0:09:02 > 0:09:09In the 11th century, handsome stone monasteries and churches with Romanesque arches began to appear.
0:09:09 > 0:09:16The first grandiose stone castles, as tough as the lords who had built them, became part of the landscape.
0:09:21 > 0:09:27So, until the throne of England tempted him back across the Channel at the age of 36,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30this was Edward's home,
0:09:30 > 0:09:37and, while he was here, a child was growing up who would change the course of British history.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43It was on the site of this castle at Falaise in 1027 that William,
0:09:43 > 0:09:50known to all his contemporaries - although not in front of his face - as William the Bastard, was born.
0:09:50 > 0:09:56He was, indeed, the illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy and the daughter of a tanner called Erleve.
0:09:56 > 0:10:04In the cut-throat world of feudal Normandy, it was important that he learn, quickly, how to survive.
0:10:04 > 0:10:09He was only a child when his father died on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
0:10:09 > 0:10:15leaving eight-year-old William as his heir. A lamb thrown to the wolves.
0:10:19 > 0:10:24Certainly, Edward would have known the young William.
0:10:24 > 0:10:30It's even suggested that he was one of the hand-picked companions entrusted by William's father
0:10:30 > 0:10:33with keeping an eye on the vulnerable young boy.
0:10:33 > 0:10:41Edward would have seen how William survived childhood traumas, narrowly escaping assassination attempts.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44How William was forced, aged just ten,
0:10:44 > 0:10:51to witness the brutal murder of his beloved steward in his bedchamber before his very eyes.
0:10:51 > 0:10:58And Edward must have marvelled at the way the stripling boy grew into a steely and ruthless young man,
0:10:58 > 0:11:03eventually triumphing in battle over a formidable league of rebel nobles.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12While William was securing absolute power in Normandy,
0:11:12 > 0:11:20Edward was, by now, in the middle of a nervous reign and watching out for his biggest threat, Earl Godwin.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25But, in 1051, Edward seized his chance to rid himself of his rival.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29Edward had brought over Norman allies,
0:11:29 > 0:11:34established them in castles, made one Archbishop of Canterbury.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36Feeling his moment had now come,
0:11:36 > 0:11:43he confronted Godwin with the crime of his brother's murder and threw him out of the country.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47But Edward's bid to rid himself of his sworn enemy failed miserably.
0:11:47 > 0:11:55In exile, the Earl of Wessex was as dangerous as at home and sailed back with a fleet to humiliate the king.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03Out went Edward's Norman cronies, back came the Godwins,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06stronger than ever.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12Edward was now little more than a puppet king.
0:12:12 > 0:12:20He turned to the religious life, spending days in meditation and prayer, becoming the Confessor,
0:12:20 > 0:12:28devoting himself to the foundation of his Benedictine abbey upstream of London, his west minster.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32Impotence, though, has its uses.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Godwin, clearly, had ambitions for the future.
0:12:35 > 0:12:41He'd foisted his daughter Edith on Edward to get a young Godwin as the next king of England.
0:12:41 > 0:12:48But Edward had his own ideas. Yes, he'd married Edith, but he would never sleep with her.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51His revenge would be her childlessness.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59Now Edward had an even more mischievous thought.
0:12:59 > 0:13:06"If Godwin wants an heir to the English throne so badly, I'll give him one. But one more to my liking."
0:13:06 > 0:13:10And it's at this point, so Norman chroniclers claimed,
0:13:10 > 0:13:16that Edward promised the succession to the Duke of Normandy, William the Bastard.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21Of course, nobody knew anything about this in England,
0:13:21 > 0:13:28least of all Godwin who, in 1053, died suddenly of a stroke while at dinner with the king.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33But there were plenty of other Godwins ready to take the Godfather's place.
0:13:33 > 0:13:40His sons now took over where he had left off, controlling England, virtually unchallenged.
0:13:40 > 0:13:44And presiding over the family empire was the eldest son Harold.
0:13:46 > 0:13:53Harold Godwinson seemed to have everything - land, power, riches, charisma, an aristocratic wife
0:13:53 > 0:13:58and a supporting troop of loyal and clever brothers.
0:13:58 > 0:14:04He even managed to make himself patron of churches, like this one at Bosham in Sussex.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08Though he didn't dare make too brazen a move,
0:14:08 > 0:14:14any dispassionate observer would have had to conclude that, once Edward was gone,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18the throne was Harold's for the taking.
0:14:18 > 0:14:23And then, all at once, an ill wind blew away this fair-weather vision.
0:14:28 > 0:14:34It all started with a voyage that no-one can fully explain, even to this day.
0:14:34 > 0:14:40In 1064, Harold and a group of men set sail across the Channel for Normandy.
0:14:40 > 0:14:46Maybe it was to rescue his younger brother Wolfstan who had been taken hostage by William.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50But, to Norman chroniclers, the journey only had one purpose -
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Harold was confirming Edward's offer of the crown.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02Why would Harold do something so against HIS own best interests?
0:15:04 > 0:15:09Perhaps that's why it makes up the first bit of the story
0:15:09 > 0:15:15of the most grandiose piece of Norman propaganda - the 70-metre-long Bayeux tapestry.
0:15:15 > 0:15:22The tapestry was commissioned by William's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, after the conquest.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26But it may have been made by Englishwomen embroiderers,
0:15:26 > 0:15:30who were generally regarded as the most skilled stitchers in Europe.
0:15:30 > 0:15:35Who else would have made such a glamorous hero?
0:15:44 > 0:15:48Something seems to have gone wrong in the Channel, perhaps a storm.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Landing in the territory of Guy of Ponthieu,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56they were arrested and handed over to Guy's liege lord -
0:15:56 > 0:16:02William of Normandy. The embroiderers make it dramatically clear
0:16:02 > 0:16:07that Harold and his men now find themselves in an alien world.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11The Saxons are moustachioed at this stage in the story
0:16:11 > 0:16:16with a certain air about them, despite their predicament.
0:16:16 > 0:16:21The Normans, by contrast, shave the backs of their heads.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25They are the scary half-skinheads of the early feudal world.
0:16:28 > 0:16:35Realising his lucky number has come up, William can afford to show charm and generosity to his prisoner,
0:16:35 > 0:16:39cleverly bringing him into his military entourage.
0:16:39 > 0:16:45William took Harold on campaign with him in Brittany,
0:16:45 > 0:16:51where Harold returns the favour by rescuing two of William's soldiers
0:16:51 > 0:16:57from the quicksands of Mont-Saint-Michel, one on his left arm, one on his back.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05But William's hospitality is steel tipped.
0:17:05 > 0:17:13He makes Harold one of his knights, a solemn ceremonious business, but one involving a two-way obligation.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19William, now his liege lord, would be obliged to protect Harold, his new knight.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23But Harold would have had to make his own promises,
0:17:23 > 0:17:28and there seems no doubt that he did swear some sort of oath to the Duke.
0:17:28 > 0:17:33To the medieval mind, there was nothing more serious than an oath.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37The tapestry maker makes it clear that this was a religious act
0:17:37 > 0:17:41by having a witness point to the word "sacramentum".
0:17:41 > 0:17:47Harold's oath WAS a kind of sacrament since it went to the heart of the matter -
0:17:47 > 0:17:51what would happen to England after Edward died?
0:17:53 > 0:17:58The English said that Harold agreed to be William's man only in Normandy
0:17:58 > 0:18:02and that this had no bearing on the English succession.
0:18:03 > 0:18:10The Norman chroniclers, though, said Harold had sworn to help William take the throne of England.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16The oath became even more binding when, in a cheap theatrical trick,
0:18:16 > 0:18:20the cloth was whipped from the table over which Harold had sworn.
0:18:20 > 0:18:26Underneath was revealed a reliquary containing the bones of a saint.
0:18:34 > 0:18:40Well, how much trouble was he in? Had Harold promised something he couldn't deliver?
0:18:40 > 0:18:44Or had he made no promises at all about the English crown?
0:18:44 > 0:18:52Norman chroniclers like to imagine Harold returning, haunted by guilt, saying one thing and doing another.
0:18:56 > 0:19:03But, in England at any rate, there were no signs of a queasy conscience at all.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09In fact, to get his hands on the crown, Harold did something inconceivable for a Godwin,
0:19:09 > 0:19:14something which, one day, would have disastrous consequences.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18He sold his own brother, Tostig, down the river.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23Tostig was the Earl of Northumbria.
0:19:23 > 0:19:30He was also the family hothead and had managed to provoke a northern rebellion against him.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33He'd been fleecing abbeys and monasteries,
0:19:33 > 0:19:40creating his own private army and generally acting like a greedy tyrannical brat.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Inevitably, the local nobles rose against him, declared him outlaw
0:19:44 > 0:19:48and put in their own man to be the new earl.
0:19:48 > 0:19:55Harold was sent by King Edward to sort out the mess and, immediately, was faced with two tough choices.
0:19:55 > 0:20:02He could back his younger brother Tostig against the rebels, but that might create a civil war.
0:20:02 > 0:20:07Or he could forget all about blood ties and support Tostig's enemies.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12In return, they might feel grateful enough to offer him their support
0:20:12 > 0:20:17when the time came for him to make his bid for the English throne.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22In the end, Harold put ambition before brotherly love.
0:20:22 > 0:20:29He threw out Tostig and replaced him with the Earl Morcar. Harold had broken Godwin clan solidarity
0:20:29 > 0:20:33and turned his own brother into a mortal enemy.
0:20:37 > 0:20:43It was this merciless war of brothers which, in the end, cost Harold his throne and his life.
0:20:43 > 0:20:49More than anything else, it was the cause of the death of Anglo-Saxon England.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57The winter of 1065 was marked by tremendous gales
0:20:57 > 0:21:01which destroyed churches and uprooted great trees.
0:21:01 > 0:21:08As King Edward the Confessor lay on his deathbed, he was visited by a strange and terrible dream
0:21:08 > 0:21:14which he insisted on relating to all those who had gathered around him.
0:21:15 > 0:21:23Two monks told me that, because of the sins of its people, God had given England to evil spirits.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27I said to them, "Will God not have mercy?" And they replied,
0:21:27 > 0:21:33"Not until a growing tree cleft in two by a lighting storm
0:21:33 > 0:21:39"should come together of its own accord and grow green again. Only then will there be pardon."
0:21:50 > 0:21:55But no-one paid much attention to the ravings of an old man.
0:21:55 > 0:22:01What was more important was that Edward had touched Harold's hand.
0:22:02 > 0:22:08Maddeningly, the king had fallen short of declaring him his heir,
0:22:08 > 0:22:14but it was enough of a sign for Harold, and for the northern earls who supported him.
0:22:14 > 0:22:21On January the 6th 1066, Westminster saw the funeral of one king in the morning
0:22:21 > 0:22:25and the coronation of another in the afternoon.
0:22:26 > 0:22:32There are two Harolds depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, but which was the real one?
0:22:32 > 0:22:38The confident king who issued coins bearing the optimistic slogan "pax", the Latin for peace?
0:22:38 > 0:22:45Or the guilty, twisted usurper, stricken by omens, haunted by a vision of ships?
0:22:48 > 0:22:54The phantom fleet which the embroiderers set in the border of the tapestry
0:22:54 > 0:23:01suggests Harold could all too well imagine the reaction across the Channel to his coronation.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08A Norman historian has William hearing the news while out hunting.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13"When the Duke heard the news, he became as a man outraged.
0:23:13 > 0:23:19"Oft he tied his mantel, oft he untied it again and spoke to no man.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21"Neither dared any man speak to him".
0:23:28 > 0:23:36For ten years, William had let it be known throughout Europe that he'd soon add England to his territories.
0:23:36 > 0:23:41He was in the lethally dangerous position of looking ridiculous.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45He consulted with his feudal magnates in a series of assemblies.
0:23:45 > 0:23:51By no means all of them were thrilled with the idea of invading England.
0:23:51 > 0:23:57The risks seemed a lot more daunting than the enticement of new lands and wealth.
0:23:57 > 0:24:04So the Duke went to strategy number two, turning the matter into an international crusade.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08Couldn't the Pope see that his cause was just,
0:24:08 > 0:24:13that Harold was an infamous oath breaker, a despoiler of churches,
0:24:13 > 0:24:19while William was a builder of abbeys, a protector of bishops against bullying barons?
0:24:19 > 0:24:23It was all completely absurd, and it worked like a dream.
0:24:23 > 0:24:30The Pope was won over, gave William his papal blessing and invested him with his ring and his banner.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38It was now much more than a dynastic feud.
0:24:38 > 0:24:44William used the consecration of his wife's abbey here at La Trinite in Caen
0:24:44 > 0:24:48to proclaim a crusade against the infidel Harold.
0:24:48 > 0:24:54And the barons who'd fought shy of risking their necks on the Duke's personal vendetta
0:24:54 > 0:24:59now flocked to join the legions of the blessed.
0:25:03 > 0:25:10The Bayeux tapestry shows work got under way immediately to build an awe-inspiring expeditionary force.
0:25:10 > 0:25:17Rows of Normandy trees went down to the axe to emerge as 400 dragon-headed ships.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26Loaded onto the ships were coats of mail, bows, arrows, spears,
0:25:26 > 0:25:31and the most indispensable item of all - vast casks of wine.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37And packed so tightly into the boats that they supported each other
0:25:37 > 0:25:41were, perhaps, 6,000 horses. 3 for each knight.
0:25:51 > 0:25:58Across the Channel, Harold responded by proving he, too, was a phenomenal military organiser.
0:25:58 > 0:26:04As the crack troops of his army Harold could call on the elite of, perhaps, 3,000 housecarls,
0:26:04 > 0:26:09professional soldiers, trained to handle a two-handed axe
0:26:09 > 0:26:13that could slice right through a horse and its rider at one blow.
0:26:13 > 0:26:19The core of the army was provided by the 5,000 thanes or noblemen of England.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23In addition, there were the 13,000 part-time soldiers -
0:26:23 > 0:26:30known as the fyrd - who were obliged to give the king two months' service each year.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36With amazing speed, this army was stationed along the south coast.
0:26:36 > 0:26:42By August the 10th, William had HIS army in place along the Normandy coast.
0:26:44 > 0:26:49Two great fighting forces bent on each other's annihilation
0:26:49 > 0:26:56faced each other across a little strip of water to determine the destiny of England.
0:26:59 > 0:27:01And there they sat.
0:27:01 > 0:27:08William waiting for a southerly wind that never came, and Harold waiting for William who never came.
0:27:12 > 0:27:19This waiting was particularly serious for Harold. By the first week of September,
0:27:19 > 0:27:25he kept the fyrd in battle position for at least two weeks longer than their two-month obligation.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31What's more, it was now harvest time.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37So, with who knows what misgivings and uneasiness,
0:27:37 > 0:27:43on September the 8th, Harold demobilised the fyrd and sent the soldiers home.
0:27:44 > 0:27:46He was right to feel uneasy.
0:27:46 > 0:27:54Just 11 days later, Harold had a very nasty shock. His younger brother was back.
0:27:54 > 0:28:01Tostig and a Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada had landed in Northumbria with as many as 12,000 men.
0:28:01 > 0:28:08Tostig had spent his time in exile looking for allies to pursue his vendetta against Harold.
0:28:08 > 0:28:15It was a real coup for him that he'd finally enlisted the support of the awesome king of Norway.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20Hardrada was quite simply the most feared warrior of the age.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23Built like a Norwegian cliff face,
0:28:23 > 0:28:29he had a reputation for superhuman strength and elaborately creative cruelty.
0:28:29 > 0:28:36Hardrada also had a flimsy claim to the English throne that went back to Canute
0:28:36 > 0:28:42and he wasn't one to flinch at a military challenge that could win him the disputed crown.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50Harold Hardrada sailed southwest from Norway on August the 12th.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55En route to England, he stopped here in the Viking earldom of the Orkneys
0:28:55 > 0:29:00to pick up yet more men and ships to add to his already formidable fleet.
0:29:00 > 0:29:07Expectations must have been high. The Norsemen could almost smell triumph in the summer winds.
0:29:07 > 0:29:10There would have been feasting,
0:29:10 > 0:29:16singing and the reading of poems, some, doubtless, written by Hardrada himself.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20And it may be here that Tostig joined the Viking fleet.
0:29:20 > 0:29:24If he did, and if he looked out at the water and saw the 300 ships,
0:29:24 > 0:29:31his little heart must have skipped a beat to think of the catastrophe awaiting his brother.
0:29:31 > 0:29:36Together Tostig and Hardrada would be unstoppable, invincible.
0:29:36 > 0:29:38Or would they?
0:29:46 > 0:29:49Having landed on the Northumbrian coast,
0:29:49 > 0:29:56the Viking army headed for York where it fought off the northern earls to take control of the city.
0:29:56 > 0:30:02Complacent with victory, Hardrada and Tostig travelled with just one third of their army
0:30:02 > 0:30:09eight miles east of York to Stamford Bridge where they had arranged to collect 500 hostages.
0:30:10 > 0:30:16But what they saw on the banks of the River Derwent was not a forlorn group of hostages,
0:30:16 > 0:30:23but a massive army - their weapons glittering like sheets of ice, as the Viking bard put it.
0:30:23 > 0:30:28Tostig knew it meant trouble. It was his big brother.
0:30:28 > 0:30:35Getting his army in position to surprise the Norsemen was an epic feat by any standards.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39Harold had travelled from London, picking up his army on the way,
0:30:39 > 0:30:44covering 187 miles in four days. 37 to 45 miles a day!
0:30:44 > 0:30:49Imagine, then, thousands of men going as fast as their horses,
0:30:49 > 0:30:54or, in many cases, as fast as their legs could carry them.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58Up the Great North Road to Peterborough, Lincoln, Tadcaster.
0:30:58 > 0:31:04The ultimate high-impact hike with the heaviest backpacks imaginable.
0:31:04 > 0:31:10And, at the end of it, Harold fought one of the bloodiest battles in English history.
0:31:33 > 0:31:40It was the English who broke the Viking line, and the remaining Norse warriors cowered round their chiefs.
0:31:40 > 0:31:46We must imagine the great Hardrada swinging his axe beneath the Land-waster flag
0:31:46 > 0:31:50before finally sinking down with an arrow in the throat.
0:31:50 > 0:31:55Tostig, picking up the Raven flag, and, in his turn, being cut down.
0:32:05 > 0:32:12The carnage was so complete that it took just 24 of the 300 ships that had sailed to England
0:32:12 > 0:32:17to return the pitiful remnant of the Norse army back to Norway.
0:32:22 > 0:32:27In a final act of respect, Harold found his dead brother
0:32:27 > 0:32:31and took what was left of him to be buried at York Minster.
0:32:33 > 0:32:37But he had no time to grieve or exult over the death of Tostig,
0:32:37 > 0:32:41for the day after the battle of Stamford Bridge,
0:32:41 > 0:32:46the Norman fleet, at last, felt the wind change direction.
0:32:49 > 0:32:56With great haste, the Duke went to sea with his fleet sailing swiftly to the coast of England.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09Their first sight of land would have been the cliffs at Beachy Head,
0:33:09 > 0:33:13and they landed in the nearby sheltering harbours of Pevensey.
0:33:14 > 0:33:17An old Roman fort guarded the beach.
0:33:17 > 0:33:24Within its empty shell, William's men erected a prefabricated timber castle - later rebuilt in stone -
0:33:24 > 0:33:29as if declaring that THEY were now the heirs to the Romans.
0:33:33 > 0:33:38Expeditions for food and forage from the base camp took the usual form -
0:33:38 > 0:33:45burning everything that couldn't be seized, striking terror into the hearts of the locals.
0:33:47 > 0:33:53One of the most unforgettable details in the Bayeux tapestry is this seemingly incidental detail
0:33:53 > 0:33:57of a mother and child turned refugee,
0:33:57 > 0:34:02fleeing from their burning house, maybe even Hastings.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05Resigned to their fate, not looking back.
0:34:05 > 0:34:10This is the first of the images that will echo through European art -
0:34:10 > 0:34:14through Rubens, Goya and Picasso's Guernica -
0:34:14 > 0:34:19of the victims of war, of civilians, of innocents.
0:34:20 > 0:34:26But William soon discovered there was no easy route to get from Pevensey to London.
0:34:26 > 0:34:33The country behind the town was waterlogged, crossed by little river valleys that fed into the sea.
0:34:33 > 0:34:40But there was one old Anglo-Saxon trail that could take him to the Roman road going north through Kent,
0:34:40 > 0:34:44and it was for mastery of this ancient, muddy, rutted track
0:34:44 > 0:34:49that the most gruelling battle in early British history would be fought.
0:34:50 > 0:34:55Having beaten back the threat of the Vikings and his own brother,
0:34:55 > 0:35:02it must have seemed inconceivable to Harold that he'd have to do it all over again within a week or two.
0:35:02 > 0:35:08It would not be easy. Who could he call on? The bruised and battered remains of his army.
0:35:08 > 0:35:15It would be a long shot but, after Stamford Bridge, perhaps Harold felt he could trust his luck.
0:35:15 > 0:35:21Besides, William's public name calling - Harold the Perjured, Harold the Oath Breaker,
0:35:21 > 0:35:26Harold the Perfidious - had made it personal now, a mortal duel.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31Let the hand of God decide who was the righteous party, who would prevail.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41Harold left London at full speed.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45He gathered what he could of a new army by an old grey apple tree,
0:35:45 > 0:35:51an ancient, blasted tree that stood on a hill at the crossing of the tracks leading out of Hastings.
0:35:51 > 0:35:56There Harold planted his banner, the Dragon of Wessex.
0:35:56 > 0:36:02The Normans called this place Senlac, which means lake of blood.
0:36:12 > 0:36:18Imagine yourself then on the morning of Saturday the 14th of October 1066.
0:36:18 > 0:36:25You're a Saxon warrior, a housecarl as it happens, and you've survived Stamford Bridge.
0:36:25 > 0:36:28Your position here couldn't be better.
0:36:28 > 0:36:35You stand on the brow of the hill and look down hundreds of yards away at the opposition.
0:36:35 > 0:36:40All you have to do is prevent the Normans breaking through to the London road.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44They have the horses, but then they have to ride them uphill.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49Along the hillside, you see a densely packed crowd of Englishmen.
0:36:49 > 0:36:55At the front are the housecarls, a wall of solid shields, and, with them, the axemen.
0:36:55 > 0:37:02But, behind them, the part-timers, the fighting farmers, who must have time to find THEIR courage.
0:37:03 > 0:37:09Down at the foot of the hill, you can hear the whinnying of Norman horses
0:37:09 > 0:37:13and what sounds like the chanting of psalms.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18You're a Norman foot soldier
0:37:18 > 0:37:23and you hope to God the gentlemen on horses know what they're doing.
0:37:23 > 0:37:29All around you, you can hear the scraping of metal, the sharpening of blades, the mounting of horses.
0:37:29 > 0:37:34On the brow of the hill, you see a thin glittering line of men.
0:37:34 > 0:37:40You cross yourself and you finger the rings on your coat of mail and wonder how solid they are.
0:37:40 > 0:37:47You wonder what use they're going to be against an axe. You've never seen axes in battle before.
0:37:48 > 0:37:55But then you catch sight of the Papal banner and take heart. Surely, God is on YOUR side.
0:37:56 > 0:38:03The real beginning must be imagined as the cavalry raced up the hill one by one, getting into range,
0:38:03 > 0:38:08hearing the rhythmic chant of "Oot! Oot!" "Out! Out!" from the Saxons,
0:38:08 > 0:38:13and then hurling their javelins at the front line.
0:38:15 > 0:38:23Then came the slow advance of the archers, unloosing their first arrows under a hail of enemy spears.
0:38:27 > 0:38:32And, finally, the foot soldiers breaking into a run behind them.
0:38:36 > 0:38:44Then there was just the murderous smashing and crashing of horses, the slicing and thrusting of weapons.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47The screams, cries of the wounded and dying.
0:38:50 > 0:38:57If the axeman stood firm against the oncoming horse, he'd still only get one good swing.
0:38:57 > 0:39:04If he missed, he was left open to the slash of the sword from the rider above.
0:39:09 > 0:39:15It was the initial success of the English that also threatened their downfall.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19On the left flank of William's army, horses stumbled and retreated.
0:39:19 > 0:39:26The right flank of Harold's army, many of them inexperienced fyrdmen, decided to chase them down the hill.
0:39:26 > 0:39:32But Harold, always conservative in his tactics, refused to allow others to follow.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36He seems to have lost momentary control of his troops,
0:39:36 > 0:39:43who couldn't resist following the horsemen, elated by the thought that the Duke of Normandy was lost.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48But William threw back his helmet to prove he was very much alive.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53He rallied the ranks of the Norman centre round the rear of the pursuing Saxons
0:39:53 > 0:39:56and set about slicing them to pieces.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05The battle wasn't over yet.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08It would take at least six hours to decide.
0:40:12 > 0:40:20The Bayeux tapestry is shockingly explicit in exposing the extent of the carnage and mutilation.
0:40:24 > 0:40:30But it was the English army that was eventually, and very, very slowly, ground down.
0:40:30 > 0:40:38William began exploiting weak points, settling into an alternating rhythm of archers and cavalry.
0:40:38 > 0:40:43The arrows now shot high into the air and fell, not on the front line,
0:40:43 > 0:40:46but the heads of the unprotected men behind them.
0:40:47 > 0:40:54How did Harold himself die? Lately there's been an attempt to read the death scene in the tapestry
0:40:54 > 0:40:59as though he was the figure cut down by the horsemen...
0:41:00 > 0:41:07..not the warrior pulling the arrow out of his eye, the story you and I grew up with. But it seems clear
0:41:07 > 0:41:15that the words "Harold Rex" occur directly, and significantly, above the arrow-struck figure.
0:41:17 > 0:41:24Then, certainly, the knights would have been on him, cutting him down, leaving him disembowelled.
0:41:25 > 0:41:31The thanes bravely mounted a last stand, defending the body of their king.
0:41:31 > 0:41:37But, for many, it was a lost cause. It was time to save one's neck, to get out of the way.
0:41:40 > 0:41:45There are such sad stories of what follows, and perhaps some are true.
0:41:45 > 0:41:52One of them has Harold's lover, Edith Swan Neck, walking through the heaps of gory corpses
0:41:52 > 0:41:56to identify the dead king by marks on his body known only to her.
0:41:59 > 0:42:05What we do know is that around half the nobility of England perished on that battlefield.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28William had sworn that, should God give him the victory,
0:42:28 > 0:42:36he would build a great abbey of thanksgiving at the exact spot where Harold had planted his flag.
0:42:36 > 0:42:41And here it is, a statement, if ever there was one, of pious jubilation.
0:42:43 > 0:42:50But William had to make sure he'd won not just a single battle, but the war for England.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53This was done in the time-honoured way -
0:42:53 > 0:42:59cutting a swath of fire, rape and plunder through the countryside of south-east England.
0:42:59 > 0:43:02One by one, the Anglo-Saxon cities folded.
0:43:03 > 0:43:09William was crowned at Westminster on Christmas Day 1066.
0:43:09 > 0:43:14But the event was more like a shambles than a triumph.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16At the shout of acclamation,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20the Norman soldiers stationed outside thought a riot had started,
0:43:20 > 0:43:25to which their response was to burn down every house in sight.
0:43:25 > 0:43:31As fighting broke out, many of those in the abbey, smelling smoke, rushed outside.
0:43:33 > 0:43:38And the ceremony was completed in a half-empty interior with William,
0:43:38 > 0:43:43for the first time in his life, seen to be shaking like a leaf.
0:43:46 > 0:43:50When he emerged from the smoke and chaos of the coronation,
0:43:50 > 0:43:56just what kind of king did the surviving remnant of the old governing class imagine they had?
0:43:56 > 0:44:00Did they fondly suppose he was going to be another Canute
0:44:00 > 0:44:05who, now he'd won his realm, would disband his army and send them home?
0:44:05 > 0:44:08If they did, they were in for a very nasty shock
0:44:08 > 0:44:13because, even if William had wanted to do this, it was quite impossible.
0:44:13 > 0:44:18His whole campaign had been based on the promise of the lure of land,
0:44:18 > 0:44:24the pledge to hand over Saxon land on a golden plate of conquest.
0:44:26 > 0:44:31There was never the remotest chance that William would be another Canute
0:44:31 > 0:44:37and assimilate himself into the world of Anglo-Saxon England. His conquest turned the country around.
0:44:37 > 0:44:44England's orientation now was south, away from Scandinavia and towards continental Europe.
0:44:48 > 0:44:55The north of England, which still retained strong Viking sympathies, offered the most resistance.
0:44:55 > 0:45:01Three years into William's reign, York opened its gates to King Sweyn of Denmark,
0:45:01 > 0:45:06hailing him as a liberator from the new king of England.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12William's response was to mount a campaign of oppression in the north
0:45:12 > 0:45:17that was not just punitive, but an exercise in mass murder -
0:45:17 > 0:45:23thousands upon thousands of men and boys gruesomely butchered, their bodies left to rot and fester.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33Every town and village burnt without pity.
0:45:33 > 0:45:40Fields and livestock destroyed so completely that any survivors were doomed to die in a great famine.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46Hard on the heels of massacre and starvation came plague.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52And all across England, William built at least 90 castles,
0:45:52 > 0:45:56dominating areas of potential revolt.
0:45:56 > 0:46:03Engines of terror that helped William control over two million Saxons with just 25,000 Normans.
0:46:15 > 0:46:22Most of the voices describing to us the events after 1066 are written from the victor's perspective,
0:46:22 > 0:46:27unapologetic and crowing, sketching the starkest possible contrast
0:46:27 > 0:46:33between the Machiavellian perjurer Harold and the noble, betrayed William.
0:46:33 > 0:46:40But among this rather nauseating chorus of congratulation, there is at least one that dares break rank.
0:46:40 > 0:46:44That, in fact, sees the conquest as it surely was -
0:46:44 > 0:46:50a brutal, ruthless and completely successful act of aggression and cruelty.
0:46:51 > 0:46:57The voice is all the more credible because it belongs to someone who, by rights,
0:46:57 > 0:47:02should have found nothing to fault in the Norman conquest -
0:47:02 > 0:47:08the monk Orderic Vitalis, whose family came over with William and belonged to the conquering class.
0:47:08 > 0:47:13In the early 12th century, he began to pen his account of the conquest.
0:47:13 > 0:47:19In complete contrast to the others, Orderic never minces his words about what he thought of as colonisation.
0:47:19 > 0:47:26"Foreigners grew wealthy with the spoils of England, while her own sons were either shamefully slain
0:47:26 > 0:47:31"or driven as exiles to wander hopelessly through foreign kingdoms."
0:47:34 > 0:47:42His account conveys the traumatic magnitude of what happened in England in the years following 1066.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46Pre-conquest England was an old country, as Orderic describes it.
0:47:46 > 0:47:49Afterwards, it was a completely new one.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Of course, not everything changed.
0:47:52 > 0:47:59To look at a list of governing institutions you might suppose that nothing had changed,
0:47:59 > 0:48:03that one class of governors had kicked out another class. Big deal!
0:48:03 > 0:48:06But I rather think it WAS a big deal.
0:48:06 > 0:48:13Imagine the county gentry of England - priests, squires, judges - all wiped out overnight -
0:48:13 > 0:48:21half of them dead, the rest humiliated, broken, replaced by an alien class.
0:48:21 > 0:48:24They speak differently, they look different,
0:48:24 > 0:48:31they take what they want when they want and then rubber-stamp the decision in YOUR courts.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36They also build differently.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Ely Cathedral is one of those places
0:48:39 > 0:48:46where the intimate scale of Saxon churches was replaced by a statement of massive triumphalism.
0:48:46 > 0:48:51These columns speak of authority and raw power.
0:48:51 > 0:48:57They command obedience and reverence. They are, in the most literal sense, awesome.
0:49:06 > 0:49:12It was the difference between the immense Romanesque bulk of the great Norman cathedrals
0:49:12 > 0:49:16and the small spaces of the Saxon chapel.
0:49:16 > 0:49:22There was another telling difference between the old and new rulers of England.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27Anglo-Saxons didn't use surnames. They were Cedric or Edgar of somewhere or other.
0:49:27 > 0:49:33But the Normans incorporated places into their own names, like an act of possession.
0:49:33 > 0:49:37They were Roger of the Beautiful Hill - Roger Beaumont -
0:49:37 > 0:49:42because the place WAS theirs. They owned it lock, stock and barrel.
0:49:42 > 0:49:48In fact, preserving the estate intact was what the Norman nobility was all about.
0:49:48 > 0:49:55It was they who introduced the practice of passing on whole estates intact to one heir - the eldest son.
0:49:55 > 0:50:00The unsentimental, decisive way with things was the Norman way,
0:50:00 > 0:50:03giving a hard-nosed edge
0:50:03 > 0:50:10to the fuzzy tangles of contracts and customs that had been used by the Anglo-Saxons.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14And it was in this spirit that William, in 1085,
0:50:14 > 0:50:21held court in Gloucester and launched, arguably, the most extraordinary campaign of his reign,
0:50:21 > 0:50:23a campaign for information.
0:50:23 > 0:50:28We tend to think of William as more or less permanently in the saddle.
0:50:28 > 0:50:34He grew up in a world, after all, where authority was usually delivered on the blade of a sword.
0:50:34 > 0:50:41So it's all the more impressive that he seems to have understood that information could also be power.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45William the Conqueror was the first database king.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51His immediate need was to raise a tax,
0:50:51 > 0:50:57but the compilation of the Domesday Book was more than just a glorified audit.
0:50:57 > 0:51:04It was a complete inventory of everything in the kingdom, shire by shire...pig by pig.
0:51:04 > 0:51:09Who had owned what before the coming of the Normans, and who owned what now.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13How much it had been worth then, and how much now.
0:51:14 > 0:51:19"The King sent his men all over England into every shire
0:51:19 > 0:51:24"and had them find out how many hides there were in each shire,
0:51:24 > 0:51:28"what land and cattle the king himself had in the county.
0:51:28 > 0:51:34"So very narrowly did he have it investigated there was no single hide nor, shame to relate it,
0:51:34 > 0:51:42"but it seemed no shame to him, was there one ox, or one cow left out and not put down in record."
0:51:42 > 0:51:47While some of the information was taken verbally by William's scribes,
0:51:47 > 0:51:51some must have owed its existence to Saxon records.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54The most extraordinary paradox about the Domesday Book
0:51:54 > 0:52:00is that what we think of as a monument to Norman power and strength
0:52:00 > 0:52:07owed itself to the advanced machinery of government left behind by the old Anglo-Saxon monarchy.
0:52:07 > 0:52:13And it was thanks to this that the data was collected at such lightning speed - less than six months.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19The results were presented to William, here, at Old Sarum,
0:52:19 > 0:52:24an ancient Iron-Age fort inside which he'd built a royal palace.
0:52:24 > 0:52:30When given the Domesday Book, it was as if William had been handed the keys to the kingdom again,
0:52:30 > 0:52:34as if he'd reconquered England - statistically.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38Because its information was more impregnable than any castle.
0:52:38 > 0:52:45It was called the Domesday Book because it was said its decisions were as final as the Last Judgment.
0:52:49 > 0:52:56"The Church itself holds Wenlock. There are 40 hides, 4 of which are exempt from tax under King Canute.
0:52:56 > 0:53:02"There are 15 slaves. 2 mills serve the monks, plus 1 fishery.
0:53:02 > 0:53:09"Enough woodland to fatten 300 pigs and 2 hedged enclosures. Value now 12 pounds."
0:53:12 > 0:53:17Two ceremonies took place on Lammas Day 1087 at Old Sarum.
0:53:17 > 0:53:23First every noble in England gathered here to take an oath of loyalty to the king.
0:53:23 > 0:53:29And then came the handing over of the book, the ultimate weapon to keep them in line.
0:53:29 > 0:53:32Now nobody could hold back anything.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35And it was this book, the Domesday Book,
0:53:35 > 0:53:41that made the gathering at Old Sarum unique in the history of feudal monarchy in Europe.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45For the book, ultimately, WAS England.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49For centuries after, this was the secret of English government,
0:53:49 > 0:53:56a partnership between the power of the landed classes and the authority of the state.
0:53:56 > 0:54:01Between the guardians of the green acres and the keepers of knowledge.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05In one corner, the gentry, in the other corner, the civil service.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09And in-between them, the eternal umpire, the king.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14But the umpire was finally feeling the strain.
0:54:14 > 0:54:20Not surprising when, aged 60, William still couldn't resist playing the warlord.
0:54:20 > 0:54:28In 1087, he subdued a border dispute in France by, of course, totally destroying the town of Mantes.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32But perhaps this last devastation was one too many.
0:54:32 > 0:54:39A flaming timber from one of the houses burned by William's soldiers fell right in front of the king.
0:54:39 > 0:54:46William's horse suddenly bucked, throwing the now overweight king violently against his saddle.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49His gut took the force of the blow.
0:54:49 > 0:54:54Mortally wounded, William was taken to a priory at Rouen.
0:54:58 > 0:55:05At the very end, Orderic Vitalis puts into William's mouth an extraordinary deathbed confession,
0:55:05 > 0:55:11so penitential, so utterly out of character that it seems, on the face of it, completely incredible.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15But whether William actually spoke those words or not,
0:55:15 > 0:55:22they clearly reflected what some, perhaps many, people felt about William the Conqueror.
0:55:22 > 0:55:26When all the battles were won, when the laws had all been laid down,
0:55:26 > 0:55:31he was what he had always been - a brutal adventurer,
0:55:31 > 0:55:38and the conquest of England, not a righteous crusade, but just a grand throw of history's dice.
0:55:38 > 0:55:45"I appoint no-one my heir to the crown of England for I did not attain that high honour by hereditary right,
0:55:45 > 0:55:51"but wrestled it from the perjured King Harold in a desperate battle with much effusion of human blood.
0:55:51 > 0:55:56"I have persecuted its native inhabitants beyond all reason.
0:55:56 > 0:56:02"Whether gentle or simple, I cruelly oppressed them. Many I unjustly disinherited.
0:56:02 > 0:56:09"Innumerable multitudes, especially in the county of York, perished through me by famine or the sword.
0:56:09 > 0:56:14"Having therefore made my way to the throne of that kingdom by so many crimes,
0:56:14 > 0:56:21"I dare not leave it to anyone but God alone lest, after my death, worse should happen by my means."
0:56:21 > 0:56:27Once he had gone, in the early hours of the morning of the 9th of September 1087,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30a shocking scene took place.
0:56:30 > 0:56:36His closest followers now paid their last respects to William by all deserting him,
0:56:36 > 0:56:41racing off around the kingdom to secure their land and property,
0:56:41 > 0:56:46leaving the corpse to be looted by the servants -
0:56:46 > 0:56:51naked, bloated and beginning to putrefy on the monastery floor.
0:56:53 > 0:56:59So the man who'd spent his life taking whatever he could by whatever means possible
0:56:59 > 0:57:04was finally robbed of everything, even his dignity.
0:57:04 > 0:57:09Perhaps the hand of God had decided that this was a fitting end.
0:57:14 > 0:57:18As for his old antagonist, Harold,
0:57:18 > 0:57:25he certainly didn't stay buried on the shore facing the Channel as some Norman historians suggested.
0:57:25 > 0:57:32Rumours had it that he escaped and lived as a hermit, but another story is much more likely to be the truth.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35That, once it was safe,
0:57:35 > 0:57:41the female survivors of the family took Harold's remains and had them interred here at Waltham Abbey.
0:57:41 > 0:57:48According to William and the Pope, Harold was a despoiler of the Church, deserving of destruction.
0:57:48 > 0:57:56But the monks at Waltham didn't seem to agree, for they secretly buried him and prayed for his soul.
0:57:57 > 0:58:03Somewhere then, beneath the columns and arches of this Romanesque church,
0:58:03 > 0:58:06is the last Anglo-Saxon king,
0:58:06 > 0:58:10literally, part of the foundations of Norman England.
0:58:26 > 0:58:30Subtitles by Mary Easton BBC Scotland - 2000
0:58:30 > 0:58:34E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk