Hastings War Walks

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1066 was the year that invasion changed the course of English history.

A duke became a conqueror.

He landed here, beat King Harold at the Battle of Hastings,

and brought about the end of Anglo-Saxon England.

It's a story of great men and great events, of tragedy, heroism and sheer bad luck.

We call him William the Conqueror,

but to contemporaries he was William the Bastard.

His father was Duke Robert of Normandy, but his mother was a tanner's daughter.

When he was besieging a French town, the citizens threw hides out to remind William of his origins.

He wasn't amused. When he took the place he had them skinned alive.

It was a measure of the man.

By contrast, Harold was described as affable to all good men and the enemy of evil-doers.

Harold was a son of Earl Godwin, the most powerful man in England after the King,

at times more powerful than him.

The family lived here at Bosham in Sussex. Their hall has long gone,

but the Saxon church in which Harold worshipped still survives.

In 1064, King Edward the Confessor sent Harold to Normandy.

He was shipwrecked, fell into William's hands and swore an oath for him.

Harold promised that when Edward died he would support William's claim to the English throne.

Whether he made his promise freely no-one knows, but the story of his oath is told in the Bayeux Tapestry.

This replica panel from the tapestry shows a long-haired, moustached Harold -

he was a fine figure of a man -

riding here "ad Bosham ecclesia", to Bosham church.

He's about to set out on the journey during which he'll swear that fatal oath.

The oath was broken two years later.

When Edward died in January 1066 Harold himself was crowned King of England.

When William heard the news he decided to invade, and spent months preparing a fleet.

On September the 27th, the invaders set sail in 300 ships.

On the 28th of September, the invaders landed here on the beach at Pevensey in Sussex.

Their cavalry was a force to be reckoned with. My horse Thatch has got Norman blood in his veins.

It can't have been easy bringing 2,000 horses the 100 miles from Normandy in open-top wooden boats.

Harder still, getting them ashore.

This was the biggest amphibious operation since Roman times.

As William scrambled up the shingle he slipped and fell,

throwing out both hands to protect himself.

He got up with blood on his face.

One of his followers said it was a good omen -

he'd taken hold of England with both hands, meaning to guarantee it to his descendants with his blood.

This mishap apart, it was a bloodless landing.

The Normans spent their first day in the Roman fort at Pevensey.

Then it jutted out into the sea. Now it lies a few miles inland.

This was an important gain, but one thing must have worried William.

His invasion had been expected, so where were the Saxons?

A week earlier, Harold had received disastrous news.

His country had been invaded - not in the south by the Normans, but in the north by the Vikings,

who'd landed near York and beaten the local forces.

Harold's army marched out of London and on September the 25th advanced on the Vikings at Stamford Bridge.

Harold pounded up this road at the head of 6,000 men.

He knew all too well who his opponents were -

Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, and his own brother, Earl Tostig.

Both had claims to the throne.

Harold planned to take the Vikings by surprise.

Scouts said they were some distance from their ships, where they'd left their armour.

The Vikings saw the sun glinting off the armour of Harold's host. It looked like sunlight on broken ice.

In order to get at the invaders, Harold's army had to cross the River Derwent.

There was a wooden bridge across it

somewhere here.

One of the Vikings had worn his mail shirt that morning. He stood on the bridge armed with a mighty axe.

He cut down dozens of Saxons.

Eventually one of Harold's men got into a barrel, went underneath the bridge, taking a spear.

As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says, "He brogged the giant from below."

The way was now clear for Harold's men

to pour across the river and take on their enemies on the ridge opposite.

The battle was ferocious.

At its end, both Tostig and Hardrada were dead.

The invaders had arrived in 300 ships. The survivors needed only 24 to carry them home.

Harold had destroyed a mighty army.

'The written accounts of this battle are very sketchy.

'Archaeologists like Richard Kemp can give us a sense of what it was like.'

What happened to the warriors who were killed?

Well, we actually have done an excavation of a local churchyard

and found people buried there who undoubtedly fell in the battle.

I've brought along one of the skulls that was excavated from this.

It shows the signs of the battle in the form of the injuries here.

This is undoubtedly a sword, whereas this very straight line may well have been caused by an axe.

If you'd like to handle it, wear gloves. This is mid-11th century,

and therefore rather precious.

The injuries are mostly to the skull.

So we've got straight down wounds.

Several have taken the top off the skull.

We've even got one that comes down against the jaw

and then hits the collar bone.

Mostly to the upper part of the body. Not people with helmets.

A helmet would protect you from this sort of wound.

Another major area of injury is the upper leg and pelvic region.

-So some of them were hit by spears going in under the shield wall.

-Yes.

-Bring him down, and once he's fallen, he's hit on the head.

-Yes.

Once there's a gap in the shield wall and you can get through, you finish the person off with a hack.

These are evidence, perhaps, that there were two separate people.

-It brings the reality home.

-Yes.

That is a considerable injury and this was a field of major slaughter.

Just three days later, the Normans landed.

When Harold received the news, he ordered his exhausted army to begin the 230-mile march back to London.

With Harold away in the north, the Normans moved their base

along the coast to Hastings, and built a temporary fortification.

This castle was built later.

William's problem was simple. He had to beat Harold and take London.

But he couldn't move north.

His fleet would be vulnerable if he left it.

If he stayed put, he risked being bottled up in the Hastings peninsula

with the sea to his back.

William's only hope was to force Harold to come to him.

And the way to do that was to sting Harold into action using sword and fire.

William sent patrols out all over the area, and remorselessly burned and pillaged the nearby villages.

The inhabitants took refuge in churches.

This is Crowhurst, a few miles from Hastings.

In the weeks before the battle it was utterly destroyed.

The Domesday Book has one word for the villages William wiped out -

"vasta" - wasteland.

William's strategy worked.

Harold received news of the ravaging of the villages.

He was Earl of Wessex. These were his people under attack.

He summoned a council of war, probably to Westminster Hall.

His advisors urged caution,

and begged him to let his brother Gyrth lead the army while he stayed back to raise fresh troops.

This was not Harold's style.

He said, "It was never my wont to lie in a lair while other men fight.

"William shall never hear that I dare not look him in the face."

On October the 12th, Harold marched out of London with his depleted army,

an army that Steve Pollington understands.

-How was it organised?

-Beneath the King,

who was the supreme commander one might say, we had his personal followers.

These are the men known as housecarls.

Beneath them we have the thecnas - the theyns. These are men possibly a little like medieval knights,

bound by duty to follow their lord into battle, and not to leave the field if he didn't.

Beyond that we have the Anglo-Saxon fyrd -

the mobile army, the army in the field.

This business about not leaving the field after your lord had fallen - fine for poets.

But did it really happen?

There is evidence from a poem recording events at Malden in Essex in 991,

in which one of the old retainers of the ealdorman there - a chap called Burkneuth -

utters some memorable lines from Old English verse which go:

RECITES IN OLD ENGLISH

"Thought shall be the harder, hearts the keener, minds shall be the stronger

"as our strength diminishes."

Their leader was down, they had no hope of getting away alive, but they stayed behind,

they fought on until the last man was down.

Formidable men, aren't they? It's hard not to like them.

Harold ordered his army to rendezvous at a well-known landmark,

the hoar apple tree on Caldbec Hill.

As night fell on Friday, October the 13th, his men made camp.

A Norman chronicler tells us that the Saxons spent the night before the battle carousing up here.

He gives us an account of their toasts.

"Wassail" and "drinkheil".

He wasn't here. He may have been contrasting the wild English with the pious Normans,

who spent the night at prayer.

Many of the Saxons must have known this would be their last night on earth,

for tomorrow they would fight.

Early on the 14th, William heard Mass.

His men were fighting not merely for victory, but for survival.

He took the holy relics on which Harold had sworn his oath in 1064,

and at about six o'clock set off to fight a decisive battle.

As they reached the crest of Telham Hill, the Normans were confronted by an awesome sight.

Over there, on Senlac Ridge,

the Saxons were forming up -

7,000 men, the early sun glinting off swords and axes behind a wall of shields.

'To get an idea of how Harold's men fought, I'm talking to Alan Jeffery,

'expert on Saxon tactics, and known to his friends as Alan the Axe.'

I always think of the axe as being THE Saxon weapon. Was it important?

It was probably the most important weapon of the time.

Technique's the only way to survive in that kind of conflagration.

I have to have a style that will keep me moving and keep you away.

That was a figure eight.

In a wide form or a high form it basically takes this shape.

Now, that's on a wide arc.

On a higher arc, left hand or right,

it takes no effort at all for me to do that.

What is worth bearing in mind, when this hits you I get a rest.

But if I want to get closer to you,

it's easy to take your shield away.

Yeah, I think I get the point.

-Now, talk me through the axe itself.

-OK.

It's largely iron - a precious commodity then - with a tempered steel edge

put along here, heat-welded on.

It has a diamond section there which gives it more steel.

In the hands of a skilled person this could fell a human or a horse with little effort at all.

This was the centre of Harold's line on Senlac Ridge.

He stood up here with his guard about him.

His men fought on foot, shoulder to shoulder, like their fathers before them.

Theyns and housecarls, well armed, were probably in the front rank, the worse armed fyrdmen behind them.

7,000 men on a front a mile across.

The army's official war cries were "Holy Cross" and "God Almighty",

but when the Normans came in sight, these shaggy, bearded warriors beat their shields with their weapons

and barked out the older, pagan war cry, "Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!"

William had God on his side, and a banner to prove it.

He had secured the Pope's blessing,

arguing that Harold had broken an oath sworn on holy relics.

William's army formed up, with the papal banner, facing the shield wall.

The Normans were here in the centre, the Bretons were on the left, and the Flemings on the right.

William's plan was simple. His archers and crossbowmen would wear down the shield wall.

Then his infantry would tear gaps in it.

He'd send in the cavalry to break it.

To the accompaniment of trumpets from both sides, his archers let fly.

The arrows had little effect,

either sticking in the shields or passing over the line harmlessly.

The Saxons held firm under heavy fire.

William would have to mount a frontal assault against Harold's well-chosen defensive position.

Battle Abbey was built later. Its construction flattened the slope.

But it's still pretty steep and it must have been much worse then,

particularly with 7,000 Saxons up on top.

The infantry attack was a disaster, and the Saxons pushed the Normans back down the slope.

William now relied on his cavalry.

'Thatch and I are being given some hands-on training by Anne Hyland.

'She's an expert on the medieval warhorse.'

-Shield first, I think.

-Heavier than you think, your Norman kite-shaped shield.

-What about the reins?

-Hold those a little bit above the horse's neck,

-so the shield actually covers your upper body.

-OK.

-How do I use the lance?

-You can use it

overarm, as was the normal way, or else, as was becoming much more common, couched.

-That's tucked under my arm.

-Yes, with a third of the length behind your body,

and the rest of it pointing at your enemy with all the force you've got. Your stirrup gives you a platform.

No, don't point it down. You want to level it at your opponent.

When you set your horse in motion, it's the weight and speed of the horse that delivers the shock.

Get your reins sorted. You're going in for the real thing now. Get your shield so that you are covered.

Keep your head pulled in so when you're charging you can eye along and aim.

Don't take your head off centre. You'll move your horse off centre.

Like many things in life, it's easy when you've done it once or twice.

Let's have a go.

Up with the lance!

On William's order, all three cavalry contingents - Flemish, Norman and Breton - charged,

1,000 horsemen thundering up the slope.

The Bretons hit the shields first.

They charged here on William's left where the slope is gentlest, making better progress than the others.

Their impact must been terrific but the Saxons fought back hard, bringing horses crashing down.

The Bretons could bear it no longer and folded back down the slope with Saxons roaring down after them.

This wasn't part of Harold's plan, but these men were fighting mad.

The panic spread.

Across the whole front, William's men recoiled down the slope.

A Norman chronicler admits, "Almost the whole of the army yielded."

A cry went up that William had been killed. Chaos followed.

It looked as if William's army would collapse,

giving victory to Harold.

As his fate hung in the balance, William rose to meet the crisis.

He galloped forward, pushing his helmet back so that he could be seen.

"Look at me!" he shouted.

"Look at me! I'm alive, and with God's help will be the victor!"

His will prevailed.

The retreating Normans turned,

and the Saxons who had pursued them suddenly found themselves outnumbered and vulnerable.

The Saxons were cut to pieces here, well in front of the shield wall.

The Bayeux Tapestry suggests that it was here that the King's brothers Gyrth and Leofwine were killed,

as horsemen swirled around them.

This was the decisive moment. William's personal leadership had rallied his army.

Harold had lost hundreds of his best men.

It was now about 11 o'clock and both sides paused to regroup.

Medieval battles rarely lasted more than an hour or so.

Hastings had already raged for two.

At about 12, battle recommenced.

William of Poitiers, a chronicler, called it an unknown sort of battle,

in which one side launched attacks, the other stood fixed to the ground.

Poitiers says that William launched a number of feigned retreats,

drawing the Saxons down from the shield wall and killing them out in the open.

I don't think they were well enough trained for that. Horses are hard to stop when they move fast en masse.

Probably small groups of knights wheeled up and down these slopes,

eating away at the edge of the shield wall, wearing down Harold's strength.

It was now late afternoon, with dusk coming on fast.

If the Normans were winning, they hadn't yet won.

Harold was still on his feet and his men, although depleted, still held the ridge.

At 7, William turned to his archers,

ordering them to shoot high so that their arrows fell over the tattered shield wall onto the men behind it.

If the tapestry is to be believed, one of them hit Harold in the eye.

Some knights forced their way into the knot of housecarls surrounding Harold, and hacked the King to death.

With the King dead, panic swept through the English ranks.

The Bayeux Tapestry tells us simply, "The English fled." Many fyrdmen must indeed have slipped away.

Not so the theyns and housecarls who'd fought all day with Harold.

Like the heroes of epic poems, they remained true to their lord.

Here, on grass already greasy with the blood of the slain,

they swung sword and axe until they too were killed.

There may have been as many as 4,000 dead on this dreadful field.

Although the King's brothers could be identified, Harold could not.

His mistress, Edith Swan Neck, had followed Harold to Hastings and spent the day on Caldbec Hill.

As night fell she came up here to Senlac and, with a lover's eye, identified the body she knew so well.

This stone marks the spot where Harold died.

William was reluctant to grant burial in consecrated ground to a man

whose ambition had caused suffering.

But Harold probably lies at Waltham Abbey in Essex.

He was luckier than his followers whose bones whitened where they lay.

"They were few in number," wrote a monkish chronicler, "but brave in the extreme."

Soon after Hastings, most of the surviving magnates surrendered

and William advanced on London, crushing resistance as he went.

The Conqueror was crowned King in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066.

Invasion became occupation. The country was carved up among William's followers.

Hundreds of castles were built to enforce their will.

We're never far from evidence of the Conquest.

There had been few castles here before 1066. The Normans built many.

The White Tower in the Tower of London was begun in the Conqueror's reign.

But the Conquest was more than a change of military architecture.

It brought a new language and a new ruling class.

4,000 Saxon theyns were replaced by 200 Norman barons,

whose dominance sneered out from these great square keeps.

Small wonder that a Norse poet wrote:

"Cold heart and bloody hand

"Now rule the English land."

Subtitles by John Macdonald, Subtext for BBC Subtitling, 1997