The Battle of Hastings, 1066 — My Take, and Illustrations
Friday 13th October 1066, a harbinger of bad luck for someone. Duke William of Normandy, aka “The Bastard” (because he literally is one), advances towards London on the road north from Hastings. Coming south the other way is King Harold of Saxon England, fresh from a victory over Norse invaders. They will meet near what is now the village of Battle in Sussex.
Quatremain, a character in my book ‘Gateway to Gandamak’, rides point for Duke William. The invading army has landed a month or so earlier, and is now able to feel its way towards the enemy. The objective is Telham Hill. It gives a good view of the rolling weald, open fields, grassland, and clumps of trees, mainly oak.
A mile and a half away across a slight, darkened valley fires are beginning to glow among the tree line on the ridge over at Cauldbec. Harold has arrived. He has anticipated or discovered William’s route and brilliantly placed himself to block a further advance.
What follows is one of the bloodiest battles of the early medieval period. Contrary to Hollywood, such battles seldom result in heavy casualties. They are costly in men and material. There are religious reasons for not wanting to kill. Indeed, some soldiers fight with blunted weapons. After battles or scrambling skirmishes, absolution from murder comes courtesy of the accompanying priests. Soldiers fight out of a sense of duty towards their liege lord, not from ideological passion or for revenge.
The coming day is an exception.
William has burned his boats, enraged and committed to victory over a man he considers a liar and cheat. “King” Harold has broken his oath that the crown of England will pass to the Duke. He is a usurper.
Now the die is cast. Harold is up that slope, standing broad-shouldered, confident, splendidly moustached, under his standard of the Fighting Man. He is about 1,000 yards away from where the Norman start line is placed on a slight secondary ridge that at least gives a small downhill start to the advance.
The details of the bloody fight that occurs through Saturday are shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. However, oddly, there are no contemporary accounts, none at all from participants. Consequently, mystery surrounds what actually occurred, and even where it happened.
As far as we know, the Saxon English take the commanding heights around Cauldbec Hill and what is now Battle Village High Street. Then it is a mix of forest woodland and rough open space between two and three hundred feet above the sea that the Duke has left ten miles behind him. They sit across the only possible routes north.
The Normans attack uphill, and they do so relentlessly throughout the day. First with an arrow storm, then repeated infantry assaults; a soon impassable hill confounds the cavalry. Allied Breton soldiers retreat in dismay on rumour the Duke is killed. Famously, he doffs his helmet and coif. “I live yet.” The fyrd (the core troops sworn to Harold) on the English right, sensing victory, surge forwards down the slope. Now it is the Breton cavalry’s turn, and they cut the lighter-armed English foot soldiers to pieces.
The battle ebbs and flows, and the English tactical commanders, Leofwine and Gyrth Godwinson, are killed in a melee. King Harold is obliged to come down the hill to the resistance line. The Saxon Englishmen are tired and losing killed and wounded, but so are the Normans. The fighting stops and starts. It is a war of attrition now, the quick rushes of men who have recovered their breath and their nerve, fierce resistance, and a slow contraction of the English line, down a man or two.
William knows he has just this day and this one chance. He throws his entire force forwards behind the remaining stock of arrows. He is done if this effort fails. Towards dusk, Harold is struck down. The legend enshrined in the Tapestry is he is hit in the right eye, but others say he is caught by the Duke himself and three of his elite companions. No one knows, yet Harold is hacked to pieces. Most of the housecarls are dead and the remaining fyrd decides enough is enough. The pursuit continues well into the night.
This battle is a pivotal event in British history. It changes English society and culture. It is the start of a family line that my book tracks through the following nine hundred years to another small hill at Gandamak in Afghanistan.
Writing the book, I decided to try to understand Hastings from the ground level. In many cases, it is the terrain that determines the outcome of such conflicts. Not at Hastings; the English (“Saxon” is a misnomer, these were really Norse cousins of the Normans, who were also of Norse stock. This was a civil war) held the high ground in strong numbers. The Normans fought uphill. Yet they won.
My book considers this outcome in detail. In this article, therefore, I present a series of illustrations that may be used as background, and that perhaps represent a fair picture of the location and the manoeuvres of the two sides.
My thanks to my friend Bob Lindley who kindly did the fieldwork, tramping around the entire site. My academic sources are M.K.Lawson’s seminal book n the battle, and Christopher Hewitt’s PhD thesis that cleverly uses geographic analysis to suggest what happened (see References).
This is an effort to place the Saxon/English under King Harold (blue and for his location ) and the Norman-French-Breton army (red) under Duke William on the map at Battle Village in Sussex.
The first map is the estimates made using GIS and geographic analysis by Christopher Hewitt. Confusingly, he shows the two sites on the same map that he tilts away from North. I have corrected that. He suggests two main likely sites:
- To the northeast of Battle Village on the slopes of Cauldbec Hill. (spelling may differ) — I think I agree.
- The traditional site, accepted by most (not all) historians), at Battle Abbey.
I have used a contour map to clearly show the heights. The main height reference point is 300 feet above sea level (asl). Cauldbec Hill is 312 feet asl. A Google Image shows the current view.
The front line — Line of Resistance — is estimated at between 600 and 800 yards. It is likely King Harold had about 5,000 men packed into a single mass as a shield wall.
The Normans under Duke William attack uphill. William may have had 3,000 infantry and archers, and 2,000 horse soldiers — “miletes”. They were in three units as shown. Archers and infantry in front.
The full description and textual analysis are in my book. We expect to publish soon (March-April 2022). However, if you have questions, I’m very happy to attempt answers. Email me on gqquartermaine@pm.me, mark the subject BATTLE
References:
The Battle Of Hastings, 1066, M.K. Lawson, First edition published 2002 by Tempus, Second edition published 2003, Third (.pdf) edition published 2016 by the Author.
The Battle of Hastings: A Geographic Perspective, Hewitt, Christopher E. M., Doctoral thesis, The University of Western Ontario (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository.
My thanks to these authors. Conclusions based on their work are my own.
Read about the battle in detail in ‘Gateway to Gandamak’, Part 2: Conquest
