This Sceptred Isle: Trollheart's History of England

[Trollheart]

Diamond Life: The Death of the Queen 
and the End of an Era

Britain was shocked and plunged into mourning this week* with the news of the death of the only monarch most of them have ever known, as Queen Elizabeth II ended a seventy-year reign on the British throne. She was 96. To be fair, it was big news around the world too, but more a dark footnote before the news networks got on with the more important news. After all, the position of the monarch of Britain has been, for about a hundred years now, largely symbolic and almost completely devoid of any power, a figurehead who rubberstamps the decisions made by his or her government, with little real choice in the matter and hardly any involvement in the running of their country. As a constitutional monarch, Elizabeth was beholden to, even controlled by her Parliament, and the real power in Britain lies, as it has done for a long time now, with the Prime Minister.

So it wasn't like when a president or a serving prime minister dies; sure, it's bad news and everyone is sorry, but life will go on and there is no threat whatever to the running of the country. There will be no battle for the crown, no pretenders or claimants fighting it out, no power vacuum and no policy changes. To be crude about it, all that has happened in real, political terms is that there is a new arse on the throne - a male one, for the first time in seven decades - and Britain has its third king named Charles*. There'll be a state funeral of course, with all the pomp and ceremony you would expect, but when it's over Britain's new Prime Minister, Liz Truss*, will head to Buckingham Palace (if she hasn't done so already) to meet the new king and talk about this and that, then fuck off back to Downing Street to do whatever she wants to do. Apart from getting certain things signed into law, the new king will not figure in the decision-making process as his country faces life under a new monarch and a new Prime Minister, and tries to come to terms with things like the aftermath of Brexit, Covid and the continuing worry of the war in Ukraine. I don't say none of that will bother Charles - I'm sure it will weigh heavily on his mind - but there won't be a thing he can do about it.

Speaking as an Irishman, I can't say I'm sorry Elizabeth is dead. No Irish person really is. She was the symbol of a country that kept us down and occupied us for seven hundred years, who treated us at times like slaves or even animals, and who tried to force their own religion upon us. She was the queen who presided over the illegal internment without trial of IRA prisoners, who watched impassively as Catholics were driven out of Ulster in the 1970s, who remained silent as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four were jailed, erroneously and without a shred of actual real evidence, for bombings they had nothing to do with, and who failed to utter a word of apology to these men on their long-delayed release.

However, before I go on, I would like to make one thing very clear. I am not a closet republican, nor do I, or did I ever, support the IRA. Inasmuch as we experienced The Troubles down here in the south - mostly through news reports, the very odd time it came home to use with bombs in Dublin - and as much as, I suppose, in my youth I kind of did want Ireland united, it was and never has been a big issue for me. I recognise fully that the men and women who call themselves the Provisional IRA and who purport to fight for Ireland's independence are, largely, not interested in such an outcome, and are fighting only for that most ancient of motives, money.

There was never a time when reports of IRA bombings on what was colliquially called by us "the mainland" (Britain) were greeted, by me at any rate, with a raised fist, joy and a "Take that you Brits!" No. Even soldiers being blown up is an occasion for both sadness and revulsion, and the more so when it's innocent civilians, be they shoppers, motorists or people in a pub. Nothing excuses that. Nothing. The IRA never conducted their campaign against the British (or indeed, the Loyalists in Northern Ireland), on my behalf, or with my approval, tacit or otherwise. That's a red line I do not cross. Murder is murder, to rather unfortunately quote and with great dislike agree with former Prime Minister, the late Margaret Thatcher, even if she said those words with a different agenda in mind.

On the other hand, the outright murder - summary execution - of IRA members in a carpark in Gibraltar in 1988, while it engendered in me no sympathy for these people who would have surely gone on to commit acts of terrible violence, is not acceptable either. Britain prides itself on its rule of law, British justice, yet was able to see fit to deny three people due process and pronounced them guilty without trial. The fact that their suspicions seem to have been unfounded is further damning evidence of the then-standing operational procedure of the British Army - and by extension Thatcher's government - of a "shoot to kill" policy. Two wrongs don't make a right.

So while I can deplore, and I think rightly, the internment without trial of political prisoners in Northern Ireland, this does not, to my mind, clash with my abhorrence of the deeds perpetrated by these men and women, and my unshakeable belief that they were not freedom fighters, but paid killers. My views, though, were obviously not held by every Irish person.

So you can see why no Irish tears will be shed at the news of her death. It might not in fact be going too far to say that more than one glass might be raised to her in pubs across Ireland, and not to her health. Old enmities die hard, and while our own government has tried to brush the last seven centuries under the carpet and attempt to move forward - which is fair enough, so far as it goes: simmering resentment and hatred in the end get you nowhere, and hold back progress - to paraphrase something said in Game of Thrones, Ireland remembers.

But it's not just us that have good reason to hate her. Her own subjects have hardly been treated well under her reign either. She allowed her country to involve itself in two wars, one in the Falkland Islands and one in Iraq, and made no comment. She was the one who should have spoken up, perhaps, when the full horror of the evil life of Jimmy Savile and the extent of the co-operation and cover-up involved by the institutions of the British media and government came to light, and yet she said nothing. She watched Britain disintegrate under the hardline policies of Margaret Thatcher, and preferred to remain aloof behind the walls of Buckingham Palace. She all but snubbed the death of Princess Diana, turning many of her supporters against her, and the only time she really emerged from behind the walls of the palace was to visit someone or welcome someone to her fortress home, one of her last real involvements with the public being when she whined about Windsor Castle nearly burning down. An edifice, I should point out, that is paid for with British taxpayers' money, and which she would not have to put her hand into the royal pocket to rebuild.

But all of that aside - and it's only so that nobody can call me a hypocrite by writing this - there's no denying that the loss of their queen is a big deal for the British. As I say, most people will only remember her on the throne. They've only ever had one queen, and yes, she's ruled the longest of any monarch in history, including her predecessor who bears her name, and Victoria. But then, what has she had to do to keep her crown? Nothing. What attempts have been made to depose her? None. How many wars has she fought, prosecuted, or prevented? Same answer: none. So what did her "Platinum Jubilee" represent? Seventy years of not dying, basically. Not a great achievement, in my book.

However, as I say, let's push all that to one side. British people are hurting right now*, mourning the loss of their queen, and we should recognise that. And it would be churlish and indeed disingenuous of me, in a journal which catalogues the history of England, not to mark the event. So we need to depart from the timeline, leaving the imminent arrival of William the Conqueror on English shores, and move almost a thousand years into the future, our present, to look back at the life of what is likely to be, for the foreseeable future anyway, Britain's last queen.

April 21 1926 was the date when the baby Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born into the world, the first daughter of King George VI, though at this time he was only Duke of York, and would not succeed to the throne for another ten years. Somewhat like her sixteenth-century Tudor predecessor, Elizabeth was not expected to reign. There were two in line before her, her own father George and his brother, her uncle, Edward. The latter ascended to the throne first, but a constitutional crisis involving him and a divorced woman became a famous scandal, and led to the first-ever - and to date, only -abdication of a British monarch. George then became king.

George VI would then be king at a time when England, and Britain, faced its darkest days, as Winston Churchill and the Royal Air Force held out against the massed hordes of the German Luftwaffe, prelude to a Nazi invasion of the island, the final bastion of freedom remaining in Europe at the time. It's fair to say George played no real part in that eventual victory, though it would also be fair to say he did give the British people heart through his famous speeches on the radio.

In a similar fashion perhaps to her illustrious ancestor, Victoria, Elizabeth fell in love with a foreigner, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, and the relationship was frowned upon. Philip had no financial standing of his own, and links through his sisters to the Nazi party. Despite all this, the two were in love and the marriage took place in 1947, just after the war had ended. Almost exactly a year later the couple had their first child, Charles, who was styled Prince Charles and has just become King Charles III. Two years after his birth he had a sister, Princess Margaret.

From 1951 onwards King George's health was in decline and his daughter often stood in for him in official capacities. When he died in 1953, Elizabeth came to the throne as Queen Elizabeth II on June 2. She began her reign, as her father had ended his, and most of the monarchs before him too, with very little power, but a lot to do. She was the symbol of Britain, and as the new queen it was important she be seen, so she spent most of her time on tour, as it were, becoming the first reigning monarch to visit her territories of Australia and New Zealand, where people went wild, turning out in droves to see her. She ended up being the British monarch who visited the most countries and states in history, but then, with no power to hold onto back home and no threat to her crown, what else was there to do? At the beginning of her reign Elizabeth did retain the power to choose a successor as Prime Minister, and when Anthony Eden resigned over the Suez crisis in 1957 she chose Harold McMillan, though it should be understood this was not a unilateral decision, but made in concert with the Cabinet and the Conservative Party Council. These days, they just decide among themselves and then go to the palace to get her royal seal, but the deal has been done long before they walk through the royal gates.

In 1960 Elizabeth gave birth to her third child, Andrew, and four years later Edward joined the family. It's true to say that Elizabeth presided over the disintegration of the British Empire, though she had no control over events. People who had sworn - or been made or compelled to swear - allegiance to the British crown now wanted their independence, and African and Caribbean countries began to sue for self-governance, so that by about 1978 there was little left of what was now termed "the British Commonwealth". Despite celebrating her silver jubilee in 1977, things were not rosey in the garden. A communist spy was discovered to have been operating almost literally under the royal nose, as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt was tried for treason but for some reason which I'm not going to research now was granted immunity from prosecution. Elizabeth did however strip him of his knighthood. That same year she had to deal with the death of Lord Henry Mountbatten, killed when a bomb planted by the IRA on his boat exploded.

In 1981 she was herself the victim of an attempted assassination, though apparently the bullets used were blanks (why would you bother? Honestly?) and again when she visited New Zealand later that year. This time the bullets were real, but the marksmanship was not. The would-be assassin missed, and after being sentenced to three years in an asylum escaped and tried to do for the future King of Britain too when he planned to shoot down Prince Charles. Evidence of the lack of influence the Queen had over other heads of state, and indeed quite likely the lack of power Britain had to resist the USA, came in 1983 when then-President Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada, one of her commonwealth possessions, without informing her. Okay, the Canadian Prime Minister of the time claimed she was a "behind the scenes force" in ending the apartheid regime in South Africa. I don't know how much of that is true and how much is spin, but if more true than not, then I guess you have to give that one to her. How exactly she achieved such an object is a matter of speculation though.

During the 1980s the amount of esteem the public, or at least the tabloid newspapers, held the royal family in became apparent, as every other day brought headlines of scandal within the palace - real or made up, it really didn't seem to matter; Britons will believe what they read in The Sun or The Star or The Mirror as easily and with as little investigation or challenge as Americans will believe Fox News -and the whole thing became a sort of living soap opera. Not that every story was made up, or that the royal family did not give fuel for the fire, with Princess Anne divorcing her husband, Prince Andrew separating from his wife, and finally Prince Charles kicking Diana to the kerb. The institution that had once been viewed with awe, respect and fear and later at least reverence and regard became one of ridicule and gossip. Like the part of Windsor Castle destroyed by fire in 1992, leading her to describe the year as her anus horribilis- wait, what? Oh sorry: that should read annus horribilis - horrible year, the reputation of and regard for the monarchy was beginning to burn down. People began to question why they were being taxed to pay the enormous salaries of these people who basically did nothing and lived off their backs? An underswell of republican sentiment began to rumble through this green and pleasant land, and while they weren't exactly rolling guillotines out into Leicester Square, people were far from happy with their rulers.


In her travels, Elizabeth scored many firsts. She was the first reigning British monarch to visit China, the first to go to Russia, but when she made a trip to India old enmities boiled over into protest, particularly at the site of the Amritsar Massacre, where hundreds or possibly thousands of peaceful protesters were slaughtered by the British Indian Army in 1919. In 1997, the same year she visited India, Princess Diana, now divorced from her son, was killed in a high-speed car chase. Despite having a state funeral, the silence of the Queen after the funeral and the refusal to fly a flag at half-mast over the palace gained her public condemnation. It was perceived that she was treating her late, divorced daughter-in-law coldly and that she no longer really wished her to be associated with the royal family. Whatever the truth - or not - of that, the Queen's reputation suffered because of it, and she was forced to make a public address to state her position and appear more warm and maternal towards the late princess. In some ways, people never forgave her for this. They may have loved their Queen, but they loved Diana much more, and to see her, or perceive her being snubbed in such a way cut to the heart of British outrage. To a large degree, the Queen's reputation never recovered from this.

In 2011, to much protest, none of which was listened to by our government, Elizabeth made the first state visit of a British monarch to Ireland. Well, the first of one who didn't want to crush, convert, invade or kill us, or all four. Prince Philip died in 2021, and unlike her government (and ours) Elizabeth strictly observed Covid-19 protocols, attending his funeral alone. You have to give her credit for that. Elizabeth celebrated her Platinum Jubilee in February of this year, marking seventy years on the throne, the longest of any reigning British monarch. Britain had only just got over all the pomp, excitement and pageantry when they were suddenly dealing with her passing, as the Queen became ill on September 8* and died hours later. No cause was given, though Her Majesty had been in poor health for some time, cancelling engagements and curtailing her traditional state visits. She had also contracted Covid, though this was not said to have played any part in her illness. Then again, she was ninety-six, so her age would not have helped towards any sort of full recovery.

On the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, her son and heir, Charles, formerly Prince Charles, has become King Charles III and is officially crowned since today* as the new King of Britain. For the first time in seventy years, Britain has a male monarch on the throne. Charles accedes to the throne at age of seventy-three, (surely the oldest monarch to do so?) but he has his own heir in his son William, Duke of Cambridge and now Duke of Cornwall (I don't know if one title supersedes the other, or if he holds both). To the best of my knowledge (and it's not great on the recent British monarchy) I think Charles' consort, Camilla Parker Bowles, now officially Queen Camilla, is the first "commoner" to sit beside a King of Britain, as in, she has no title, or had none before marrying Charles. What the British people think of that, I can only guess at.

The official state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II takes place on Monday, September 19* at Westminster Abbey. Until then, ten days of mourning have been proclaimed throughout Britain, but what that means officially I have no clue, as businesses, public services, sports fixtures and public venues have been told they are under no obligation to close, nor are banks, or anywhere, really, other than royal residences.

It just remains, then, for me to offer my condolences to the people of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, and to place the full stop at what is certainly, for most people, the end of an era.

* At time of writing.

[Trollheart]

Part Two: The Fallen Crown: New World Rising

"No-one would have believed, in the sixth decade of the eleventh century, that English affairs were being watched from the shores of France. Few men even considered the possibility of an attack by the Vikings. And yet, across the English Channel, military minds immeasurably superior to theirs watched that island with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against them."

(With apologies to H.G. Wells and Jeff Wayne)

Chapter IV: Under the French Heel, Part One
Ruled Britannia: The Third, and Final,  Conquest of Britain

If there is one date, or at least one year every school kid in Britain knows, it's 1066. That was, of course, the year of the famous Battle of Hastings, in which not only English but European life changed forever. The Crown of Wessex, as already detailed the last time we stepped into the history of England, had fallen, and though for a short time others such as the House of Godwin and the House of Denmark carried on, there was about to be a seismic event which would change English politics, policy and the lives of every Englishman and Englishwoman, and in the process both give rise to an enduring hero of legend, and more practically, change the shape of Europe, and even further afield, leaving its mark on the western world for all time. In some ways, you could say that though the Vikings failed to conquer Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries, they did eventually manage it, and more completely than they could ever have hoped to do. By then, though, they had settled in France and become known by another name: the Normans.

The future Kings of England, who would rule unopposed in pretty much an unbroken line for another six hundred years, traced their claim to the throne back to a - mostly disputed, never proven - promise that William, Duke of Normandy,  would be made king on the death of Edward, an assurance supposedly given by Harold Godwinson, who then tried the throne out for size and thought "You know, this ain't bad. Fuck that William. May I may be shot through the eye with an arrow before any damned frog sits on this throne!" Right. Anyway, you've read about that in the previous chapter, haven't you? But before we get to that broken (if ever made) promise and what it meant for England, and wider Europe, just who the damned hell were these Normans? Oh, glad you asked.

Pirates to Princes: The Rise of the Normans

As everyone knows, and as I've already told you, the Normans were the descendants of those jolly old folk, everyone's favourite raiders, five stars in Rape and Pillage Monthly and beloved of shipwrights, the Vikings. Having somewhat failed to hammer down the English like their poster boy, Thor, god of thunder, the Vikings had, in the early tenth century, decided to seek easier pickings to the east. Not very far east, just a hop over the English Channel where they said "Bonjour! Vous est morte!" or something and began harrying the French. They could not have really been expecting an easy conquest, and Vikings generally went where they thought they could pick a decent fight. True, if they could just slaughter and carry off treasure, then that was sehr gut, or something, and Lindisfarne and other monasteries along the coast of England provided them with little to no resistance. But Vikings were at heart warriors, and there's nothing really brave or particularly honourable about slaying men who wore dresses and shrieked like girls from the barest flesh wound, a simple cut deep into the shoulder and through bone, the kind of thing no self-respecting Viking would allow him to stop raping, pillaging and plundering to take care of. Doctor? What's that?

In France, they got the fight they had been craving. Many of them, in fact. Although they folded like umbrellas a millennium later when Hitler's wehrmacht rolled over Europe, at this time there were few fighting machines like the French one, and one thing they loved to do was defend their towns and cities, especially the jewel of la belle france. So when heavily-armed Vikings came sailing up the Seine, they shouted "Non!" and gave them what for. So much so, in fact, that really, the Vikings never managed to conquer France, and had to end up settling there with the permission of the French king. And most of that was probably down to these two.

Odo (857 - 898)

You've got to love the French. They had three kings, all succeeding one another, all called Charles, so rather than give them numerals, as later became the trend, they identified them by their, ah, characteristics. So we had Charles the Bald being succeeded by Charles the Simple and then Charles the Fat. Oh, and there was also Hugh the Abbot, who was, well, an abbot. Of course he was. Was there a Charles the Costello? No of course there wasn't; don't be silly. Okay, he was never king, just regent. Oh, and Odo's father was Robert the Strong. And for you Star Trek fans, no, he wasn't called Odo the Shapeshifter. Wrong journal. Originally the Count of Paris, he was crowned king after the Siege of the capital, in which he drove back the Viking invaders.

The Siege of Paris (885 - 886)

It should probably be understood that at this time the Kingdom of Francia was not France, but was in fact the territory of the Franks, and encompassed what would become France, also Germany and part of Italy. Most, in fact, so far as I can see, of Western Europe, with the exception of Spain and Portugal. In 843 West Francia became a separate kingdom, which would evolve in time into France, and Paris was its capital city. In 845 the Vikings reached Paris for the first time, and attacked it, eventually sacking the city. How they carried a whole city away in sacks is something historians still debate to this day, but the French (we'll just call them that for handiness' sake, all right? I know they were the West Francians or Franks or whatever, but this is easier) decided that the Seine was too easy a conduit for those big longships to sail up and menace their beloved capital, so Odo's father, Robert the Strong, started having bridges built across the river, thus impeding Viking progress up the Seine and also making of them something of a target.

When Robert fell in battle in 866, his son Odo was made Count of Paris, and when Charles the Bald died in 877 he was succeeded by the other Charles, the fat one, who had barely had time to get comfortable on the throne before those annoying Vikings were back, shouting and halloooing and attacking up the river again. This time though, they meant business, and they weren't going to be driven away by a few poxy bridges. Some say they had 700 ships, but those who hadn't drunk too much wine thought it more like 300, still a big fleet and sure to put the willies up any Frenchman seeing them sailing up the Seine, shouting and hallooing and, you know.

As Count of Paris, Odo undertook the city's defence, and though outnumbered (even 300 ships would have carried about 15,000 men, and he had barely 200 at his command) he managed to drive them back. The Vikings had by now settled on a form of protection racket, where they arrived in a town or city and promised not to burn it to the ground and kill every living soul if they were paid off. It was called tribute back then, but it's the same principle as "ooops! Now look what you made me do!" that helped gangs to terrorise shop-keepers in the next few centuries. Anyway, Odo told them where they could stick their requests for a payoff, and possibly after enquiring whether he had anything to do with the All-Father, his name being so similar and all, and if so, could he put in a good word with Odin to aid them in their quest to burn Paris to the ground, the Vikings withdrew and set up a siege.

They mined the river (how did they work if they were on it? Oh right: they had camped on the other side of it. Still, they'd have to go out on it if they wanted to renew their attack. Seems a little self-destructive, possibly literally so). Hold on just one wench-chasing, axe-wielding, tankard-emptying minute son! How did they mine? This was the 9th century! What kind of explosives were available in the 9th century? I'll tell you what kind: none. But the account just says they mined the river, so who am I to question? Though I do. Get no answer to my question however. Bloody typical. Anyway, they used siege engines, catapults and sneering sarcasm probably, but nothing would induce the French to surrender. The city was probably unable to support a bribe, not when they had a king called Charles the Fat, and also knew what happened to those who gave in to the Vikings. So they fought on. The Vikings used battering rams and fire, but the French had a secret weapon: a cross! Yes, the Bishop of Paris planted a crucifix in the outer defences and called on all Christian men to resist the heathen invader. That'd show 'em!

The siege continued on into Christmas and the New Year, the Vikings trying everything to gain access, including shoring up the shallow part of the river with dead bodies (kind of lends new meaning to "close the wall up with our English dead", doesn't it?) but to no avail. They even had a shot at sending burning ships - the dreaded "fireships" - against the wooden bridge, but the damn things sank before they reached the structure, thanks Olaf the Lazy Shipwright! Odin, however, must have been bored, because he took an interest and sent rain that swelled the river and wrecked the bridge. Down it came and in came the Vikings. Go for it, lads! And they did. Seeing their plight was now somewhat up a certain creek without a certain instrument, Odo sent men to Charles, looking for reinforcements. They arrived, but after marching from Germany were too shagged to do any fighting, and sat down for a breather, no doubt to the massed mocking laughter of men who had wrestled ice giants in legend and drank the ocean possibly.

However, they weren't laughing by April, when one of the leaders declared "Fuck this lads, I'm bollocksed with all this sieging. Vikings weren't meant to siege. In and out, hit 'em fast and hard, fuck off back home, that's for me. Hell with this. Who wants their city anyway? Only full of pox-ridden whores, mimes and snooty Frenchmen. I don't really fancy eating frog's legs for the rest of my life, do you?" And with that, he was gone. But it wasn't all roses for the French either. As it tends to do when food runs low and sanitation is at best basic, disease began to break out in the city and the poor old bishop snuffed it. Odo decided to head to Old Fatso's palace, asking for more help. Charles' attendants looked on with horror as the big fat bastard agreed, envisioning the block and tackle and sheer disregard for physics it was going to take to get the king on his horse (his horse would not have been too pleased either) but somehow they managed it and off they went. They attacked and fought their way into the city, turned and mounted its defence.

Realising, as fresh armies arrived in the summer, that there was no way they were getting into Paris without wearing a tie and being on the guest list, the remaining Viking leader, Rollo, of whom we will hear more presently, gave up and, allowed by the king to head up the Seine to attack Burgundy - a handy way of putting down a pesky revolt that had erupted there - he eventually paid him off, (Odo possibly thinking "what the fuck did you do that for? I could have paid him and saved all those lives but I didn't, and now you just fork over the cash? Just wait till I'm king you fat...") but either way, the important thing was that the almost year-long siege was over. And more importantly, Paris had not fallen.

As part of the story of how Odo then became king, it's amusing to chronicle what happened to Charles the Fat. After he paid off the Vikings he was persona non grata (or possibly persona gras, sorry) in the capital, and fell out of favour. When he tried to have his bastard son Bernard made the legitimate heir to the throne in 885, the bishops, to a man, said oh no you fucking don't pal. No fat bastard - excuse our French - will sit on the throne of France while we have breath in our bodies. Unfortunately for them, their boss, Pope Hadrian III, declared that he would recognise the kid, and as long as he had breath in his body nobody would dare to defy him. Then suddenly he had no breath in his body, as, on the way to sort out the bishops and proclaim Bernard the Bastard as the new king, he sort of died (doesn't say whether this was of natural causes, an accident or whether some disgruntled bishop slipped deadly nightshade into his wine or something) and put a real crimp in Charles' plans. Would it be unfair and unkind to mention he was on the way to Worms, but before he got there ended up as future food for worms? It would? Tough. You should know me by now, and if you still don't then just get used to it: this is how I roll.

[Trollheart]

Trolls, I haven't read the whole thing obviously so correct me if you've already answered this, but why have you referred to England as an 'Isle' in the title and why have you used the Union Jack as the flag?

Hmm. Isle because it's an island (well, Britain is) and I'm also quoting some unremarkable and forgotten poet called Shakespeare on it.

"This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."
Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1

Also, "this sceptred isle - apart from to the north and that bit on the west, think they call it Wales" doesn't hang the same ring to it.

The Union Jack just more or less stands for the English flag, though I know you'll correct me and tell me it's the British flag. Meh, it just looks better. I know it should be the flag of St. George or whatever; just allow me my little bit of artistic licence, if you will.

Hopefully you will read this journal though, cos your country's history is fucking fascinating, and I'm really enjoying researching it.

[Trollheart]

Another who supported the legitimisation of Bernard was a Benedictine monk called Notker the Stammerer, but nobody paid him any attention, as you could never tell what he was saying. In fact (drum roll) you could say that they did Not ker about his views! Ba-tish! Yeah, well anyway, Charles continued to try to circumvent the fact that he had no actual legitimate children by attempting to cook the books, inserting the word proles (offspring) into the charters, but nobody was fooled. Specially as he did it in blue biro possibly. He then chummed up to Hadrian's successor, Pope Stephen V, but though he agreed to meet him the new pope pulled out at the last minute, possibly claiming he was washing his cassock or something. Charles then plumped for adoption, making Louis of Provence his heir for some reason, but Pope Stephen wagged his finger and said no way pal, not blessing that line of succession!

All this bumbling and fumbling around, trying desperately to get someone to carry on your dynasty, from a man who had never been a great king anyway (well, great in the sense of being fat, but it's widely reported most if not all of his crowns fell to him without any real effort, and he never waged any proper war or got his nose bloodied like any self-respecting monarch) people began to look elsewhere for an heir. Odo headed down to his palace in 887, and may have been confirmed heir there. Either way, there was trouble a-plenty at Chez Charles, as he first accused his wife of infidelity. Having proven her innocence through trial by fire, she quite rightly told him where he could stick it and sodded off to a nunnery. Then he pounced on his hated enemy, Liutward his archchancellor, first minister and also bishop of Vercelli, with whom he had accused his - now proven innocent and convent-bound - wife of having an affair. Nobody liked him, so it was not any hardship to kick his ass out of court. Which he did. Probably with relish. He then replaced him with Liutbert, which really makes me think it was just the archchancellor wearing a funny wig. I mean, come on!

Proof that he was either desperate or losing it, or both, surfaces when you realise that Louis II, Louis of Provence, whom he wished now to make his heir, was, well, blind, as evidenced by that quaint French custom of naming someone after their main trait, so he was called Louis the Blind. Blind drunk? No, just blind. I wonder what they would have called me? Trollheart the Arsehole, probably. Anyway I digress. Adding to old Fat Boy's woes, one of his nephews decided he fancied the throne and went to war against him. History doesn't record what happened, but it probably involved a lot of huffing and puffing on Charles' part, a sort of "hold on till I get my breath, would you, there's a good lad" and stuff like that. In the end, to nobody's surprise, and probably not even his own, he was deposed, and that was that.

His fall wrecked the Frankish empire, as claimants and challengers to this and that throne popped up all over the place, and the empire disintegrated into separate kingdoms and countries, one of which became West Francia and later France. Which brings us back to our mate Odo.

Elected as the new king of that new country, he went about tearing the Vikings a new one, but as ever, heavy rests the head or something, and yet another Charles wanted to be king. Simple. Yeah. Charles the Simple. Doesn't sound like the kind of guy you want sitting on the throne, does it? I don't know if his title meant simple in the way of the brain, or that he was an uncomplicated man. Tell you what: let's find out, shall we? Well he was also called Charles the Straightforward, so I think we're looking more at a sort of direct, Meerkat Market sort of simple than the drooling, idiotic smile variety. Charles is however important, so we will come back to him very shortly. Meanwhile, Odo was crowned in 888 and would rule for ten years, though as I say his reign would be marred by his struggle against Charles.

In fact, I can't see that he had that great a time after saving Paris. He ended up looking for the support of the king of East Francia, Arnulf, but he must have insulted his wife or his wine or something (Frenchman, more likely the wine) as Arnulf instead threw his lot in with Charles, and Odo was forced to concede territory on the Seine to him. He had battled Arnulf for three years, and on the fourth he died, in 898. That left the throne Charles' for the taking. And he took.


Charles III, Charles the Simple (879 - 929)

We've already spoken a little about him above, but here are some more funny facts. He was preceded by - wait for this - Louis the Child, who wasn't a child. Though he was when he ascended the throne - probably with a bit of a bump-up from someone; he was only six, and died at eighteen. What a bummer. What did he die of? He died of a Tuesday. No, seriously, let's see. Died of terminal depression, it says here. Wow. If an eighteen-year old king can die of depression, how many of his subjects must have kicked the bucket? Anyway enough about him, as he's really not important except for me to point a finger and laugh at. Back to Charles the Simple. His dad was another stammerer, Louis the Stammerer - was he king? Yes. Yes he was, and by all accounts, though not a man to make waves or any impact of any sort, you kind of can't argue with the words of Herman Munster, sorry Sebastian Munster that  "he was a sweet and simple man, a lover of peace, justice and religion."

Oh for the love of - another child! This time Charles the Child, whom Louis succeeded as King of Aquitaine. He also died at age 18, though not from depression, unless you count being depressed by having been hit in the head by a sword while fooling around in mock combat with your own men! The incident left him a little doolally, and he passed away in 866. But as for Charles the Simple, well, he was destined to make his mark on history. Hey, at least he had a mother with a decent name - Adelaide of Paris, because, you know, she was from Paris. In the year 911 (shut up) Paris was again besieged, and again by Rollo, who had come back to finish the job. After Charles had kicked his arse he decided to negotiate with Rollo, and granted him all the land between the river Epte and the sea, and the Duchy of Brittany, naming it all as the new Duchy of, you guessed it, Normandy. Anyone singing "Pass the Dutchie" can leave right now, I'm serious. We don't need your kind here. Where was I? Oh yeah.  In return for this grant, Rollo and all his men were to swear fealty to France, and he himself was to be baptised as a Christian and take Charles' daughter Gisela as his wife.

It was quite clever of Charles to grant Rollo and the Vikings-soon-to-be-Normans the Duchy of Brittany (yeah, you can go too. You! The one singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time"! Out!), as this was at the time an independent kingdom he had been trying without success to conquer. Now all he had to do was sit back and let his new Viking/Norman allies conquer it for him. Well, for them, but it amounted to the same thing. That year, 911,  is also the one in which our friend Louis the Child comes, briefly, back into the picture. With his death, the East Francians elected him king, as they didn't fancy Conrad I. Well, this is not quite true. Bloody fragmented kingdoms within fragmented kingdoms! Right. Lotharingia was part of East Francia, and they were the ones who elected Charles their king, but essentially saw him as king of all East Francia. This didn't bother Conrad too much, not because he didn't care but because he was too busy fighting off claims to his throne, and not only from Charles, but within his own kingdom. So in one way - probably a very wrong way - you could make a very tentative case for Charles the Simple, being technically but not really king of both East and West Francia as being the first actual king of all of France. But you'd be wrong. Also it didn't last. After Conrad kicked it, it looks like Saxons or some form of Germans anyway took East Francia, and it then either became Germany or was subsumed into it.

Despite six tries, our Charles just couldn't muster up a son - daughter, daughter, daughter, daughter, daughter... hold on, hold on! Could it be? Is it poss - nah. Another daughter - so like kings everywhere at that time he blamed it on his wife and dumped her to marry another woman, this time the daughter of an English king. English gels knew how to do it right, and out popped an heir, first time of asking. Jolly good show! This boy would go on to rule as Louis IV, but I don't think he was one of the Bourbon dynasty kings, the likes of Louis the Sun King XIV and zut alors! Where's me head Louis XVII, and since I'm not writing the history of France (yet!) I don't really care.

A sad end really for Charles. His own brother Robert marched against him, with the backing of the nobles who had really got pissed off at him for doling out land that was theirs by right, and though Robert was killed in the ensuing battle, Charles was captured and died in prison in 921. Not a very fitting way to end your reign, even if it was a simple one.

But one thing Charles would always be remembered for was for the basic creation of the Norman state, which would go on to cause such misery and hardship in England (and, by extension, Ireland, Scotland and Wales) but which would also fundamentally change Europe and most of the western world.

[Trollheart]

Rollo (c. 835/87- - 928/933)

All right, let's just get this out of the way, for those of you who have seen Vikings and think "Oh yeah, that's Ragnar's brother!" He wasn't. At least, so far as history can ascertain (and you can see from the dates of his birth and death that there's not even agreement on those), Ragnar may or may not have lived (I think I went into this earlier, pretty sure I did) but if he did, he wasn't around at the same time Rollo was. Rollo can be definitely traced to a proper historical figure though, and so we have a lot more certainty about him than we do about Ragnar. Some facts about him that Vikings got right are that he was a giant of a man, nicknamed "The Walker", as it was said he was too big for any horse to carry, that he did attack Paris (as we've seen above) and was the father of the Norman dynasties. He also contributed to the history of England in a way which will link us back to 1066, if you'll just bear with me.

But to understand the Normans, and why they so easily defeated the English at Hastings, as I said, we have to know more about them, and it starts with Rollo. We've already seen a pencil sketch of him; we know he was a Viking lord who changed tactics from harrying the English to harrying the French (no doubt to a great big "huzzah!" from the English, one they would live to very much retract and regret) and that he besieged Paris. Unable to take it he came to a compromise with Charles the Fat and settled in the area of France (well, West Francia as it was known at the time) which came to be known as Normandy. But they're only the barest bones, so let's put the flesh on this skeleton.

Although he is definitely believed to have come from Scandinavia (duh, historians!) nobody can say for sure if it was Norway or Denmark where he was born. He was referred to as "Rollo the Dane", but then, Dane was a general catch-all label for all Vikings that Europeans used, regardless of their country of birth (which they were unlikely to have known anyway; it's not like they would ask, as they fended off a blow from a huge axe with a shield, "By the way, where was it you said you came from again?") so that's no proof of anything. There does seem to be evidence to suggest he was chased, harried out of or exiled from Scandinavia though, and the first time contemporary history picks him up is attacking Paris in that siege. There are other accounts, but you know historians: two or three corroborating sources at least please, or we're not interested.

So whatever he did before arriving on the shores of France is mostly unknown, and kind of unimportant anyway, as it is really from the time he became a Norman - the first, you could say - that we're interested in him. So what happened after Charles said to him "That bit there, down to there, that bit, that, you might have to fight for that bit, they don't like me and I haven't been able to subdue them but I'm sure you could. Oh, and that bit too. But not that one. That's mine."? We know Rollo was baptised and became a Christian, and that he then took the daughter of the king for his wife. Before this, there is an account of him carrying off the daughter of the Count of Rennes (well, what self-respecting Viking - still a Viking at this point, 876 - wouldn't carry off a beautiful woman? Went with the territory) and marrying her, she giving him a son, but our friendly historians believe this may be what they term "quasi-bollocks", meaning it might or might not be true, depending on how many rounds you're prepared to buy.

Stories, too, of his friendship with an English king, originally identified as Alstem, later seemingly confirmed as Athelstan, (look, just don't start, all right? The things that show got wrong...) the Danish leader Guthrun whom Alfred the Great baptised and then renamed. Again, this could be true or just "qb", and again it really doesn't matter, because dial the emergency services or stand outside Ground Zero: 911 is the year we're most interested in, as this becomes Year Zero for the creation of the Norman State.

Once the lands had been granted to him, Rollo (now baptised as Robert, but it doesn't seem like he's ever referred to as anything other than Rollo) decided it was time to put manners on the other Vikings in France and show them who was boss. When Charles the Simple was kicked off the throne though, Rollo thought his deal was over, and so it was hell for leather across West Francia as he pushed the borders of his new realm outwards. Eventually the new king sued for peace, giving Rollo more land. Because of their close connection with the native French, Rollo's descendants clove to the Catholic tradition, one of many reasons why England would become, for almost four hundred years, a Catholic country.

Rollo died, cause unknown, sometime between 923 and 928. His great-great-grandson was called William, and this is where we return, as it were, by a circuitous route, to the end of English rule and the coming of the Normans to England in 1066.

But of course, it wouldn't be like me to just go for Hastings now would it? Of course not. First we need to talk about himself.



William I, aka William the Conqueror (1028 - 1087)

The man who would change English politics and start a dynasty that would last centuries lost his father early, when the Duke of Normandy, Robert I (also known humbly as Robert the Magnificent) died on the way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035. Before departing, Robert had declared William his heir, and extracted from all his nobles a promise to uphold his claim, therefore WIlliam became Duke on the death of his father at the tender age of seven years. There's no such thing, so far as I know, as a regent for a duke, so though he was far too young to rule, William had to take on the job. He did however have allies, in Archbishop Robert, his great-uncle, and the king himself, Henry I. Things took a turn for the worse though when Robert died in 1037, and the duchy descended into anarchy.

William fell under the protection of various guardians, including Alan of Brittany and Gilbert of Brionne, and others, all summarily slain as the young duke's enemies tried to get to him. He eventually had to seek the protection of the king, but when grown he returned with him in 1047 and retook Normandy, defeating his enemies. He spent five years hunting them down and consolidating his power, but then that power became just a little too consolidated for the king's liking, and, fearing the power the young duke was building up in Normandy, Henry teamed up with his enemies against William. William proved himself an able commander and a charismatic leader, resulting in some of his former enemies joining him against Henry (turnabout is, after all, fair play) and his battle finally came to an end when both the king and his main ally Geoffrey of Anjou died in 1060.

In 1049 William had married Matilda of Flanders, cementing his alliance with Germany, though His Holiness Pope Leo IX, for some reason, refused to allow the marriage. He went ahead anyway, sort of taking a future page from one of his successors, Henry VIII, though he stopped short of creating his own Church.

Eve of the, um, Battle

It's always struck me as odd that a simple duke should decide to invade England. Was this not the prerogative of the king? Was it not kings who invaded and tried to take crowns from other kings? I suppose it's quite possible that if you look through history there have been some instances of other nobles invading foreign countries, but I would have thought that would have been a prelude to their king coming over and sitting on the throne? Did the French king give his blessing to, or even permission for, such a huge and potentially world-changing action? Who was even king at this time? Let's see. Hmm. Philip I is shown as being "king of the Franks" but there's no reference to his being involved in William's campaign. I suppose it's possible he had other things to worry about. William probably didn't feel he owed him any real fealty anyway, as Normandy was essentially all but a separate state, and powerful, so maybe Philip just let him go his own way. I'll try to research that a bit further later, because I find it strange. Would, for instance, say maybe Cnut or Alfred the Great allowed one of their dukes or barons to boogie over to France and try to take the crown? Sounds unlikely.

Then again, perhaps given the story that William had been promised the English crown, his boss thought maybe it gave him that right. Perhaps Philip was too busy fighting (or, considering his suffix, "the amorous", engaged in other activities) and just said "Sure if he promised ye the crown, you go and take it like a good man there, and leave me alone." Why he should have suddenly gained a Dublin accent we will never know. But there is no mention of him, whether he approved, disapproved or was totally oblivious to the ambitions of the Duke of Normandy, and it does appear, on the surface anyway, that he just left him to it.

Winding our way across the Channel and back to Merry Old England, it will possibly be remembered that we left the country in a state very much other than merry, as King Harold Godwinson was somewhat less than secure on the English throne, having in total three claimants to the Crown, one of which was his own half-brother. Four, in fact, if you include Edward Atheling, though he was only fourteen at the time. Tostig, the other brother, had been exiled, and we'll have a shufty at him in a moment. The third claimant, as already discussed in the previous chapter, was the king of Norway, Harold Bastard Hard, I mean Harold Hardrada. He had made an agreement with his uncle, King Magnus, that should Harthacnut die without an heir, then his son would take the crown, but should Magnus do the same, then his heir would be next in line for the throne.

It's been almost a year, and I'm getting a little confused, so let's recap on all these people and sort things out before we go any further.

First, Harthacnut: as everyone knows (and if you didn't know, then you would from his name) he was the son of Cnut, one of the wisest and longest-reigning kings of England, and the first ever Viking one. Harthacnut succeeded to the throne on the death of his half-brother Harold Harefoot, who had come to power after the great Cnut had passed away, he being his son by Aelfgifu, and Harthcnut being busy with trying to establish control in Norway. When Harold died, Harthacnut returned and took the throne, but only lasted seven years, dying, it appears, of terminal alcohol poisoning at a wedding.

Next up was Edward the Confessor, and he died childless, having decided to take a vow of chastity, which kind of threw the succession into chaos. They really needn't have worried, as William was on his way to sort out all their problems for them and take away forever the burden of ruling England. But anyway it was his brother, son of the late great Earl Godwin, and last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, did he but know it, Harold II, known as Harold Godwinson, who became his heir. Harold had to fight off an attempt by his namesake with different spelling, King Harald of Norway, then, having kicked his arse, may have thought, this French William will be a piece of cake. Shoot out my eye if - oh wait: I've done that one, haven't I?

So for whatever reason he was allowed, ignored or just went anyway, William decided the time was ripe to cash in on that "IOU 1 crowne of ye Englishe" and headed west, with a rather large army. His wife may have complained about not wanting to live in such a miserable rainy country, but history records his reply as "I'll give you miserable, you moaning old..." (the rest of the manuscript has sadly been lost to the ravages of time) and Hastings-bound he came.

[jimmy jazz]

Well I disagree with it obviously (and plenty of Welsh and Scots would too), it's part of an island but it's your journal. It just stood out to me cos that and the flag are pretty significant bits of information given the subject of the journal.

I will give it a read mate 👍

[Trollheart]

You can disagree with me but not with the Bard!   
I definitely take your point about the flag, though it's probably fair to say that those who aren't Welsh, Scottish or even Irish just look on the UJ as being the English flag, right or wrong.

[Trollheart]

Back to Harald we go. No, the other one. When he came over from Norway to kick the son of the Earl of Godwin (Godwinson, get it?) off the just-vacant English throne, he brought with him another enemy of the then-king, but paradoxically also a claimant, so not quite sure how that worked. Tostig has already been mentioned, Harold's brother whom he exiled from England, but who believed he jolly well had just as much a right to the crown as his sibling, dash it all, and decided to support the Norwegian king, perhaps in the hope he might be granted a duchy or a baronetcy or some damn title with a lot of land anyway. Okay, let's unpack this.

Tostig had come with his army to take the throne but had been driven off by his brother, and instead decided to head north, where there were always arses to kick. Unfortunately, these arses kicked back, so to speak, and Tostig was harried by the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, and he lost most of his men. He decided to go to Scotland and lick his wounds, and maybe see if he couldn't scare up some support there. The Scots were always on for a fight, after all, and there was little they hated more than the English. Of course, he was English too, so there was that. As it went, King Harald, the Norwegian one, was cooling his heels on the south coast, looking at his watch and wondering where the hell this WIlliam character was, said to meet him on the south coast 1066, and here it was and no sign of him. It was then that his men came to him and said "Look Your Majesty, we'd love to stay and die horribly in your service, get mutilated and maimed for life all to get you this throne your heart seems set on, but the thing is, we're militia, see, and, well, we have these crops that need to be harvested." So off they went to return to a much safer life as farmers (unless you happened to get in the way of the local lord, who might just that morning have arisen with an insatiable desire to mow down farmers, the things these lords get up to, I don't know) and Harald was kind of left armyless.

So he moseyed on up north, which seemed to be the in-place to go, where he met a rather despondent Tostig. "How many men you got?" he asked him possibly over a few pints of good dark ale (or, being the north, possibly grey ale, and also possibly not good). "Not much," belched Harald maybe. "A mere 300 ships, no more than 15,000 men." Tostig may have grinned and the two may even have clinked glasses, who knows? "That'll do for me," it's possible Tostig may have said, having perhaps spent too long among northerners, and so they banded together and went to kick the king out of the royal palace. As for William, well, Harald may have thought philosophically, he may turn up, he may not, but this guy has an army here and now, and I'll be buggered if I'm spending another season pulling my dick in this cold climate waiting for him.

At York, at the end of September, Tostig was able to have his revenge on the two earls, whom he and his new ally sent running like girls maybe as they roundly defeated them at the Battle of Fulford. Had they waited for Harold Godwinson, who had texted ahead saying there was heavy traffic on the A40 maybe, they might have triumphed, but as ever in English politics (and not just English of course) nobody trusted anybody else, and the two earls thought maybe Harold would set Tostig up as Earl of Northumbria. The other earl, Edwin of Mercia, may have shrugged that that would suck, but what had it to do with him, and may have been answered by the reminder that there was also a Norwegian bastard involved, who might fancy Edwin's earldom. So stung into action, the two decided fuck Harold, we can take these two pussies.

They were wrong.

So when Harold did finally huff and puff his way up the motorway he found his allies nothing more than a rapidly-receding cloud of dust, with Harald and Tostig there going "Now, about this throne." They met at Stamford Bridge, and in true Chelsea home style, there was a massacre. 2-0 to the English king as he not only defeated Tostig and Harald, but killed them both. The exertion, however, left his forces depleted, and all he could probably think was that this would be the worst time for, say, an attack to come from across the sea.

He had barely a month to wait.

Of course, I'm sure we all understand well enough that it wasn't as if William texted Harold - "You, me, Hastings. Be there." In fact, neither probably had any idea where the decisive battle would be, and like any king (or in this case, duke, but soon to be king) landing on foreign shores he was invading, William had a lot of raiding and harrying and possibly raping to do as well before he got to grips with his enemy. His power had obviously grown by now, and I don't know whether you could call him the de facto king of France, but he was certainly able to muster men from Flanders, Brittany and other parts of France to fight for him, and though as ever historians disagree over the size of his force, it's generally accepted to have been somewhere between the 7,000 and 10,000 mark. Hard to be sure, as contemporary historians and present ones never get on: if they see each other at your local, watch out and hold onto your pint. Naturally, those on William's side would have been exaggerating to make him look more of a threat than he was, but it's never possible to be sure. So we stick with this range.

Doesn't seem that huge really. King Harald only brought about 15,000, and his army was considered large. Well, as they say, it's often not how big it is but where you stick it, and William stuck it to the English. Let's not forget Harold's men were also shagged out after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and a fresh army with a duke eyeing his crown was really the last thing he needed right now. Right now though, was exactly when William came, and he landed in England only a few days after the battle, Harold's army limping home and looking forward to putting their feet up with a cuppa and a copy of Soldier Times or whatever. Sussex was where he made his invasion, setting up a wooden castle (huh?) at Hastings and using it as a base for attack. Since this was Harold's stomping ground, the idea was to lure him there by wrecking everything around, levelling his relative's castles and basically causing shit all through the neighbourhood till the king came to ask them nicely to keep it down if they wouldn't mind, there were people trying to sleep, and Mildred at number ten had a newborn that just would not fucking stop crying.

But when he got the e-vite that was it, and it would be rude not to respond, so off he went to Hastings. He set up defensive camp on Saulac Hill, hoping to surprise William, but the duke's scouts were out and about and had probably recognised Harold due to the crown on his head or something. Anyway, they legged it back to tell their master the English ruler was on the way, and William rode out to meet them. It was October 14 1066, the day everything changed for England. In a stunning piece of irony, those little quirks history is wont to throw up from time to time, the place where the battle actually took place was called, um, Battle. It still is, and I assumed it had been renamed for the famous confrontation, but it seems it has always had that name. So in effect, it wasn't really the Battle of Hastings, but then, the Battle of Battle 1066 would just be silly, wouldn't it?

Anyway the battle lasted pretty much all day, and as you know, I don't do all this battlefield historians shite; not interested in who made a pincer movement or who cut off who from their forces, who took this flag or that ridge or any of that bollocks. But I'll see what I can pick out from the details, see if there is anything I should be writing and telling you about. Okay, I see there was a rumour started that William had been killed, and the army began to panic and retreat, the English pushing forward until the man himself appeared, shouting rather unnecessarily that he was alive, and led the counter-offensive as the English wet themselves and fled. Incredible as it may seem to us, but perhaps a totally English thing (and observed by the French too) the two armies appear to have broken for afternoon tea, taking a rest and getting their strength back. Bah! Wouldn't have happened at El Alamein, I can tell you that!

Nevertheless, once Harold went down that was that. Again with the differing accounts, but whether it's the truth or just the accepted one, the later Bayeux Tapestry has the famous drawing of the king being shot in the eye by an arrow and thus being killed. That may not be the case, but it's passed down into legend and popular history, and who am I to dispute it? Although some of his men rallied around the king's corpse and fought to the end, as in most battles, once the leader is slain the army is out of here, and so they were. William had won the day, and the last English king had bit the dust. A lot of long-winded explanations and theories over how and why William triumphed, but they seem to be mostly centred on the English attacking when they should have been defending (Newcastle United anyone?), being fooled by the feigned retreats the Normans pulled off during the battle, only to be led into an attack, and their lack of cavalry, which would always remain one of the Normans' biggest advantages.

A decisive and stirring victory it may have been, and indeed the beginning of the end for English rule, but if William thought the country was going to fold like a pack of cards and meekly accept a frog as their new sovereign, well, he was about to find out he was in error.

Edgar Atheling (1052 - 1125 or possibly later)

We've heard of him before. He was the son of Edgar the Exile who, once his exile was over, returned to England only to earn a new name: Edgar the Dead. With so many powerful claims to the throne on the death of Edward the Confessor, and he being so young, still in his teens, at the time, Edgar Atheling was not really considered a runner, and Harold Godwinson was crowned instead. When Harold fell, and William began his march towards London in order to take the crown that was possibly rightfully his but never mind if it wasn't, he had won it by right of combat, the English elected Edgar as king. He never ruled though. In Southwark he fought with the English for control of London Bridge, unable to gain access to the city, he expected to encounter only token resistance at the bridge, but one of the leaders of the defenders, a man called Ansgar (or Esegar), the sheriff of Middlesex, had been with Harold at Hastings, and had returned to Southwark to organise its defence.

William, somewhat nonplussed to see such a force arrayed against him - even the townsfolk were armed and joined the effort - offered Ansgar the sheriffship under his rule if he would submit to him, but Ansgar told him where to stick it and they attacked. You have to give it to this guy: he was so badly wounded he had to be carried around in a litter, and had been offered pretty generous terms by the victorious duke, soon to be his king. If he recognised him not only would he be allowed retain his lands, but he could also have a seat on the council. Now, you can't say fairer than that, can you? But England doesn't like invaders, especially ones who rub out their kings, and so there was no compromise.

It's possible those two earls, he of Mercia and the other of Northumbria, were there defending the town too, and though William's cavalry broke through, they faced such stiff opposition that they could not hold the bridge, so they set it ablaze, and Southwark was virtually razed to the ground. London continued to put up stiff resistance until the clergy, convinced by William that they should concede, swore their fealty and he was allowed enter the city. He was crowned the first Norman king of England on Christmas Day.

His first few years, however, were far from easy or peaceful. England had been battered into submission, with the only real alternative to William - now known forever more as "the Conqueror" - being the weak and ineffectual and inexperienced Edgar Atheling, and really nobody wanted to rally behind him. When William returned to Normandy in March though, the English took their chance and revolted here there and everywhere, leaving his half-brother Odo, (so far as I'm aware. no relation to he of the defence of Paris the previous century) and his partner, William Fitzosbern with rebellions to put down, which they did. William was back at the end of the year and took a hand in suppressing the revolts himself, the great strength of his policy being what would become a feature of Norman conquest, not only in England and Ireland but everywhere: he built castles and installed garrisons there, so that there was no chance of rebels getting too uppity again. If they did, there was a ready-made force there to take care of them.

But then there were rebellions and there were rebellions, and one definitely demanded his own personal attention.

The Harrying of the North: No Mercy from the Normans

In late 1069 the north rose. To almost paraphrase and parallel Game of Thrones, winter was coming and the north had united behind Edgar. I don't know if they proclaimed him "King in the North" or anything - most likely not; they'd have wanted him to have been recognised and acknowledged as king of all England - but they rallied and stood against William, still more or less at this point seen as an invader. England - and Ireland - would of course have cause to hate and revile the word Norman over the next few hundred years, even more than it had hated the word French. What became known as "the harrying of the north" was only the beginning.

[Trollheart]

Up to now, I've held the view of the English that they were the sworn enemies of France, but Wikipedia tells me this rivalry didn't really develop between the two countries until much later, culiminating in fact in the Hundred Years War (1337 - 1453), one of the major battles of which was of course that of Agincourt, where Henry V booted French bottom and neutralised most of their nobles. Returning to choruses of "Hoorah!" for the most unlikely victory since Reading kicked Manchester United out of the FA Cup, he was adored by his subjects, but the French never forgot and so began the hatred between both. Maybe.

Look, that might account for the official, sanctioned establishment of the "auld enemy", but I have to believe that the ordinary folk started hating the French a lot sooner, like once William got confortable on their throne and started issuing edicts and levying taxes left, right and centre, and sending helpful bands of soldiers out with burning torches to ensure those who didn't pay the taxes paid in other ways, or just when he was bored.

Since there was no actual English king now to raise any objections, you could probably say with some degree of truthfulness that England was more or less a French possession now, an occupied territory, though that occupation would be one of the longest in history, lasting over half a millennium. So no state reaction, sure, but as anyone who has watched any version of the adventures of Robin Hood (of whom we will speak much more later) can tell you, the poor English common man fucking hated the French, and it has to be from here that any sort of enmity grew for those "frog-eating, slimy, snail-bothering sons of degenerate Vikings" (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, just prior to being burned by William possibly). After all, if your country is invaded, conquered and then ruled by people who treat you as slaves and work and tax you into oblivion, how can you not hate them? Have you ever been to Ireland?

I suppose at this point it might be helpful to explain what "the north" comprised at the time. Borders and boundaries would be redrawn during William's reign, but at the time of his accession to the throne the north was Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmorland (see map above). Many of these places, you may remember, had been part of Danelaw, and occupied by Vikings in the time of Alfred and Aethelred and so on, and they had little taste to bend the knee to a French king. They possibly saw their Norman cousins as Vikings who had submitted themselves to France, and were no longer worthy of the warrior race. Or maybe they just didn't like William, who knows? Either way, they weren't having it.

One of the main points of contention was the earldom of Northumbria. This area had been a trouble spot since the days of Danelaw, often allying against the king, and by this time it had changed hands three times since the days of Tostig (remember him?). The first had been when a supporter of his, with the unlikely name of Copsi (sounds like a character from Beatrix Potter!) took over, swearing fealty to William, having fought Harold with Harald, as it were, on the side of Tostig at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. But the north was against William, and within weeks of being made the new earl Cosplay sorry Pepsi sorry Copsi was killed, replaced by Osulf, who was in turn murdered and the earldom then bought by his cousin, Cospatrick. Who promptly offered his allegiance to Edgar. And so here we were.

William, having had quite enough of these Anglo-fucking-Saxons and their treachery and treason (there's always an excuse for it) rode to Northumbria and Edgar and Cospatrick and assorted allies all scattered, making a beeline for Scotland, where the king, Malcolm II, always happy to stick it to an English monarch, especially a new one finding his feet, said "Come on in, all o' ye! Sure ye'll find braw shelter at mah hearth, ye ken!" or something. William then solved the problem of the Earldom of Northumbria by conferring it on someone he could trust, a Norman. Job done.

Or not quite. Secure now in his new position, Robert de Comines rode into Durham and swiftly adn brutally learned that the one thing the north did not like was a fucking Frenchman trying to lord it over them. So that was the end of him, and the beginning of a resurgence of the revolt. The rebels then burned York castle, which really ticked William off and he rode back, snarling "That fucking castle cost me a lot to build, you English bastards!" And someone may have whispered in his ear so that he added, shrugging "Oh. Right. Yeah. And you killed my newly-appointed earl, too!"

As it often does, rebellion spread, so other towns rose in support of Edgar, who turned to a Viking, Sweyn II, a nephew of Cnut the Great, who was probably none too pleased to see what a pig's breakfast this William head was making of his uncle's ex-kingdom, and sent a large fleet against him. They retook York, but when William came again to make them give it back, they quipped "Didn't want your stupid castle anyway!" and ran back across the border to Scotland. Possibly seeing what a useless wimp this Edgar Atheling was, Sweyn headed back down the coast, William bought him off in the time-honoured fashion and he buggered off back to Denmark with all his ships. You could probably hear the sound as William clapped his gloved gauntlets together and eyed the north.

"Right!" said he, probably. "Now let's sort this fucking place out once and for all!"

And so he did.

The people would remember it forever as the Harrying of the North. Historians would call it genocide. Even later, more sympathetic writers of Norman descent would opine that it was cruel and merciless, but that William had no choice. Basically, it was a slaughter. The Viking blood that pulsed in his  Norman veins was up now, and William had had just about enough of these English. He set to ensuring they would learn their place, would stay there, and would never rise again. Nobody was spared: towns, villages, households; men, women, children, animals, possibly even furry toys - all fell to the sword, the arrow and the fire. The North was set ablaze from border to border, the fires possibly reflected in the eyes of the king and his men as they went about their business like demons from Hell. Well, they wouldn't be demons from anywhere else, would they, but you know what I mean.

An Anglo-Norman chronicler wrote in 1116 of the fury of the king, and how savage - and indeed, unjust - his reprisals were: "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 starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him."

It may not really have been the best policy. If you're trying to establish your rule on a foreign land, trying to (presumably) create alliances and win allies, torching half of the country is probably not the way to go. Then again, it was only the north. This would, however, instil forever in that half of the country a hatred, resentment and resistance to William's rule which would come back to haunt him. English kings had raided and gone on the rampage before, but not, it would seem, in such an indiscriminate and murderous way. Villages were torched, crops destroyed, livestock killed, the whole land laid waste. In the ensuing and inevitable famine, it was said, with some support, that people turned to cannibalism in order to survive. I don't believe this had happened in England before this, so there's a mark of shame William was never able to remove from his reign.

[Trollheart]

Band of Brothers: Harold's Progeny Rise

Although he had been crowned King of England, the West Country remained loyal to Harold, where his mother Gytha had set up her powerbase while her three grandsons Godwin, Magnus and Edmund sailed to Ireland to muster an army. With the ex-queen mother and three potential heirs to the throne in residence, Exeter became a beacon of resistance, and supporters of Harold flocked there. William could not allow such a challenge to his authority to remain, and so as soon as he was in a position to, he rode for Exeter to force the queen's submission. Ooe-er! Sounds kinky! (Shut it, you!) He arrived with a large force and besieged the castle (nothing a Norman liked better than a good siege) which held out for eighteen days before surrendering.

Though he suffered heavy losses as the town was determined to resist him, William finally managed to breach the walls by the use of mines, said to be the first time this technique was ever used in England. Gytha, seeing the game was up, had had it away on her toes in a boat, fed up of waiting for her worthless son's nippers to come to her rescue, and William took the city, perhaps surprisingly sparing all its defenders and citizens. Maybe he'd worked out all his aggression putting down the northerners. He then did something which again became de rigueur for Normans, and built a castle at Exeter, ensuring it would remain loyal to him. Gytha ended up on the Island of Flat Holm, waited, waited and waited some more, than said fuck this and headed back to Flanders, from where she vanishes from history.

Meanwhile, the three sons of the defeated and dead King Harold Godwinson had fled after Hastings to Ireland, where they petitioned the king, Diarmait Mac Máel na mBó for assistance. The Irish, always ready to strike a blow against their neighbours to the east, agreed and sent a small fleet to engage William's forces. William had by now left Devon, but his men engaged the brothers and put up stiff resistance, sending them yelping back across the Irish Sea, possibly one brother short. The king grumped "You feckin' lads back already? Did yiz get that Norman bastard? Yiz didn't? Holy Jaysus! Do I have to do everythin' meself here? Look, here, take these men and boats and for the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, will yiz get the job done this time, or don't bother comin' back! I tell yiz, it won't be Ireland of the thousand welcomes for you hoors if yiz come back defeated again. Now get up that yard!" Or words, vaguely, to that effect.

Back the brothers went in June 1069. Still no William (he was oop north) but Brian of Brittany, his second cousin, met them in battle and the superior Norman forces, with those all-important cavalry units, kicked their arses and sent them home. It's reported that the Irish king decided to get very drunk that night, and wasn't seen for several days. The remaining brothers followed their mother out of history, and that was the end of any challenge by the line of Godwinson to the rule of William the Conqueror.

But what about our man Edgar the Halfling, sorry Atheling, still hiding out under Malcolm's kilt? Well, not much really. He literally did hide in Scotland until William decided it was time Malcolm bent the knee, and in 1072 part of the deal was that Edgar should be kicked out of Scotland, and indeed out of Britain. He went, where it seems all deposed/exiled/on the run kings, queens, nobles and persons of dubious birth went: Flanders. Eventually he decided to give up and accept William as his sovereign, so he doesn't really feature much more in the story of the Norman conquest of England.

But the Welsh do.

The Dragon Awakes, Look You! Eadric's Wild and Possibly Savage Revolt: A Prelude

You have to feel cautious engaging anyone with "the Wild" as their suffix, and Eadric was a wealthy owner of land in Shropshire and Herefordshire, said to be (though unconfirmed) a brother of that jolly ealdorman, Eadric Streona. Fiercely resistant to William's rule, he nevertheless realised that he needed allies, and turned to the west, where he joined forces with the Welsh princes Bledden and Rhiwallon ap Cynfyn, princes of Powys and Gwynedd. Around the time William was counting out gold pieces of whatever into Sweyn II's eager hand to enable  him to fuck off home and leave Edgar high-tailing it back to Scotland, Eadric and his Welsh allies attacked Shrewsbury Castle, while others of their forces took on the newly-built one at Exeter. Neither were successful, both pushed back and the Anglo-Saxons beginning perhaps to learn the value of a good stone castle at your back, so much more so if it was a Norman one.

However, as it was necessary to take a left-turn in the History of Ireland to look into that of Scotland, as I research more I feel that the same is important here, so that we can better understand the relationship, not only between Wales and England, but between the Welsh themselves. Like any nation of the time, their country was never really at peace, rival kings and princes fighting among each other for control of this or that territory, and while there was, to my knowledge, no actual war of Welsh independence, the land of the Valleys has always been one of the most fiercely independent of the United Kingdom. Okay, we all have - Ireland and Scotland too, but I'm not very familiar with the actual history of Wales, so before I go too much further and start talking about princes and alliances and grievances and wars, it would probably be helpful to know who and what I'm talking about.



This, then, is obviously not intended to be a history of Wales, but a quick retelling of how the Welsh got to where and how they are. Considering that they are so deep, as it were, in English territory, how did they stay virtually independent, even up to today? Scotland you can understand: it's way up there in the cold, frozen north, and it has highlands and crags to defend itself, plus the weather is awful in general and even as  you come down closer to the south, the people from the likes of Sunderland and Newcastle are more closely aligned with Scotland, in some ways, than they are with England. They did, after all, bear the brunt of invasions from England when kings rode north to try to conquer Scotland, and there have been certainly instances of the Scots and the men from the north banding together against a marauding king. This king, almost invariably, would have been an English one, but the English in the north were not prepared to smooth his way.

Add to this the fact that, as mentioned above earlier, places like Northumbria  had a tradition of being settled by Vikings (Saxons) and had been covered under Danelaw from about the eighth century. They had fought against kings of Wessex and Mercia, and held their own land as long as they could. There was no real loyalty in the north to the king, who traditionally ruled from, and in, the south, as today. London might as well have been a million miles away from places like Newcastle, and the north did not really regard the English king as theirs. Mind you, they weren't about to submit to the Scottish one either, but in general, unless forced to, as we saw in the War for Scottish Independence, the Scots didn't tend to bother too much about crossing the border into the south, so it's now as if Northumbria was being constantly menaced by Scottish armies.

All of this, then, makes it easy to see how Scotland, for a time at least, was able to maintain its own independence, even if seen by the king as being part of his dominions. In some ways, it probably just wasn't seen as worth going all that way to try to bring them to submission. Let them stay up there in the cold and think they were independent; when the time came, the king could march on them, but for now, the toasty throne room of London was much more attractive. Not so though with Wales. Wales essentially takes up most of the lower west half of Britain, and is more like a part of it than is Scotland. So how was it that the Welsh avoided being invaded and subjugated for so long?

[Trollheart]

Land of my Fathers: A (Very) Short History of Wales

Leaving aside the 300-year occupation by Rome, the first major battle to involve Wales was the Battle of Chester, in 616 AD (there are sources who give other dates, but fuck them: I'm sticking with this one. Who cares anyway? Bloody historians!) when the invading Angles and Saxons under Aethelfrith, one of the kings of half of Northumbria (as detailed previously) - he was the one who had all those priests killed, as they were praying for victory - faced the "wild" Welsh.  Chester being close to the Welsh border, it was a force of men from Powys, Rhôs and possibly Mercia too which met Aethelfrith and whose leaders were killed in the battle. Wales was broken into two main kingdoms, Powys and Gwynedd, but the first man to rule over the entire country was Rhodri Mawr in the 9th century. Of course, this then became the period in which the Viking raids on Britain began, and the Welsh were no exception to the depredations of the Danes.

Wales was, like Ireland, overwhelmingly Christian, some of this being due perhaps to the influx of Irish settlers who arrived around the fourth century, and like Ireland (and indeed England, before the ascension of Henry VIII) there were monasteries and abbeys dotted across the country, and monks, abbots and friars administering to the spiritual needs of the people. Over time, parts of what were Wales and the northern kingdoms were taken and absorbed into both Scotland and England, leaving Wales more or less as it is today. Although Rhodri Mawr ruled over Wales, the first man to do so effectively came a century after him, but would die before William even set sail for England and his new realm.

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (c. 1010 - 1063)

Originally king of Gwynedd in 1039 on the death of  the previous ruler, Iago, supposedly his grandfather, he killed the brother of the Earl of Mercia and then attacked Dyffed, where he defeated Hywel ab Edwin (no relation, I don't think) who had Irish support. Gruffydd drove them out but they returned again two years later, in 1044. Again Gruffydd routed the new Irish army and this time ended Hywel's threat by the simple expedient of ending his life. He then linked up with Aelfgar, a disgruntled son of the Earl of Mercia who had a bone to pick with Harold, and together they attacked Hereford. Look, when the leader of the defenders is called Ralph the Timid, you're not exactly going to be expecting a hard time, are you?

And they didn't, leaving the town ablaze as they left. Soon after, Aelfgar got the earldom of East Anglia and was as happy as a pig in shit, so this time Gruffydd attacked Hereford on his own. Maybe he thought it hadn't been burned enough so he wanted to finish the job. Taking territory after territory and kingdom after kingdom, he seemed unstoppable, and in 1057 was recognised as King of Wales. It should be made clear that he had to swear fealty to Edward the Confessor, as did the King of Scotland, and rule as a kind of "under-king", so that he had Edward's blessing, meaning peace with England. As long, of course, as Edward felt like maintaining that peace.

He is recorded as being the only true King of Wales, and he reigned for seven years. Whether he was a brutal ruler or a just one I don't know, but the fact is that there was peace in his reign, enforced or not who can tell. In 1062 Harold rode against him, sent by the then-king, Edward the Confessor, and put him to flight. The next spring Tostig joined up with Harold and together they encircled Gruffydd's position, cutting him off and then literally cutting him off as they took his head to the king. In fact, it was Gruffydd's own men, desperate for peace with England, who agreed to kill him and send his head on to the king. Wales was again divided into the three traditional kingdoms, Harold reached an agreement with two Welsh kings and they were set up each to rule one of the kingdoms. Not sure who ruled over the third.

From around 1070 to 1081 Wales was again at war, as king fought king and territory changed hands, and internal strife tore the country apart, but by and large the new Norman monarchy left them to it, other things on William's mind. I suppose the prevailing wisdom was that as long as the Welsh were fighting amongst themselves they were never going to be united, and therefore no threat of attack from Wales existed. However in 1081 William decided that Wales was becoming just a little too united for his tastes: Gruffudd ap Cynan had managed to regain control of Gwynedd, and had an army of Irish mercenaries at his side. That didn't look good, and the old adage held true that when an under-king gets less under than you want him to be, time to teach him his place.

So William sent the Earl of Chester, Hugh D'Avranches, to parley with him but it was a trap and he was captured at Rug (you could say he had the rug pulled out from under him, ho ho) and nicked his lands. He then tried to install bishops and priests loyal to the Normans in place of the traditional native Welsh ones, but this did not go well, leading to the bishop having to carry a sword and go around with a bodyguard when he went out. Shades of The Simpsons: "Bishop carries less than fifty dollars" huh? In the end, Gruffudd escaped from Chester and returned to lead a revolt in 1094, but we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, so that's where we'll leave the history of Wales for now.

I wonder if it was a mistake for William to keep shuttling back and forth between France and England? In his absence something always seemed to happen, and it must have been hard to keep control when you're constantly moving between the two countries. But then he had holdings a-plenty in Normandy which he had to watch over, and England in general wasn't exactly being welcoming to him, so maybe he preferred being back in the homeland whenever he could. His method of land control amounted to a feudal system, as practised by the Normans, where the king basically held all the land and distributed it to those he saw fit to receive it, and took it from those he did not. This resulted in many English lords losing their lands and castles for having stood against him, and also the often forced marriage of English women to Norman lords, in order that the property would remain in, or pass into, Norman hands. As usual, the king retained control by the usage of castles, more and more built throughout England as William consolidated his power.

However, somewhat in comparison, in a strange way, to the Ascendancy landlords in Ireland in the nineteenth century, William spent very little time in England, preferring to administer his new kingdom through intermediaries. This had several consequences, the first of which was of course the rise to unprecedented power of lower lords, who were left to look after areas of England, though still directly under the control of the absentee king. The next was the all but elimination of the English aristocracy, as Normans became the dominant power in England and Englishmen, all now seen as "Saxons", were relegated to a second class status, again somewhat like Catholics in Ireland some hundreds of years later. Englishmen could no longer hold posts in the Church, or if they had lifetime appointments, were replaced on their death (and who is to say, with not a shred of evidence but you know, that some of these troublesome natives were not assisted out of this world early?) by Normans.

Another consequence was the "fuck this I'm out of here" syndrome, or to put it more mildly and  politely, the exodus of English to other countries not controlled by the Norman king: Scotland, Ireland and even Scandinavia - well, not surprising, considering how many Vikings still remained in England - as well as the Byzantine Empire, which was crying out for good mercenaries, and where a seasoned English soldier or commander could make good money. Back home, even the language was changing, as the Norman overlords forced the use of their Anglo-Norman tongue, and Old English - the dominant language before Hastings - began to undergo the same fate as Gaelic would in Ireland with the later arrival of the English, technically the Normans really. Administrative documents were now written in Latin, not English, and the Forest Laws were enacted, designating certain areas of England as belonging to the king, royal forests wherein no commoner may tread or hunt. This would of course in a few hundred years give rise to the legend of the one man who dared not only hunt in the forest, but live there and strike from it as his base to harry the occupying Normans.



(Did he exist, or was he just a myth, put about to bolster Saxon courage and provide a figure of resistance? Was he based on a real-life figure? I don't know, and we'll examine the legend of Robin Hood when we get to the era in which he supposedly lived. One thing I do know pretty much for sure, and that is that he was not a fox.)

It might seem odd that all of these changes came about not due to a mass immigration of Normans to England, but a relatively small number. It's estimated that the population of Normans at the time of William the Conqueror only amounted to about 8,000 - that's about a thousandth of the population of London alone today, and less than half of its population at the time. In all of England. So it's not like the Normans outnumbered the English. Far from it; they were very much the minority. But then, once you're in power and have all the major institutions, including the army of course, under your control then it kind of really doesn't matter how inferior your numbers are.

While there were definitely advantages to the Norman conquest (not if you were there at the time, and English, of course), such as the abolition in short order (well, two hundred years, but lightning fast in terms of history) of slavery, this in a way didn't matter for England, as almost all of the peasant or serf working class English were relegated ot the position of all but slaves. They had few rights, taxes of increasing cruelty were levied on them to pay for foreign wars, and they had no representation in the country. Not as if anyone could have voted or anything in the time of the House of Wessex, but at least you could expect that the king would, generally, have your best interests at heart. Not so under the Normans. It would probably be fair to say that English Saxons were looked upon by the new occupier ruling class as about as favourably as Jews were in Germany in the 1930s, or blacks in the Deep South in the nineteenth century, or the tenant farmers in Ireland by the Ascendancy landlords. In other words, in the eyes of the Normans, they had no rights, and this would continue for centuries until, eventually, as always happens, the invaders were not defeated by force but by inevitable circumstances.

As they began to intermarry with Saxon women, Norman men would acclimatise to the English ways, and the two peoples would more or less mingle to become one, as had happened to the Vikings in Ireland and indeed in France, where the Normans had become about as French as you could be. Now they would, slowly and not without bitter contest and bloodshed over the next few hundred years, almost against their will be turned from French into Englishmen, and England would be ruled by a sort of hybrid of both for the foreseeable future.

But to the native English, for a very long time, the Normans would be French, the enemy who came across the sea and killed their king, and then set about changing their land till it was virtually unrecognisable, a brutal, occupying force that frequently burned villages and towns, either in reprisal for rebellions or just because they were bored, and the Saxon scum had to be taught their place, and kept there. The huge, frowning Norman castles which would rise all over England, and remain there to this day, would be, and are, a lasting reminder of the huge and all-but world-changing effect these people would have on England, Ireland, Europe and further afield.

The time of the Normans had begun.

[Trollheart]

The Wild and Possibly Savage Revolt of Eadric the Wild, Part One

So that brings us back to that wild fella again, and how he rose against William's reign. We touched on his revolt, barely, before I realised we needed to have a short history lesson on Wales, then I kind of pushed him to one side, but I'm sure one thing old Eadric did not appreciate back then was being pushed to one side, so let's look into how he fought against the new King of Britain. In fact, who the hell was he? Well, for a start, he was no Welshman, though it looks to have been him who was first to have organised Welsh resistance - even if this just meant mobilising them to his own ends - against William.

As the new king and his occupying force would soon set about the eradication of the Old English/Saxon naming tradition of placing E after A, Eadric (also known as Edric) was a proud Saxon magnate, and has indeed been said to have been a nephew of the infamous Eadric Streona, bane of King Cnut, of whom we have heard previously. As usual with the Middle Ages and before, reliable intel is next to impossible to come by, and things like lineage - unless you were famous and powerful, like a king - hard to prove. It may be that the relationship was other than that of being a nephew to Eadric Streona (Eadric the Wild's own father, Aeflic, may not have been Eadric Streona's brother but his nephew, which would then make Eadric the WIld his, um, something. Grandson? Not sure. Doesn't matter) but there was definitely a familial connection there.

Eadric's lands (we're done with Eadric Streona now, thank Christ, and every reference to Eadric means the Wild; we're just dealing with him now) - and presumably, those of his father, were in Hereford and Shropshire, both counties close to the Welsh border, which explains why he was able to enlist the help of his cousins to the west. While many English (Saxon) lords and nobles bent the knee to their new king, our Eadric was not one of them, and while he may - or may not - have been the first to say no, he did rebel a mere year after Hastings, so he must have been at the front of the queue. You can see, of course, why he - and any other lord or noble - would not take kindly to William the Conqueror. He was, after all, a conqueror of England and that meant rewarding the men who had helped him achieve his conquest and won for him the crown of England, or indeed Britain. How he rewarded them was of course with land, land that had previously belonged to the now-defeated English, the Saxons. And Eadric the Wild, no doubt so named for a reason, weren't having none of that, no sir.

His raids were doomed to failure, and to understand this we have to comprehend the biggest and most immovable innovation the Normans brought to England (and later Ireland). Up until the time of their arrival, the word "castle" was not even known in Britain. We may remember back to the days of Alfred the Great, less than a century prior, when the legendary first real King of England instigated the system of burhs, standing fortifications which were always manned. Even though these were, for want of another word, forts, they were not castles, not really even buildings. At best, they were constructed upon the remains of either Roman forts (which were not castles either, more walled encampments with perhaps a guard tower, slightly similar, perhaps, to prisons today) or even older Bronze Age hillforts. The idea of a huge, walled, stone edifice, with a standing army, drawbridge, moat, gates, turrets, arrow slits and indeed an entire mini-ecosystem running it, was utterly alien to the English. They literally had no word for it. The Normans, of course, did: they called them castles.


"Fuck me, boys! We are NOT attacking that! Hey! Who are you calling a coward ya bastard? I'll show ye!"

So first of all, to have to deal with the sudden emergence and proliferation of such massive strongholds was bad enough, but to consider attacking them must have seemed all but tantamount to suicide. Not forgetting, of course, the Norman mounted army, the cavalry, another new innovation, a further culture shock to the infantry-minded Saxons. It's not at all surprising, then, to read that Eadric's attempts to take Hereford Castle (built on the lands which used to be his, and his father's) was entirely unsuccessful, and though, as mentioned, he had help from the two princes of Wales (sorry) Bleddyn and Rhiwallon ap Cynfyn, he was forced to take shelter in Wales as the three considered their next move. It wouldn't quite be true to say the Normans' laughter followed them across the border, for although they had little to no chance of taking the castle, they did take a lot of men with them, as John of Worcester, writing in the 12th century, noted that "they [the Normans at Hereford Castle] lost many of their knights and soldiers."

The first word there is impressive. You could imagine Eadric and his Welsh allies taking down infantry, but, being of course not mounted themselves, the idea that they were able to kill knights, men on horses, Norman cavalrymen, must mean that they were fiercer opponents than the defenders of the castle had expected. Nevertheless, they may have struck some blows but they were never getting into that stone fortress and back off to Wales they went, to plan and plot. This, of course, it should be noted and understood, all took place at a time when the newly-crowned (as such) King William was living it up and basking in the adulation of his Norman fans back in good old France.

Two years went by, and by the time they were ready to strike again Eadric and the Welsh princes found themselves far from the only ones rebelling against the new king, as other lords and nobles rose in anger and wrath at the treatment meted out to them by the Conqueror. 1069 saw the three allies attack and this time besiege Shrewsbury Castle, though again they failed to take it. To console themselves they burned the town, so as far as they were concerned I'm sure that was something. At this time, William, however, was back in da house, as it were, and while he was at that moment putting paid to a rebellion by the Earl of Morcar up in ever-troublesome Northumbria, when news reached him of the burning of Shrewsbury and the attack on the castle there, he hot-footed it back south and met them in battle at Stafford. It should be also noted that this time Eadric, Rhiwallon and Bleddyn had further support, this time for Chesire, again very close to their home country.

It made no difference.

Whether we can judge him for being a coward, a shrewd man who knew ye game was up, or just someone who was beating a tactical retreat, Eadric legged it before William's army arrived from the north, and so was not there to see the defeat of his two allies. This must have given him pause though, and finally accepting the inevitable (and perhaps allowing it to be said, though it probably wasn't, that Eadric the Wild had been tamed) he submitted to William, thereafter even assisting him in putting down another rebellion later, in 1072, to the disgust of the other lords, who surely thought him a traitor.

Ah, but did they?

[Trollheart]

The Wild and Possibly Savage Revolt of Eadric the Wild, Part Two

If there's one thing any people love, and the English as much as we Irish, it's a good folk tale, and if that can involve a local hero - real or imagined - so much the better. Jessica Brain, a native of Kent who is a freelance writer specialising in local history, has a fascinating article which shows, or purports to show, how sometimes a traitor can be turned into a hero by the creation of a legend around them. Perhaps in a case of national (or local) refusal to accept that the great rebel had turned against England, several fanciful legends sprung up about not only Eadric but his wife Godda, some surely echoing those that were told about one of England's greatest kings who may never have lived, the semi-mythical King Arthur.

To explain the turning of their hero, the story was put about that Eadric and his wife had been taken prisoner by their own people, who were shocked and outraged at Eadric's betrayal of them. The stories - getting more fanciful as they were added to - went on to say that the two had been imprisoned in lead mines in Shropshire, and that a curse had been placed upon them, forcing them to stay there for eternity. Should England be threatened, they would have to rise and ride forth to defend the country they had betrayed, after which they would be forced to return to their eternal incarceration. Their vigil - and imprisonment - would not come to an end until the Norman oppressors were driven out of England, and Anglo-Saxon ways returned.

Stories like these, of course, take on a life of their own, and so-called "sightings" have been made of the ghostly traitor and his wife, in 1814 during the Crimean War, and just before the two World Wars. Witnesses (surely unreliable/drunk) swear they saw the two riding side by side, leading an army of men across the Shropshire hills. But that's not all. Perhaps striking some parallels with tales of those doomed to roam this plane forever after death due to whatever they have or haven't done in life, such as the Flying Dutchman or the Headless Horseman, Eadric became involved with something known as "the wild hunt", which claims that legendary heroes (see how quickly, in relative terms, a traitor becomes a hero?) ride out in times of need, leading a hunt - sometimes even across the sky - in search of lost or doomed souls to capture and take back with them.

Again linking the Wild One back to King Arthur's legend, the tale of "the fish and the sword" holds that a great fish is in possession of Eadric's sword, and that if it is ever caught, the fish will simply cut itself free using the sword. Quite how a piscean that does not possess arms is supposed to use a sword is not explained, but you know storytellers and their legends. Oh, and the King Arthur bit? If the true heir of Eadric is ever to catch the fish, the sword will present itself to him. Presumably not, as George R.R. Martin noted, with the pointy end first. Yeah, all sounds a little fishy to me. Sorry.

Eadric's wife is not just there as a sidekick either, or no. They have a legend about her too. As perhaps you might expect, she's rumoured to have been a fairy princess who takes human form, and agrees to marry Eadric as long as he is good to her. One day, his temper breaks and from that moment she transforms back into a fairy and fucks off back to wherever fairies come from, leaving him to bemoan his temper and consider taking anger management classes. Feckin' women, eh? Can't say a cross word to them but they turn on the waterworks, turn into a fairy and leave you in a pool of your own tears. How many times has that happened to me?

In reality, we know that Eadric helped his new master to attack that old enemy hold-out, Scotland, and then accompanied him to France where he fought with him at Maine (no, not the state, dummy!) and seems to have, rather ironically, ended his days in his home county. After opposing Ranulph de Mortimer in Herefordshire and being defeated, he was (it's said) imprisoned in Wigmore Castle, where he died, date unknown.

[Trollheart]

Papal Bull? The Pope Sets the Seal on William's Right to Rule

As has already been pointed out, at this time England was staunchly Catholic, mostly because there was nothing else. If you were a Christian, you were a Catholic. The two were interchangeable and indistinguishable. When various popes called for crusades against the infidel or the heathen, it was not against Protestants that they fumed and raged (though later, of course, they would) and for at least the next half a millennium, Catholic = Christian and Christian = Catholic. The only other religions were Judaism, Islam and others seen as "heretical" by the Church. So while there may possibly have been the odd group in medieval England who worshipped pagan gods and remembered the druids, it's probably fair to say that the bulk of the native population were Christian/Catholic. As were the French, and would remain so, one of the biggest Catholic powers along with Spain even as England turned to the wickedness of their own form of Lutheranism.

One good way, then, to have your monarchy legitimised was to have the head of the Christian Church give it his seal, and this happened in 1070, when the pope sent three of his legates (quick! Legate! Sorry) to England - I suppose he didn't fancy travelling there himself for some Norman duke who now found himself king of England - who all dotted the holy "I"'s and crossed the ecclesiastical "T"s to make his reign official in the eyes of the Church, and really, those were the only eyes to be seen as official in. Once His Holiness had given William the nod, he was the rightful ruler of England, and everyone had better toe the line, or they might just find themselves suddenly no longer on the guest list when they arrived at the Pearly Gates! Not that this stopped resistance to William's rule, of course, but it must have made some of the would-be rebels examine their hearts and wonder if material possessions in this life were, after all, important enough to sacrifice their immortal souls for?

Not that, mind you, I'm saying anyone who rose against their new sovereign would be automatically excommunicated; I'm sure the pope had much better things to do, and while he would certainly, as it were, notarise the documents for William to say he was the One True King, it's highly doubtful he would have started condemning people to Hell if they rebelled against the Conqueror. After all, God needs all the souls he can get, right? And who knew: somewhere down the line, Rome might find itself ideologically or even militarily opposed to England and its new king, or his successor, and then, as ever, traitors would become heroes and terrorists patriots and so on. Therefore I'm assuming (though I don't know, but it makes sense) that His Holiness kept his nose out of William's affairs, had his legates stamp the certificates and recalled them to the sunnier climes of Italy, leaving England to fend for itself.

When we get to the legend, or otherwise, of Robin Hood it will be interesting to see if he or his men, or the people he fought for, ever appealed to or even mentioned or thought of the pope. I kind of feel they may have been (certainly were, in the series Robin of Sherwood) more disposed towards the friendlier, local and far more pagan gods, especially those of the forests, and may have considered the pope an enemy for having basically set his seal on the legitimacy of the king who oppressed them and now occupied their land. But as I say, that's all in the future. Right now it's sufficient to say that William had the backing, such as it was, of Rome, and could certainly consider, and prove himself to be the rightful King of England.

But let's just take a moment here to consider: why did he do it? Was he worried that England - not, remember, at this time, anything like a European, never mind world power - might turn against Rome if he refused to legitimise William's claim? Or did he see in the new king a man who would spread Catholicism (Christianity) further and wider than had the kings of the House of Wessex? I suppose it can be remembered that a mere four hundred years ago,the people of England, these very Saxons who were now being ground under William's heel, had been not averse to the idea of "ping-pong belief", which is to say, if they converted and then things didn't go their way, they had no issue checking out what other gods had to offer. So at that time, around the seventh century, Christianity was in perhaps not quite as precarious a position as it had been in, say, Nero's time, but could not in all fairness be really said to have been established as the most popular or even state religion (not that there was, till much later, any state to speak of). So perhaps His Holiness didn't quite think Christianity had the stranglehold on England that it should have, and hoped this new guy would send his men into the various villages and perhaps forests and explain to the people in no uncertain terms that worshipping false gods came with certain terms and conditions, mostly that you might no longer be able to use all your limbs, as you would be deprived of them, and that that lovely thatch your roof is made of burns so easily. Why not take the easy way and just submit to God yes? Oh but we're going to burn your hovel down anyway. Why? We're Normans, son! Got to burn something.

There was, of course, a negative side to this papal seal of approval, and it had to do with the English (Saxon) bishops, most of whom began to search furiously for their nearest dole office as they were summarily defrocked, and Norman lads put in their place. Well, it made sense, didn't it? Not much point in enforcing your own (and the pope's) form of Christianity if you leave the old guard there to implement those laws. Like all kings and queens, William knew the most important thing was to place in positions of power men he trusted, and he didn't trust a Saxon as far as he could throw him into a burning village, so out they went and in came his people. The pope, of course, either smiled on or ignored this ecclesiastical cabinet reshuffle - France was a God-fearing Catholic country, whereas England? Well, England was still getting there. Too many damned pagan deities and wood sprites and what have you roaming the English countryside, infesting the forests and hanging out by the banks of rivers, waiting to catch unsuspecting innocent maidens and tempt them away from the worship of God possibly. Best to be rid of them all, and the frogs were the guys to do that. How they did it, how many they killed or made homeless was not his problem.

Was William that bothered about spreading the faith, converting the heathen? Nah, probably not. I imagine he couldn't give a pair of toasted stag's antlers what the Saxons believed in, but positions in the Church carried with them great power and wealth (and lands) and he had no intention of leaving these in the hands of his now-vanquished enemy. Not only that, he had to reward his people for having fought for him, and while being awarded lands and castles was all very well, people like them also wanted the titles, and this suited William. After all, remember that pretty much all of these Saxon clergy had been appointed by, well, Saxon kings. They would have been the remnants of, and reminders of the "old days", the days when the House of Wessex was in control of England (and later, very briefly, Godwin and not quite so briefly Denmark) and such memories were to be stamped out, ground into the English dust, which was now Norman dust, and if anyone had a problem with that, do please come up to the castle and check out our state-of-the-art dungeons. You'll never want to leave. Nor will you be able to.

A final reason, of course, for the deposing of the Saxon clerics would have been to practise upon them the final insult: take away their representation to God. While, probably, all English Christians still professed loyalty to Rome, the pope was a very long way away, and so the bishops and archbishops and deacons and abbots were the ones into whose trust was put the responsibility for the care of their immortal souls. Now, that was to be taken from them, and perhaps like the Irish a few centuries later, forced to convert to Anglicanism or face imprisonment or execution, and forbidden to practise their own religion, the Saxons, while still allowed to be Christians, had now to be Norman Christians. Which is to say, of course, that they could only take mass in Norman churches, celebrated by Norman priests and bishops, those masses held in Latin, not the more familiar Old English they were used to. In this way, I imagine, mass became less a participatory event and more a kind of pointless ritual, as most English could not understand Latin, nor did they wish to. Alfred the Great had seen to the former two hundred years prior, and as for the latter, well, reading Latin was tantamount to acknowledging the invader's right to be in England, almost like collaboration. So, like we Irish refused to speak English, the Saxons refused to learn Latin, and the Normans? They didn't give a curse; didn't want these nasty heathen Saxons sullying their lovely language with their uncouth tongues anyway. Sure, they didn't have to understand what the priest said, and being low and (in Norman eyes surely) unintelligent as they were, they probably wouldn't have been able to.

[Trollheart]

Danes to the Left of Me, Frenchies to the Right, Here I am...

Unfortunately for WIlliam, the pope's approval meant nothing to men to whom the pope himself meant nothing. Yep, the Vikings were again eyeing England and, perhaps seeing the new king as a weak point, or having intelligence of the rebellions breaking out across his new kingdom, they decided they wanted some of that action, and began putting orders in to Sven the Shipwright, all specially weather-proofed against the rainy English climate. If the fact that William, a Norman, was a distant cousin registered in their minds, it would have mattered little if at all. We've already seen that Vikings had a loyalty to little else but their pocket, and if the opportunity arose to attack their neighbour, well sure wasn't that what neighbours were for? So a guy who had Viking ancestry in his family did nothing to dissuade them, and on they came. They weren't the only ones who took advantage of William's difficulties, but let's deal with them first.

In 1069 King Sweyn, in association with Edgar the Aethling, brought a large fleet from Norway to fight William. Sweyn's uncle was someone called Cnut, you may have heard me mention him in passing. Now, in a strange case of coincidence, it seems that Sweyn had a similar story to tell about a claim to the English throne as did William. Though no evidence existed to back his tale up (about as much as legitimised William's own claim) he said that he had visited England during his uncle's reign and that the throne of England had been promised to him on the death of Edward the Confessor who, as you should recall, died without a sprog to his name, triggering the last-ever succession crisis prior to the Norman invasion. Though William secured a promise of neutrality from Denmark before he made his move on England, rumours abound that Sweyn sent troops to help Harold Godwinson retain the crown that was resting, rather shakily, upon his head.

When Harold fell at the Battle of Hastings and William became the new King of England, the first of a long line of Norman kings, Sweyn was none too happy about it, but unable to show the Conqueror exactly how unhappy, as he had troubles of his own to deal with. His kingship of Denmark was being contested, and for the moment England would have to wait. However now that things had settled down back home, and with the urging of the Saxons, who were also less than pleased to being ruled by a bunch of frogs (and possibly remembered how an all but English Golden Age had flourished under Cnut), he began making plans to invade England. He knew he had an ally in the aforementioned Edgar the Aethling, whom the Saxon lords would see as the true king of England, In 1069 good old reliable Northumbria exploded in revolt, and Sweyn's assistance was again requested. Wary of the power of the Danes, William sent one of his abbots to Denmark to ask Sweyn not to bother, it was just a few hundred rebels, easily cleaned up, and his trip would be for nothing. Sweyn, of course, knew a whitewash job when he heard it, and anyway, he had all these shiny new longships just sitting, rather like Otis Redding, on the dock of the bay, doing nothing, and as we all know, raiding ships that aren't raiding aren't making money.


So he launched his fleet and headed back towards his uncle's second-favourite country to rule, and Edgar began rubbing his hands and making plans to redecorate the throne room maybe. In totally atypical Viking fashion, however, Sweyn did not travel with his fleet, possibly due to his bad back or needing to catch up on his box set of Game of Thrones, who knows? But he sent his sons Harald and Cnut, and his own brother Asbjørn. They came up against stiff resistance from the Normans, and had to flee from no less than four intended landing spots, one of which, Ipswich, they did land at but were chased back to their boats by irate Ipswich fans, or possibly Norman soldiers, or both, till finally they came ashore at the Humber, where an exasperated Edgar would have looked at his watch had they been invented and grumped "What the fuck kept you? Don't you know how cold it is standing around here on the shores of this bloody river in winter?"

Notwithstanding the king-in-waiting's possible complaints, the Danes and the Saxons marched on York, all the county of Yorkshire rising in revolt, which led to the attack by William's forces on the north and the subsequent harrying of it, as already noted. Whether shocked by the ferocity of the Norman attack (unlikely; he was, after all, a Viking) or realising that his allies had been so depleted that he now had little chance of victory, Sweyn, who had by now joined his fleet, stuck out his hand and accepted the gold William offered him to bugger off back across the sea, and buggered off back across the sea.

But not right away.

It may have come as something of a shock to the people of England as Sweyn's troops arrived in their counties and began ravaging the countryside. They surely must have thought the Dane had come to help free them, and place Edgar (or some suitable substitute) on the throne of England, but in fact Sweyn had secured, in addition to a large payout, permission from William to sack the eastern coast, in order to feed his rather ravenous army. After all, what did William care if they killed Saxons? Less enemies to rebel, less Englishmen to keep control of, and this would also, he must have thought rather cunningly, sow distrust between the Saxons and the Danes, making it unlikely they would band together against him in the future. In that, however, he was to be proved wrong.