The Battle Harold Won Before Hastings

The Battle Harold Won Before Hastings

 

On the 25th of September 1066, Harold Godwinson defeated Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge. Less than three weeks later, he would be facing William of Normandy at Hastings.

 

Image info:

The Battle of Stamford Bridge, Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831–1892). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

When we talk about 1066, it is usually Hastings that gets most of the attention. Today I want to go back a few weeks and look properly at what had been happening in the north of England before William’s army arrived.

 

Edward the Confessor had died in January and Harold was crowned soon afterwards. His succession was challenged by William, Duke of Normandy, who was preparing an invasion across the Channel. There was also a threat from Norway. Harald Hardrada intended to pursue a claim to the English throne and found an ally in Harold’s own brother, Tostig.

 

Tostig had once been Earl of Northumbria, but a rebellion against his rule in 1065 had driven him into exile. Earlier in 1066, he had already led an unsuccessful invasion of eastern England before eventually joining Hardrada. The Norwegian king brought considerable military experience with him, and in September their combined force entered northern England.

 

On the 20th of September they met the armies of Earls Edwin and Morcar at Fulford, near York. The English earls were defeated, leaving York exposed. The city submitted and hostages were arranged, with a meeting to take place at Stamford Bridge.

 

Harold was a long way from Yorkshire. He had spent much of the summer preparing for the Norman invasion expected on the south coast, even keeping troops and ships ready for William’s arrival. The northern attack forced him to change his plans and travel north with his forces. In less than a fortnight, he had reached Yorkshire.

 

When Harold reached Stamford Bridge on the 25th of September, Hardrada’s entire force was not together. Men had been left with the fleet several miles away, while later Scandinavian accounts suggest that some of those at Stamford Bridge had not brought all of their armour with them.

 

There are several stories from this point in the battle that have been repeated for centuries. According to later accounts, Harold offered Tostig terms if he abandoned Hardrada. Tostig then asked what would be offered to the Norwegian king, and Harold supposedly replied that Hardrada could have seven feet of English ground, with a little more because he was taller than most men.

 

It makes a good story, although it was recorded after the event and we do not know what, if anything, was actually said between the brothers.

 

A later addition to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records another memorable incident. A Norwegian warrior reportedly defended the bridge against Harold’s advancing men and prevented them from crossing until an English soldier managed to attack him from underneath.

 

The English eventually crossed and the main battle continued. Hardrada was killed during the fighting by a wound to the throat, possibly caused by a spear or an arrow. Tostig also died on the battlefield.

 

Some of the Norwegian troops who had remained with the fleet came to reinforce the army under Eystein Orre. They had covered several miles at speed before reaching the fighting, and the Norse sagas describe the men arriving exhausted. The reinforcements were unable to prevent the Norwegian defeat.

 

Hardrada and Tostig were both dead, and the surviving Norwegians were allowed to return home after giving pledges of peace.

 

What happened immediately afterwards is easy to lose among the much better-known events at Hastings.

 

William’s fleet reached the Sussex coast on the 28th of September, just three days after the fighting at Stamford Bridge. Harold was still in Yorkshire, and news of the landing first had to reach him before he could begin bringing his forces south.

 

We do not know exactly which men who fought at Stamford Bridge also fought at Hastings, and historians have long discussed how much the northern campaign affected Harold’s army. What we do know is that the two battles fell astonishingly close together.

 

Harold reached London and then continued into Sussex. On the 14th of October, his army met William’s near Hastings.

 

There were only nineteen days between Stamford Bridge and Hastings.

 

For me, knowing what happened during those nineteen days changes the way I picture Harold’s final campaign. The man who arrived in Sussex had spent the previous weeks responding to events at opposite ends of his kingdom, and Stamford Bridge deserves to be remembered as a major battle in its own right.

 

Next I’ll look at William’s landing at Pevensey and what his army did after reaching England.

 

Were you taught much about Stamford Bridge, or did most of your school lessons about 1066 concentrate on Hastings?