THE NORMAN CONQUEST

William the Conqueror

No sooner had Harold been elected king of England than William, the duke of Normandy, presented his claims to the English throne. William was one of the greatest and most ambitious of the feudal lords of France. He had made of Normandy a united feudal duchy and had himself become a lord more mighty even than the king of France, who was at this time little more than a powerful feudal lord. William had no difficulty in finding reasons for an expedition against England. He claimed that the English crown was his, in the first place, because through his wife Matilda, a descendant of Emma, Eadward the Confessor's mother, he was a closer heir than was Harold, who was only the king's brother-in-law; secondly, because on the occasion of a visit to England in 1051 Eadward had promised him the inheritance; and finally, because Harold himself, when some years before he had been wrecked on the coast of Normandy, had sworn over sacred relics to help him win the crown. These claims had no value constitutionally, for only the witan could control the succession, but they formed the only legal basis of William's position.

Very important for the Norman duke was the consent of the pope, who in the years from 1059 to 1073 was laying the foundations for the greatest of mediaeval institutions the mediaeval papacy. Pope Alexander II was angry with Harold for supporting the secular clergy instead of the monks and for upholding the cause of Stigand, who had been uncanonically and without the consent of the pope elected archbishop of Canterbury after the flight of Robert of Jumieges in 1052. To the pope, Harold was an enemy because he desired an independent English church, a perjurer because he had broken an oath sworn over sacred relics, a usurper because he had been illegally consecrated by the archbishop of York. Alexander listened to William's appeal, and by blessing the expedition and sending a consecrated banner and a ring containing a hair of St. Peter's, transformed a feudal adventure into a holy crusade.

Harold, though acting on the defensive, was weak because of the rivalry among the English earls and the want of military unity and common purpose among the English peoples. The divisions that had weakened the English in the presence of the Danes continued to exist in equal measure in the struggles of the English and Danes against the Normans. Then, too, Harold had shown a lack of foresight in his dealings with others. He had not kept up the friendly alliance his father had formed with the count of Flanders, who was hostile to William and might at this juncture have checked the expedition; he had offended the pope, whose support was of the greatest aid to William; and, perhaps most important of all, he had quarrelled with his brother Tostig, who deemed Harold responsible for his outlawry.

Battle of Stamford Bridge

Harold, confident of success, was waiting for the attack of the Normans, when he suddenly learned that Tostig, whom some have thought to have been acting in collusion with William, had carried out his threat to invade England from the north. With him came Harold Hardrada, boldest of the Viking kings, with a force sufficient, it is said, to fill three hundred ships. Eager to meet this danger before William should land in the south, Harold hastened northward, took the enemy by surprise at Stamford Bridge, near York, and defeated them in a brilliant battle, on September 25, 1066. Among the slain were Tostig and Harold Hardrada.

Scarcely was the battle won, when word came that the Normans had landed on the coast of Kent. Immediately Harold, with his huscarls, made forced marches southward, bidding the northern earls follow with the men of their earldoms ; but Eadwine and Morkere traitorously lagged behind and gave no aid.