Pod Insights The Rest Is History 554. 1066: The Shadows of War (Part 1) About this episode Why is 1066 the most important year in English history? Who were the three main candidates vying for the English throne on the eve of Edward the Confessor’s death? And how did the coronation of one of them on the 14th of October 1066 trigger one of the most famous invasions of all time?
Join Tom and Dominic as they launch into the dramatic series of events, at the dawn of 1066, that sparked the build up to the Battle of Hastings…
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Transcript 12,185 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:02 Tom Holland? This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked.
0:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realizes, or rather, everybody else realizes, that there is a vast continent out there. And it is, of course, the Americas. So Anthropic knows the importance of questions. And it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people?
0:45 Tom Holland? So they asked over 100,000 people. And what came back wasn't just fear, there was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/RestIsHistory and keep thinking.
1:08 Tom Holland? This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So go to mintmobile.com/history.
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1:55 Tom Holland? As the enemy raced up the slope, Harold Hardrada tightened his grip on his sword hilt and whispered one last prayer. "There was nothing for it now," he thought, "but to die with honor." He had formed his men into a tight circle, linking their shields around the Raven banner, where he and Tostic stood with his friends and captains. The Saxons, Harold thought, would have to cut their way through the line. He would make them pay in blood before the day was out. The enemy was screaming out their war songs. Through the dust and chaos, he could see Harold Godwinson at the foot of the slope urging his men on. The circle was shrinking.
2:39 Tom Holland? Harold's men were tiring, their shield arms heavy, their sword blows weary. And still the Saxons came on, eager to finish it. For just a moment, Harold thought of that morning by the stream when he was little, when Olaf had asked him what he most wanted in life. Housecarls! So many housecarls that they would eat all half-dance cows at a single feast. What he wouldn't give for more housecarls now. So there Dominic, the epic tones of Snorri Sturlsson, the 13th century historian and
3:24 Tom Holland? poet from Iceland, one of the greatest writers in medieval history, whose epic account, The Saga of King Harold, is the definitive, in fact, pretty much, the only account we have of the Battle of Stamford Bridge. And since today's episode is about the Battle of Stamford Bridge, I mean, what else could we possibly have begun with but that great work by Snorri Sturlsson? I mean, really, the only choice, except perhaps for a new version, a new account of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, because actually that wasn't by Snorri Sturlsson at all, was it? It was by you!
4:01 Dominic Sandbrook? It was, yeah. It's a forensic reconstruction, I think it's fair to say, of what happened at that battle in Adventures in Time Fury of the Vikings. So that is literally exactly what Harold Hardrada thought. He thought back to that moment when he was a little boy, which listeners will remember from the Harold Hardrada series, and, you know, the enemy was singing their war songs and he could see Harold Godwinson coming on, and that's exactly what happened, Tom.
4:26 Tom Holland? Because, do you know Dominic, when- We're going to go on and do the Battle of Hastings. And initially I put a passage from Millennium, my book about, which includes an account of the Battle of Hastings in the front. And then I thought, no, I shouldn't do that. I mean, you know, there are so many other epic accounts that are written at the time. I put them in. And I did think, I wonder whether Dominic will include his account in preference to that of Snorri Sturlison, the great writer.
4:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
4:49 Tom Holland? And you sent me the text, and you had done, and I salute you.
4:53 Dominic Sandbrook? This speaks to your fundamental lack of self-confidence, I think, Tom.
4:57 Tom Holland? I think that is probably what it does, yeah.
4:59 Dominic Sandbrook? Whereas I'm not burdened by the same doubts and anxieties.
5:01 Tom Holland? No, you have the spirit of a Viking. I have the spirit of a cringing monk. I think there is, I mean, I don't think there's any doubt about that.
5:09 Dominic Sandbrook? By the way, please clip that and use that as a social media.
5:13 Tom Holland? So Dominic, I mean, today, looking at one of the most exciting stories in all of medieval history, and it's really the last great battle between Anglo Saxons and Vikings for the throne of England. And I guess this is the battle with which so many accounts of the story of the Vikings finishes, doesn't it?
5:34 Dominic Sandbrook? In almost every general English language history of the Vikings, this is the last chapter. There may be a sort of epilogue, on voir, farewell to the Viking Age, but this is the last great narrative set piece. And you can see why, because although there are, as we'll discuss, there are subsequent attempts by Scandinavians to raid or indeed invade England, this is the last great one. It's the one that comes closest. And it has, it really does have the quality of myth, because at its heart are two irresistible, colourful, doomed characters, Harald Haradada and Harald Godwinson. And both of them stand for things greater than themselves, i.e. a civilisation, Anglo Saxon England, as you put it, what, mead halls and moustaches?
6:16 Tom Holland? Yeah, and the Vikings, dragon ships and booming laughs.
6:20 Dominic Sandbrook? And booming laughs, exactly. So let us start with the man at the centre of the story, Harald Haradada, who we talked about last week. So last week, we left him as king of Norway. The beginning of 1066, he's probably 50 years old. So he's the oldest of the contenders in this story. He's had the most extraordinary life. A lot of what we talked about last week, you know, was in that sort of fuzzy area between myth and history and fiction. But we know that, you know, he was exiled as a teenager. He went off to be the mercenary in Kiðverðurhus. He was a Varangian guard, messing around with the emperor and the empress, possible eye gouging, comes back.
7:02 Tom Holland? Snakes.
7:03 Dominic Sandbrook? Snakes, great scenes, becomes king of Norway. And we ended the Harold Hardrada series talking about how he earns the reputation Hardrada. So there's a kind of chilling ruthlessness to Harold Hardrada. Adam of Bremen, who we've mentioned before, called him the Thunderbolt of the North. William of Poitiers, who we mentioned.
7:20 Tom Holland? Yeah, William's chaplain.
7:21 Dominic Sandbrook? On Monday said he was the strongest living man under the sun. So even if you strip away the inventions of the sagas, Harold Hardrada is a frighteningly ruthless, vengeful, effective, avaricious, impressive man. He is the distillation.
7:40 Tom Holland? Yeah.
7:40 Dominic Sandbrook? Of the Viking ethos, I think. And that's why his story makes such a wonderful conclusion to any history of the Vikings.
7:46 Tom Holland? And it's why he's such a perfect history for a saga of the kind that Snorri Stjöllsson and the other Icelandic writers have. And one of the things that's fascinating about this particular episode is that we have a kind of first draft of history in the form of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
8:03 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, we do.
8:03 Tom Holland? So we talked about Tostik in the previous episode, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that he has retreated from England in 1065, that he's gone to Flanders, that he then launches a raid on the Isle of Wight, that he then launches a raid on the Humber, and that he then goes to Scotland. And that is all it tells us. But the thing about Snorri's epic is that it fills in a lot of those details, whether accurately or not is up for debate. But certainly in a much more dramatic manner.
8:34 Dominic Sandbrook? So let's, if we were doing this as an HBO series, we would start this, this episode with Harold in his hall in Viken, which is near basically the Oslo region in Norway. And his days of war appear to be over. He's fought this interminable war with the Danes that has basically ended in a stalemate. You can sort of see how you would, you would shoot the scene, he's sitting there at the end of his hall, grizzled.
8:59 Tom Holland? The old wolf.
9:00 Dominic Sandbrook? The old wolf, exactly. And one day in the summer of 1066, I mean, this must have been effectively what happened, a man walks into his hall, a man the sagas describe as, quote, "a tall, strong man, a big talker and warlike with an enormous English moustache."
9:17 Tom Holland? I mean, the thing that's interesting about that description is that in the life of Edward the Confessor, which was commissioned by Tostig's sister, he's described as being short. So interesting contradiction there. Maybe his sister didn't know what she was talking about.
9:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Maybe. I'm going with the sagas, Tom. I'm always, by the way, in this episode, going to go with the sagas. So this is Tostig. And as we described last time, Tostig is seething with resentment against his brother, Harold Godwinson, who he blames for his exile from England, the fact that Morcar has become Earl of Northumbria, that everybody hates him, all of this. Now, Tostig in the last episode had been raiding England. He described him messing around in the Isle of Wight and the Humber and whatnot. But I think it's pretty clear that after he's gone off to Scotland and he's been blown around, he's looking for something more than raiding. I mean, by going to get help, he is signing up effectively to regime change in England. It's clear to him, his brother's never going
10:14 Dominic Sandbrook? to take him back. There's no possibility ever rapprochement. Now, if the sagas are to be believed, Harold Hardrada is not Tostig's first choice because the sagas say initially he goes to see somebody, you mentioned very briefly last time, Svein of Denmark. And Tostig in the sagas says to him, "Why don't you come with me and win the country, win England as Cnut, your mother's brother did?" And I think this has the ring of absolute plausibility. Svein says, "No, I'm not Cnut. I don't have Cnut's capabilities." Only with difficulty can I defend my own Danish dominions against the Northmen, against the Norwegians, which is absolutely accurate. Had Svein taken Tostig up on his offer and gone to England,
10:56 Dominic Sandbrook? there's no doubt in my mind that Harald Hardrada would have immediately invaded and conquered Denmark. So Svein would have been bonkers to take that up. Tostig, we're told, reacted contemptuously. He says, "I expected more of so gallant a man, and I will look for help," he says, "from a king who isn't frightened of a great enterprise as you are."
11:14 Tom Holland? It has to be said that both the contemporaneous sources and the sagas imply that Tostig does not have great interpersonal skills.
11:23 Dominic Sandbrook? That's absolutely.
11:25 Tom Holland? He's not a charmer.
11:26 Dominic Sandbrook? And to be fair, the record of history suggests that everybody despises Tostig.
11:32 Tom Holland? Yeah.
11:32 Dominic Sandbrook? But Tom.
11:33 Tom Holland? Tostig will redeem himself at the end of this episode and behave, I think, in a very impressive and gallant way.
11:38 Dominic Sandbrook? So now Tostig crosses the Skaggarak to Viken and he finds Harald Hardrada in his hall. Now, at first, Harald Hardrada too is dubious. You talked last time about how some of William of Normandy's advisers said, "England, really? That is a tough nut to crack. That is a hell of a gamble." And Hardrada hesitates, we're told. "The king replied that the Northmen had no great desire for a campaign in England. People say that the English are not to be trusted."
12:04 Tom Holland? Who says that?
12:05 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, well, this is outrageous.
12:08 Tom Holland? Everyone knows that an Englishman's word is his bol.
12:10 Dominic Sandbrook? Right, this is fools in Norway, I think, fair to say.
12:13 Tom Holland? Idiots.
12:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Remember, Harald Hardrada's never been to England, so he knows not whereof he speaks.
12:18 Tom Holland? Yeah, true.
12:18 Dominic Sandbrook? And Tostig says, "Hold on. Remember, you have a claim to the English throne." He reminds Hardrada that a quarter of a century earlier, during the succession crisis after the death of Canute, there was this story that half of Canute and Hardrada's brother Magnus had done a deal that whichever of them died without an heir would inherit the other's kingdom, all of his kingdoms. And Tostic says to Hardrada, Magnus was your brother and you've inherited that claim. Edward the Confessor has died without an heir and under the terms of that deal, England is yours. Now, whether they'd really made that deal, it's not written down
13:00 Dominic Sandbrook? anywhere, so who knows? But it's convenient for Hardrada. And Tostic goes on, according to the sagas, if you want it, England is yours. I can talk most of the lords there to supporting you. That is, we know, Tostic is a dubious claim, to say the least. Tostic goes on, and he appeals to Hardrada's vanity. Everybody says that never in all the Northlands has there been a warrior king to compare with you. So it seems odd to me that you spent 15 years trying to conquer Denmark, and yet you shrink from the chance of ruling England when it is yours for the taking.
13:34 Tom Holland? Oh, he's subtle there, isn't he?
13:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, the sagas then say that Harold and Tostic talked long and frequently together, which undoubtedly they must have done. And Harold has to weigh this up, right? Because this is a gamble. Now, until this moment, he has never shown the slightest interest in England. And people who listen to our Harold Hardrada two-parter will know that basically all his career was spent in the East, not the West. He's always looked east.
14:00 Tom Holland? Because there are two paths to wealth in the Viking world, aren't there?
14:02 Dominic Sandbrook? Right.
14:02 Tom Holland? England or Constantinople, basically, by this point.
14:06 Dominic Sandbrook? So this is a novelty for him. He's never really thought about England before. Some of his chief advisers, we're told, said, look, you can do anything. You're the thunderbolt of the North. Why not? Let's go for it. Others, and this echoes again what the Normans said to William, others again said that England was difficult to attack, that it was very full of people, and that the men at arms were so brave that one of them was better than two of Harold's best men, which actually, again, bears out what you were saying last time, that the English are generally underrated. We tend to think, oh, the English were rubbish because they were very peaceable. But actually, they're more formidable than you think.
14:44 Tom Holland? Yeah. And to look at it from the Viking point of view, Viking armies keep going over to England. They keep battering it, conquering it, draining it of its silver, and still it endures and comes back kind of stronger than ever.
14:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, exactly. So Harold sits and thinks about it. And eventually he decides he'll do it. And I think there are three reasons why. Number one is the great traditional Viking reason, which I think does then sort of cement his last Viking reputation, and that is basically money. He has had terrible trouble in Norway raising taxes to pay for his wars, hence the name Harald Rada, because he's basically been harrying people who won't pay their taxes. But England, as we've established, is very, very rich. And even if he didn't get the crown, imagine that he lands, there's a lot of battles, there's a kind of stalemate, a little bit like it was with, you know, Svein Fortbyrd and Canute in the early days, he might just go home with loads of Dan girls.
15:38 Tom Holland? The English would buy him off.
15:39 Dominic Sandbrook? The English would buy him off. So that's the, you know, that could be a worst case scenario. He doesn't think he's going to die.
15:45 Tom Holland? I mean, it's not the worst case scenario, actually, as it will turn out, is it? But, but yes, I mean, that's what he could get.
15:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Then I think there's a geopolitical reason. It's very clear that Harold has always wanted to, you know, Norway's not enough for him. Basically, if you're, if you're a Norwegian or Danish king, your ambition is obviously to try to be the next Canute, to build a kind of North Sea empire. It would make complete sense that you might want to try to do that.
16:08 Tom Holland? And I guess Harold Harald Rada has seen Jaroslav the Wise, the great king of Kiev, and he's seen the emperor in Constantinople. So he has a sense, perhaps, that Norway is a slightly shrunken and impoverished stage compared to those.
16:24 Dominic Sandbrook? He's been playing for Real Madrid, and now he's managing Burnley. And he probably thinks to himself, you know, ideally, I'd be managing a bigger club.
16:32 Tom Holland? Yeah.
16:33 Dominic Sandbrook? And the third thing I think is psychological. And there's no reason to doubt the evidence of the sagas that Harold Harald Rada is a very restless, warlike man who basically, he's a bit like Alexander the Great. He doesn't like building bridges and discussing tax returns. What he really likes doing is fighting people.
16:51 Tom Holland? But also, unlike Alexander the Great, he's now 50, and so he's prone to a massive midlife. Crisis, I guess.
16:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Massive military crisis. Snorri says, he yearned to conquer new realms. And again, if you're doing this, it's your TV series. He's sitting there on his throne, grizzled, "One last time. Will you join me?" You know, that kind of thing. So the orders go out, they assemble a fleet in the Western fjords. We're told 200 longships and 100 transports. So if you assume about 50 to 60 men per longship, that would be about 10,000 men. That's plausible because that's similar to the force that he threw against Denmark. It's actually bigger than the fleet that Knut used to conquer England in 1016.
17:33 Tom Holland? And I guess that like William's invasion force, which is massing at this very moment on the north coast of France, Harold's name and reputation is a huge draw.
17:44 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, yeah. If you're a young man from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or indeed New East, or from Flanders, or wherever it might be, and the word has gone out.
17:54 Tom Holland? Haradada.
17:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Sails again.
17:56 Tom Holland? Yeah.
17:57 Dominic Sandbrook? It's like something from a Western, isn't it?
17:59 Tom Holland? The dragon boats shall roar at last time, as the sun sets in the west.
18:05 Dominic Sandbrook? It's Theoden in the Lord of the Rings, right? "One last time," you know, with all that stuff. So the fleet is assembled. Before leaving, he goes to visit the shrine of his late brother, Saint Olaf, in a place called Nideros, which is today Trondheim. And Saint Olaf has already been turned into a slightly implausible patron saint of Norway as a way of buttressing the Haradada dynasty regime. And he supposedly, I mean, why you would do this, God knows, you'll know more about this than me, Tom. He trims the hair and nails of the body of his brother, and then bizarrely throws the key of the tomb into the river.
18:40 Tom Holland? Well, Otto III, in the millennial year, the year 1000, had done the same for Charlemagne. He'd gone down into Charlemagne's tomb and trimmed his nails. Yeah.
18:48 Dominic Sandbrook? Right.
18:48 Tom Holland? So it's obviously a thing.
18:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. Now, a very bad blow for Haradada is that just as they're preparing to sail, his men are afflicted by a series of terrible dreams. And Tom, you may scoff at this, but I have no reason to doubt that this happened. So first of all, there's a man called Geerd, and he dreamed of seeing ravens perched on the prows of all their longships, and a sinister witch-wife singing that all the men would soon be a feast for crows.
19:14 Tom Holland? That's not good, is it?
19:15 Dominic Sandbrook? Unfortunately, there's another bloke called Thord, and he says, well, he's also had a dream. He saw two armies lined up for battle in the fields of England. Another of these witch-wives riding between them on a wolf. And I quote, "The wolf had a man's carcass in his mouth, and the blood was dripping from his jaws. And when he'd eaten one body, she, the witch-wife, threw another corpse into his mouth until he swallowed them all."
19:39 Tom Holland? Again, I mean, it's, you know, it could be the English.
19:41 Dominic Sandbrook? But then unfortunately, the crowning dream, Harold himself has a dream that his brother Olaf, with his nails nicely trimmed, turns up during the night wearing the same armour that he had worn at the fatal Battle of Sticklastad, which we did in that Harold Hardrada series.
19:56 Tom Holland? Well, he's chopped to pieces, isn't he?
19:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, so Olaf, bleeding, turns up in this armour and sings to him, "Thy death is near, thy corpse I fear. The crow will feed the witch-wife's steed." So this is a bad, bad development for Harold Hardrada. You can imagine him shivering as he stands on the prow of his ship.
20:15 Tom Holland? You think he would shiver?
20:16 Dominic Sandbrook? He would shiver. He'd give a little imperceptible shiver, I think. An internal shiver. He'd draw his bear skin, you know, his wolf skin cloak tighter around him.
20:26 Tom Holland? He would gaze back at the dark forests of Norway, and then his face would set, and he would gaze at the grey, steely waters of the North Sea and set sail for England.
20:36 Dominic Sandbrook? This is literally what happened. So, August 1066, it's now or never, they set sail. Now, at first, they seem to have headed northwest towards Orkney. And Orkney is part of Harold's empire. And we are told by Heimskringler, the King Harold saga, that there he collected more men. And he left, the saga says he left Queen Elsif.
21:01 Tom Holland? So she's the one from Yaroslav's daughter.
21:03 Dominic Sandbrook? And her daughters Maria and Inggert in Orkney. But historians now think that's unlikely, that she might have been dead by this point anyway. And then actually he had a second wife called Tora, and that maybe it was her who he left in Orkney. Anyway, we don't need to worry about them.
21:16 Tom Holland? And it's interesting because there's, there's a 12th century English chronicler, so that's well before Snorri, who says that Tostig, who has spent the whole summer, you know, presumably having come back from seeing Harold Hardrada, hanging out with Malcolm of Scotland, that he has already been joined by ships from Orkney, presumably sent by Hardrada.
21:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it's slightly confusing where Tostig is at this point because the sagas give different explanations. But Tostig is definitely doing something up in Scotland.
21:42 Tom Holland? He's with Malcolm. I mean, that's what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says.
21:45 Dominic Sandbrook? So Harold now turns south. He sails down the east coast of Scotland towards the ancient kingdom of Northumbria. Of course, the part of England with very, very strong Scandinavian roots and Scandinavian traditions. And in the middle of September, Hardrada makes landfall on the coast at a place called, then called Cliffland, Cliffland, what we would now call Cleveland, North Yorkshire. And this is very Danish territory. So the first villages that he comes to, which are now suburbs of Middlesbrough. Today they are Ormsby, Stainsby, Tolbsby. They are Danish names. They are named after Vikings called Orm, Stain, Tol.
22:28 Dominic Sandbrook? And the people there offered, were told, offered Hardrada no resistance. Now that may be.
22:33 Tom Holland? I mean, you wouldn't, would you?
22:34 Dominic Sandbrook? You wouldn't. But also, these are places where they probably have trade with Scandinavia, where the arrival of Scandinavians is not maybe as terrifying and outlandish as it would be had they landed in Devon, let us say. So they do a bit of messing around there. Then they sail 40 miles south to a place called Skardis Fort, Skardaborg, which is named after a brilliant man called Thorgill Skardi, Thorgill the Hair Lipped. And Skardis Fort, Skardaborg, we now call Scarborough. So they land at Scarborough. Now Scarborough is a larger town, it's fortified. And the people here clearly seem to have felt more English because they actually do try to resist Hardrada. Hardrada takes the town anyway.
23:18 Dominic Sandbrook? And we're told by the saga, the Northmen killed many people there and took all the booty they could lay hold of. There was nothing left for the Englishmen now if they would preserve their lives, but to submit to King Harold. And thus he subdued the country wherever he came. So in other words, he's made an example of Scarborough. He has looted it, sacked it, and this sends a message to all the towns of eastern, north eastern England. You stand in my way, and I will hammer you.
23:45 Tom Holland? But you do right by me, and I'll do right by you.
23:48 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So now he turns into the mouth of the Humber, and by this point, we can be pretty sure he has joined forces with Tostig. And Tostig has some Flemish mercenaries, probably, and he definitely has men from Scotland, from King Malcolm.
24:01 Tom Holland? Tostig has already sailed up the Humber once already, this year of 1066. And it's a reminder of the way that for, if you have any kind of Scandinavian inheritance of invasion, the Humber is where you go. It's like a great dagger pointed into the vitals of Middle England.
24:19 Dominic Sandbrook? And this is a standard thing, right? This is not unusual. So far, Harad is following the playbook that so many Vikings have done so often. He probably has about 12,000 men at this point. This includes his own son, Olaf, and Tostig's son, who's called Schooli. They go up the Humber, and then they turn into the river Ouse. People will remember how they'd use the networks of rivers in what are now Russia and Ukraine. Now they're using the network of rivers in northern England. And they row up the Ouse northwards until they reach the village of Rickel, which is 10 miles from York. Now, so far, everything Harold has done has made complete sense, has been very well planned. He has gone for the area of England that has the longest and deepest Scandinavian
25:03 Dominic Sandbrook? connections. He doesn't seem to be just interested in raiding. I think he's probably serious about conquest, which is why he's going for York, because York is one of the two biggest urban prizes, really. London is the only one that compares. It's formerly Yorvik, massive Scandinavian heritage. It had been the capital of Eric Bloodaxe. You know, there are a lot of people there who would have Scandinavian family connections, roots. And so on, trading connections.
25:29 Tom Holland? There's also an Archbishop, so quite convenient. And of course, they, they crack out enormous turds, mighty Viking turds. I think the largest turd, isn't it? The largest fossil turd ever found, something like that. So a terrifying place.
25:46 Dominic Sandbrook? Slightly more excitingly, it also has a mint. So it's one of the only places, it's the only mint in northern England. So if you take York, you're taking a proper seat of kind of royal authority. Anyway, York is guarded by the two northernmost Earls, and we've talked about them a lot. They are Morcar, the Earl of Northumbria, and Edwin, Earl of Mercia. They are the grandsons of Leafric. They are the dynasty that had been the great counterweight to the Godwinstons.
26:12 Tom Holland? And they're now the brothers-in-law of Harold Godwinson. So they are now loyal to Harold as king.
26:17 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, they are both much younger than Hardrada and much less battle-hardened. They're both in their twenties. And it may be that Hardrada thought they would come to a deal, that they would panic and run away, that they would surrender. But they don't. Now, an interesting thing here is, why, why don't they stay in York? Because York has stone walls that are built on kind of Roman foundations. Everybody knows the one thing the Vikings don't like doing is besieging towns. They're not terribly good at it. They don't enjoy it. Why don't Edwin and Morcar just stay in York and wait for Harold Godwinson to come and with his army and relieve them? The obvious answer is that, as you described last time,
26:58 Dominic Sandbrook? Harold Godwinson has been waiting on the south coast for ages for the Normans. And his men have become restless and he has released them to go off and bring in the harvest. So Edwin and Morcar probably think, first of all, that his men are all gone, so maybe he's not going to come and relieve us anyway. But crucially, our own men have not brought in our harvest, so we don't have a lot of food in York. The city is reliant on what small stocks of food we have. And if we stay cooped up in York, Hardrada's men, they'll ravage the fields or they'll eat all the harvest themselves. And we will starve. So we basically have no choice but to force the issue.
27:39 Tom Holland? Yeah, they are bold, these pups.
27:43 Dominic Sandbrook? Is that Harald Hardrada joining us?
27:45 Tom Holland? Yes.
27:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Brilliant. So now we come to Wednesday, the 20th of September. So that morning, Harald and Tostig are marching north along the River Ouse towards the hamlet of Fulford, which is now a suburb of York, southern suburb of York. And at Fulford, they find, according to the sagas, they find their road blocked by a shield wall of about 4,000 men. And these are Edwin and Morcar's housegirls. So in other words, they're trained professional soldiers. And they're sort of levies and a real ragtag, you know, farm, people with pitchforks.
28:18 Tom Holland? Up on us, how I've got up my pitchfork.
28:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. People would like an axe, a bloke who's got a sling, all of this kind of thing. To describe the terrain, the terrain is very wet. And we know that because we can tell from the name of the place, Fulford. It means foul water ford. So as the Norsemen are looking at it, they have on their left, the River Ouse. And on their right, it's a very kind of muddy swampy area. The Norsemen are going to go uphill between these two things. And they're basically, you know, head up and they have to cross this deep muddy ditch towards the Saxons. Now, I have to say, the sagas descriptions of this battle are exceedingly confusing. And historians who claim they know what happened are obviously talking balderdash.
29:00 Tom Holland? And to be honest, the same is kind of true of Stamford Bridge as well.
29:02 Dominic Sandbrook? Right, exactly. But what seems to have happened is this. Basically, at first Harald Hardrada's men are going slightly uphill through all this mud. They're cut, the Saxons are throwing spears and firing arrows at them. The bodies pile up, people are stumbling in the ditch and whatnot. The right hand side, the right wing of Hardrada's force, where Tostig's mercenaries are, they start to waver, we're told. Now, maybe is that because Tostig, everyone hates Tostig? Or is this the sagas just trying to buttress Harald Hardrada's reputation and dissing Tostig? Who can say? According to the sagas, Morcar begins to push them back. The Northumbrian's end up crossing the ditch. Now, some people say, well, maybe was this a ploy? Was this a Battle of Hastings style ploy?
29:45 Tom Holland? Or has it been? Lifted from accounts of the Battle of Hastings.
29:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. King Harold's Saga says, Harold Hardrada commanded the charge to be sounded and urged on his men. He ordered the banner, which was called the Landwaster, to be carried before him and made so severe an assault that all had to give way before it. Landwaster, his banner, very famous, emblem of, of kind of his power. This would have been a white silk banner with a black raven on it, you know, a little nod there back to their traditions.
30:15 Tom Holland? And it said that it brings victory to whomever it proceeds into battle.
30:19 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So now Hardrada orders his men into this great charge into the gap that's been left by Morcar. There's a lot of ferocious hand to hand combat and basically the Norsemen are much better at this than the Anglo Saxons are, than the English are. And that the sagas are explicit about the scale of the slaughter. So this is King Harold's Saga. He made so severe an assault that all had to give way before it, and there was a great loss among the men of the Earls. And they soon broke into flight, most of them leaping into the ditch, which was so filled with corpses that the Norsemen could cross it without getting wet. Then a lot of the English seemed to have fled towards the river and, you know, bodies piling up in the river. Another saga, Morkinskina, no greater slaughter will ever be inflicted on a brave army.
31:03 Dominic Sandbrook? So the sagas say the English did their best, they fought very bravely, but basically our guy was far too good for them. And in the end, their military power is totally broken. Now both Edwin and Morcar get away. But now there's nothing between Harold Hardrada and York. He marches on York and on Sunday, the 24th of September, after a couple of days of faffing around. City fathers have opened the gates and Harold and Tostig convene a thing, an assembly outside the city walls. And the Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells us, they offered to grant a lasting peace to the citizens as long as they all march south together to conquer this kingdom.
31:44 Dominic Sandbrook? So what Harold is basically, Hardrada is saying to York, the York sort of city fathers here is, you know, I'm not going to sack the city. I'm not going to pillage and loot it. Let's collaborate now. You join with me and we will take England. And actually, do you know what? There are probably a lot of people in York who think to themselves, we could actually come out quite well from this. You know, why not?
32:05 Tom Holland? Well, because the Godwinsons are unpopular and the fact that Tostie perhaps is at Harold's side actually serves as a reminder of everything they disliked about the Godwinsons. And perhaps, you know, they'll pitch in with Harold Hardrada.
32:18 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. And if they've pitched in with Harold Hardrada, what kind of benefits will flow Northumbria's way, York's way, as opposed to London, which will be a conquered city?
32:26 Tom Holland? Yeah. And of course, for Harold Hardrada, why would he sack York? Because he needs it as his capital.
32:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, exactly. So Hardrada says, okay, fine. This is what we'll do. You can give me 100 people as hostages, as a guarantee of your good behaviour. I will offer you 100 people as well. I mean, historians disagree about whether these are hostages or whether actually this is basically a token garrison.
32:51 Tom Holland? Kind of collaboration.
32:52 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, I'll leave 100 armed men here. Anyway, and he says, tomorrow morning, which is Monday, the 25th, I will collect the hostages and some supplies from you. And when I do that, I will name the people who are going to rule over the town and who are going to sort out the laws and who are going to give out land and all of that. So we'll make the final arrangements tomorrow, Monday. Now, in the meantime, my men and I are going back to our ships, which are still on the river at Rickall, on the River Ouse, which is 10 miles away. We're going to sleep on the ships and we'll be back tomorrow. We won't come back to York. We'll get the hostages from a river crossing, an old Roman river crossing, actually, called Stamford Bridge, which is eight miles east of York.
33:36 Dominic Sandbrook? That is where we will meet. And they all say, fine, we'll see you tomorrow at Stamford Bridge. So as night falls on this Sunday, Hardrada and his men have marched all the way back to the River Ouse and Rickall. And you can imagine the scene. Tom, you can deploy your laugh if you like.
33:52 Tom Holland? There is much feasting.
33:54 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. There's a lot, there's much feasting, war stories, they're telling anecdotes about, you know, I smashed this bloke's head and it was, it was absolutely brilliant. Loved it. And do you know what? Harold Hardrada is living the dream. It's all gone swimmingly.
34:07 Tom Holland? He's back on the road.
34:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
34:09 Tom Holland? Great gig.
34:10 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
34:11 Tom Holland? Yeah.
34:11 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. Now for the South and for the crown of England. But, Tom, as they drain their wine cups and their drinking horns, what none of them knows is that 12 miles to the west, out of sight, entirely undetected, another army is waiting. And Tom, within just a few hours, Harold Haradada's final adventure will reach its dramatic, heart-stopping conclusion. This is blood pumping stuff. And we will be back after the break with the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
34:56 Dominic Sandbrook? This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So go to mintmobile.com/history. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB of hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.
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36:06 Dominic Sandbrook? Hello, welcome back. We are at dawn, Monday, the 25th of September, 10:66. Harold Haradada presumably waking up perhaps with a slightly sore head. There has been much drinking and feasting and fooling. And he must think everything has gone absolutely brilliant. All he needs to do is go back to the
36:25 Tom Holland? The meeting place outside York, pick up his hostages, pick up his supplies and then he can turn south.
36:30 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
36:31 Tom Holland? And he divides his army, doesn't he? So a third stay behind at Rickall to guard the ships. And those who are left behind include his son Olaf.
36:42 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
36:43 Tom Holland? And his pledged son-in-law, Einstein. And then the other 8,000, he and Tostie will take them to go and get the hostages and the supplies and things.
36:53 Dominic Sandbrook? Hmm.
36:54 Tom Holland? And we know that it's unseasonably warm. So the Heimskringler, the weather was uncommonly fine and the sun was very hot. So the men laid aside their armour and went ashore only with their shields, helmets, spears and swords. And many had also bows and arrows and they were all very merry. So heading off without your armour, what could possibly go wrong?
37:16 Dominic Sandbrook? So Tostie, we're told in the sagas, says, what, what are we doing? Let's take the armour with us. It's mad to leave our armour behind in enemy territory. I fear you've lost your wits.
37:26 Tom Holland? So his, his people skills kicking in again there.
37:31 Dominic Sandbrook? We are told, we are told that everybody hates Tostic so much that, quote, nobody would listen to him.
37:36 Tom Holland? I love that detail.
37:37 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, the thing is, Tostic, of course, at this point is redundant. Really, there's no point in Tostic anymore.
37:44 Tom Holland? But you might say worse than redundant, that he's an active problem because everyone in York hates him.
37:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So it doesn't surprise me that nobody listens to him. I mean, at this point, if you're Harold Hardrada, you're probably thinking, well, I'm going to get rid of this bloke pretty soon because I don't need him anymore. Do they leave their armour behind? There are some people who think they wouldn't, said this guy called Tom Shippey, great scholar of Norse literature, great Tolkien scholar. Who says in his book, Laughing Shall I Die? He says, it's just not plausible that Harold Hardrada would have left his armour behind. This feels like a detail invented by saga writers to excuse his defeat. It's basically like saying you wore the wrong boots in a football match that you were expected to win. Who knows? Let's assume they did leave their armour behind because the sagas are so, they emphasise it again and again. They set off towards Stamford Bridge. Now, this is 15 miles away.
38:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Some of them would have had horses, most of them wouldn't. So they're proceeding probably at walking pace on what we're told is a hot day. Don Holway in his book, The Last Viking, about Harold Hardrada estimates that this would have taken them probably five hours or so. So in other words, they probably get to Stamford Bridge when the sun's at its height around midday. We've already heard they were very merry. Of course, they're in good form. They've beaten the only army in the north of England. There's no real threat to them. They've had a great night of feasting and we know that they haven't sent out any scouts or patrols because they don't really need to. Now, we're told they get to this bridge across the river Derwent. It's a wooden bridge going kind of east to west.
39:12 Tom Holland? Kind of rough, rough boards across with gaps in.
39:16 Dominic Sandbrook? With gaps, yeah, through which you could stick a sword or spear, in fact.
39:19 Tom Holland? Potentially if required.
39:20 Dominic Sandbrook? So they cross the bridge from the southeastern side to the northwestern side. And now we're told in the sagas comes the key moment as they see a kind of dust cloud on the western horizon coming from the direction of York. And Harold Hardrada says to Tostig, what is this, horsemen? And Tostig said, oh, well, this will obviously be the group bringing the hostages. Or maybe it's a party of kind of bigwigs from York who've come to pay you, you know, homage to bend the knee, as it were. And then the wonderful bit from Snorri, the nearer this force came, the greater it appeared. And their shining arms glittered like a field of broken ice.
39:59 Tom Holland? Wonderful description, isn't it?
40:01 Dominic Sandbrook? And you get this sense in the sagas of Harold Hardrada watching this force appear and the, the, the light glittering on the tips of the spears and this dreadful sinking feeling when he realises, I've made a really dreadful mistake here because these are not the hostages. This is an army. This is really one of the most dramatic, breathtaking, unexpected moments in all English history, I would say.
40:29 Tom Holland? And one of the most iconic exchanges in all of English history.
40:32 Dominic Sandbrook? So who is this? It is, of course, Harold Godwinson, who's been waiting on the south coast all summer to face the Normans. Now, there are two versions of what has happened here. Here's the one that is the one that you learn as a child in school and is the really exciting one. Remember Harold Godwinson released his men to bring in the harvest on the eighth of September and went back to London. In the sort of legendary version of the story, he hears on the 19th that Hardrada and Tostic have landed in the north, he immediately musters his men, what men he can, and then he starts riding out of London, gathering men as he passes. So that would be on the day of the Battle of Fulford, the 20th of September. Now, normally, that journey to York would take two weeks, and in the kind of legendary version of the
41:17 Dominic Sandbrook? story, somehow pushing his men beyond the limits of endurance, he does it in four and a half days. And for historians who love Harold Goldwynson, they say, come on, this bloke is brilliant. He's a brilliant general, he's a great organizer, and what an inspirational Churchillian figure he must be to push his men to cover such a distance in so short a time. But the trend among more modern historians, more recent historians, is to say, come on, if it takes you two weeks, you're not going to do it in four days. And that's just not plausible.
41:46 Tom Holland? But I think they can be discounted.
41:47 Dominic Sandbrook? You think so?
41:48 Tom Holland? Yeah.
41:49 Dominic Sandbrook? The cynics' explanation is that actually Harold Goldwynson left much earlier, that probably he had words that Hardrada had first entered the Humber, and then he started mustering his men, and probably it did take them about two weeks. So maybe they're not quite as exhausted.
42:05 Tom Holland? But also, bear in mind, you know, we were talking in the last episode about the incredible military apparatus that an English king can command. He can command people from the north.
42:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, of course.
42:15 Tom Holland? You know, there are deep reserves of manpower, they haven't all been wiped out at Fulford. So, you know, I assume he could do what seems to have happened in the wake of Stamford Bridge, which is he has a cavalry force, and as he goes, he raises men who then accompany him.
42:30 Dominic Sandbrook? That's quite possible, too. That is absolutely possible. Either way, by the evening of the 24th of September, so the previous evening to the day that he meets Hardrada, by that evening, he has reached the village of Tadcaster, which is 10 miles southwest of York, having covered a distance of almost 200 miles. He will undoubtedly by this point have heard about Edwin and Morcar being defeated. He will have heard that York has surrendered. And what he does is he waits, he allows Hardrada to have his feast, to feast at the ships. He keeps a low profile. Then when dawn breaks, while Hardrada's off walking through the countryside with no armour, Harold Godwinson marches into York, but doesn't stop there, which you might expect him to do.
43:12 Dominic Sandbrook? He keeps going, he obviously is told Hardrada's going to Stamford Bridge to get the supplies and the hostages. And Godwinson says, right, I'm going there too, and we will intercept him there. It's a bold call. He's going to risk it all on one battle. I mean, this is what people keep doing in this story, isn't it? So this is what Hardrada sees coming in the distance. Harold Godwinson with the English army and they're flying Godwinson's war banner, which is a red flag embroidered with a white fighting man.
43:41 Tom Holland? Yeah, the fighting man of Wessex.
43:43 Dominic Sandbrook? Love it. So Hardrada thinks, oh no, God, God. Because the Englishmen have more men, they have 12,000 men, he perhaps has 8,000. And if we can believe the sagas, his men have by and large left their armour behind. So what's Hardrada do now? Now we're dependent completely on the sagas, really. The sagas say he sent three men, he said, bring my three fastest riders and sent them back to Rickall for help, get the rest of the men. But if he did that, he must have known that that would take, even if they're riding really fast, and then they basically move really quickly, it will take three, four hours for them to get to him.
44:23 Tom Holland? The key would be to find a bridge, say, and hold the bridge.
44:27 Dominic Sandbrook? If only there were a bridge that he could hold out at. And he says to his, to his captains, the Englishmen shall have a hard fray of it before we give ourselves up for lost.
44:37 Tom Holland? No question about that.
44:39 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. So now there are two great incidents that feel that they're very J R R Tolkien or the stories of King Arthur, or indeed the Norse myths. First of all, he wheels his horse to bring up his army and he says, bring forth the land waster, the raven banner.
44:55 Dominic Sandbrook? And at that point, his horse stumbles and throws him to the ground in front of his men, which is a terrible omen. But he is quick witted, as we know, and he says, ha, ha, ha, a fall is good fortune.
45:08 Tom Holland? And Dominic, that is something that will also be told of William landing at Pevensey.
45:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, of course.
45:14 Tom Holland? And both these accounts derive from an account in Sartonius about Julius Caesar. So to be discussed.
45:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, this is the thing with all these stories, right? So what is going to follow in the sagas? So many elements of this will be familiar to listeners from other battles and other such confrontations, because that's actually, of course, how the sagas worked. They worked, they're rather at Bond films. They have this, they have familiar elements that listeners, people listen to the stories, they look forward to hearing the bit where the king is going to fall off his horse and say, ha, ha, that is good fortune, because they like that, those elements of the story.
45:49 Tom Holland? I think also with the Hardrada specifically, there's the issue of the landwaster always guaranteeing victory to whoever has it. And so there is a need on this occasion to explain why that might not necessarily be the case.
46:05 Dominic Sandbrook? It's at this point, we hear Harold Godwinson speak. And Harold Godwinson says to his men, who was that tall man whose horse fell with the blue tunic and the beautiful helm? Now, he's talking, we're told, to Norsemen who are fighting for him. And that's not implausible, is it? I mean, these are not, you know, ethnically homogeneous armies.
46:26 Tom Holland? Harold is half Scandinavian himself, Harold Godwinson.
46:28 Dominic Sandbrook? And these Norsemen apparently say, that was the king of Norway. And Harold Godwinson is given the splendid line, he looks like a grim and splendid man, but I think his luck has run out.
46:39 Tom Holland? Harold Godwinson in these epics, and I think you get the sense of him actually from contemporary. Terranist accounts, there is a quality of Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western.
46:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Hmm, yeah.
46:51 Tom Holland? He's very cool and there's a kind of a dry, a dryness to his humour that seems authentic to the man.
47:00 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, we'll see in the next exchange, the great demonstration of this, and this, I have to say, for me, is one of the great conversations, one of the legendary conversations in all English history. Not just medieval history, but all English history. And there are so many different versions and sagas and chronicles and things, that there must be, I think, some kernel of truth here. And to be frank, I want there to be.
47:25 Tom Holland? But Dominic, remember that, that, that wonderful description of Harold Godwinson going through life with watchful mockery through ambush after ambush, which is contemporaneous. And there is a quality of that about this exchange, I think.
47:40 Dominic Sandbrook? Totally, there is. So the English have halted, they've approached the Scandinavians. They're about two bow shots away, we're told, and a group of them ride forward with their banners flowing. I mean, this is absolute kind of riders of Rohan kind of territory. Their leader, his face is masked behind a gilded helmet and he calls out, "Is Earl Tostig here?" Tostig says, rather bizarrely, "I cannot deny it." And this man says, "Your brother, King Harold, greets you and sends you this offer. He would prefer not to fight you and offers you all Northumbria, a third of his kingdom." "Tostig, my brother should have offered me that last winter instead of his enmity and spite. That would have been better for England." And then Tostig speaks again. "If I accept this offer, what will my brother give Harold's son of Sigurd?"
48:26 Dominic Sandbrook? Meaning Hardrada. And then the Englishman has the absolutely excellent line. "He will give him seven feet of English ground or more if he really is so much taller, but no more than that."
48:37 Tom Holland? So for his grave.
48:38 Dominic Sandbrook? For his grave. Now, Tostig, who has been a complete snake so far in the story, then he doesn't take the deal. He says, "Tell my brother to make ready for battle and never let men say that Tostig betrayed Harold Sigurdsson when he came west to fight for England. For we have vowed to win the kingdom or die with honour." Now, the sagas, who have no vested interest in being nice to Tostig, they're very kind to Tostig at this point. They're saying, Tostig actually, you know, he doesn't take the deal, he doesn't betray Harold Hardrada.
49:08 Tom Holland? Well, they do love an epic exchange, don't they?
49:10 Dominic Sandbrook? They love an epic exchange. And then the splendid bit, Hardrada, who hasn't understood a word of this, because he doesn't speak English. He says to Tostig, who was that man who spoke so fair? And Tostig says, that was my brother, Harold Godwinson. And Hardrada says, he is a small man, but he stood well in his stirrups.
49:30 Tom Holland? It's so brilliant, isn't it?
49:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Everybody is so great in this story.
49:33 Tom Holland? And those are the last words that will ever be spoken between the two brothers. And again, from Harold, you get this wit, this kind of defiant cool.
49:44 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
49:44 Tom Holland? That you feel must be, must be true to the man.
49:48 Dominic Sandbrook? Why is this not the, the most popular Amazon TV drama of all time? So now they make the final preparations for battle. The English, remember, have about 12,000 men, the Norwegians about 8,000. They, they have not been transformed by the same military revolution that has taken place in Normandy. So this is not going to be a battle with knights and with great cavalry charges and stuff. There is some of that in the sagas, but most people think these are anachronisms. These are later embellishments, borrowed from the Battle of Hastings.
50:22 Tom Holland? What's so amazing about 1066, isn't it? That you have a battle that's, that could have been fought in the eighth century.
50:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
50:30 Tom Holland? And you have this other battle at Hastings, which presages all the battles that will be fought over the course of the High Middle Ages. It's a year with dragonships and with castles.
50:40 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, exactly. It's, it's a, it's like two time periods colliding. And that's what makes it such a brilliant story. So the odds very clearly, if you think they're gonna have, they've got the same military technology. They're both kind of tired. The odds clearly favor the English, especially if the Norwegians don't have any armour. And in good epic style, the sagas have Hardrada murmuring, composing poems as he draws up his men. Tom Shippe's translation, I've slightly adapted it. At first, Hardrada says, "Forward we go in formation, without armour against blue steel edges. Helmets shine. I don't have mine. Now our armour lies down with the ships." Now, this is quite depressing for him.
51:20 Tom Holland? Nice internal rhyme scheme, though.
51:21 Dominic Sandbrook? Very nice, very nice rhyme scheme. But then, apparently, the saga says, Hardrada says, "Oh, come on, that's a bit defeatist. I'll compose a better verse." And this is Tom Shippe's translation again, again, I've slightly adapted it. "We should not creep into battle behind the hollow of our shields because of the crush of weapons. So commanded Faithful Hill, the Valkyrie. The woman once told me to hold my head high where ice blades meet skulls in the clash of swords." And what that basically means is, let's do this, let's do it straight, let's not hide behind our shields. Let's meet this face on. Now, I don't think for a moment that Harold Hardrada is genuinely standing there composing poems. But I think this does capture something of the essence of the man. He is always a-
52:06 Tom Holland? I'm not sure about that.
52:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, go on.
52:07 Tom Holland? I think it's possible, we know from historical evidence, much later, the Earls of Orkney. When they go on these kind of great expeditions. And some of them are famous for composing, you know, extemporizing poetry like this. So, not impossible.
52:22 Dominic Sandbrook? This is great that you've dropped your skepticism. See, I want to dial up the melodrama. I think Harold Hardrada definitely composed poems, and these are those exact poems.
52:32 Tom Holland? Because I think the poems are likely to be more authentic than the actual details of the battle.
52:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Do you? Well-
52:36 Tom Holland? They're the kind of things that might have been preserved.
52:38 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, on the details of the battle, so the Battle of Stamford Bridge, one of the great battles in English history. What do we know about it? If you read King Harold's saga, Snorri Stirlison, written in the 1230s. There are knights charging, people running away, all kinds of twists and turns.
52:53 Tom Holland? It is the Battle of Hastings.
52:54 Dominic Sandbrook? It's the Battle of Hastings. If you read the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, you're like, well, what's the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle say? I shall tell you what it said. It said, "They continued fighting all day."
53:02 Tom Holland? Yeah.
53:03 Dominic Sandbrook? Come on, give us more detail.
53:05 Tom Holland? Have you been to the site of the battle?
53:06 Dominic Sandbrook? I've never been there, no.
53:07 Tom Holland? It's basically a housing estate.
53:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh.
53:10 Tom Holland? So, I went to have a look at it. There's a pub, there's a bridge, there's a little, there are kind of little hints of it. But it's quite hard to get a sense of the terrain.
53:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Please tell me there's a visitor's centre of some kind.
53:22 Tom Holland? No, I think there's a board.
53:23 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, no.
53:25 Tom Holland? On the side of a kind of community centre.
53:27 Dominic Sandbrook? So there should be a virtual reality immersive experience, you know, be in the thick of the action.
53:32 Tom Holland? Yeah, ravens.
53:34 Dominic Sandbrook? Right.
53:34 Tom Holland? Whistling of arrows.
53:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, all of that. So let's go with the sagas, which are the, and try to, I'm just going to try to have some fun with the sagas and see what we think could have happened. Hardrada wants to hold off the English for as long as possible before, let's say, 4,000 men arrive from Rikle. They'll take four hours, so he's got a long time to, to fight. But as you said, that bridge is going to come in very useful. So it's a narrow wooden footbridge, we are told. We're also told the banks of the river are too steep and the water is too deep to cross anywhere but the bridge. If you're on the other side, the English have to, they can only use the footbridge to cross. So he puts most of his men, the sagas say, on the far, sort of southeastern bank.
54:18 Dominic Sandbrook? And then he orders his elite, his vanguard, his housegirls, his trained professional soldiers to form a shield wall at the far end of the bridge, the western bank. And basically, if they can hold the bridge, they will be all right. And then, say the sagas, there is this long struggle. The English are firing arrows at them, throwing spears at them, basically trying to dislodge this shield wall from the narrow footbridge. Because once they've got the bridge, they can then pour across and attack the rest of the Norwegians. And in the English sources that we have, later chronicles, let's say 100 years later, some of them, they tell the story, again, does feel a little bit like a well-known formula,
55:04 Dominic Sandbrook? that one by one, the Norsemen are whittled down until there is just one anonymous Norseman holding the bridge alone against the English. So this is Henry of Huntingdon. He was born in about 1088, so he's born about 20 years after the battle.
55:24 Dominic Sandbrook? Mighty have heard eyewitness accounts. I mean, it's hard to know. But anyway, this is what he says. A single Norwegian, whose name should have been remembered, posted himself on the bridge and chopping down more than 40 English with a battle axe, his country's weapon halted the advance of the whole English army. And this is William of Malmesbury, and you said, Tom, I think that he's about the same generation, isn't he? So he might, again, just have heard eyewitness accounts.
55:51 Tom Holland? I mean, William of Malmesbury is a very great historian, probably the greatest English historian since Bede. So not to be discounted altogether.
55:58 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, let us believe him. He says, given the chance to surrender and being assured that a man of such bravery could expect the greatest mercy from the English. He, this is this lone Norseman, ridiculed those who tried to bargain with him and scorned the cowards who were unable to overcome one man. And then this very memorable moment. One Englishman gets under the bridge. Some accounts say he's sort of made a makeshift boat for himself and is kind of floating under the bridge. And then he stabs his sword up through the planks of the bridge.
56:29 Tom Holland? That gap between the boards that we mentioned before?
56:32 Dominic Sandbrook? The gap between the boards into the Norseman's.
56:35 Tom Holland? Never parts?
56:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Nether regions, exactly. The Norseman falls. A great cheer erupts from the English army. And then like kind of the orcs at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring, they pour across the bridge.
56:49 Tom Holland? Dominic, you're not comparing the English to the orcs.
56:51 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, but Tom, I don't actually think that. This is what a great historian does with his imagination. I'm seeing it from the Norwegian perspective.
56:57 Tom Holland? I just want to pay tribute here to my very first history teacher, Major Morris. He would narrate our stories, very like you, Dominic, but he was also a brilliant artist. And he, he drew a picture of this sole Norseman standing on the bridge, smiting the English. And then he did one of the Englishmen in the boat gliding up to the bridge. And then he had an excellent drawing of the spear being shoved up through the gap.
57:22 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, no way.
57:23 Tom Holland? And the Norseman, arms and legs going out. And I must have been, I don't know. Eight, nine, when I saw that, and I've never forgotten it.
57:33 Dominic Sandbrook? I can't compete with that because actually my art teacher, when I was that age, said I was the single worst person she'd ever taught in her 40-year career. Mrs. Salt, that was her verdict. So I can't compete with Major Morris, I'm afraid. So what happens next? The English have piled across the bridge. What can we tell from the sagas? What probably happened? Almost certainly, the Norwegians would have formed a shield wall, a defensive shield wall, and tried to hold out. And we can assume that effectively the English surrounded them again.
58:00 Tom Holland? And then Dominic has a great historian kind of entered into the mind of Harold. And if he has, shall I read what this great historian, namely yourself, has written about it?
58:12 Dominic Sandbrook? So to explain, we're told in the sagas that Harold decides on one final charge without his helmet, without his armour. And again, yeah, it's the mark of a great historian, Tom, is their use of the imagination as well as the sources.
58:27 Tom Holland? Yeah, so this is what you write in Adventures in Time. "With two hands, he raised his huge steel ringsword and whispered one last prayer. Then with a terrible roar of Berserker fury, he hurled himself into the fray. And as he raged and slew, all his cares seemed to melt away. And he felt a lightness and joy he had not known for many years." So that's you inhabiting the mind of a Berserker warrior. Unbelievable.
59:00 Dominic Sandbrook? But you know, it's method writing because I'm imagining my own mood before we do one of our Rest is History live shows on tour.
59:07 Tom Holland? That is very much what you're like. You kind of froth at the mouth, don't you?
59:10 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, well, read the next bit and people will see exactly how I'm, what I am like before a show. "On he charged, his face a mask of dripping blood, a war cry on his lips, a battle song in his heart. He felt wonderfully happy. He had never been happier." That's literally how I feel just before we go on stage to answer the listeners' questions. What's your favourite historical dinner party?
59:32 Tom Holland? Who would win a fight between Jaco Macaco and Napoleon?
59:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, that's exactly. How I feel. So, so this is literally what happened to Harald Hardrada, to be clear. In the sagas, he is killed either with an arrow or the spear in the throat. I think these details are very clearly taken from the Battle of Hastings. But you know what, Tom? He deserves an ending like that.
59:52 Tom Holland? He does.
59:53 Dominic Sandbrook? I think he died, just like Boromir, at Parth Garland, at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring. So I think he is surrounded by English bodies. He's in a pile of bodies. He's peppered with arrows.
1:00:07 Tom Holland? And obviously, all of this is the stuff that Tolkien is saturated in.
1:00:12 Dominic Sandbrook? Of course.
1:00:12 Tom Holland? I mean, it must be on Tolkien's mind, as Tom Shippey would, you know, I'm sure absolutely agree.
1:00:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Absolutely. So Harald Hardrada falls and dies, let us hope, in this incredibly dramatic and worthy way. Snorri Sturlison says that at this point Harald Goldwynson paused, and he said to the remaining Northmen, Antostic, who's still alive, "We will give you peace and quarter if you surrender." And again, Antostic behaves very gallantly. He says, "No, I won't. No, let's, let's finish this. Let's go to the end." So there's a skall called Arnor, who's quoted by the sagas. "The gallant men who saw him fall would take no quarter," him being Harald Hardrada. "One and all resolved to die with their loved king around his corpse in a corpse ring."
1:00:59 Tom Holland? I think that's terrible.
1:01:00 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I think that's, I actually almost started crying when I was reading that. I was so moved. So by now the Norwegian reinforcements are finally arriving, but it's far too late. Many of them are cut down too, and a few survivors, dozens, hundreds, it's hard to tell, do make-
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1:01:46 Dominic Sandbrook? Get back to Rickall, they flee across the countryside.
1:01:49 Tom Holland? Was 24 ships go and it was 300 ships that had arrived, isn't it?
1:01:54 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. Harold, Hardrada and Tostic's sons were not in the battle. They'd stayed with the ships. And the next day they rode under flag of truce to York where Harold Godwinson had instored himself victorious. And he was as, as you would expect from Harold Godwinson, who's one of the greatest men who ever lived. He's very generous to them. And he says, look, you know, it's a fair fight. You know, all's fair in love and war. You can sail back to Norway as long as you don't do this again.
1:02:21 Tom Holland? But he wants them to go.
1:02:23 Dominic Sandbrook? And, and as you said, Tom, it takes them only 24 of their 300 ships to take the survivors back because so many have fallen.
1:02:30 Tom Holland? And Dominic, to the land of the Northmen came only a tale from far off, a rumor of the wrath and terror of Wessex.
1:02:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, I love that. Is that you?
1:02:43 Tom Holland? No, it's from, it's from Tolkien.
1:02:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, that's very good. Well done, Tolkien.
1:02:47 Tom Holland? It's the last sentence describing the Battle of Pelennor Fields. And I have replaced Gondor with Wessex.
1:02:52 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, that's very good.
1:02:54 Tom Holland? So that's one for you, one for Tabby and one for Tolkien fans everywhere.
1:02:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Crikey. Well, Tabby, Tolkien fans and I are all delighted by that, I imagine. So this is the last gasp, Tom, of the Viking Age.
1:03:08 Tom Holland? Or is it?
1:03:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, well, is it? Is it actually? Because you could make two arguments here. One, you could say the Viking Age is already over because of course Christianity has already begun to transform Scandinavia. We've had towns arriving in Scandinavia, we've got kings, the days of, you know, free booting raiders are gone actually. And Harold Hardrada in many ways is not a Viking. The other way you could say it is actually the Viking Age still has some time to run because there will be more Scandinavian attacks. Svein, who sensibly turned down Tostig's offer, he does actually launch two raids after the Norman conquest.
1:03:44 Tom Holland? And one of those has a very decisive impact on the course of William's reign, as we will see.
1:03:48 Dominic Sandbrook? It does indeed. And in fact, I was surprised when I looked this up. The last really serious attack, it was as late as 1152. A guy called Einstein II, who was Harold Hardrada's great-great-grandson, raided the east coast of England.
1:04:05 Tom Holland? So retro, isn't it? You know, you're busy talking about the Crusades and things. Oh, my God, it's a Viking.
1:04:11 Dominic Sandbrook? Come on, mate. It's the 12th century. But you can understand completely why people call Harold Hardrada the Last Viking, and why people always use this to end their kind of Viking survey books. Because there is something about him, the mad adventures of his life, his travels, but also his sensibility, composing all these poems in the face of danger, kind of laughing uncontrollably for no good reason.
1:04:36 Tom Holland? I mean, I guess I would, I would just stick up for the Earls of Orkney, who, who do kind of hang around on the scene and continue to lead a Viking life, composing poems and going on expeditions and things.
1:04:47 Dominic Sandbrook? You've got to admit, Tom, they don't quite have the same cultural cachet as Harold Hardrada.
1:04:51 Tom Holland? No, they don't. But they are still around on the scene.
1:04:54 Dominic Sandbrook? Tom Shippey has a lovely line where he's talking about the way he dies. And he says, even the way he, the way he dies at Stamford Bridge, this hubristic, you know, end where he's left his armour behind, or has he? Let's assume he's left his armour behind and he's surrounded by the English, but he fights on to the end. Tom Shippey says, this feels like the embodiment of the Viking spirit, arrogant, unlucky, self-possessed to the last, and accepting his fate with wry defiance. So that's the end of Harold Hardrada. But what of the victor? What of the man who's beaten him? I think Harold Godwinson has won an astounding victory. It is one of the greatest victories at this point in the history of the English people.
1:05:37 Dominic Sandbrook? I mean, surely equivalent to any of the victories won by Alfred or Athelstan. To have defeated a Norwegian army led by the most, arguably the most famous warrior in Northern Europe, in all Europe, to have killed him, to have won such a crushing victory, there is no chance the Norwegians will come back. I mean, Norway is out now.
1:05:59 Tom Holland? It is a great tribute to the potency of Anglo-Saxon arms.
1:06:03 Dominic Sandbrook? And to Harold Godwinson's leadership, actually.
1:06:05 Tom Holland? Absolutely. When you combine able leadership with the military resources of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Stamford Bridge is evidence that everything is fine, that it's ticking along.
1:06:17 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, I mean, Harold Godwinson can feel very, very pleased with himself. For a few days, he remains in York to rest. You can imagine his overwhelming relief. He's had months of waiting, months of uncertainty, and he knows now, for the time being, his kingdom is secure and his crown is safe.
1:06:39 Tom Holland? And by now, it is well into the autumn and people just don't sail in, you know, with huge expeditions in this kind of, this time of year.
1:06:48 Dominic Sandbrook? And then, at the turn of October, a messenger arrives in York. And when he's shown in to see Harold Godwinson and he stammers out the words of the message, the blood drains from Harold's features because, Tom, against all the odds, William of Normandy has landed at Pevensey. And now for Harold and for the English, the road leads to Hastings and our final showdown.
1:07:19 Tom Holland? Unbelievable tension. I mean, who would not want to hear that episode right now, to be honest? And if you're a member of The Rest is History Club, the house culls of our podcast, as we like to think of them, you can. And if you're not, then you can sign up at therestishistory.com and join us for slaughter at Senlac Hill. And all that thrilling bombshell, goodbye.
1:07:44 Dominic Sandbrook? Goodbye.
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