It is a narrative that has been taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of essentially the most well-known and pivotal occasions within the nation’s historical past.
In September 1066, as a Norman duke referred to as William ready to sail from France to assert the English throne, King Harold of England found the Viking chief Harald Hardrada had landed in Yorkshire with a military of his personal.
Unfortunately, based on historians, the English king had disbanded his naval fleet weeks earlier than, and so he was compelled to march his military virtually 300 miles (about 480km) north to Stamford Bridge, close to York, confront – and defeat – the Vikings, after which one way or the other march the troops all the way in which again to the south coast. Exhausted by this virtually superhuman trudge, the English forces had been then defeated by William on 14 October, in what would change into often called the Battle of Hastings.
But what if historians have gotten one of essentially the most essential assumptions about one of England’s most pivotal battles utterly unsuitable?
That’s the declare of one British educational, who argues that the infamous “forced march” of the English military to Stamford Bridge – interpreted for hundreds of years as an indication of Harold’s recklessness and a key think about his defeat – in actual fact by no means occurred in any respect.
What’s extra, he believes that in addition to their conflict on land at Hastings – as depicted within the Bayeux tapestry, shortly to go on show in London for the primary time in a millennium – Harold additionally tried to withstand William’s invasion by sea, sending ships to attempt to entice the Norman fleet in a pincer motion that was in the end unsuccessful.
Tom Licence, a professor of medieval historical past and literature on the University of East Anglia, argues {that a} misreading of Old English data led historians to imagine Harold had disbanded his navy – making a march to Yorkshire inevitable – when in actual fact the king had finished no such factor.
He factors to an entry within the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which says that the English fleet – which had been stationed within the Channel by means of the summer season of 1066 in case of invasion – “came home” in early September. Influential Victorian historians took that to imply the warships had been despatched again to their residence ports across the nation from the place Harold had mustered them, an interpretation that has formed assumptions ever since.
“[They] read it to mean that as soon as the fleet had all been disbanded, Harold heard this terrible news that Hardrada, the most feared warrior in Christendom, had landed in the north. So Harold is basically without a fleet. And it follows from that that he’s got to march everywhere,” says Licence.
When Licence re-examined the sources, he discovered proof, he says, that “coming home” had beforehand been used to imply returning to their residence base in London. “And when I realised that passage had been misread, then everything else that had previously confused historians began to fall into place.”
There are, in actual fact, a number of references to Harold having a fleet at this level, says Licence, “which had really confused historians, [so] they tried to explain it away in various ways. There are also two references in very early Norman accounts to Harold sending hundreds of ships around the south coast to block William in at Hastings.”
Licence additionally hunted the up to date sources for proof for the lengthy march north, “and I couldn’t find any reference to marching at all. That was a real surprise because it’s such an entrenched story. I mean, it’s the most famous march in English history, it’s so central to the debate around Harold’s defeat at Hastings. And it’s not in the texts.”
His interpretation? Harold merely sailed his armies to Yorkshire and again. “Only a mad general would have attempted what seems like an impossible march, which isn’t recorded in the sources anyway.” The English king, Licence believes, “was not a reactive, exhausted commander, he was a strategist using England’s naval assets to wage a coordinated defence”.
He will current his proof at a conference at the University of Oxford on 24 March.
“The supposed forced march has long been the accepted explanation for Harold’s swift journey from York to Hastings following the Battle of Stamford Bridge,” mentioned Rebecca Tyson, a doctoral researcher and skilled in eleventh century maritime historical past on the University of Bristol.
“This new discovery that Harold maintained his fleet right up until the Battle of Hastings highlights the central importance of maritime aspects to the events of 1066, which have largely been overlooked in scholarship to date.”
According to Prof Michael Lewis, the pinnacle of the moveable antiquities scheme on the British Museum and curator of its forthcoming Bayeux tapestry exhibition, Licence’s research “shows there is much still to be learned about the events of 1066”.
“It is clearly a fascinating discovery that following the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold took an easier, more logical, trip south by ship to meet Duke William in battle, rather than a long trek overland, as has long been supposed,” he mentioned.
