‘Remarkable discovery’: Research challenges narrative of Battle of Hastings | legacy

It is a story taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of the most famous and pivotal events in the country’s history.

In September 1066, as a Duke of Normandy named William prepared to sail from France to claim the English throne, King Harold of England discovered that the Viking leader Harald Hardrada had landed in Yorkshire with an army of his own.

Unfortunately, according to historians, the English king had disbanded his navy weeks earlier, so he had to march his army roughly 300 miles (about 480 kilometers) north to Stamford Bridge, near York, to confront and defeat the Vikings, and then somehow lead the forces all the way to the southern coast. Almost exhausted by this supernatural endeavour, the English forces were defeated by William on October 14, in what became known as the Battle of Hastings.

But what if historians have gotten one of the most important assumptions about one of England’s most important battles completely wrong?

This is the claim of one British academic, who claims that the English army’s infamous “forced march” to Stamford Bridge – interpreted for centuries as a sign of Harold’s recklessness and a major factor in his defeat – never actually happened.

What’s more, he believes that in addition to their struggle on land at Hastings – as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, soon to be displayed in London for the first time in a thousand years – Harold also attempted to resist William’s invasion by sea, sending ships to try to corner the Norman fleet in a pincer movement that was ultimately unsuccessful.

Tom Lessens, professor of medieval history and literature at the University of East Anglia, says a misreading of ancient English chronicles has led historians to believe that Harold had disbanded his navy – making a march on Yorkshire inevitable – when in fact the king did no such thing.

He refers to an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that says that the English fleet – which had been stationed in the Channel during the summer of 1066 in case of invasion – “returned home” in early September. Influential Victorian historians took this to mean that warships were returned to their original ports around the country where Harold mustered them, an interpretation that has shaped assumptions ever since.

“[They] Read it to mean that once the fleet had been completely dismantled, Harold heard this terrible news that Hardrada, the most feared warrior in Christendom, had landed in the north. So Harold basically has no fleet. It follows that he must walk everywhere,” says Lessence.

When Lessance re-examined the sources, he found evidence, he says, that the phrase “returning home” had previously been used to mean returning to their original base in London. “And when I realized that this passage had been misread, everything else that had previously confounded historians began to fall into place.”

In fact, there are multiple references to Harold having a fleet at this point, says Lessens, “which has really confused historians; [so] They tried to explain it in different ways. There are also two references in very early Norman accounts to Harold sending hundreds of ships around the south coast to prevent William from reaching Hastings.

License also searched contemporary sources for evidence of the Long March north, “and I couldn’t find any reference to the march at all. That was a real surprise because it’s such an established story. I mean, it’s the most famous march in the history of England, and it’s very central to the debate about Harold’s defeat at Hastings. It’s not in the texts.”

His interpretation? Harold simply sailed his armies to Yorkshire and back. “Only a mad general would have attempted what seemed like an impossible march, something not recorded in the sources anyway.” Lessance believes that the English king “was not a cumbersome and reactive commander, but rather a strategist using English naval assets to mount a coordinated defence.”

He will present his evidence at a conference at Oxford University on March 24.

“Presumed forced march has long been the accepted explanation for Harold’s rapid flight from York to Hastings after the Battle of Stamford Bridge,” said Rebecca Tyson, a PhD researcher and expert in 11th-century maritime history at the University of Bristol.

“This new discovery that Harold maintained his fleet until the Battle of Hastings highlights the central importance of the naval aspects of the events of 1066, which have been largely overlooked in studies to date.”

According to Professor Michael Lewis, head of the Portable Monuments Scheme at the British Museum and curator of the upcoming Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, Lessens’ research “shows that there is still much to be learned about the events of 1066”.

He said: “It is clearly a remarkable discovery that after the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold made the easier and more logical journey south by ship to meet Duke William in battle, rather than a long journey overland, as had long been supposed.”