Today, September 25th, is the anniversary of one of the greatest military triumphs of Anglo-Saxon England, the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. King Harold II and his army comprehensively dismantled a colossal Viking force, captained by Harald Hardraada of Norway and Harold's renegade brother, Tostig. The English victory was as emphatic as they come and brought to a definitive end neatly three hundred years of incursions and invasions from Scandinavia.
Stamford Bridge is inevitably overshadowed, however, by what happened near Hastings nineteen days later when Harold lost his kingdom and his life on the ridge of Senlac Hill. The Norman Conquest, in many ways, was the price the Saxons paid for their dispatching of the Vikings, though Harold could have helped himself more than he did by taking his time to rest and regroup and not rush down headlong, as he did in the end, to lock antlers with the Normans when there was no immediate need.
The tragedy of Hastings casts a long shadow over our history. It is present still today and there is a sense, I feel, in which it can be said that the English are perhaps the most deeply colonised of all the peoples who were subdued first by the Norman state and then by its outgrowth and development, the British Empire. To a large extent they have forgotten who they were prior to 1066 and, what is more, have forgotten that they have forgotten! They have come to identify themselves with the achievements and legacy of Anglo-Norman England, which is a very different thing and distinctly foreign in spirit to the Anglo-Saxon polity that came before. It is not for nothing that J.R.R. Tolkien intensely disliked the Normans. Perhaps he intuited the scale and depth of the civilisational takeover they so brutally and efficiently executed.
There are signs, however, that this might be starting to change. Paul Kingsnorth's 2015 novel, The Wake, is a case in point, with its description - in Kingsnorth's vivid interpretation of Old English - of an embittered, embattled English resistance leader in the immediate post-Conquest era -
There has been chatter this year too about restoring some form of regional governance in England. If we had such a thing, the writer Ed West argues in this short piece, then our response to Coronavirus might have been more joined-up and coherent, as was that of Germany, a country well known, of course, for its strong traditions of regional autonomy. What better model could we have for this then than the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy?
I will conclude this post with R.J Unstead's account of the Battle of Stamford Bridge from his The Story of Britain (1969), ostensibly for children but required reading, to my mind, for anyone with a stake in British politics, society and culture. We really need to tap into what is depicted here, own it, and make it ours - love of one's land and locale, and an absolute refusal to let an enemy (internal or external) dictate terms and set the agenda. King Harold's response to Hardraada and Tostig was simple, direct and clear, but he took the same approach to the south coast and William of Normandy and it proved his undoing. So we have to pick our battles and know when to go forward and when to draw back. But in my view it is the spirit of Stamford Bridge which is required right now, faced as we are with a 'conservative' government which does anything but conserve, led by a Prime Minister who is the very embodiment of the Anglo-Norman élite who have sucked the blood out of 'England's green and pleasant land' for nigh on a millennium.
William 'English' Blake railed against their scientific and philosophical representatives, Isaac Newton and John Locke, and we should do the same. We should rail against the Anglo-Norman élite wherever we find them. We should 'rage hard', as the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song says, and keep the sainted memory of King Harold alive and fresh, especially at this time with England teetering on the brink of tyranny. The winning and losing is not what matters ultimately. It is the stance taken and the attitude shown that counts. In this respect, 'these clouded hills', to quote Blake again, could have no better role model and exemplar ...
'... Harold had just disbanded his army (who had been waiting for the Normans all summer) and sent the fleet to the Thames, when a call for help came from the north. Three hundred longships had sailed into the Humber and an army of Norsemen, led by Harald Hardraada, King of Norway, was ravaging the land like a pack of wolves. Earl Tostig was there with the invaders, for he had invited Harald Hardraada, the giant Viking, who had fought all over Europe, to come to take his brother's throne.
'Hardraada defeated the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, and made them promise to help him against Harold. Then they waited for the English King at Stamford Bridge, a wooden bridge that crossed the Derwent, seven miles from York.
'With housecarls and as many fighting-men as he could muster, Harold came north at furious speed. In York, he learned that the enemy was only a short distance off, so, refusing to rest, he drove his tired men on without a pause. They came to Stamford Bridge, where the Norwegian host was camped on both banks, their armour laid aside and their ranks unformed.
'Harold sent a message to Tostig. He would pardon him and restore him to his earldom if he came across to the English side.
'"And what land will my brother give to Harald Hardraada?"
'Angrily, Harold replied, "To the King of Norway, I will give six feet of English earth. No, seven feet, seeing that he is taller than other men and needs a longer grave!"
'Then he gave the order to attack. The English broke through the forces on the West Bank of the river but were checked by a gigantic Viking who held the bridge until he was speared from below by a soldier who had crept under the timbers. Once across the river, the English infantry cut the host to pieces and, as Harald Hardraada and Tostig lay dead in the field, they chased the remnant back to the ships.
'Harold had kept his word. The most famous war-captain lay in his seven foot grave, the pirate army was destroyed and only a few survivors were sailing ruefully back to Norway. The English buried their dead and tended the wounded, as the monks sang the Thanksgiving in York Minster.'
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