Paul Bernardi

Note: all images are public domain

Those of you who have worked your way through the BBC’s King and Conqueror series (and well done if you made it to the end; it was definitely a struggle at times), will know that the makers of the programme chose to build their story arc around the relationship between Earl (and later, King) Harold and the Norman Duke William over the years that led up to the Battle of Hastings.

An odd decision because, to my reckoning (and I stand to be corrected on this), they only met twice – at most – before the fateful encounter at Senlac in October 1066. The second occasion is not in doubt: when Harold’s ship was blown ashore on the northern coastline of France in 1064/65. The first meeting, however, may or may not have taken place in 1051, when William travelled to London to visit King Edward the Confessor. However, there is no record of Harold having been present.

Whatever the case, my intention in this blog is to look at the 1064/65 episode. Why did Harold go? What he was hoping to achieve? These questions have been the subject of much scholarly comment over the years. I’m not saying I have the answers, but I will at least try to shed some light on what was going on.

The Itinerary

Before I do that, however, let’s at least provide details of the trip itself, on which, it should be said, most of the primary sources are in broad agreement.

Probably in the summer of 1064 (but possibly in 1065 – it makes no odds either way, thankfully), Earl Harold and some of his retainers set sail from Bosham (a village on the coast of West Sussex, where Harold held a manor). In fact, this is where the Bayeux Tapestry begins. It shows Earl Harold talking to King Edward, before then riding to Bosham with hounds and a hawk. After prayers in Bosham’s church (still standing) and a hearty meal, they took ship.

While they were crossing the channel, however, a storm blew up which nearly wrecked the boat. Blown off course, they put ashore in the county of Ponthieu (sandwiched between Normandy and Flanders), where the ruler – Count Guy – seizes Harold’s party and imprisons them in Beaurain castle, hoping for a large ransom.

Somehow, word reaches Duke William of Harold’s predicament. It’s not really known how, but the Tapestry does show a messenger with strangely English moustaches (something else King and Conqueror got bizarrely wrong: Harold clean shaven, William with a moustache!).

Either way, William soon sent messengers to Guy, to demand Harold’s release. Whether through bribery or bullying, the Count (who had previously sworn fealty to William) complied, after which, Harold and his men were escorted to the Ducal palace in Rouen.

During Harold’s stay in Normandy, we know of two significant things that took place. Firstly, Earl Harold accompanied Duke William on a short campaign in Brittany, during which Harold (as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry), rescued some of William’s men from quick-sands near Mont St Michael.

Second, and more famously, Harold swore an oath on holy relics to support the duke’s claim to the English throne, after which he returned home.

So far so clear, right?

Actually: yes. For the most part – aside from a few minor details – the various sources pretty much align on these core details. The problem comes when we try to understand WHY Harold went there in the first place. And with hindsight, it is perhaps easy to see why Normans and English scribes and chroniclers might want to spin the tale according to their own agenda.

So, what do the sources say, and how do they differ?

Let’s take the Normans first; not least because their viewpoint is that much easier to follow.

As far as they were concerned, it was very simple… the whole point of Harold’s visit was to affirm Duke William’s claim to the throne, which had, apparently, first been offered to him by King Edward the Confessor back in 1051 (at the height of Edward’s animosity to the Godwine family). This is the line put forward by William of Jumièges, and then later followed by William of Poitiers (verbatim in places).
Side note: it would have been really helpful if Norman parents could have thought of names other than William. The odd Rodney or Tarquin would not have gone amiss.

Later Norman chroniclers all followed the same tune – e.g. Orderic (glory be!!) Vitalis in the 1120s:

“…Edward had declared his intention of transmitting the whole kingdom to his kinsman, Duke William of Normandy, and had – with the consent of the English – made him heir to all his rights.”

Obvious really. Nothing to see here, right?

What of the English, though? … Silence (for the most part).

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – a key source for this era – doesn’t mention the trip at all. In fact, it has no entries for 1064 and only begins 1065 in August. Sounds fishy to me.

What about the Life of King Edward, I hear you ask? Nope. Nada. Zilch (though there are a couple of comments which might refer to it tangentially).

Later generations, however, were not so shy (perhaps because they were writing at a safe distance in time from King William).

William of Malmesbury, (Arrgghh – now the English are doing it) for example, led with Harold having simply been on a fishing trip, before being blown off course. In other words, he’d had no intention of going there at all. (As the 13 year old me might have said: ‘Chinny reckon, Billy’)

There is, however, another 12^th century English source which puts forward a theory which carries a great deal more credibility. Step forward Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury.

Eadmer is alone amongst English sources in saying that Harold had intended to go to Normandy, and the reason he gives is both interesting and persuasive.

That is, the earl went on his own initiative in order to secure the release of his two relatives who were being held hostage in Normandy by Duke William (and had been since c.1051). Eadmer then goes further by naming the two unfortunates as Wulfnoth, youngest brother of Earl Harold, and Hakon, the son of Earl Sweyn Godwineson (and therefore, Harold’s nephew).

So, what’s really going on?

Who should we believe? William of Poitiers, writing much closer to the time and full of believable detail about the trip and the oaths sworn by Harold. Or Eadmer of Canterbury, albeit writing a generation later, but just as full of detail (e.g. they both mention that part of the oath sworn by Harold referred to a promise to strength Dover castle and to garrison it for William’s use).

Poitiers – as Duke William’s own chaplain – is, of course, duty bound to defend his lord and can thus be relied upon to big up William’s 1051 claim. Eadmer, however, is equally partisan on the English side and has every reason to deny the existence of such a claim. Which takes us… no further forward!

The only way to differentiate between two such – seemingly – credible accounts is to look at the wider context to see if that can shed a bit more light.

First up is the fact that it’s 1064. At this point, King Edward’s health is failing and, with it, his ability to control the Godwines. Harold and his brothers are by far the most powerful and wealthy lords in England at this point, so it is very hard to believe that the king could have ordered Harold to go to Normandy to reaffirm William’s supposed claim, i.e. to do something that is clearly contrary to his own interests. With Edward close to death and with no children as obvious heirs, Harold would surely have had one eye (sorry!) on the throne.

The nature of William’s claim is also up for debate. It is very plausible that King Edward might have discussed his succession plans with William in 1051. At that time, the Godwines had been pushed into exile by the king, there being significant animosity between them (not least over Earl Godwine’s (Harold’s father) rumoured involvement in the murder of Edward’s older brother, Alfred (inexplicably called Aethel in King and Conqueror; presumably, they thought no one would be able to distinguish between him and Alfred the Great).

In 1051, knowing he would likely not have children, he saw his kinsman as a decent choice to succeed him. Anything was better than the Godwines. (Edward’s mother was Emma of Normandy; she was the great aunt of Duke William).

Note: another rumour suggests that the king refused to consummate his marriage; likely because of his hatred of the Godwines (his wife was Earl Godwine’s daughter), rather than him being some deranged religious nutjob as King & Conqueror would have it (he did not murder his mother!).

Then there is Edward the Exile and his son, Edgar Aetheling, to consider. The existence of this long-forgotten scion of the House of Wessex only came to light in the early 1050s. The son of Edmund Ironsides (who was himself Edward the Confessor’s half brother), Edward the Exile had been sent overseas by King Knut in 1016, ostensibly to be murdered.

Side note: the English exhibiting the same lack of imagination as the Normans by calling every other baby boy, something beginning with Ed.

Once the Exile had been ‘discovered’ living in Hungary, he would have become King Edward’s first choice for successor; a suggestion that is borne out by the efforts made to bring him back to England. Why else would they have done that if not to inherit the throne?

The fact that the Exile died within days of landing on our shores did not matter, King Edward would have simply switched his favour to the Exile’s son, Edgar Aetheling. Though the latter was probably no more than 5 in 1057, King Edward doubtless hoped to live long enough to see the boy achieve his majority.

Note: I should point out that whomever King Edward may or may not have offered the throne to, he did not have the power to confer kingship (unlike the 1530s, there was no Act of Succession here).

Rather, it was the Witan (i.e. the council of nobles) that ultimately decided who would be the next king by their acclamation of whomever they considered to be the best candidate. In the vast majority of cases, this would be a male member of the House of Wessex, but not always the eldest son of the previous monarch (e.g. King Alfred the Great was the younger brother of his predecessor).

No doubt the Witan would have been swayed by King Edward’s wishes, but they were in no way bound to agree (hence they elected Harold in January 1066, rather than Edgar, though the boy did finally get to be King of England in October 1066 when the Witan elected him after Harold’s death). Either way, they were never going to elect William!

But what of Eadmer’s story of the hostages. The basic facts behind this are true enough; Wulfnoth and Hakon had been given as hostages to King Edward by Earl Godwine, in 1051, as a promise of his loyalty after returning from being banished. It is likely that they were taken to Normandy when Duke William went home after meeting King Edward in London (1051/2). Since then, they had been William’s (political) prisoners.

Further to the point above about Harold being at the height of his powers in 1064, it is not inconceivable that he would think he was sufficiently powerful to petition Duke William for their release; after all, the reason for their hostage status had long expired.

If so, I think this reveals a little of Harold’s arrogance in thinking he could achieve this without consequence. The scene at the beginning of the Bayeux Tapestry in which Harold is meeting with an ageing King Edward could be interpreted as Harold seeking the king’s permission and King Edward telling him not to be a fool, knowing that Duke William would never give something for nothing.

And so it proved. Earl Harold duly found himself swearing on holy relics to support Duke William’s challenge for the throne. And where William of Poitiers states this was the whole point of the visit, Eadmer makes it clear that Harold had no choice but to swear, else he feared joining his relatives in the clink. A promise made under duress, therefore, so he would be allowed to leave.

The thing which seals the deal for me is our old friend, the Bayeux Tapestry. Though commissioned by a Norman, it was woven by English embroiderers, which sometimes seems to allow a little ambiguity to creep in, preventing it from being a wholly Norman triumphalist piece of propaganda.

Anyway, on Harold’s return to England (bringing with him, his brother Wulfnoth – but not Hakon), he is shown as meeting with King Edward. But, rather than it being a jubilant scene (as one might expect if the purpose of the mission had been to confirm the Duke’s claim), Earl Harold is shown in a penitential pose (head bowed and arms outstretched), while King Edward is pointing (possibly admonishing). Though ambiguous, of course, this is also how Eadmer saw it.

Paraphrasing his words, he has King Edward saying to Earl Harold, “You f***ing moron, I told you Duke William would put you over a barrel and spank your arse, and that’s exactly what happened. Oh, well done, Harold. Just brilliant.”

In summary, my little pouch of silver sceattas would – without hesitation – be bet solidly on Eadmer to be telling the truth.