1066 A Year of Three Battles and And An England that Would Never Be The Same! (Part 2)

English shields, and once again the bitter hand to hand fighting  resumed, but still the Normans couldn't force the English off of that  bloody ridge, or even force away through the wall of shields. Whenever a  group of Norman knights broke in the horsemen were, brought down or  thrown out by weight of numbers; nor could they outflank the English  because of the steeper slopes and the thick vegetation. The only way to  disorganize the English line was to lure them out of their shield-wall,  and to some historians it is not unreasonable to credit William himself  with this ruse, after all his Nordic ancestors were very appt at the  same tactic. Poitiers explains that, remembering how the Breton flight  had encouraged the English to break ranks, William is said to have  organized deliberate, feigned flights to achieve the same end. Numbers  of knights would suddenly jerk their horses round and gallop back down  the slope, so that the English were drawn out in the heat of the  fighting and ran downhill in pursuit. This fatal mistake allowed the  Normans to halt, wheel about and gallop back through their enemies.  Poitiers asserts that such a ruse was twice used successfully,  presumably in different parts of the field.

The feigned flights, has long been argued over. Opponents maintain that  it was simply a way for the Chroniclers to cover up the fact that their  own horsemen ran away, perhaps in away this is true, most histories of  battles are written by the victors, and not the defeated, so it is  obvious that the victors would want to cover up their own weaknesses or  cowardice, or the cowardice of their own troops, and there are many  instances of this throughout military history. Again the opponents of  the feigned flights maintain, say that after running away, they, the  invaders, would be able to outstrip their pursuers and would be able to  recover. Again this is true after all a man on a horse can out run a man  on foot.

However, the earlier retreat was not concealed. It is also stated that  such a manoeuvre would have been liable to end in panic, which would, as  it did, spread throughout the Norman army into a real flight and that  the word could not be passed to numerous horsemen without the English  guessing what was going on, after all the English and their King weren't  stupid, which is as some pro-Norman historians have tried to portray  the English over the past nine hundred years, not to mention in school  history. Yet there would have been many occasions when squadrons were  re-grouping on the valley floor to recover while their comrades were  fighting on, on the hilltop, presenting opportunities for the strategy  to be agreed. The fact that a number of knights fought in a (conroi)  made up of men trained together in arms over the years meant that they  were capable of enacting a concerted manoeuvre when necessary. They  needed only to wheel and follow the gonfanon of the lord as he led them  in the pre-arranged feigned flight. Thus there would be no need to  involve large numbers in the exercise, though this may have been done  simply by instructing several (conrois) to act in unison. Such flights  are well testified in warfare; the Normans used them near Arques in  1052-3 and at Cassel in 1071 as well as at Messina in Sicily in 1060.

It is worth noting that, while the chroniclers agree that feigned  flights took place, they do not all place them in the same place, or at  the same time to other events in that bloody long fought battle. It has  been suggested that the Tapestry shows Odo encouraging the young men  during the feigned flight rather than the actual flight of the Bretons  and that the disaster at the hillock formed part of this particular  episode, an arrangement supported by the account of William of  Malmesbury who used the Tapestry when writing his (Gesta Regum); Henry  of Huntingdon has a similer story. This would then put the rout of the  Bretons after the feigned flight. In addition, the hillock and streams  of the Asten Brook on the west of the field ideally fit a picture of  knights riding over it into the bogs beyond, and this seems to be where  the Bretons were stationed during the battle. Since Poitiers points out  that they really fled, it seems hardly likely that this would be  repeated as a feigned flight at the same place. Wace follows Poitiers in  seeing a disaster during the retreat of the Bretons, but places this  after the feigned flight, as does the (William de Carmen).

THE ENGLISH SHIELD WALL STILL HOLDS

As the autumn afternoon wore on the English still stubbornly held the  blood soaked ridge. William knew his situation was becoming increasingly  serious, for there was little time left before sun set. Whenever the  lightly armed and un-armoured Fyrdmen had left their position to pursue  the fleeing Norman cavalry they had been turned on in their turn, and  cut down by the wheeling knights; the English numbers on that terrible  blood and carnage strewn ridge had been thinned (Malmesbury considered  the success of the feigned flight as the turning point of the battle).  Many huscarls and thegns had already been killed and wounded, their  places were being filled by the less well-armed Fyrd behind who posed  less of a threat to the Normans; yet at no time had the Normans been  able to gain a firm foothold on the top of that bloody ridge. The  position was made worse by the numbers of killed and wounded Norman men  and horses, now lying in bloody heaps in front of the English  Shield-Wall, producing yet another and yet one more additional obstacle.  The Norman knights had been in their saddles for most of the day, their  horses were scared and blown.

Many had lost their mounts and were now forced to continue the fight on  foot. William himself, as Poitiers assures us, had already lost three  horses killed under him during that long bloody day.

Wace, who perhaps received much oral tradition and who we must use with  care, none the less provides the most stirring stories; how Robert  fitzErneis rode for the English standard, killing one man with his sword  before being cut down himself with axes as he was trying to beat down  the English Dragon standard; or how the Englishmen from Kent and Essex  fought so well; and how a wrestler ducked the Duke's blow and dented  William's helmet with his axe before retiring back into the Shield-Wall  only to be killed by the lances of the "Bastard's" bodyguard.

THE FINAL NORMAN ASSAULT

The Duke used all his fighting men in his last concerted throw of the  dice, the last effort to break the English Shield-Wall. The archers  began to assail the English Warriors with arrows. Presumably fresh  supplies had arrived, and the Tapestry, almost as if by emphasis, shows  large quivers standing next to the small figures that now form a  continues line in the lower margins. There is no reference in  contemporary chronicles to archers shooting, a high trajectory clouds of  arrows to fall on the stubborn heads of the English, and especially  onto the less protected heads of the Fyrd in the rear ranks. It first  finds mention in Henry of Huntingdon and is then expanded upon by Wace.  The Tapestry gives no real hint but does suggest the importance of the  Norman archers at this stage of the fighting by sheer number shown. It  could be said that a few of the archers are depicted with somewhat  elevated bows but not noticeably more so than at the start of the  fighting. The archers may have sent in a short barrage that no doubt  would have had more effect on the mauled English Shield-Wall than it had  earlier. The Norman infantry and knights would then begin to advance  again, up that corpse and blood strewn slope towards the English wall,  as the Norman infantry and knights struggled up that blood lake slope,  the English drew back slightly in preparation for yet another Norman  attempt to break the Shield-Wall, almost immediately the Norman archers  once more loosed their arrows. It is also possible, however, that  because the elements of the Norman army were now intermixed after hours  of hard and bloody fighting, and that many groups were fighting at the  ridge rather than cooperating in well-organized lines, the archers were  forced to aim high to avoid hitting their own men. The shafts would then  have fallen on the ranks of the still stubbornly fighting English  warriors.

HAROLD OUR LAST NATIVE KING IS KILLED

It was at this moment that Harold our beloved King and lord was killed.  Unfortunately Poitiers is uninformative in his dealings on the subject,  confining himself to a brief statement without giving any real details.  The Tapestry's depiction has itself come in for a great deal of  interpretation over the years. It portrays a profiled figure holding an  arrow that seems to have struck him either in or above the eye. To his  right a second figure falls, the sword of a mounted Norman knight close  to his thigh. Above the whole group is the latin legend: 'Here King  Harold has been killed'.

It is now believed that Harold is first depicted as struck by an arrow  and latter cut down as mounted knights finally break into the defended  headquarters where the royal standard flies. The reticence of Poitiers  may stem from the fact that Harold's death was rather inglorious since  Malmesbury, whose account follows the Tapestry, says that the arrow  penetrated the brain and that, as the King lay dying, a Norman knight  slashed the Kings thigh with his sword. For this act the knight was  stripped of his knighthood and banished from the army by his lord, the  Duke. Wace elaborates as usual; the King is struck above the right eye  and tries to withdraw it, but the shaft breaks in his hand; he is then  hacked down. The (Carmen) gives an account of William the "Bastard"  himself bursting through the ranks of Huscarls with three named knights  and hacking down the King but such a deed would certainly have been well  chronicled by every Norman and French writer and ballad singer, which  it isn't, at least there are no surviving accounts of it happening that  is. Although one recent theory for the omission of evidence for an arrow  wound in the early chronicles is that the incident as shown on the  Tapestry was a symbolic representation of blinding as a divine  punishment, an artistic portrayal of God's displeasure that may be  detected in various parts of the Tapestry, this theory may have come  from those pro-Norman historians who believe that England began on that  bloody field of death and butchery, and that what went before the 14th  October 1066, was nothing compared with the glory of Norman rule.  Although this latter idea would bring us back to the notion that the  arrow-in-the-eye story began with a possible misreading of the Tapestry,  but it seems likely that near-contemporaries would have understood the  meaning of a medieval embroidery and that such a well-known story would  have found such widespread favour so soon after the event had it been  inaccurate.

THE FIGHTING ENDS IN NORMAN VICTORY

With the death of their good lord and true King, the resistance of many  of the English Fyrd began to crumble. The English Dragon windsock was  still standing high above the fiercely and stubbornly fighting Huscarls,  who were now surrounded by the exultant Norman knights as they began to  hack and slash their way into the crumbling English Shield-Wall, while  the banner of the Fighting Man was seized and carried off, later to be  sent to the Pope in thanks for the gift of his own banner to William the  "Bastard". The death of Harold no doubt began to precipitate the flight  of a number of the Fyrd, who had lost all heart for the fight, and who  began to slip away along the neck of land in the rear towards the safety  of the forest. This, together with losses from wounds, had caused the  Shield-Wall to contract just enough for the Normans to force themselves  to the crest of that heroic and so stubbornly held blood soaked ridge,  probably initially at the western end. At last the Normans were able to  attack the flanks of the crumbling English Shield-Wall, and slowly  beginning to roll up the still stubbornly fighting English line. Though  lesser Fyrdmen may have lost their will to continue the fight, and were  beginning to find away off of that bloody ridge, the Royal hearth  troops, the hard, stubborn heroic Huscarls and King's thegns, began to  gather around the blood soaked body of their heroic King and beloved  Lord and began to sell their lives dearly.

Lesser Englishmen were now making a desperate bid to escape the bloody  carnage on that blood lake ridge. The horses tethered in the rear were  seized, with scant regard to their rightful owners. The thick forest  that loomed beyond Caldbec Hill in the gathering gloom of the late  afternoon dusk offered potential safety especially from the Norman  horsemen, who were unsure of the ground. Wounded Englishmen were hauling  themselves into the woods to die there forgotten and alone; others were  found lying by the track-ways.

As the sun disappeared, and a dull darkness had fallen on that hard  fought for blood lake ridge, the remaining Huscarls and thegns continued  their struggle against the invaders of their homeland, now in little  pockets of fearlessly struggling warriors, the largest and perhaps the  most hard pressed were those who'd formed their last ring around the  corpse of their beloved Lord and King, refusing to submit they fought on  even though, the stars were out, those hard stubborn English Warriors  were still fighting, for they fought for their dead Lord and King, for  their Hearths and Homes, and their kin Folk, but as that ring of blood  socked stubborn men under the only standard that hadn't already fallen  into the hands of the usurper William the "Bastard" the English Dragon  standard of the line of Cerdic, the ancient House of Wessex, they were  doomed as the tight ring began to contract. Beset from all sides they  were the last to hold out, and as their strength began to fail they were  the last to fall, until around the bloody corpse of our last true  native King, lay the heroic stubborn butchered corpses of English  manhood.

THE FIGHT AT THE MAL FOSSE

Of that bloody day, there remains to be mentioned the incident at the  'Mal fosse' or 'Evil Ditch'. According to Poitiers, during the pursuit  north of the battle field Norman knights encountered a number of  Englishmen who were determined to make a stand on or close by an old  rampart or entrenchment (Possibly man-made) which was additionally  protected by a number of ditches. These may have been survivors of the  fighting on Senlac Ridge (Blood Lake Ridge), or perhaps latecomers only  just arrived and spoiling for a fight, but perhaps they were most likely  a mix of survivors and late comers. The Normans were taken aback and  when the Duke arrived, the stump of a broken lance in his hand, he found  Eustace of Boulogne with a contingent of around 50 knights streaming in  the other direction. While William remonstrated, a blow struck Eustace  between the shoulder blades with such force that blood poured from his  nose and mouth and he was carried away badly wounded (Pity it wasn't the  "Bastard"). Notwithstanding, the Duke led his men on and mopped up this  last pocket of resistance.

A different story is told by nearly all the chroniclers. Some versions  even appear to occur during the battle, and it is extremely likely that  these versions refer to the struggle on the Hillock and marshy ground  previously described. Others vary the type of obstacle encountered.  Orderic Vitalis, in his interpolations of William of Jumieges (before  1109 to after 1113), describes an ancient rampart hidden by long grass,  at which the Norman riders fall.

In his, own (Ecclesiastical History) (the relevant section finished  about 1120) Orderic seems to combine Poitiers' account with his own, so  that the Normans ride into the rampart and, seeing this as well as an  entrenchment and many ditches, a number of Englishmen make a stand.  Orderic mentions one casualty as being Engenulf, a Castellan of Laigle,  and it may be that he received the story from that family. It is not  until the Battle Abbey Chronicle of c.1180 that the deep pit, as it now  becomes, is given the name of 'Mal fosse'. Unfortunately Wace, the  storyteller, has made no mention of the fight at the Mal fosse, which  could well mean that there were two incidents, the fight at the Hillock  and marshy streams during the battle, and a second during the Norman  pursuit. For an historian, it is worrying that no chronicler mentions  both; perhaps garbled versions were picked up and latched on to one  version or the other. If only one occurred, it was almost certainly the  fight during the battle at the Hillock, since the Mal fosse has never  been satisfactorily located but the Hillock can still be seen. Moreover  the Mal fosse fight seems to show much less continuity of description.

But as we know, most of what has been passed down to us is what the  Normans and their descendents wanted us to know, so they would obviously  prefer to tell us of their own strength and victories, than anything  that may have put them and their descendents in a rather sticky  situation, of which the struggle at the Mal fosse would have done. But  we must also take into account the time of the action at the Mal fosse,  and darkness, we must remember that the sun set that evening at around  17.04, leaving little time for a through pursuit of the fleeing English.  The comment in the Interpolations of Jumieges that the Normans chased  the Englishmen until the following morning is nothing more than a wiled  exaggeration. There has been modern experiments, that have shown that by  18.15 hours the area would have become so dark and the ground so  treacherous as to make mounted pursuit more or less impossible. The  moon, which was low that night, did not appear until midnight, so we may  say, that the action at the Mal fosse may well have taken place either  during the hours after midnight, when the moon had reached its high  point giving mounted movement enough light to move or during the early  morning light.

There isn't much on this subject, from the point of view of the English,  either from those who were there, but there has been some mention from  the Norman side as I've pointed out above, but incident at the Mal fosse  has been perhaps deliberately glossed over by the Norman chroniclers  and simply unmentioned by their descendents. But we do have some  information on the fight at the Mal fosse:

At the end of that bloody day 14/10/1066 there occurred what is known as  'the Mal fosse incident' or Mal Fosse (Evil earthwork or Ditch in  Norman French).

We have already established a rough time for the action at the Mal Fosse  to have taken place, i.e. between the hours after midnight, and the  early hours of the following morning the 15th.

A number of Norman knights pursue English stragglers north of the site  of the main battle, the Norman pursuit ran into contact with either the  English remnants of the hard long bloody struggle of the 14th, or  newcomers, who being late for the main battle decided to make a stand  where they were, or as I've mentioned above there may have been a  mixture of the remnants and newcomers, but we can say that none of the  remnants were Huscarls, who wouldn't have left the hacked and mutilated  body of their beloved lord and King. But those stubborn Englishmen, who  had decided to make a last ditch stand on or by an old earth work, which  may have been protected by a ditch or ditches, which may well have  turned the tide for the English, and turned victory into defeat and a  bloody death for the Normans and for William the "Bastard" him-self .

It is said that Eustace of Boulogne commanded the French-Flemish wing  during the battle in the so-called feigned flights. He was also one of  for knights who were said to have hacked Harold down, cutting him to  pieces. During the Mal-Fosse fight he is reported as saying to William –  "It were death to go on".

One of the Norman knights who was said to have been killed during that  hard stubborn fight at the 'Evil Ditch' was one Engerren de Aquila whose  descendants held what became the Barony of Pevensey.

During the fighting at the 'Evil Ditch', William is said to have come up  to press the faltering Norman attack against Eustace's advice.

An Englishman (who some say was an Huscarl, but I believe by then all of  the Huscarls were lying dead and mutilated by, and around the body of  their beloved liege lord and good King) who playing dead saw two Norman  knights consulting. The Englishman rose from the ground and struck one  of them "So that blood poured from his nose and mouth". It just  unfortunate he chose Eustace instead of the "Bastard" Duke, it is not  recorded but we must presume that the Englishman was then killed in  turn. As the fighting at the Mal-Fosse continued, and was as desperate a  fight as the struggle that took place on Senlac-Hill (Blood Lake Hill)  and could well have turned against the Normans, and a well deserved  victory for the Stubborn English defenders, William the "Bastard" led  fresh attacks against those stubborn English warriors and finally  prevailed.

Mal-Fosse (Evil Ditch) mentioned in five chronicles.
Orderic Vitalis – English born Norman Monk who called it, "An eminence –  deep ditch."
William of Jumieges – A Norman Monk who called it, "An ancient  causeway."
William of Poitiers – A Norman Chaplain of the Duke's who called it, "A  steep bank with numerous ditches."
And from the Battle Abbey Chronicle of c. 1180 which termed it, "A  dreadful chasm' called the Mal fosse."

There are also five possible sites.

Generally accepted site is Oakwood Gill, by C. T. Chevallier. 1963, in  deeds of Battle Abbey and Manorial maps of 1724 and 1811. also Dugdale's  'Monasticon' 1538. also Four deeds c. 1240, c. 1245, 1279 and 1302.  'Man fosse'.


From '1066 – Origin of a Nation' By Michael Phillips. 1973

'The desperate struggle for the English standards and headquarters was  over by early evening. The declining sunset – a suffusion of red, pink  and mauve over the Downs to the west – seemed to symbolise a declining  England. The English were leaderless, the King mutilated by the knights  he had thwarted, his two brothers slaughtered earlier in the battle. But  it was a noble end, an end worthy of England, as was the final stand of  the Huscarls. They refused to surrender and were fought or trampled to  death, almost to the last man.

The survivors fled over cover of darkness to join bodies of the Fyrd who  had escaped top the edge of the forest. Here was staged a fierce  rearguard action, surprising the Normans who had thought all struggle  over. Bands of pursuing horsemen careering over Caldbec Hill came upon a  miniature ravine, topped by an ancient earthwork, later named Mal Fosse  [The Evil Ditch] and stout defenders. It was to be a name later  celebrated in the tales of the English resistance.

Unable to rein back, their steeds snorting, neighing shrilly with fear  of the unknown, riders and steeds fell headlong to their deaths, even  before they were belaboured by Saxon axes. In the forest redoubt the  other side, the English fought the resistance of despair and drove back  their adversaries. Only organised charges and the hurried personal  intervention of William himself forced them to succumb and retreat  further into the deep wooded mystery behind.'

THE AFTERMATH

William rode back to that corpse strewn and blood soaked field to survey  the scene of his victory. Poitiers recalls how the Duke was moved to  pity to see so many Englishmen lying dead on the hilltop. The bodies of  Gyrth and Leofwine were found near Harold. The 12th century (De  Inventione S. Crucis) of Waltham Abbey carries the story that the King's  body at first could not be identified, possibly because the arrow wound  had caused too great a disfigurement or because of the subsequent  mutilation at the hands of his Norman enemies. But in order to find the  King, they sent for Edith swan-Neck, Harold's beautiful wife 'in the  Danish manner', who knew marks on his body that only she, his lover  would have recognized. Edith, who tradition relates was waiting by the  Watch Oak on the south-western slopes of Caldbec Hill, was brought to  that blood-stained field and carried out her last duty to her lover. She  found Harold's body among the blood-soaked and mutilated corpses on  that Sanlac Ridge.

Our last true native King's corpse was carried to William's camp and  there handed over to the half-English knight William Malet for burial.  Harold's mother, Gytha, offered its weight in gold but the Duke refused  to release it to her, considering it unseemly to receive such a gift.  Moreover he felt that Harold should not be buried as his mother wished  when so many lay un-interred because of his avarice. (That's a good one  coming from a Norman.) The Normans said in jest? That Harold should be  buried so that he could continue to guard the shore he had tried so hard  to defend. It is noteworthy that already in Malmesbury's account there  appears the story that William, refusing payment, allowed Gytha to bury  the body at Harold's church of Waltham Holy Cross in Essex. Wace agrees  but mentions no names; in his time Waltham was a royal abbey under Henry  II's patronage. Inevitably stories arose that King Harold had escaped  from the battle, having further adventures until he died a hermit at  Chester, but that would have gone against the ways of Harold the man.

On Sunday 15 October the day was given over to burial of the Norman  dead. Those English men or women who came to the field were permitted to  take friends or relatives away, but many were left on that bloody ridge  in the same way as at Stamford Bridge, where Orderic reported seeing  piles of bones some 70 years after the Battle. The chronicler Jumieges  mentions that loot was taken at the field of Hastings and the Bayeux  Tapestry shows that this had already begun during the battle; the lower  borders, though somewhat restored, illustrate figures stripping the dead  of their mail. The Duke may have given orders for the construction on  Caldbec Hill of a Mountjoy, or victory cairn of stones, since the area  still bears the name.