the year of our Lord nine nine one a
menacing fleet approached the coast of
East Anglia
nearly a century after King Alfred's
victory over the Vikings the north men
were back
the Viking fleet sacked hips which and
then made landfall here
on an island in the Blackwater estuary
near Malden in Essex
there then took place one of the great
battles of English history on the
seaward side there were the hordes are
the most dangerous invader yet faced by
an English king on the landward side
there were the forces of the most
sophisticated monarchy in Western Europe
the England in 991 was the first
nation-state it wasn't a modern state of
course but it did have representative
institutions it was ordered it was
United and above all it was rich but now
that wealth and political sophistication
was up against the most viciously
effective contemporary fighting machine
could it survive
our story begins needed 20 years before
the Battle of Mobile in 973 King edgar
of England great-grandson of Alpha the
great came to Bath to be crowned for the
second time
his second coronation celebrated the
fact that Edgar had managed to establish
his leadership over the whole island of
Britain
but the heartland of his power was a
country then called Engler land that it
was England's wealth and stability that
it enabled Edgar to establish the first
British Empire England stability was
founded of the close relationship
between monarch and people he could not
rule without their participation and his
power and laws protected them from
exploitation by local warlords
as a result the country was experiencing
an age of unusual prosperity and on the
royal patronage English art of
literature flourished
this is how the King liked Missy not as
a warlord but as a Christian rule
here edgar is making a gift of land to a
Winchester monastery but the gift was
more than just an act of Christian piety
by gifts such as those recorded in this
charter Edgar was serving another God
the idea of a united England as it was
then no good monasteries like Winchester
were national institutions they Hal land
all over the country there were centers
of a self-consciously English culture
and above all they were royal all this
was good PR but it was also vital
practical politics because Edgar's
England the unified England was only a
few decades old there was always the
possibility that it could be destroyed
by enemies abroad or still more
dangerously at home
only two years after the ceremony at
bath edgar died and immediately there
was trouble at that time for all the
political sophistication of england
there were no fixed rules of succession
fatally Edgar had two surviving sons the
elder was crowned king but just three
years later he was attacked and killed
by his own brothers angel here at court
this herringbone stonework once adorned
the first floor of the Royal Hall where
the crime was planned the murder brought
the throne the dead man's half-brother a
man who is remembered today as one of
the worst Kings ever to wear the crown
his name was Ethel red still known today
as the unready his real nickname though
was unread that is badly advised or
counseled it's a pun on his own name of
Ethel red meaning noble Council and it's
a product of hindsight first appearing
almost a century later is also at least
for the earlier decades of the reign
unfair England in the nine 90s enjoyed
something of a golden age of church
building and of legal and administrative
reform and this despite the reappearance
of the Danish Raiders they'd been almost
too much for Alfred the Great himself
how would a thil read the unread fare
Ezra's tasks had recently got much
harder these banks and ditches are the
remains of a Viking barracks they're
laid out with geometrical military
precision
the barracks were built by the Danish
King to impose his will on his own
people they are a Bluetooth symbol of a
tough new professionalism which now
characterized the Viking world
Englishman a century before had beaten
off the Scandinavians but now a far
greater storm was about to break over
their hands first refugees from the
Danish rulers would seek to restore
their fortunes by raiding in England and
then the Danish kings themselves turned
the full force of Trelleborg the
formidable military machine and the
organizational and engineering skills on
England it was blitzkrieg shock and all
as the English troops assembling that
mould was soon to find out
from their base on the island near
Malden the Viking fleet threatened the
whole of Eastern England
the Danes first move was to send a
messenger to the English demanding money
with menaces Everett's commander
retorted that they should come across
the causeway and fight it out like men
the English were defeated but not for
the last time the defeat became the
stuff of legend
and of literature the subject of a
famous anglo-saxon war poem which
encapsulates exactly the Dunkirk spirit
of the English warriors but it also
tells about the men who fought
describing the soldiers as hailing from
all over the country there's an
aristocrat so the poem tells us from the
midlands called elf women then a local
man at Essex human called danira and
from far-off Northumbria a warrior
called esque Firth in short it was an
English army not an Essex Army which
went down to defeat that day
so every region of England is
represented in this role call of the
army and each rank of society from the
top almost to the bottom the result is
to emphasize the unity of England as a
country in which a common sense of
nationhood overrode distinctions of
locality or class now the poem is
propaganda of course but it's unusual
propaganda at a time when in most of
Europe horizons were much narrower and
loyalty to a local warlord came first
and lusts
the English defeat at Malden was just
the beginning for the next ten years it
seemed that nothing would stop the Danes
after the Battle of Malden the English
paid tribute to the Vikings in the hope
of persuading them to leave and the word
Dane geld enter the language the wealth
of England built up in the years of
peace began to drain across the North
Sea for deliverance
King Ethelred looked across the channel
in 1002 the King married Emma sister of
the Duke of Normandy
Normandy was named after its conquerors
the North Men it was in effect a viking
province in France Ethel would hoped
that this alliance would stop the people
of Normandy from helping their Danish
cousins
but in his new queen Ethelred may have
been getting more than he bargained for
emma is the first english queen to
emerge fully into the light of history
she was handsome astute and fertile and
she knew how to use a woman's power
which consisted largely in marriage and
childbearing the result was that from
the moment she married Ethelred and took
up residence here at Winchester she
became the axis around which English
politics turned for Emma was determined
that let who will be king it should be
her children who sat on the throne of
England
but Ethelred would need more than a
marriage Alliance to survive under the
stress of the Danish invasion f-words
kingdom dissolved into vicious
functional disputes
in the course of the struggle for power
many of the ablest men in England
Eric the fragile unity of Malden was
shattered
as Danish fleet follow Danish fleet into
a bitterly divided England resistance
against the invaders crumbled
by 1014 King Ethelred had been driven
into exile in France just 40 years after
the glory days of King Edgar it seemed
that all hope for the house of Wessex
was gone
now the Danish King Sweyn
had taken the throne of England
but then there was a lucky reprieve for
the English and King Sweyn died just a
few months after his victory the crisis
that followed highlights the resilience
and the sophistication of the English
political system the surviving English
leaders invited effort to return as king
on certain conditions as a pledge of
good faith
he sent his young son Edward as a
hostage to London to begin negotiations
the complaints against Etheridge
included high taxation extortion and the
enslavement of free men by the end of
the talks Ethelred was forced to agree
to govern within the rules established
by his predecessor and we can
reconstruct the broad terms of the
agreement because they were copied into
the National Book of record the
anglo-saxon chronicle this is the
passage in the anglo-saxon chronicle
which tells us about those events in
1014 it says that Ethelred would be
their faithful Lord would better each of
those things that they disliked and that
each of the things would be forgiven
which have been done or said against him
then was full friendship as tablished
in word and deed and the compact on
either side embedded here and the prose
of the anglo-saxon chronicle is the text
of a formal written agreement between
the king and his people it is the
anglo-saxon Magna Carta but as it's 200
years earlier it's the true foundation
that our
it was probably here that the
negotiations took place in the
anglo-saxon predecessor to London's
Guildhall which today is festooned with
monuments to parliamentary heroes
the agreement of 1014 was the first
constitutional settlement in English
history they began a tradition which
descends through Magna Carta the
petition of right and the reform acts
right down to the present but in 1014 of
course there was no guarantee that those
constitutional ideas would survive and
flourish there was no guarantee even
that England would survive indeed it
seemed rather unlikely for Swain of
Denmark had a son his name was Knut and
Knut was determined to win back what he
thought of as his inheritance of England
so the struggle with the Danes would
continue would English freedoms as well
as English independence be lost
within months of the agreement which had
restored him to his kingdom the old King
Ethelred was dead on the war with the
Danes continued with renewed ferocity in
1016 Swain son Knut smashed the English
army and took the crown in later years
Knut was to build this church as a
memorial to the slain on the site of the
battlefield it was a pious Christian
gesture even so the English had good
cause to fear him there was another side
to mute in the months following the
battle he launched a bloody purge which
struck at the very top of the
anglo-saxon elite the leading Earl's
were executed and the surviving members
of the English royal family were either
murdered or fled into exile just who the
English would have wondered was their
new ruler a Christian king or a user
ping barbarian tyrant
Canute's background was in the now alien
world across the North Sea amongst the
long ships and sagas of his Viking
ancestors
this was a fiercely energetic society
which dispatched Viking fleets right
across the North hemisphere from Russia
perhaps to America but no Viking career
the business astonishing is canoes Knut
was the most successful Viking ever his
ancestors had raided England he
conquered it
they had exacted tribute but as King of
England he controlled English taxes the
English mints and the English Treasury
and he poured out their wealth on his
Danish followers he did all this whilst
he was still a teenager no wonder his
skulls hailed him as the true heir of
Ivar the boneless the master of the long
ships and the greatest Dane of them all
and yet strange to tell in England Knut
went native and became more English than
the English why
back in England no one was more worried
for the future than ethelred's widow
Emma the children were in exile her
power status and wealth were in jeopardy
what would she do now that there was a
new king in England well she married him
Knut might have conquered England but
emmerich seemed had conquered Knut he
might even have been a love marriage the
elegant Norman Queen and her bit of
Danish rough but as usual with royal
marriages the political was more
important than the personal for their
marriage symbolized the reconciliation
of the English with their Danish
conquerors it helped to neutralize the
possible rival claims to the throne of
Emma's children by Ethelred and above
all it marked the seduction and the
transformation of Knut himself
both outsiders can Newton Emma found
themselves adapting to the English - -
of kingship this drawing records the
gift of a giant gold cross to the new
minister in Winchester that is - the
very same
Abbey whose Charter King Edgar had
granted nearly half a century before
Knut is obviously emulating Edgar and
this wasn't just the show within two
years of his victory commuted endorsed
ethelred's agreement of 1014 and even
his Viking court poets followed the
pattern hailing him as Knut under heaven
the foremost Great Lord this is an exact
literal representation of the picture
here
nothing better illustrates this
transformation that the famous story
about Knut in the ways can use quarters
claim that his par was so vast that he
could command the tide to commute this
was blasphemy and to prove it he told
them to carry his throne to the seashore
where he ordered the waves to retreat as
he expected can you got his feet wet
the story if it's true was a consummate
piece a political theater but what
really matters is that the story is over
to be found in the English sources but
this is Knut as the English wanted to
remember him the king that they'd
severed from his Harsha Nordic roots and
remade in their own image as a Christian
and a gentleman
Canute's rule extended wider that any
previous king of england to denmark
norway and even to part of Sweden so he
needed to delegate power to trusted
Englishmen who ruled home provinces in
his absence
the powers Knut passed down to these
girls as they were called were immense
and of course the oils themselves and
their own plans and ambitions here at
bottom of the Sussex coast lay the
headquarters of the most resourceful of
these man Godwin Earl of Wessex
Godwin was quick to attach himself to
commute a canoe tintern was impressed
with his abilities and connections the
result was that can you made him not
only an earl but the virtual viceroy of
the king
he was even married to one of canoes
remote relations
Godwin had reached the heaviest heights
of English politics he would not likely
give up what he'd won
but Canute's death in 1035 threatened
everything
Godwin was forced to make a new alliance
this time with the woman would pull the
strings behind the scenes for the past
30 years Queen Emma
Emma was determined that her son by Knut
should succeed rather than her children
by Ethelbert has Canute's right-hand man
Godwin agreed so when Etheridge sons did
try for the throne Godwin's troops moved
against
little did Godwin imagine that after six
years of intense political infighting
the elder of ethelred's sons would be
the only claimant to the throne left
alive he will be known to history as
King Edward the Confessor the coronation
of ethelred's son Edward Winchester in
1043 seemed to draw a line at last under
the turmoil of the Danish invasions it
marked the return of the house of Wessex
who had ruled in England for more than
three centuries in later times the King
would be deemed a royal Saint having no
children he was thought to have been
celibate and the image grew up of King
Edward the saintly confessor but in his
own time things were rather different
the real Edward far from being a saint
was a man and a king of his own times
and he did everything that an 11th
century King was expected to do he was
often seen at the head of his troops and
his navy he was an enthusiastic hunter
and of an evening when he relaxed he
liked to listen to bloodthirsty Norse
Sagas of course like most Christian
kings he was a supporter of the church
and particularly showy in his devotions
but his childlessness it seems certain
was a result of mere ill luck and not of
a dedication to celibacy as his later
monkish admirers claimed his coronation
put Edward at the head of the most
prosperous Kingdom in Europe but he
faced one serious obstacle the political
power of Earl Godwin of Wessex
Edward and personal as well as political
reasons for hating Godwin and only at
Godwin kept him from the throne six
years before Godwin also stood accused
of a dreadful crime when Edward and his
brother had first bid for the throne
Edwards brother was captured and
imprisoned at Ely their gruesome fate
befell his eyes were gouged out and as a
result he died
now Godwin swore that he was not
responsible but few believed him
Edwards attitude to this / mighty Earl
was anything but saintly instead his
reign was to be dominated by the
struggle between the king and Godwin's
family the prize was England itself
here a Deerhurst near Gloucester was
once one of the most important churches
in England it was probably founded in
the 8th century but during the reign of
the Confessor the king gave all his
lands away to two other monasteries one
was his great new abbey at Westminster
that perhaps we can understand but the
other was in France
what was edward doing giving the lands
of an english monastery to a french
abbey the answer lies in his struggle
with Godwin because Edward had decided
that the solution to Godwin's dominance
in England was for him to look abroad to
supporters in northern France and
Normandy they were his mother
Emma's people he spoke their language
he'd spent his long years of exile
amongst them so soon after he became
king he started to grant English lands
like Deerhurst here and English offices
to Frenchmen and to Normans they were
his party and in time II hoped they
would make him strong enough to turn the
tables on Earl Godwin soon his
pro-french policy culminated in the
offer to a normal of the greatest
plumber patronage of them all
in 1051 edward sent a messenger to
france to his cousin william the young
Duke of Normandy
the message was an offer of the crown of
England itself in retrospect it looks as
though edward was taking a decision of
huge political significance and deciding
no less that the future of England
should be normal not anglo-saxon
but at the time it looked very different
the Edwards offered to William was not
irrevocable he might yet have children
of his own and evening he didn't he
could always change his mind about his
eventual heir for wisely it would used
the great expectations of the succession
as a device to manage the politics of
the reign and it was this tactic not
geopolitical strategy which was behind
the offer of 1051 Godwin was too strong
so talking up William as his heir might
yet bring down the over mighty Earl a
peg or two and so it proved
the flash point came later in the year
after a visit to the king one of Edwards
French followers
Eustace of Berlin was returning to
France on reaching dough his men put on
their armor and roughly demanded food
and logic from the townsfolk there was
uproar
by the end of the night 19 Frenchmen
were dead and 20 English with many more
injured enrage
Eustace complained to the king he
immediately adjudged Eustace to be the
aggrieved party an ordered Godwin to go
and punish the men his own men of Dover
it was a calculated insult and Godwin
refused
the refusal was a direct challenge to
the Kings Authority Edward passed
summoning troops from all over the
kingdom he demanded that Godwin come to
Gloucester to stand trial here it is a
state of Bevis - just a few miles away
Godwin prepared for the shoulder
he knew that in Gloucester Edward was
assembling his army now Godwin if the
same
it was to his stronghold here that
Godwin summoned his troops the site was
strategically important hence the later
castle it was also on the borders of
Godwin's great earldom of Wessex
so as Godwin's troops assembled the
stage seemed set the Civil War
Englishmen against Englishmen because
both the leaders Godwin here at bevor
stone and Edward 10 miles away at
Gloucester were spoiling for a fight
Godwin because victory was his only
chance of escaping Rouen and Edward
because he thought that at last he'd got
his great enemy on the ropes but the
followers of both the king and the Earl
saw the situation very different
what happened next is one of the most
astonishing episodes in all of medieval
history faced with the prospect of Civil
War
Edwards supporters held off the
anglo-saxon Chronicle tells us why the
two armies contained almost all that was
noblest in England they therefore
prevented the battle so that the country
would not be at the mercy of our foes
whilst engaged in a destructive conflict
between ourselves here again the
anglo-saxon Chronicle gives us clear
evidence of the extraordinary political
sophistication of anglo-saxon England
physic and here of the agreement of 1051
shows that the lessons of ethelred's
reign had been fully learned for in 1051
the sense of common collective
nationhood was strong enough to bind the
political elite together to face down
the disruptive destructive behavior of
any one man however powerful and
whoever
he was
after the standoff Gloucester both sides
agreed to meet in London when they got
there it was Godwin's turn to find that
his support had evaporated the two sides
faced each other across the river Godwin
and his borough of southwark on the
Surrey side the King ensconced in the
Roman city of London itself the city
refortified by his ancestor Alfred the
Great as the messengers came and went
across the Thames
Godwin began to realize that the game
was up he'd know where to go politically
and he'd nowhere to hide in England
either at last as his remaining soldiers
melted away
Godwin fled into exile his family went
with him
Edward was triumphant with his people
support his policy had been successful
he was master in his own house he felt
and able to put into place the final
plank of his pro-french policy
it was then that Norman sources tell us
that do William of Normandy crossed
England there he did homage to Edward a
Norman potentate pledging his loyalty to
an English king it was a public display
of their close relationship to William
it confirmed the promise of the crown
but to Edward it must have seemed that
his Dominion now spanned not only
England but across the channel to France
as well Edward little knew that within
months
Godwin would return
in 1051 kick Edward of England that
established his power over the whole of
his kingdom and especially over his
enemy Oh
Godwin of Wessex but when the very next
year Godwin returned to the Thames with
a new army and fleet the king discovered
that there were limits to his path
Godwin's a was the restoration of his
Oldham of Wessex
weary of Edwards newfound dominance the
English political community changed
sides the very people who in 1051 that
first prevented the fighting and then
ensure that Godwin lost the political
contest now talk is part
as a result edward was persuaded to
reinstate Godwin and to banish many of
his French Norman supporters not for the
last time the political notion had made
it clear that the idea of England was
greater than any individual even than
the king none of the big players in 1052
much like the terms of this compromise
but the broader political community did
because it guaranteed their peace
prosperity and freedom and they not
Godwin or Edward were the real victors
of the crisis
the new political settlement lasted for
more than a decade after Godwin himself
died in 1055 his place in the kingdom
was taken by his children Harald his
eldest son inherited his richest lands
the earldom of Wessex another son called
toss stick was made Earl of Northumbria
but his behavior there was harsh
grasping and incompetent
after 10 years of toasting the people of
Northumbria that had enough they
rebelled in 1065
as the river reached his climax Herald
abandoned his brother and toasting was
driven into exile
the Northumbrian revolt was the
beginning of the final and unexpected
crisis of Edwards reign and of
anglo-saxon England the house of God win
which United a dominated England for the
last 50 years was irretrievably split
and Harold's own brother toasting had
become his most dangerous enemy
this beautiful embroidery made in
England but preserved and the Cathedral
at Baia in Normandy is a contemporary
record of the momentous events which
unfolded in the wake of the Northumbrian
revolt
here is bottom Church its chancel arch
apparently drawn from life
it was from Basel that Harold apparently
embarked on a voyage to France
we don't exactly know what the purpose
of his voyage was but we do know that it
ended in shipwreck and his arrest on the
French coast
according to the embroideries designer
as a result of this arrest Oh Harold
found himself swearing to holy relics to
help Duke William inherit the crown of
England after King Edward's death
Harold's earth - William is one of the
most controversial events of English
history it always has been
did it really happen if so why the
Norman chroniclers tell us that Harold
swore the oath of his own free will
after being rescued by William following
the shipwreck later English chroniclers
admit that the oath took place but
suggest that it was void anyway as it
had been sworn under duress and most
contemporary English sources don't even
mention Howells visit to Normandy at all
nevertheless an event like this is
difficult to invent from scratch so the
likelihood is that Harold did swear the
oath but to what and how seriously is
unclear nor does it seem that William
took Harold's oath very seriously at the
time for neither man could possibly have
guessed how swiftly events would
overtake them
at the end of 1065 just start of the
consecration his new abbey at
westminster king edward was taken ill he
lay on his deathbed edward had a
prophetic nightmare
the troubles of England Edward was told
in his dream would continue until the
trunk of a green tree which had been cut
into reunited and bore leaf again the
trunk of the green tree is the house of
Wessex and clearly England was in for a
bad time the story comes from a
biography of Edward commissioned by his
Queen Edith like many such works the
book is bitterly partisan
and it's particularly hostile to Harold
this hostility makes the life's account
of Edwards deathbed all the more
remarkable for it says that Edward as he
lay dying summoned Harold and asked him
to look after his queen when he was dead
did Edward regret his promise to William
and was he giving the crown to Harold
certainly that seems to be the
implication 15 years on the difficulties
with Godwin which had prompted Edwards
promise must have seemed very remote to
the old king after Edward's death Harold
claimed the crown for himself
his move was widely popular and no one
in England opposed his claim so it was
that Harold Earl of Wessex was elected
and crowned the last anglo-saxon King of
England but from the start
Harold was assailed from overseas and
from several directions the King of
Norway declared himself rightful king
aided by the exiled and vengeful toast
in Denmark a descendant of Knut did
and the son William began preparations
for invasion
the first army to arrive was that of
toasting and the king of Norway
Harold had to abandon his watch against
William on the south coast to march
north to Yorkshire where he soundly
defeated his brothers forces
but at the moment of the English triumph
news came of Williams landing in England
in Sussex the heartland of Harold's
family Harold had to act fast he forced
his exhausted soldiers back down the
Roman Road to face the other intruder at
Hastings
this is where the encounter between
William and Harold took place it lasted
all day the wise men of 1051 were proved
right disunity was dangerous they did
fatally weakened English strength
nevertheless on the hill behind me here
the English soldiers lined up their
shield wall with the same somber dogged
determination as the men of Malden and
they withstood assault after assault of
Williams cavalry and archers until
finally
they broke
the issue was in doubt right to the end
of the battle but by nightfall King
Harold and many of the English army were
dead with them went a whole world the
slaughter of the English elite on the
battlefields of 1066 meant that England
became a very different country the
Danish invasions had been absorbed not
so did Williams conquest even the
language of politics change power in
England would be wielded henceforth in
French not English and history would be
written in Latin the Battle of Hastings
brought an end after 600 years to the
anglo-saxon adventure it had been an
adventure which laid the foundations of
our freedom and gave legitimacy to our
monarchy for the Cataclysm of the
conquest and it's aftermath has obscured
the astonishing political success of the
confessors England brought low in
ethelred's reign the nation had survived
like Edward himself with a national
spirit which continued to animate its
people right to the end the unexpected
unforeseen Bend here on this hill now
the ideas and institutions of the
anglo-saxon state will be tested more
harshly than ever before under new
rulers with a new language and new
values would they vanish or would they
transmute and survive
you