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Happy 'Battle of Hastings Day'!
It's always intrigued me why we don't mark this huge turning point in our nation's history. What better excuse is there to dress up, wave flags and weapons, and celebrate the English love of defeat.....
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Rather depends on your perspective.
Harold Godwinson dod not really have much of a claim to the throne whereas William was related to Ethelred the unready and Cnut.
Had he simply been invited to take the throne by right he would not presumably have had to give most of te country to the war lords that backed him and English history might have been very different
Harold Godwinson dod not really have much of a claim to the throne whereas William was related to Ethelred the unready and Cnut.
Had he simply been invited to take the throne by right he would not presumably have had to give most of te country to the war lords that backed him and English history might have been very different
The thing is Jake, the idea of inheriting the position of king through primogeniture was not really widespread in 1066 - especially in northern europe and Scandinavia. So in that sense no claimant had a clear-cut right to become king of England.
I agree, it must surely have all been very different if we'd packed the Normans off on the next boat....but we won in the end didn't we - after all, we're writing in English, not French....
I agree, it must surely have all been very different if we'd packed the Normans off on the next boat....but we won in the end didn't we - after all, we're writing in English, not French....
The language thing is interesting - it's a romance language - French (or Norman or whatever it was) became the language of the ruling class, so most words of an educated or governmental nature - education, government, assizes, felicitations, manor - anything else ending in -ion come from that, but we still retain the anglo saxon bits for the common everyday stuff - dog, log, gob, nob, muck, arm, leg.
So if you talked posh, Harold would struggle to comprehend, and vice versa with William.
So if you talked posh, Harold would struggle to comprehend, and vice versa with William.
The French would recoil in horror at the thought of a 'Waterloo Day'. Similarly, they wisely refrain from an 'Agincourt Day', a 'Crecy Day' or a 'Poitiers Day'. Likewise, the Spaniards don't have a 'Armada Day'.
A 'Dunkirk Day' would be as silly as a 'Gallipoli Day', though I believe the Aussies have an 'Anzac Day', (would you believe ?).
A 'VE Day' is only just conceivable, but that would be very un-British and, worse, un-English. Triumphalism is not the way we do things, old boy.
'The greater the deed, the greater the need
Lightly to laugh it away,
Shall be the mark of the English breed,
Until the dying day'
A 'Dunkirk Day' would be as silly as a 'Gallipoli Day', though I believe the Aussies have an 'Anzac Day', (would you believe ?).
A 'VE Day' is only just conceivable, but that would be very un-British and, worse, un-English. Triumphalism is not the way we do things, old boy.
'The greater the deed, the greater the need
Lightly to laugh it away,
Shall be the mark of the English breed,
Until the dying day'
Ethelred II and Cnut had faded into history by the time of Hastings Jake.
The real problem was Edward the Confessor's failure to produce an heir. Due to the loyalty of his Chancelloe and friend Earl Godwinsson, Edward promised the throne to Godwinsson's eldest son Harold. However, William of Normandy was under the impression that Edward had promised the throne to him following Harold's shipwreck in Normandy sometime in the 1050s (I can't remember the date). Then Harold's younger brother Tostig complicated things by losing his head and claiming his right to the throne over his brother. Tostig rushed off to Norway and convinced Harald Hardrada to invade England to secure the throne for him. Harold II then had to rush north to defeat Harald and Tostig at Stamford Bridge shortly before William crossed from Normandy. Once Harold and his fyrd - or army - had raced south again to Hastings, they were exhausted and had lost the advantage of choosing the battle ground.
Duke William's invasion stemmed from the fact that Edward the Confessor never made a firm decision about the succession.
I'm not sure why we should celebrate the Conquest. Shouldn't we lament the passing of Saxon society? Our present culture is a mix of Roman, Saxon, Danish and Norman laws and society, and most people in the UK today are descended from Danish and Norman settlers. My family name comes from Danes who settled in the Rotherham area in the 12th century and my father's from Rotherham. However, I still think we should mark the passing of the Saxons.
The real problem was Edward the Confessor's failure to produce an heir. Due to the loyalty of his Chancelloe and friend Earl Godwinsson, Edward promised the throne to Godwinsson's eldest son Harold. However, William of Normandy was under the impression that Edward had promised the throne to him following Harold's shipwreck in Normandy sometime in the 1050s (I can't remember the date). Then Harold's younger brother Tostig complicated things by losing his head and claiming his right to the throne over his brother. Tostig rushed off to Norway and convinced Harald Hardrada to invade England to secure the throne for him. Harold II then had to rush north to defeat Harald and Tostig at Stamford Bridge shortly before William crossed from Normandy. Once Harold and his fyrd - or army - had raced south again to Hastings, they were exhausted and had lost the advantage of choosing the battle ground.
Duke William's invasion stemmed from the fact that Edward the Confessor never made a firm decision about the succession.
I'm not sure why we should celebrate the Conquest. Shouldn't we lament the passing of Saxon society? Our present culture is a mix of Roman, Saxon, Danish and Norman laws and society, and most people in the UK today are descended from Danish and Norman settlers. My family name comes from Danes who settled in the Rotherham area in the 12th century and my father's from Rotherham. However, I still think we should mark the passing of the Saxons.
It doesn't really matter who promised the throne to whom does it? If you think about it no-one has the right to say 'I rule this country and these people', so no-one has a more valid claim than anyone else. It's all b0llux. All you need to know is that two blokes had a fight and one of them won and the winner became the king. That's what happened in those days.
I tend to agree with Scylax and Andyvon (although I balk at the rendering Cnut, when every schoolboy remembers him as Canute). Dyslexics will have a field day answering questions on 11th C history.
The main point made is that the Crown, in Saxon times, was not subject to the law of primogeniture. Fair enough, the crown would occasionally pass to the next of kin of the deceased monarch, but that was the decision of the Wigenagemot (Council of the Wise) and was not written in stone. Primogeniture only arrived with the Conqueror, whereby in claiming right to all the land that included the passing of the crown to his successor. Even today, in law, nobody "owns" land, they merely have an "interest" in it, as all land is owned by the crown. I think that William The Conqueror (or bastard, depending on which side of the fence you sit) should be commended for introducing the EU 900 years before our politicians got round to it.
The main point made is that the Crown, in Saxon times, was not subject to the law of primogeniture. Fair enough, the crown would occasionally pass to the next of kin of the deceased monarch, but that was the decision of the Wigenagemot (Council of the Wise) and was not written in stone. Primogeniture only arrived with the Conqueror, whereby in claiming right to all the land that included the passing of the crown to his successor. Even today, in law, nobody "owns" land, they merely have an "interest" in it, as all land is owned by the crown. I think that William The Conqueror (or bastard, depending on which side of the fence you sit) should be commended for introducing the EU 900 years before our politicians got round to it.
