Tostig and his consequences

By Jonathan H. Jones

I have been fascinated by the year 1066 and the Norman conquest ever since I first studied it as an eight-year-old at primary school in England. The drama of the contest for the English throne by the Anglo/Danish incumbent, the Norwegian Vikings and the brutal Normans from northern France, and the dramatic changes in Britain, lasting to this day, have stayed with me. It is that fascination that has prompted me to write about Tostig in issue 18 of Medieval World: Culture & Conflict and in this blog, as I consider an alternative outcome to the events of 1066.

In the forefront are the three leaders. 

• King Harold Godwinson of England. A talented warrior and politician with the makings of a great king and the ability to create pragmatic unity in the already prosperous England. Son of a powerful Anglo-Danish family and Earl of Wessex, he experienced life and military campaigns as a “guest” of Duke William in Normandy. As such, he was able to take a broad view of the cultures that made up and surrounded England and those that were a serious threat.
• Harald Hardrada the Norwegian warrior king of Norway. Some would say the greatest warrior in Europe of his time. Standing more than 6 ft tall, and although a Christian, he was a Viking to the core. He had lived and fought in Scandinavia and with the Rus, and was commander of the Byzantine Emperor’s Varangian Guard. He had campaigned for the Byzantine Empire before returning to Norway to take up the throne. At the age of 50, he allowed himself to be persuaded to embark on the invasion of England despite having recently fought an unsatisfactory war with Denmark.
• Duke William of Normandy. A leader brought up in tough personal circumstances as a bastard son of the previous Duke. His struggle to survive in Normandy made him ruthless and a formidable warrior. He led his well trained and efficient cavalry army. He also claimed the throne of England and claimed that Harold has promised to support him in that effort but betrayed that promise.

And in the shadows was the dark and somewhat twisted figure of Tostig Godwinson, younger brother of the English king. A man with a great sense of entitlement as a scion of the most prominent English family. He was not short of courage but his judgment and abilities as a leader were poor. His background, however, gave him access to all three of the men who aimed for the throne in that late summer and autumn of 1066 – together with a connection with the Scots. He used that background and his deep-seated sense of grievance against his brother Harold Godwinson for his banishment from England and his loss of the Earldom of Northumbria to persuade Hardrada to launch his invasion from Norway.

Without Tostig it is my judgement that Hardrada (set back by his conflict with the Danes) would not have set out on the expedition to England that ended with his death at Stamford Bridge. If Hardrada had not done that, then the threatened conquest of England by Duke William may never have taken place. And if it had still gone ahead, it would probably have failed, changing the whole history of England.

To justify that bold statement we have to turn to the character of Harold Godwinson, the older brother of Tostig. Brought up in the family of the most powerful Earl in England and close to the court of King Edward “the Confessor”, he would have learned about power and leadership from an early age. He became a strong warrior and led (with the aid of Tostig) a successful war against the Welsh, adapting his tactics to include lightly armed soldiers to fight with the Welsh in their mountainous and wild terrain in North Wales.

He had also been a somewhat unwilling guest of Duke William in whose court he had found himself after being cast ashore in a maritime mishap on the other side of the English Channel. He was taken on military campaigns by William and had a close-up view of his powerful forces, including the armoured mail-clad knights that spearheaded the army. Before his release back to England, he was tricked or forced by William to take an oath to support William’s claim to the English throne, so he knew what he was dealing with politically and militarily with the Normans.

On the death of the childless King Edward in September 1066, the body of the most senior earls and churchmen who approved the next king supported Harold and he became King the following day. Shortly afterwards, Harold forcefully marched his army 200 miles to York to smash the forces of Harald Hardrada and kill a man who had been possibly the greatest warrior of Europe. The Earls of northern and middle England and those of the south of the country would have been impressed by their new king.

But then William arrived a few days after Stamford Bridge with his army at Pevensey on the south coast of England. and Harold had to march quickly south with his tired troops. Harold set out with the men he had with him from the Northern campaign and some members of the Fyrd recruited on the way from the North. He was defeated and killed on 14 October 1066 at Hastings.

A touch of hubris may well have affected the well-balanced Harold after Stamford Bridge when he had killed the mighty Hardrada and slaughtered his Viking army. That hubris led him to believe that he could do the same to Duke William without careful planning and reinforcements. William became his nemesis at Hastings.

Without the intervention of the wayward Tostig with Hardrada, the invasion in the north would not have happened. Harold would have been better placed in London to organise his strongest and freshest force. And if William had still invaded, he would have probably been heavily outnumbered and failed.

The BBC is about to show King and Conqueror, a series about the events of 1066. It will be interesting to see how all of this is portrayed.