1073 -1076 The Occupation, Part 3 – Occupations End
Of course, as soon as we invested in Westmorland, it came under siege again. This time by the Scots. Luckily, Duke Morcar was actively trying to fight the Scots, so he chased them off before they could do any damage. But while he was hunting the Scots, the Norwegians were hunting him. King Harald didn’t like having a wild card running around, who may or may not join up with King Harold. And in April of 1073, Duke Morcar was captured by King Harald Hardrada after a battle in East Riding.
In July of 1073, Gunnar told me that the Bastard had given up on his attempted conquest and agreed to a white peace with England. King Harold Godwineson had successfully repelled the first invasion and could now focus on King Harald Hardrada. But it was not looking good. Between King Harald and his allies, Sweden and Moray, the Norwegians had twice as many troops and already held several castles in the north.
In August, the Norwegians and King Harold met at the Battle of Halifax. King Harold was defeated and fled, clearing the way for the Norwegians to return and lay siege to castles in North and East Riding. Meanwhile, the war for Cumberland continued to play out, but without Morcar’s leadership, the Scots were gaining the upper hand.
The new year brought the happy news of another child on the way. I loved my daughters, but like any man, I dreamed of a son. I also received some surprising news, somehow, I had inherited or been granted a claim on the county of Lancashire, I have no idea where this claim had come from.
With Morcar still held prisoner, there was a struggle for power within Northumbria, I was trying to get reinstated onto the Council, but was opposed by the Prince-Bishop Æthelwine of Dunholm. Æthelwine was Morcar’s trusted friend, so I decided my best hope was to win him to my side, rather than try and compete with him.
In March of 1074, the army of Northumbria was caught lurking near Bebbanburg by the Norwegians and they were slaughtered. The retreating army then ran straight into the arms of the Scots army at Poclintun and suffered another terrible beating.
The rest of the year saw the Norwegians still besieging Eoforwic in North Riding and Poclintun in East Riding.
My third daughter was born in September, we named her Leofwynn. Then I received news that my efforts to win over Prince-Bishop Æthelwine had paid off. As Duke Morcar’s confessor he was allowed to visit Morcar in his prison cell. After one such visit, he brought me a message from Morcar asking me to rejoin his council as Marshal. I agreed, but of course, with Morcar a prisoner, and Eoforwic under siege, the Council would not be meeting anytime soon. But the title of Marshal had its own benefits and prestige.
The Northumbrian army did manage to regroup and once more march on Cumberland. At the battle of Caer Luel, they routed a small Scots force and started a siege. As long as they stayed in Scotland, the Norwegians would probably ignore them.
King Harold came north again at the start of 1075, he landed in Dunholm with 3,300 men and quickly freed it from the Norwegian garrison in a bloody assault. Then he marched north to lay siege to Bebbanburg. While we waited inside, under the close watch of the Norwegian garrison, our fellow Anglo-Saxons were outside trying to find a way in. But they had little time. The Norwegians had captured both North and East Riding, and as soon as they heard of the siege, they came rushing north.
I spent most of the siege studying the tactics of Alexander, learning how he used pontoon bridges and rubble fill to move armies across rivers and other water obstacles. But I took a break from my study of ancient battles to watch a real battle take place below the walls of my home. 2,800 Swedes arrived first to try and break the siege of Bebbanburg, but King Harold’s army was too strong and began to throw them back. But the Swedes were but the vanguard of the enemy army. Another 3,000 Norwegians soon reinforced the Swedish lines, pinning the Anglo-Saxon Army in place and assuring its destruction. The survivors broke and scattered, leaving 800 dead behind.
The Norwegians pursued them, and in July, a second battle took place at Poclintun, and my people again fled. King Harald Hardrada realized that chasing them further was useless, to end this war he needed to control the land, so he settled in to siege down Lincoln and Nottingham.
Meanwhile, Northumbria army was learning the same lesson, they were driving the Scots before them, but as long as King Malcolm still held Cumberland, the war would never be over.
Spring of 1076 found the sieges to the south continuing. King Harold had sailed around the Norwegian armies and landed in North Riding and was again trying to liberate Eoforwic. The Norwegians ignored him and continued with their sieges of Lincoln and Nottingham.
It was about this time that I received word from my cousin Count Eadulf of Teviotdale. He said while we were still family, he no longer wanted to be subservient to an Anglo-Saxon kinsman. He had three children of his own and he considered his family a separate line of House Bamburgh, the Bamburghs of Kelso, so he formed the cadet House Bamburgh-Kelso, referring to his capitol city in Teviotdale. I was at a loss, as I had considered him the head of House Bamburgh for the last few years, and hadn’t been asking anything of him. It seems he was trying to distance himself from his Anglo-Saxon history and prove he was completely Scottish.
Soon after that, both Nottingham and Lincoln fell to Norway, while King Harold was still trying to reclaim Eoforwic. With the Norwegian armies now bearing down on him, and after 10 years of war, King Harold finally bowed to the inevitable. Norway had won.
King Harald IV ‘Hard Ruler’ of Norway and now England.
1076 - To the Victor go the Spoils (or You Lucky Bastard)
Throughout both invasions, Duke Morcar had refused to help King Harold defend England. He didn’t like King Harold any more than he liked William ‘the Bastard, or Harald Hardrada. So he didn’t care which of the three was King, he would be just as content to ignore any of them, secure in his position as the most powerful Duke in England, now holding four Duchies following the death of his brother. But therein lay his mistake. He assumed this war was about who got to call themselves King. He forgot that Harald Hardrada was already a King, and he wasn’t coming for a title, he was coming for land, land for his people, better land than the rocky hillsides and fjords of Norway. He wanted the green pastures and forests of England. So Morcar was shocked when King Harald stripped away all his lands and titles. He was not alone as Harald stripped the lands and titles of King Harold and all the Anglo-Saxon Dukes.
And then King Harald turned around and gave those lands and titles and all the de jure land below those titles to his men and his allies. And in one fell swoop, all of England was ruled by Norwegians and Danes, Duke Gunnar of Mercia, Duke Åmund of Jarnamóða, Duke Rolf of Essex, Duke Arne of Jórvik, and also Countess Gyda of Devon. Yes, the commander of the garrison of Bernicia and my drinking companion for the past 10 years was now the Duke of Mercia.
Well
almost all of England was ruled by the Northmen. A few of us Anglo-Saxons slipped through the cracks. Somehow, we were missed when the titles were being stripped or handed out, leaving a few Anglo Saxons still holding land in England. I’m not sure how it happened, England is huge and there are many, many earls and Dukes. Duke Eanhere of Kent, a 6-year old son of House Godwin, was the highest ranked noble to retain his land and titles. I think he and the 8-year old Earl Ælfwine of Gloucestershire slipped under notice because their fathers had been killed near the end of the war, and the Norwegian clerks just didn’t know who the new rulers were in order to seize their land and titles. 18-year old Countess Rioantdrec of Cornwall, may have gotten through the same way, or they just didn’t realize a woman held Cornwall.
But why was I spared? I think I figured it out. When Harald was handing out Duchies and all the de jure titles below them, there were two situations where the Anglo-Saxon Earls were spared, the first was if the Duchy they were apart of was vacant before the war. Harald had no one to strip a title from and no title with de jure vassals to hand out. So those vassals kept their lands, this may better explain the situation with Cornwall. The other instance is where Harald stripped a Ducal title, but kept it for himself. This is what I think saved me, I was a de jure vassal of Northumbria and Harald kept the Duchy of Northumbria for himself, so I wasn’t stripped of my title by a new Duke. And even though Westmorland was a de jure part of the Duchy of Lancaster, I was able to keep it because my main holding was as a vassal of Northumbria.
Of course, another possibility was, after occupying Bernicia for 10 years, King Harald simply thought of me as a vassal already.
Whatever the reason, the Norwegians had failed to completely purge all of the Anglo-Saxon lords. There was another unexpected result of my escaping this purge. It turns out, with me being the only one of the survivors to still be holding two counties (and an adult), I was now considered the leading light of Anglo-Saxon culture.