“There was one of the Norwegians who withstood the Englishmen so that they could not climb over the bridge and gain the victory. Then one of the Englishmen shot with an arrow and that did nothing, and then came another under the bridge and stabbed him underneath his coat of mail, and then Harold king of the English came over the bridge and his army with him.â€[117]
“There was one of the Norwegians who withstood the Englishmen so that they could not climb over the bridge and gain the victory. Then one of the Englishmen shot with an arrow and that did nothing, and then came another under the bridge and stabbed him underneath his coat of mail, and then Harold king of the English came over the bridge and his army with him.â€[117]
We have no details of the struggle which must have raged along the rising ground on which the modern village of Stamfordbridge stands, nor do we know with certainty how Harold Hardrada and Tostig fell, but it is clear that the result of that day’s fighting was an unequivocal victory for the English; the men who had been left in charge of the Norwegian fleet at Riccall were willing to accept peace at Harold’s hands and were allowed to depart with their ships to Norway. Harold indeed in this great fight had proved himself a worthy inheritor of the crown of the West Saxon kings, and it was a strange destiny which ruled that the last victory in the struggle of three centuries between Englishman and Northman should fall to no descendant of Egbert or Alfred, but to an English king who was half a Northman himself by blood. But a stranger destiny was it which ruled that one week should see the overthrow of the last great invader from the north and the opening of a new era for England in the entry of the greater invader from beyond the Channel. Harold Hardrada fell at Stamfordbridge on Monday, William of Normandy landed at Pevensey on Thursday.
Penny of Harold Hardrada
Penny of Harold Hardrada
Penny of Harold Hardrada