1
00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:04,080
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:13,480
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:17,040
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. I discovered

4
00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,200
Speaker 1: when we talked about the Hessian I kind of like

5
00:00:21,280 --> 00:00:26,119
Speaker 1: talking about battle and now I did blood Less until

6
00:00:26,200 --> 00:00:28,560
Speaker 1: just now. So today we're going to talk about a

7
00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:31,840
Speaker 1: battle that long time listeners may remember a little bit

8
00:00:31,880 --> 00:00:34,920
Speaker 1: about thanks to our episode on the Baiou Tapestry, which

9
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:37,199
Speaker 1: was hosted by Sarah and the Polina back in two

10
00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:40,800
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. The Baiou Tapestry, which is really a piece

11
00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:44,280
Speaker 1: of embroidery and not a tapestry, is a visual account

12
00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:46,920
Speaker 1: of the Battle of Hastings and the events that led

13
00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:49,920
Speaker 1: up to it. So if you know anything at all

14
00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,199
Speaker 1: about European history, you can probably at least boil the

15
00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:55,800
Speaker 1: Battle of Hastings down to a sentence, which is that

16
00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: the Normans invaded England in ten sixty six and their

17
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:03,440
Speaker 1: victory ended the Anglo Saxon phase of English history. If

18
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:05,360
Speaker 1: you actually grew up in England, you probably know a

19
00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:09,000
Speaker 1: whole whole lot more about it than that. Intends to

20
00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:13,479
Speaker 1: be something that's covered extensively. Uh, in English schools because

21
00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:16,200
Speaker 1: it is so central to the history of England. Yeah,

22
00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:18,600
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where sadly when you

23
00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:20,680
Speaker 1: mentioned it, at least when I mentioned it to most

24
00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:23,040
Speaker 1: people that I know, and I'll say, oh, Battle of Hastings,

25
00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:25,520
Speaker 1: they will do what I have done previously in my

26
00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:27,440
Speaker 1: life and on ten sixty six, and that's the one

27
00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:31,680
Speaker 1: thing they remember. Yes, So yeah, I I had that

28
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:34,160
Speaker 1: exact conversation with the boyfriend where I said we could

29
00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:35,679
Speaker 1: talk about the Battle of Hastings and he said, oh,

30
00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:39,560
Speaker 1: ten sixty six husband as well, and and I said yes,

31
00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:41,640
Speaker 1: and he's like, we won, right, And I said, you

32
00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:43,960
Speaker 1: don't know what the who is the we? In this case,

33
00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:47,800
Speaker 1: we had almost an identical conversation at our house. So so,

34
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:51,760
Speaker 1: just like with our recent episode on the Hessians, where

35
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:54,600
Speaker 1: people can boil down the Hessians to a sentence that's

36
00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:58,200
Speaker 1: not really indicative of what actually happened to that one

37
00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:02,040
Speaker 1: sentence description does not do the whole Battle of Hastings justice.

38
00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:04,440
Speaker 1: So today we're gonna look at that in a lot

39
00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:08,480
Speaker 1: more detail, including lots of stuff that's not covered in

40
00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:12,239
Speaker 1: the Bio Tapestry episode. Yeah, because that's a lot to cover.

41
00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:15,840
Speaker 1: In one piece of sewing. Well, but it's a very

42
00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:18,679
Speaker 1: long piece of sewing. And now I think of the

43
00:02:18,760 --> 00:02:21,560
Speaker 1: Futurama episode where they kind of did a spoof of it.

44
00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: That's funny about invading a spider planet and they were

45
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:28,600
Speaker 1: weaving the tapestry from the silk of the spiders as

46
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:32,000
Speaker 1: the battle was happening. Wow, I need to go watch that.

47
00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:35,480
Speaker 1: I love my Futurama. There's no secret there. So first though,

48
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:37,799
Speaker 1: we're gonna get back to history and talk about the

49
00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:42,120
Speaker 1: backstory on this little ditty, And we have to go

50
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:43,959
Speaker 1: back a little bit of a ways to get a

51
00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:46,239
Speaker 1: feel for what was really going on when the Normans

52
00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:49,800
Speaker 1: hopped into the picture and invade it. In the fifth century,

53
00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:52,840
Speaker 1: Germanic people known as the Angles, the Saxons, and the

54
00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:56,240
Speaker 1: Jutes began to immigrate to what we now know as England,

55
00:02:56,600 --> 00:02:59,600
Speaker 1: and at the time this area was mostly inhabited by Celts.

56
00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:02,800
Speaker 1: As the Germanic people's moved in, they pushed the Celts

57
00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:06,519
Speaker 1: into what we would now call Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

58
00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:09,679
Speaker 1: So the word England comes from these Germanic peoples. It

59
00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:15,279
Speaker 1: actually means land of Angles. By the eighth century, Christianity

60
00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:17,600
Speaker 1: had really started to spread through a lot of England,

61
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,600
Speaker 1: and people from Denmark had also started to move into

62
00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:23,079
Speaker 1: the area as well, and so with all of these

63
00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:27,079
Speaker 1: influences the language kind of evolved, and so what we

64
00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:30,800
Speaker 1: now know as Old English. So at this point England

65
00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,560
Speaker 1: was a mostly Christian nation and it mostly spoke one language,

66
00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: although there were several distinct dialects, and it was ruled

67
00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,480
Speaker 1: by a king with earls who were responsible for specific

68
00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:45,800
Speaker 1: regions within the kingdom. And the Vikings started invading Britain

69
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,920
Speaker 1: in the ninth century and over the span of roughly

70
00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:52,680
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty years, Vikings conquered a lot of England,

71
00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:57,040
Speaker 1: but then the Anglo Saxons uh living in Wessex, led

72
00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:00,000
Speaker 1: by Alfred the Great, saved them off and started pushing

73
00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 1: them back out again. In the process, they were honing

74
00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:06,360
Speaker 1: their battle abilities and really making the Anglo Saxon world

75
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:10,360
Speaker 1: a power to be reckoned with on its own. After

76
00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:13,360
Speaker 1: this point there was a period of relative calm which

77
00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:17,000
Speaker 1: lasted about fifty years before the Vikings came back and

78
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:20,000
Speaker 1: started up a new cycle of pillaging and plundering and

79
00:04:20,040 --> 00:04:22,760
Speaker 1: then retreating back to where they came from. Before coming

80
00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:27,480
Speaker 1: back for more pillaging and plundering. It sounds very exciting,

81
00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:31,760
Speaker 1: but it was actually quite dangerous. Well, yes, often exciting

82
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:34,600
Speaker 1: things are, uh. And this was kind of the state

83
00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:38,279
Speaker 1: of things when one of Alfred the Great's direct descendants, Edward,

84
00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:41,560
Speaker 1: entered the picture. And today we know of Edward as

85
00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:44,160
Speaker 1: Edward the Confessor, but that was a name he was

86
00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:46,600
Speaker 1: given about a hundred years after his death, when the

87
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:50,240
Speaker 1: Pope recognized him as a saint. So Edward was born

88
00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:53,080
Speaker 1: in about one thousand and three, and because of all

89
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:57,080
Speaker 1: these ongoing Viking attacks, he and his family took refuge

90
00:04:57,200 --> 00:05:00,240
Speaker 1: in Normandy for a number of years, and there they

91
00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:03,960
Speaker 1: naturally built a lot of ties to Norman's society. They

92
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,920
Speaker 1: made a lot of friends there were influenced in their

93
00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:11,039
Speaker 1: politics while they were living there. It took several failed attempts,

94
00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:14,640
Speaker 1: but Edward finally returned to England and became king in

95
00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:17,320
Speaker 1: ten forty two, and he brought a lot of Norman

96
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,960
Speaker 1: advisors and kind of Norman politics along with him. And

97
00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:25,440
Speaker 1: Edward married a woman named Edith, although they had no children,

98
00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:27,640
Speaker 1: so this left a question of who the heir was

99
00:05:27,720 --> 00:05:30,160
Speaker 1: going to be. Uh. And there's no written account of

100
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:34,000
Speaker 1: exactly what transpired there, but the general historical consensus is

101
00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 1: that in March of ten fifty one he announced it

102
00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:40,279
Speaker 1: a council meeting that he wanted his kinsman William of Normandy,

103
00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:43,480
Speaker 1: to take the throne after his death. This did not

104
00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:46,840
Speaker 1: sit at all well with a guy named Godwine, who

105
00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:50,480
Speaker 1: was the Earl of Wessex and Edith's father, so Edwards

106
00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:53,600
Speaker 1: father in law, he had actually been a favorite to

107
00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:56,400
Speaker 1: become the king himself and was hoping to see one

108
00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,560
Speaker 1: of his own children or grandchildren eventually on the throne.

109
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:02,760
Speaker 1: And the top of these own aspirations of power that

110
00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,200
Speaker 1: he had, he really was a legitimately powerful person and

111
00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:09,960
Speaker 1: he had a much stronger backing than Edward did among

112
00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:14,080
Speaker 1: the other leaders of England, and this tension between Godwine

113
00:06:14,120 --> 00:06:16,880
Speaker 1: and the king really took England to the brink of

114
00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:21,120
Speaker 1: a civil war. But eventually Edward outlawed Godwine after he

115
00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:24,400
Speaker 1: refused to punish the people of Dover, which fell under

116
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:27,360
Speaker 1: his earldom, for an attack on Edward's brother in law,

117
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:30,080
Speaker 1: and Godwine and his sons and most of his family

118
00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:33,960
Speaker 1: fled to Flanders and Ireland, and then Edward banished his

119
00:06:34,080 --> 00:06:38,000
Speaker 1: wife to a nunnery seems kind of ruthless on Edward's part,

120
00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:40,920
Speaker 1: didn't want anything to do with those people anymore. Yes,

121
00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:43,240
Speaker 1: that's like a brutal divorce at that point, it is.

122
00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:45,840
Speaker 1: And and he also in the aftermath made kind of

123
00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:48,800
Speaker 1: a critical mistake. He got rid of a tax that

124
00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:53,480
Speaker 1: had been used to fund a mercenary naval fleet. The

125
00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:56,080
Speaker 1: idea was that he was basically giving some everyone who

126
00:06:56,240 --> 00:06:59,080
Speaker 1: was being taxed at tax break, and he probably thought

127
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 1: that if he really need it an army or a

128
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:04,239
Speaker 1: naval force, that he could just call it up because

129
00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:07,480
Speaker 1: he was the king um and in a lot of

130
00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:12,400
Speaker 1: circumstances that probably would have worked. But that, unfortunately or fortunately,

131
00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:15,320
Speaker 1: depending on whose side you're on, meant that when Godwine

132
00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:17,960
Speaker 1: came back across the channel with his own fleet in

133
00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:21,679
Speaker 1: ten fifty two, Edward did not have a force ready

134
00:07:21,760 --> 00:07:24,760
Speaker 1: to fight him off. And on top of Edward not

135
00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 1: having enough manpower to resist Godwine's attack, public sentiment was

136
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,120
Speaker 1: pretty firmly on Godwine's side at this point. People just

137
00:07:34,280 --> 00:07:36,880
Speaker 1: did not like the idea of a Norman line of succession,

138
00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:39,760
Speaker 1: and they didn't even like how many Normans the king

139
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:45,560
Speaker 1: had among his advisers. So Edward was basically politically forced

140
00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,880
Speaker 1: to pardon Godwine and his family and they once again

141
00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:52,240
Speaker 1: took up their positions of power in England. So when

142
00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:56,080
Speaker 1: Godwine died, his son, who was known as Harold Godwin's

143
00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:59,760
Speaker 1: and continued to be a very powerful figure in England.

144
00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:02,800
Speaker 1: And this would turn out to be a problem when

145
00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:06,920
Speaker 1: it came back around to the line of succession. So

146
00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:10,400
Speaker 1: now we're going to hop into the Norman back story

147
00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:14,480
Speaker 1: on it. Yes. Uh, so over in Normandy, William was Earl,

148
00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:18,800
Speaker 1: his wife was Matilda of Flanders, and Flanders in England

149
00:08:18,840 --> 00:08:21,920
Speaker 1: were not on terrific terms. Uh. This may have been

150
00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:24,120
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why Edward promised the throne to

151
00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:27,320
Speaker 1: William to help keep him in line and discourage him

152
00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:31,520
Speaker 1: from lining up with Flanders against him. But thanks to

153
00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:35,199
Speaker 1: this whole idea that he was being promised to become

154
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,800
Speaker 1: the King of England and his marriage to Matilda of Flanders,

155
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:42,000
Speaker 1: Henry the First of France saw William as a really

156
00:08:42,120 --> 00:08:46,599
Speaker 1: huge threat. So William had to fend off multiple invasions

157
00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:50,319
Speaker 1: from France and its allies during the ten fifties, and

158
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:53,520
Speaker 1: it was really only after William had a particularly decisive

159
00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:57,080
Speaker 1: victory against them uh that France and its allies left

160
00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:00,640
Speaker 1: William alone, and only after his major rival died did

161
00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:03,720
Speaker 1: he really seem to get any risks. He was pretty

162
00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:06,960
Speaker 1: much constantly having to fend off one attack after another.

163
00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:10,960
Speaker 1: That brings us back to Harold. In about ten fifty

164
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:15,160
Speaker 1: four or ten five, Harold visited Normandy because of a storm.

165
00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:17,920
Speaker 1: He actually wound up landing in Flanders and was taken

166
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:20,160
Speaker 1: prisoner at first, and William had to come and secure

167
00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:24,040
Speaker 1: his release. And at some point during this little excursion,

168
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:28,880
Speaker 1: for reasons that different accounts report completely differently, Harold swore

169
00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:31,520
Speaker 1: an oath to honor Williams claim to the throne once

170
00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:35,280
Speaker 1: Edward died. Norman writers say that Edward had sent Harold

171
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:39,600
Speaker 1: specifically for this purpose, but English sources either don't reference

172
00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:42,079
Speaker 1: it at all, or they say that Harold was in

173
00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:44,559
Speaker 1: Normandy to secure the release of some of his kin

174
00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:49,360
Speaker 1: from imprisonment. So there's a little bit of disagreement about

175
00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:51,520
Speaker 1: whether or not there was intrigue in the mix. At

176
00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:57,160
Speaker 1: this point, it's a thousand almost years ago, and both

177
00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:00,400
Speaker 1: sides writing about it definitely have an into and death.

178
00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:04,199
Speaker 1: But either way, the sources all pretty much agree that

179
00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:08,120
Speaker 1: Harold swore to uphold William's claim to the throne, and

180
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,760
Speaker 1: then he went back from Normandy across the English Channel

181
00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:14,960
Speaker 1: to England in about ten sixty five. So we're coming

182
00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:19,400
Speaker 1: up on the happenings. Uh So, at this point the

183
00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:23,400
Speaker 1: stage seems to be set for one would hope a

184
00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:27,160
Speaker 1: fairly smooth succession. Edward the Confessor has promised the throne

185
00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:30,400
Speaker 1: to William of Normandy, and the surviving person with the

186
00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:33,920
Speaker 1: next strongest claim to the throne, Harold Godwinson, has sworn

187
00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:37,079
Speaker 1: an oath to honor Edward's decree. It seems like it

188
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,760
Speaker 1: should be cool. It does. There there's a third person

189
00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:41,520
Speaker 1: with kind of a tide of the throne. He'll talk

190
00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:44,040
Speaker 1: about a little bit later, but at this point it's

191
00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:48,400
Speaker 1: really between uh William and Harold. But even though it

192
00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:51,599
Speaker 1: should not have been really. But what happened next is

193
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:55,800
Speaker 1: that King Edward died after an uprising in Northumbria. He

194
00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:58,560
Speaker 1: had tried to raise an army to put down the rebellion,

195
00:10:58,640 --> 00:11:01,720
Speaker 1: but winter was coming. People were pretty reluctant to get

196
00:11:01,800 --> 00:11:06,160
Speaker 1: involved in what was really a civil war, so eventually

197
00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:08,839
Speaker 1: Edward just had to give into the rebels demands and

198
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:11,959
Speaker 1: he was apparently so distraught by his failure to bring

199
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:14,559
Speaker 1: Northumbria back in the line that he got sick and

200
00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:17,199
Speaker 1: never got better again. He died at the beginning of

201
00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:21,199
Speaker 1: January ten sixty six, and the king was buried on

202
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:24,560
Speaker 1: January six of ten sixty six, and that day, even

203
00:11:24,640 --> 00:11:27,320
Speaker 1: though he had sworn an oath to honor Williams claim

204
00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:30,520
Speaker 1: to the throne, Harold stepped in and took it for himself.

205
00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:33,600
Speaker 1: We don't really have a lot of clear historical documentation

206
00:11:33,880 --> 00:11:37,440
Speaker 1: conclusively telling us why he did this. At the time, though,

207
00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:41,079
Speaker 1: succession wasn't always a straight up matter of father to

208
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:45,559
Speaker 1: son inheritance or of the king designated designating he was

209
00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:48,480
Speaker 1: going to follow him to the throne. In England, a

210
00:11:48,559 --> 00:11:51,480
Speaker 1: man wasn't really considered to be king until he had

211
00:11:51,559 --> 00:11:54,679
Speaker 1: the support of a majority of England's most powerful men.

212
00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:58,400
Speaker 1: Like we said, England was not super keen on the

213
00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,200
Speaker 1: idea of having a Norman king, and there are also

214
00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:04,320
Speaker 1: some accounts, including the Life of King Edward, which Queen

215
00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:07,920
Speaker 1: Edith later had written, that said Edward either gave the

216
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,880
Speaker 1: kingdom to Harold on his deathbed or that he had

217
00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:14,839
Speaker 1: entrusted it to him in the Bayeux Tapestry, Harold is

218
00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:18,480
Speaker 1: shown being given the crown, and almost one thousand years later,

219
00:12:18,559 --> 00:12:22,720
Speaker 1: we still don't entirely know what went down. So whatever

220
00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:27,400
Speaker 1: the circumstances are of Harold being crowned, King William objected,

221
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,960
Speaker 1: and so apparently did Harold's brother Toasting, who then mounted

222
00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:37,880
Speaker 1: two different invasions of England. The first came from Flanders

223
00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:40,880
Speaker 1: and the second came with backup from the Vikings. So

224
00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:43,920
Speaker 1: Harold had to spend the start of his reign fighting

225
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,920
Speaker 1: off his brother in the far northern reaches of England.

226
00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:50,120
Speaker 1: But thanks to the lay of the land and the

227
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:53,560
Speaker 1: position of the English Channel, any invasion from Normandy would

228
00:12:53,559 --> 00:12:56,719
Speaker 1: make landfall hundreds of miles to the south, and this

229
00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:59,680
Speaker 1: meant that when William invaded, Harold would have a long

230
00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:02,640
Speaker 1: made to travel to fight him off. So, since we've

231
00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:05,439
Speaker 1: said ten sixty six a bunch of times, we know

232
00:13:05,559 --> 00:13:08,199
Speaker 1: that that invasion is imminent. And before we get to it,

233
00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,520
Speaker 1: let's take a moment and talk about a word from

234
00:13:10,559 --> 00:13:13,040
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Okay, now we're going to get back to

235
00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:15,560
Speaker 1: the actual battle. And since we know from the top

236
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:17,960
Speaker 1: of the episode that this is what Tracy has gotten

237
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:22,079
Speaker 1: excited about talking about very excited, so crazy. So it

238
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:24,760
Speaker 1: took a little while before William made it to England.

239
00:13:24,840 --> 00:13:27,360
Speaker 1: He had to raise a bigger army than he already had,

240
00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:29,360
Speaker 1: and he had to build at least some of the

241
00:13:29,400 --> 00:13:31,280
Speaker 1: ships that were going to be required to take them

242
00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:34,760
Speaker 1: across the channel. The weather was also against him for

243
00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:37,000
Speaker 1: a while, so they had to put off setting sail.

244
00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:42,240
Speaker 1: He finally landed in England on September of ten sixty six,

245
00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:45,000
Speaker 1: and he was on the southeast coast at pevense E,

246
00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:48,640
Speaker 1: and he took that town and marched to Hastings, which

247
00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:51,240
Speaker 1: was twelve miles away, also pretty much on the coast,

248
00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:54,520
Speaker 1: and at both of these locations the Normans seized a

249
00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:57,280
Speaker 1: fort and then modified it to suit their own ends

250
00:13:57,400 --> 00:14:00,800
Speaker 1: by adding ramparts and moats. And it would have taken

251
00:14:00,920 --> 00:14:03,280
Speaker 1: days for the news to reach Harold of the Norman

252
00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:05,880
Speaker 1: force at Hastings, and he had to march his men

253
00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:08,360
Speaker 1: all the way from Yorkshire, which was about two hundred

254
00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:12,079
Speaker 1: miles away. They basically rode south as fast as they could,

255
00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:15,800
Speaker 1: most likely dismissing the soldiers who didn't have horses to ride,

256
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:18,679
Speaker 1: and mustering more as they went. So yeah, he was

257
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,120
Speaker 1: replacing the people who were on foot and couldn't keep

258
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:25,560
Speaker 1: up as they went. Basically, Harold met William and Hastings

259
00:14:25,640 --> 00:14:28,800
Speaker 1: on October and the battle took place on the next day.

260
00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:33,240
Speaker 1: And although Harold's forces had ridden horses to Hastings, they

261
00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: all fought on foot, which was typical and English warfare

262
00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:39,360
Speaker 1: at the time. William, on the other hand, had archers

263
00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,920
Speaker 1: and cavalry in addition to his UH boots on the

264
00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:46,480
Speaker 1: ground infantry, and the English secured a defensible position on

265
00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:49,800
Speaker 1: high ground and the Norman's approached them from below. So

266
00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,280
Speaker 1: that's just sort of to set up the picture here. Yeah,

267
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:55,600
Speaker 1: if you know much about uh, you know, medieval warfare,

268
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:59,240
Speaker 1: or if you've ever played any kind of strategy game

269
00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:02,880
Speaker 1: that involved soldiers, this looks like a really one sided

270
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:05,360
Speaker 1: battle because you had you had people who were on

271
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:08,200
Speaker 1: foot versus people who had archers and horses. We're going

272
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:11,000
Speaker 1: to talk about why it was not nearly that clear cut.

273
00:15:11,720 --> 00:15:14,720
Speaker 1: Here's how William of Mom's Prey describes the English all

274
00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:17,880
Speaker 1: on foot, armed with battle axes and covering themselves in

275
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:21,160
Speaker 1: front by the juncture of their shields. They formed an

276
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:25,800
Speaker 1: impenetrable body. The English were also armed, we should say,

277
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:28,120
Speaker 1: with slings and spears, But it seems as though they

278
00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:31,160
Speaker 1: did not really have many archers, probably because of the

279
00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:33,080
Speaker 1: speed at which they had to move to Hastings, so

280
00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:36,440
Speaker 1: it wasn't like they could rouse all of the archery

281
00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:40,640
Speaker 1: skilled gents in the area to help. Here's how William

282
00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:44,840
Speaker 1: of Mom's Brey describes the Normans their infantry with bows

283
00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:48,320
Speaker 1: and arrows one of the vanguard, while their cavalry, divided

284
00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:51,520
Speaker 1: into wings, was placed in the rear the duke that

285
00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:56,400
Speaker 1: duke is is William with serene countenance. The clearing allowed

286
00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:59,280
Speaker 1: that God would favor him as being the righteous side.

287
00:15:59,680 --> 00:16:02,800
Speaker 1: Call for his arms, and when through the haste of

288
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:06,240
Speaker 1: his attendants he had put on his halbert behind part before,

289
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:08,840
Speaker 1: he corrected the mistake with a laugh, saying, the power

290
00:16:08,920 --> 00:16:12,800
Speaker 1: of my dukedom shall be turned into a kingdom. Basically

291
00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 1: a story here that he accidentally put his armor on

292
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:19,680
Speaker 1: backwards and and then tried to turn that to his advantage,

293
00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:23,240
Speaker 1: rather than seeing is seeing it as a poor omen

294
00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:25,520
Speaker 1: and a nickel for every time I put my armor

295
00:16:25,600 --> 00:16:30,200
Speaker 1: on backward knew. William of Malmsbury also describes the English

296
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:32,760
Speaker 1: as having stayed up all night drinking and singing, while

297
00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:36,000
Speaker 1: the Normans instead spent the night confessing their sins and

298
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,400
Speaker 1: having communion in the morning, which is in all likelihood

299
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:43,040
Speaker 1: added color commentary and not a real thing. But both

300
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:46,200
Speaker 1: sides were clearly pretty worn out, the English from having

301
00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:49,360
Speaker 1: traveled so far from getting to battle, and the Normans

302
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 1: from having stood at the ready all night just in

303
00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:56,000
Speaker 1: case an attack happened. So whether they were drinking or confessing,

304
00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:58,800
Speaker 1: no one had gotten sleep, and they were all really tired. Yeah.

305
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:00,920
Speaker 1: This this account was written a little bit later in

306
00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:04,359
Speaker 1: the eleventh century, and and there are parts of it

307
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:07,520
Speaker 1: that people pretty much agree are probably right. But then

308
00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:09,240
Speaker 1: when it gets to and then the English were up

309
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,239
Speaker 1: all night drinking, kind of like the Hessians thing, right,

310
00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:15,880
Speaker 1: they were all drunk, clearly because they lost, they must

311
00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:19,240
Speaker 1: have all been inebriated. And that's really not not true. So,

312
00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:22,120
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, the battle began with the English

313
00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:26,520
Speaker 1: behind this shield wall, and then the Normans were arranged

314
00:17:26,600 --> 00:17:29,880
Speaker 1: into lines, with their crossbowmen at the front, and then

315
00:17:30,040 --> 00:17:33,120
Speaker 1: their soldiers on foot, and then their knights on horses.

316
00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:35,879
Speaker 1: And it would seem, of course, as though the English

317
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:39,400
Speaker 1: were at a vast disadvantage since They had neither cavalry

318
00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:42,760
Speaker 1: nor very many archers, but they did have the high ground,

319
00:17:43,119 --> 00:17:46,040
Speaker 1: and they had a shield wall and battle axes, which

320
00:17:46,119 --> 00:17:49,640
Speaker 1: are in fact horrifying though maybe to think about very

321
00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:53,560
Speaker 1: effective weapons when it comes to battling men on horseback. Yes,

322
00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:56,600
Speaker 1: so if you do not hit the rider with your axe,

323
00:17:56,840 --> 00:17:59,160
Speaker 1: you will hit the horse and it will go down. Yes,

324
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:02,480
Speaker 1: which makes my sad faith happened. I knew when I

325
00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:04,880
Speaker 1: was typing this that Holly was going to be very

326
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:10,840
Speaker 1: sad about the predictable with the animals. So William moved

327
00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:13,320
Speaker 1: his men and kind of waves. They would fire a

328
00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:17,040
Speaker 1: volley of arrows and then alternate charges with the footshield,

329
00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:20,000
Speaker 1: the foot soldiers and the knights. And there were a

330
00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:23,760
Speaker 1: lot of casualties on both sides, but the English shield

331
00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,359
Speaker 1: wall held for a really long time. This battle went

332
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:31,399
Speaker 1: on basically all day. The tide of the battle turned

333
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:35,040
Speaker 1: when the Normans either retreated or feigned a retreat. Some

334
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:37,960
Speaker 1: accounts say this was a deliberate strategy on William's part,

335
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,280
Speaker 1: and others suggested that Norman's actually lost their nerve when

336
00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:43,840
Speaker 1: a rumor spread that William had been killed. So we

337
00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:47,959
Speaker 1: don't know why they turned yeah, it it's pretty much.

338
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:53,680
Speaker 1: The English writers say that that the Normans all kind

339
00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:56,760
Speaker 1: of freaked out when their leader apparently fell but had

340
00:18:56,840 --> 00:18:59,159
Speaker 1: not really fallen, and the Normans, on the other hand,

341
00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:02,600
Speaker 1: say that it was a skilled battle maneuver on William's part.

342
00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:07,399
Speaker 1: I meant to do that. Yeah. Either way, when the

343
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,440
Speaker 1: Normans started to flee, the English broke their ranks and

344
00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:13,120
Speaker 1: went after them, and then the Norman's turned on them

345
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:17,000
Speaker 1: and cut them down. And it's also unclear whether the

346
00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:21,200
Speaker 1: sequence of events actually happened once or twice. So maybe

347
00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:23,760
Speaker 1: one time it was out of fear and one time

348
00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:26,080
Speaker 1: it was on purpose, we don't know. But regardless, the

349
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,359
Speaker 1: shield wall started to fail and the Norman's really started

350
00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,280
Speaker 1: to gain ground. Yeah. I described this whole battle to

351
00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:34,879
Speaker 1: do the boyfriend, and he was like, they fell for

352
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:36,720
Speaker 1: that more than once, and I said, well, that's a

353
00:19:36,760 --> 00:19:40,879
Speaker 1: little We don't know historically. Possibly. What we do know

354
00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:45,280
Speaker 1: is that later in the afternoon Harold was killed. The

355
00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:48,720
Speaker 1: Bioux tapestry depicts them as being shot with an arrow

356
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:51,800
Speaker 1: through the eye and an extremely memorable sequence, but that's

357
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:58,360
Speaker 1: actually a later account, like that's not something that seems

358
00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:01,399
Speaker 1: to have persisted on the day, so that might be

359
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:08,639
Speaker 1: sort of a romanticized, horrifying edition of a later historian

360
00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:12,160
Speaker 1: or writer and not something that actually happened on that day,

361
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,880
Speaker 1: but when he felt that's definitely when English soldiers really

362
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:21,400
Speaker 1: started to scatter um and as the sun started to set,

363
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:25,359
Speaker 1: the battle was pretty much over, with the Normans hoping

364
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,440
Speaker 1: to clean up the stragglers. Yeah, the Normans went after

365
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:31,399
Speaker 1: the stragglers and they slaughtered a lot of them, but

366
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 1: many of the Normans were also killed after the battle

367
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 1: itself was over, after piling onto one another against a

368
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,440
Speaker 1: rampart that was hidden in tall grass, and so this

369
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:45,640
Speaker 1: thing ended with just scores of bodies the big body

370
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:51,040
Speaker 1: count for this particular battle. So after the battle Harold

371
00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:54,919
Speaker 1: had died, William had one. But coming to the throne

372
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:57,600
Speaker 1: wasn't quite as simple as all that. It wasn't so

373
00:20:57,760 --> 00:20:59,879
Speaker 1: much that William killed Harold in the battle and then

374
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 1: William consequently got to be king. There was still actually

375
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,160
Speaker 1: one other heir to the throne alive at this point.

376
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,480
Speaker 1: That was Edgar Atheling, who was son of Edward the Exile,

377
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:14,800
Speaker 1: who was son of Edmund Ironside, who himself had been

378
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:19,560
Speaker 1: king for several months. So Edgar was only about thirteen

379
00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 1: years old, but he did have a much clearer line

380
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:25,280
Speaker 1: of successions straight to the throne than either Harold or

381
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 1: William did, and while he was not full of supporters

382
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,440
Speaker 1: all over England, he did have the backing of the

383
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 1: archbishop and the citizens of London. And there's really all

384
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:40,280
Speaker 1: kinds of disagreement about what exactly took place next, how

385
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 1: much force William used making his way to London, and

386
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:45,560
Speaker 1: how much the death toll continued to climb. Those all

387
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 1: still have a lot of question marks around them. We

388
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 1: know that it was a really bloody campaign, though, and

389
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 1: in the end Edgar's supporters did back down. William moved

390
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,600
Speaker 1: on to London and was crowned king on Christmas Day

391
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,320
Speaker 1: ten sixty six. He built Little Abbey on the site

392
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 1: of the battle, uh approximately as as we think today.

393
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: The town of Battle grew up around it, and the

394
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:13,040
Speaker 1: altar in the abbey is said to stand on the

395
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:15,600
Speaker 1: spot where Harold had stood at the center of the

396
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 1: shield wall. The aftermath of the Norman invasion really could

397
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 1: be its own whole other podcast topic. The next several

398
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 1: years were very grizzly, as the English rebelled against their

399
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,919
Speaker 1: new Norman king and William definitely put down their rebellions.

400
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: Case in point, the Harrying of the North, in which

401
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 1: William did a whole lot of conquering and pillaging in

402
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 1: Northumbria and as many as a one hundred thousand people

403
00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 1: starved to death, which is just a huge It was

404
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 1: a huge death toll, mammoth. There was. There's a lot

405
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 1: of killing and and and pillaging for many years. And

406
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:55,840
Speaker 1: even though this was definitely a bloody and oppressive conquest,

407
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 1: there are some modern beliefs about the Norman invasion that

408
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: don't quite hold up. For example, the Normans did not

409
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:06,879
Speaker 1: introduce the idea of a class system to England and

410
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:10,360
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon England, about ten per of the people were

411
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:14,120
Speaker 1: actually slaves and most of the free people were peasants.

412
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 1: There was a very very small, very wealthy aristocracy and

413
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:22,639
Speaker 1: an even smaller ruling class that held actual power, So

414
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,679
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon England like was not some kind of utopia

415
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 1: where everyone was Yeah, it's also not true that women

416
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 1: were better off before the Norman invasion. Uh. That comes

417
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:37,879
Speaker 1: up pretty often to this idea that that women were

418
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: equal to men before the Normans and the Normans started

419
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 1: subjugating them. So while it's totally true that women didn't

420
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: have many rights and privileges after the Battle of Hastings,

421
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: they really didn't before either. This did, though, have one

422
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: really huge impact that is recognized and I think most

423
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 1: people know about, which is that it radically changed the

424
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 1: English language through the influence it's of Norman speaking rulers.

425
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: So by the twelfth century people were speaking what we

426
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: know today as Middle English, which is the language of

427
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:11,439
Speaker 1: the Canterbury Tales. So it definitely had a huge impact

428
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: on the culture of England, the direction of history, for sure.

429
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: It's it's sort of considered a watershed moment in English

430
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: history especially. Uh But if you hear people say that,

431
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 1: uh the Normans were universally a terrible influence on England,

432
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: that doesn't quite. William was quite a grizzly and bloody ruler, yes,

433
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: especially lots of bad and unfortunate things going on already. Yes.

434
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: Uh So today you can still visit the battle site

435
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:47,119
Speaker 1: in Sussex, although there's been some debate really recently about

436
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: whether our modern idea of where the battlefield was is

437
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: exactly the right one and uh in which is just

438
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 1: as research was starting. On this episode, the UK television

439
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 1: show Time Team claimed that the site of the battle

440
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 1: was really about two meters away on what's now a roundabout,

441
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: and they used uh light our technology to map the

442
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: area near what's believed to be the actual battlefield. So

443
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: whether this is actually true is either up in the

444
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: air or roundly dismissed depending on who you talk to.

445
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 1: There have been several other alleged quote real sites of

446
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 1: the battle over the years, though, um, it's one of

447
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: those things where it was it was a pretty big

448
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 1: space people would have been fighting in. People keep sort

449
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: of trying to pinpoint an exact spot. It kind of

450
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 1: ra what is the center of an Amiba? Yeah, it's

451
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: it's not quite that simple. Yeah. English Heritage also known

452
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England disputed

453
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: this whole Time Team finding, basically saying what we just

454
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: said that the battle took place over a wide swath

455
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: of the area, so really, what was the point in

456
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 1: trying to say this spot is where it happened. There

457
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: are also three completely different sites that have been bandied

458
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 1: about as the exact spot in quotation marks. And then

459
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,399
Speaker 1: there's also a cool thing online that you found that

460
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,399
Speaker 1: I know you're yearning to talk about. Did It is

461
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:14,679
Speaker 1: a Battle of Hastings game and you can play at

462
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 1: the BBC. We will link to it in our show notes.

463
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 1: You can play as William or you can play as

464
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: Harold and you can see what the what the results

465
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: are if you make different decisions as a as a

466
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: leader in the battle. At first I thought it was

467
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: somehow rigged because I kept trying to play as as William,

468
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: and this was before I had researched exactly how the

469
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 1: battle unfolded, and I failed a whole lot of times.

470
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: And then I played it again after I had read

471
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:44,719
Speaker 1: it and went, oh, yes, I see, I see how

472
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: this works. Now do you also have listener mail for

473
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: us to enjoy? I really do, and hey, it's kind

474
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: of related. This is from Andrew. Andrew says, Hi, guys,

475
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 1: I'm a long term listener living on the outskirts of

476
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: West London and I often into your show whilst walking

477
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: my dogs on the old Hounslow Heath. I hope I

478
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 1: said that correctly. Home to high Women, Gunpowder and the

479
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 1: Armies of James the ban. I've just enjoyed your episode

480
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,360
Speaker 1: on the Boston massacre a subject that I find interesting,

481
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: as my wife lived in Boston for two years and

482
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: I've spent some happy times there with the locals. I

483
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,479
Speaker 1: thought that you might like to hear how the British

484
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: view on this unfortunate quote incident on King Street, as

485
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: well as other events like the infamous quote Boston tea party.

486
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: It always seems to me that many Bostonians now view

487
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: these events through the eyes of modern Americans and fails

488
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: to take into account the context. There's often bitter anger

489
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: about the fact that quote we tried to text quote

490
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: them on goods to fund the troops, that quote we

491
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: sent to govern quote them. The mistake, of course, is

492
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 1: to separate the people living on either side of the

493
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: Atlantic into two disparate groups. At the time, all these

494
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: people were British subjects living in a British colony, and

495
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: as such were liable to legitimate taxation to fund the

496
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: services provided by the British government. A more accurate view

497
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: of this situation is to imagine that one of the

498
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: current American states decided that it wanted independence from the

499
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 1: Union and no longer wish to pay any taxes to Washington,

500
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: but still expected to have all the assistance, financial, military, administrative,

501
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: etcetera that are afforded to the members of the United

502
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: States of America. When the members of the public of

503
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: Boston in seventeen seventy are viewed as a group of

504
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: rebellious subjects led by people with a questionable connection to

505
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: the smuggling trade to attack the appointed representatives of the

506
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:37,880
Speaker 1: law over the fact that they didn't want to pay

507
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: government taxes, you come closer to seeing the way that

508
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: these incidents are viewed from the old country. I hope

509
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: that you find our views on this interesting and not

510
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: too archaic. Keep up the good work, and I look

511
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: forward to hearing more of your brilliant podcasts. Regards Andrew,

512
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: thank you so much and so cool. I love this,

513
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: so I love this, uh this email for a couple

514
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: of reasons. One, it is pretty awesome to here from

515
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: the other side of the pon on this particular subject. Yeah,

516
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: it's a perspective. We never ever are taught as American

517
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: children in school, not at all. Our our education on

518
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War is really really about us fighting off

519
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: the big bad them, like and I imagined, really, uh,

520
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: most places when they're you know, most countries raising their

521
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: children that's kind of how their stories go. It's about

522
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: a little more of a patriotic to wherever they are slant. So,

523
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: so yes, number one, it's awesome to hear that the

524
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: perspective of somebody who who did not grow up here.

525
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: And the other reason that it's awesome is that when

526
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: researching that episode, I didn't try really hard to present

527
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: both sides of how it went down, which I think,

528
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: uh I did as well as I could considering that,

529
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: you know, my entire education has been steeped in the

530
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: idea that there was a wee aligned against us during

531
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: the American Revolution. Um, so I still think I did

532
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 1: an okay, they're reasonably okay job portraying that, but hearing

533
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: the first person in perspective of somebody else is definitely awesome.

534
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you, thank you Andrew for writing

535
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: this wonderful letter. I especially like the reference to highwaymen.

536
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, you can.

537
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: We're at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're also

538
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: on Facebook at facebook dot com slash History class Stuff,

539
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at miss in History. Our tumbler is

540
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: missed in History dot tumbler dot com, and we are

541
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: also aren't pinterest. If you are interested in learning about

542
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: something else that started roughly around the same period that

543
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 1: we talked about today, you can come to our website

544
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: with the word crusades in the search bar, and you

545
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: will read how the Crusades Work. You learn all that

546
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more at our website, which is

547
00:30:54,240 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and

548
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Because at hostof works dot com.

549
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: M M