{"id":28247,"date":"2014-10-14T10:45:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T14:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28247"},"modified":"2018-11-03T14:18:08","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T18:18:08","slug":"hastings-1066-think-of-it-as-a-real-world-model-of-game-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/10\/14\/hastings-1066-think-of-it-as-a-real-world-model-of-game-of-thrones\/","title":{"rendered":"Hastings, 1066? Think of it as a real-world model of Game of Thrones<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Telegraph<\/em>, Dominic Selwood<\/a> explains the Norman Invasion of 1066 and the many shades of grey (or red) that are missing from the traditional story of the rise of the Normans:<\/p>\n

As we wait for the next series of Game of Thrones<\/em>, I cannot help but think I have seen it all before \u00ad\u2014 dynastic families so intermarried that the members\u2019 only loyalty is to self; ambitions so uncompromising that war is the inevitable result; and carnage so total that the threat of defeat is existential. But whenever the story takes me to the throne room in the Red Keep at King\u2019s Landing, all I see is Westminster Abbey \u2014 because this is an old, old story.<\/p>\n

We like to think that Anglo-Saxon England was brutally cut down in 1066 \u2014 unexpectedly \u2014 in a battle lasting just one day. To reinforce our assumptions, we still revel in Victorian and Hollywood melodrama stereotypes of dastardly Normans persecuting flaxen Saxons in box-sets of Ivanhoe<\/em> or Tolkein\u2019s thinly disguised versions set in Middle Earth.<\/p>\n

The reality, of course, is far more complex.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The road to Hastings began ordinarily enough. A man lay dying. As it happened, it was Edward the Confessor. But what marked the event out as singular was that he had failed in one of his key royal responsibilities \u2014 he was leaving the world childless. To no one\u2019s surprise, as the end approached, he nominated as heir his brother-in-law, the 46-year-old Earl Harold Godwinson of Wessex.<\/p>\n

Harold was the kingdom\u2019s richest noble, and a great military commander who had subjugated Wales in 1063. The Witenagemot promptly proclaimed him king, and Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury crowned him at Edward\u2019s gleaming new Westminster Abbey the following day, the 6th of January 1066, the same day Edward was buried there.<\/p>\n

But the dead king\u2019s ineffectual leadership had passed Harold a major headache, as one of Edward\u2019s favourite political strategies had been to promise all sorts of people he would make them his heir. Given his strong attachment to Normandy, it is no surprise that he had, most likely in 1051, promised the throne to Duke William of Normandy, a distant cousin. In fact, Norman sources go further, saying that in 1064 Edward had even sent Harold to Normandy to confirm the arrangement. At the same time, in front of William and on a box of relics, Harold apparently swore a sacred oath to uphold William\u2019s claim to the English throne.<\/p>\n

The headache did not end with William. There were other claimants, too. King Harald III \u201cHardraada\u201d (the ruthless) of Norway had a claim to the throne via an earlier agreement between Harthacnut (king of England and Denmark) and Magnus I (king of Norway and Denmark). Over in Hungary, Edgar the \u00c6theling had a claim as grandson of King Edmund II \u201cIronside\u201d. And in exile in Flanders and Normandy, Tostig Godwinson, Harold\u2019s rebellious brother, was nursing a venomous grievance against the Anglo-Saxon establishment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Telegraph, Dominic Selwood explains the Norman Invasion of 1066 and the many shades of grey (or red) that are missing from the traditional story of the rise of the Normans: As we wait for the next series of Game of Thrones, I cannot help but think I have seen it all before \u00ad\u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,62,7],"tags":[570,1147,703,396,1245],"class_list":["post-28247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-europe","category-history","tag-england","tag-gameofthrones","tag-middleages","tag-monarchy","tag-normandy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7lB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28248,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28247\/revisions\/28248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}