1066 And All That

Everyone knows that on 14th October, 1066 William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings by slaying Harold Godwinson whilst he rode his horse shooting an arrow in Harold's eye defeating the English troops, and most people know how it happened (if in doubt, just witter on about hills and 'the advantage' and superiority . . . actually, this will make you seem knowledgeable about almost all battles that have ever occurred). But fewer people know the ins and outs of why it actually happened, preferring to see William as the evil Frenchman who came in and stole the crown from the rightful heir. As usual, if only it were that simple . . .

There is an old English king who's name you have to be very careful how you spell - Cnut (no, really). You might have heard of him as the King who tried to stop the tides and he's generally portrayed as a bit of a div, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Cnut was Danish, a Viking who took control of England as well as the Scandinavian countries and he was very clever. The tide story has been manipulated over the years - he was actually trying to prove that no one, not even the King, could control the weather - and he pretty much let the British get on with ruling the country themselves, accepting that the laws already in place were good ones, and he wasn't going to be the one to rock the boat. "Letting Britain get on with ruling itself" meant that the top lords were in charge, controlling everything, sometimes acting fairly, sometimes not but deferring to Cnut where he required it. One of these Lords was Earl Godwine, who was a bit of a suck-up - he married a Danish aristocrat and gave his children Viking names - Harold and Tostig.

Anyway, Cnut snuffed it in 1035 and his two sons Harold and Harthacnut had to battle it out as to who became King. But Harthacnut (I love writing that . . .) wasn't really that interested in England, preferring to rule Scandinavia so Harold got the throne - only not for long. He died a very gorey death, almost certainly on Earl Godwine's orders. You see, Mr. Godwine senior had a plan - a descendant of the House of Wessex (the line of English kings who had been in charge before the Vikings came over), called Edward, had been sent over to Normandy to be raised in safety over there. Edward was now an adult - and in full position to be crowned King of England. Godwine reckoned that he could sponsor Edward, help him to regain the throne and support him, and in return Edward could marry his daughter, Edith and the Godwines would therefore have a direct line to the throne when Edward died (which, knowing the Earl's ways, might have happened sooner than expected).

So, Edward was crowned King in 1041 with help from Godwine, and married Edith. But he wasn't actually that keen on the Earl and didn't trust him, so instead spent his time trying to build up and utilise his cross-channel connections with his friends back in Normandy. Through this, he must have started to hear of "William the Bastard" - the Duke of Normandy's illegitimate son by one of the palace maids - who was starting to build up a brutal reputation (the Normans' decendancy from a Viking tribe may have had something to do with this).

The final straw for Edward regarding the Godwines, though, came when the Earl attacked some Norman knights whom Edward had invited over, upon their arrival. Edward removed them of their property and sent the Earl and his sons packing. He and two of his sons went to join a third son, Tostig, in Flanders, and his fourth son, Harold escaped to Ireland. Edith was shut up in a convent. Now, Edward chose not to remarry and it was becoming increasingly clear that he was to produce no heirs. Some people believe that this is because he was gay but I personally don't believe that to be true. There have definitely been gay monarchs in the past - Edward II is the classic example - and there is much evidence to show who their lovers were. But with Edward (who was later to become known as 'the Confessor'), there's no evidence to suggest he had any lovers - male or female - so I think that he was possibly just asexual.

Anyway, there were no kids, so he had to look elsewhere for a heir - and here comes the bit that all the Norman accounts swear are definitive proof that William was the chosen one. In 1051, Edward chose a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and sent him to Rome to have the appointment approved by the Pope. But before he got there, the Archbishop was instructed to stop off in Normandy and inform William that Edward had chosen him as his successor. William's claim to the throne was tenuous at best - they were barely related, mere second cousins once removed - but Edward did not want to see the crown fall back into the hands of the Vikings, or worse, the Godwines. 

However, Edward had underestimated both the Godwines' popularity and the Normans' unpopularity. On hearing of his plans to make William his successor, Edward came under a lot of pressure from the other chief lords and earls who were friends of the Godwines and in 1052 had to perform an embarrassing climbdown, reinstating the Earl and apologising to him. This would have been mortifying for Edward - Earl Godwine was now in charge in all but name - Edward had authority but very little power. 

Then, in 1053, the Earl died. His son Harold rose up to fill his shoes - and then some. Everyone loved him - he was tall, handsome, and, when he defeated a Welsh army and took control of a large part of the country, nobles and commoners across the land (though presumably not in Wales) believed he could do no wrong. He was indispensable, keeping the ruffians off the borders of England, the King's right hand man. It seemed inevitable that he would have dreams of becoming king. Then, for some reason no one's quite sure about, Harold ended up in William's court in 1064. This is where the Bayeux Tapestry begins. At first, the two acted like comrades - William looking after Harold; the two of them offering up sisters for marriage here there and everywhere - but it soon became clear that they were not equal comrades. William made Harold one of his knights, and Harold swore an Oath.

In medieval Europe, Oaths were taken incredibly seriously. Unless you wanted the wrath of all that was holy coming down upon your head, you did not take one in vain. Anyway, as usual, there is contention as to exactly what the Oath said - Harold's supporters say he just promised to be William's man in England, but not to help defend his right to the throne; William's that he promised to help him become crowned king. He returned to England, to await Edward's death. The King obliged in 1066 - without having officially named a successor.

This didn't actually matter too much - the witan (council of lords who were in charge, a very non-democratic forerunner to Parliament) had to approve the previous King's choice before he could be crowned, or name a successor if the previous King hadn't. To nobody's surprise, Harold Godwineson was chosen and he quickly became King Harold.

Of course, this quickly led to other troubles - a Viking claim to the throne led by Harald Hardrada with aid from t'other Harold's estranged brother Tostig and of course William himself invading and conquering, but I'll stop here. I hope you enjoyed this monster of a post :) 

A Tsar is Born

2nd October 1552 - conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible, 25.08.1530 - 28.03.1584

So, Ivan the Terrible did some pretty terrible things, clearly. (It was after the victory in Kazan on this day in 1552 that he was given the name 'Grozny', or 'the Terrible'.) He was a Bad Person. The conquest of Kazan, which involved amongst other things, decimating the Muslim population and laying siege to the city for five months, took place in what is commonly known as his 'Good Reign'. At the age of 13, he had someone who had annoyed him thrown to a pit of ravenous hunting dogs. There wasn't much left of him, at the end of that debacle... As they say (probably. I've never actually heard anyone say this) "he's not the sort of man you'd want to meet down a dark alley in the dodgy part of town".

But that's not what I want to get into today. Today, I want to talk some more about this whole good versus evil thing that I touched on yesterday. Again, as with Hitler, I'm not going to try and excuse the bad things that Mr. Terrible (and I do hope someone called him that...) did. I would instead like to explore why he did those things, and show that things aren't always as straightforward as they first seem in History, as with everything else in life.

Ivan didn't exactly have what you'd call an easy childhood. By the age of seven, he and his deaf-mute brother were orphaned, and the nature of their parents' deaths had been suspicious to say the least. After their mother died, they were placed in the care of regents - the Russian Boyars, or rich, land-owning nobles. Though these men (of course, this was the sixteenth century. They were all men.) treated the princes with respect in public, in private they were treated horrifically, often roaming through the palace with no shoes or clothes, and had to beg for food. Frequent displays of power by the Boyars meant Ivan would have thought nothing of armed men bursting into his chambers in the night and removing whatever they could of value. Aged 13, one of his closest confidants was skinned alive and his remains left for public viewing in a Moscow square. 

Ivan wasn't perfect, by any means. This incident lead to the perpetrators being thrown to the dogs, as mentioned above, and Ivan had already started taking his frustrations out on animals. Still, he wasn't all bad. Aged 17, he was crowned Grand Prince of Russia, though he insisted upon taking the title of Tsar (Russian for Caesar) and thus became the first in a long line of rulers of the same name. The Russia he inherited was a messy, desolate place, with no roads, no banks and no infrastructure, and he set about introducing reforms where he could to try to make it a better place. 

He selected a bride from an untitled Boyar family - Anastasia Romanovna. By almost all accounts, theirs was a very happy, if somewhat short-lived marriage. It was Anastasia's death that brought upon the 'Bad Reign'. She had had a long, painful illness which lasted a good few years before she died, which according to most accounts, devastated Ivan. He believed that she, like his mother, had been poisoned by the noblemen at court. Interestingly, a twentieth century excavation by scientists showed that the bodies of both Ivan's wife and mother contained ten times the normal amount of mercury, even after allowing for the popular mercury based foundations worn by noblewomen (I'm not sure if you'd call the British Elizabethan's lead based products better or worse...).

Is it such a surprise that, with such a turbulent, dangerous and, to be frank, upsetting early life, Ivan did the terrible things that earned him his infamous nickname? Well, maybe, maybe not - these things are always subjective, after all. But it remains true that, early on in his reign, Ivan set in place a lot of reforms to make Russia a better place, even though many of his loved ones were killed by noblemen seeking to further their own ambitions. And okay, he did start sieges and wars which killed a lot of people. But this doesn't necessarily make him different from most sixteenth century rulers, most of whom don't have 'the Terrible' or a similar moniker attached to their name. Sometimes, History is unfair on you, and it's only those who look further who find out the whole story.

Oh, and here's something I came across which you might find useful in a pub quiz one day: Ivan's wife was called Anastasia Romanovna. Her family eventually became known as the Romanovs, and this dynasty ruled Russia in their own right as Tsars for many, many years - in fact, the last Tsar, Nicolas II, was a Romanov. So in that way, the first Tsar of Russia and the last Tsar of Russia were related to each other! Cool, no? No? Well, maybe it's just me then...