I’ve Walked Les Ramblas but Not With Real Intent

I visited Barcelona in November 2014 and, as a tourist, I was obliged to take a wander down Las Ramblas. Despite being largely a tourist trap area there is something quite wonderful about the place. As I walked along with everyone else, glancing at the street entertainers and the various stalls that all seem to sell things of a questionable quality that you don’t need, the Manic Street Preacher’s song, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next came to mind. It is a piece about the Spanish Civil War and the line quoted is a reference to George Orwell’s account of the fighting in Las Ramblas; the activity that actually lacked any intent apparently. It was a scene on more than one occasion, however, of fighting and death.

Many historical novels contain violent confrontation as part of their story, not just between protagonists but often between armies or fleets of warships. Indeed historical novels often seem to embrace conflict on an epic scale. In ‘The War Wolf’ I recount the story of the Battle of Fulford Gate, an engagement in which some 15,000 warriors fought; a considerable number for the time. People seem to find it exciting. Certainly war as a subject has been a part of human culture since the first written language was developed. The Battle of Megiddo is widely considered the first engagement to be reliably recorded and that took place in the 15^th century BCE. Ever since then we have researched, recorded and written about human military encounters.

In that respect I am no different. The period of 1066 is characterised by three very violent encounters by the three opposing sides, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. One aspect of writing about a period where written records were not habitually kept is that it becomes easy to lose touch with the human element of the actual events. We can only imagine what the Battle of Fulford Gate was like for the participants because no one thought to write down their experience, or if they did it has been lost to time. The very site of the battle itself is also being lost to time as the modern world encroaches upon it. When I researched the battle I had to look elsewhere to get an idea of what it might have been like. Fortunately warfare did not differ that much from the time of Megiddo to the advent of gunpowder. Heavy infantry supported by light infantry, missile throwers and some cavalry, although not in the case of the Saxons and Vikings, was the general order of battle. It was not difficult to transfer a Greek hoplites experience of the Battle of Plataea in the Persian Wars to become that of a Saxon frydman fighting before the walls of York in 11^th century England.

For all the use of creative licence, however, my account of Saxon warfare remains strictly third-hand at best. When George Orwell wrote about the fighting in Las Ramblas during the Spanish Civil War he did it from personal experience because he was there. Walking down Las Ramblas, with or without intent, knowing that people died there during one of Spain’s most bloody periods of civil strife reinforces the human aspect of what happened. Men died on both sides. These men were sons, brothers, husbands, fathers to other people. They went out of the world violently and left a hole in the lives of the others. The men who died at Megiddo and at Fulford Gate were no less the same and the friends and family that they left behind suffered no less either.

Although I acknowledge as a writer the intrinsic excitement of reading a battle within a story I also recognise that in every instance there must be human loss. I try to make my characters sympathetic to the reader in order to try and get that point across. In ‘The War Wolf’ there are no good guys and bad guys, no evildoers and heroes in the clichéd sense. The Saxons are fighting to defend their lands, their people, and their way of life. The Vikings are fighting to take what they can for reasons that legitimise their actions within their own way of thinking. The same applies to the Normans as well. Indeed, both the Norwegians and the Normans are pressed by political concerns that lie beyond the boundaries of England and yet both are tied to the Saxon crown by blood through a shared history.

As I walked Las Ramblas I was reminded of the fact that the human story is a fascinating one that can seemingly be presented in an almost infinite number of ways. The important thing to remember, I think, is that no matter which way a writer decides to tell a part of that story they must always strive to retain the humanity of their tale. Battle is indeed exciting to read about if your life is not at risk during it, but even within the safety of a book the author should also remind the reader that there is always a cost to human life when two warriors meet in a fight to the death, and it often extends beyond the two combatants as well.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge

The Battle of Stamford Bridge occurred on the 25^th September 1066 and is one of the most significant military encounters in the early medieval period but it has become largely overshadowed by the third engagement of that year near Hastings. History is written, as they say, by the victors and the Normans saw little reason to praise the achievements of their former enemy. Nevertheless, it is perhaps just because the Battle of Stamford Bridge was so significant that it has come down to us despite the best efforts of the Normans.

Throughout most of 1066 Harold Godwinson, King of England since January, prepared to receive Duke Guillaume of Normandy to contest his right to the crown. King Edward, later called the ‘Confessor’ had died without an heir. His public choice, Edward Aetheling, had died in 1057 and Edward had not chosen a replacement. Duke Guillaume claimed that King Edward had promised him the throne but he could only present hearsay evidence of this. The weakness of Guillaume’s claim is perhaps underlined by the fact that he tricked Harold Godwinson into swearing and oath over hidden holy relics in 1064 to support him.

Despite lacking any public credence beyond a claimed blood relationship as cousins Guillaume went to great lengths to prepare for taking the crown by force and it was probably for this reason that Harold maintained the fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon army throughout the most of summer, only disbanding them so that a bumper harvest could be brought in from the fields and not left to spoil.

It is not surprising then that King Harold was totally outmanoeuvred by an enemy that few had given any serious consideration to; the King of Norway. Harald Hardrada had fought a long and fruitless was against Denmark and seen his political stock fall as a result. When he made a public claim to King Edward’s throne it was seen as bluster by a man who was desperate to remove a stain from his otherwise excellent military record. It may even have been nothing more than that until Tostig, the younger brother of Harold Godwinson, arrived at the King of Norway’s court.

Tostig had been the Eorl of Northumbria but he was deposed by a popular revolt in response to his harshness. King Edward ordered Harold of Wessex to restore his brother but Harold chose to side with the people of Northumbria and counselled the king to exile Tostig instead. Without the support of the strongest eorlderman in the kingdom King Edward could do little to help one of his favourites. Tostig was exiled and Morcar, the younger brother of Eorl Edwin of Mercia, became Eorl of Northumbria in his place. The House of Mercia were great rivals with that of Wessex and this was seen as tremendous coup on their part.

King Hardrada assembled the largest Viking army ever to threaten England but it was a diverse force of mercenaries and volunteer supporters. At its heart he had a core of Norwegian veterans but they were supplemented with men from Orkney, Scotland, Greenland and even Danes against whom he had been fighting for so long. Perhaps most tellingly the fact that the King of Norway had Tostig Godwinson, a Saxon, for an ally, illustrated the desperation that clung to his actions.

On the 20^th September 1066 King Hardrada fought the battle of Fulford Gate before the walls of York and destroyed the Saxon Army of the North under the command of the eorls Edwin and Morcar. His invasion of the north and the capture of York was a masterstroke. King Harold now found himself between two powerful enemies and risked losing the northern half of his kingdom. He had to act and only a radical response would guarantee him success.

Although King Hardrada’s claim to the English throne might be considered weak his resolve to succeed can perhaps be judged by his decision after the capture of York to remove his army to Riccall where his fleet was based, probably leaving only a small force to garrison the city. In other days the Vikings would have pillaged the city but Hardrada saw it now as his capital in the north of England and he was not about to allow anyone to spoil what belonged to him.

The Saxons of York were tasked with bringing hostages and food to Stamford Bridge as a sign of their acquiescence on the 25^th of September. King Hardrada marched out of Riccall with some 7,000 men to meet the delegation. Due to the very warm weather and probably because they believed that all Saxon resistance in the area had been destroyed many of the Vikings went without their heavy armour. When they reached Stamford Bridge they camped on a hill renowned for its flat top and oval shape with the river Derwent to the north crossed by single wooden bridge. At the due time Saxons arrived but they were not a delegation of beaten men from York, it was King Harold of England at the head of a massive Saxon army.

In only 5 days King Harold had formed his Royal Companions into the core of a new army and marched north from London calling Saxons to his banner as he marched. It was not normal for Saxon fyrdmen to fight in regions where they had not been raised as a levy but on this occasion they did. Leaving the south in the command of his younger brother Harold literally raced north to save his crown.

There is a popular story that the bridge that separated the two armies was only wide enough to allow a couple of men to walk side by side across it. When the Saxons marched down to the bridge from the opposite hill their way was barred by a Viking warrior in full armour who then went onto defend the bridge while his comrades assembled their defence. He was a giant and his armour was so thick that none could pierce it until a Saxon sailed under the bridge in a fishing skiff and pierced him with a spear from below. It may be nothing more than a folk tale but it makes such a striking tale that I included it in my novel.

Once the bridge was captured the Saxons crossed onto the southern bank at the foot of the hill. The Vikings could not offer much in the way of resistance due to their lack of armour but Hardrada had decided to stand and fight. This decision may have resulted from the fact that the ground he held gave him a significant advantage and that Riccall was some 10 miles distant with several bridges like the one at Stamford for his large army to cross with blood thirsty Saxons at their backs.

Before the battle commenced King Harold made one more attempt to appease his brother Tostig, offering him wealth, land and a title. Tostig is said to have remarked that the offer was fair but what grant of land could King Hardrada, his ally, expect, to which Harold wittily replied; “all that any Viking has a right to expect, six foot of ground to lie in or little larger as he is so much bigger than most!” Tostig chose to remain with his ally.

Although the Saxons had the advantage of numbers and better equipment they suffered a cost in fighting to the top of the hill. They pressed on with stoic determination and once they crashed their shield-wall into that of the Vikings they began to press them back. Lacking sufficient armour the Vikings began to suffer losses and their nerves were rattled. To bolster his men King Hardrada strode into the front rank and devastated the Saxon warriors he found there. He might have turned the tide but for a slight missile, an arrow, that flew over the heads of the Saxons and into the throat of the giant king, severing the vertebrae in his neck. King Harald Hardrada of Norway was dead.

It is said that following this event the two armies separated and that King Harold offered the Vikings a chance to gather up their king and return home; for whatever reason they spurned his good grace. The battle resumed but now it took on the character of a last stand. The Saxons fell onto their ancient enemy with no intent of showing them any quarter.

Eystein Orre, a favoured jarl of King Hardrada’s arrived with the reinforcements from Riccall but after a 10 mile forced march his men were hardly in any shape to fight. The main Viking force was splintering and beginning to give way. Some had already started running. When the end came it was vicious and bloody. Throwing down their shields and spears the once great Viking army fled for their ships. Perhaps remembering some of the outrages enacted on the Army of the North the Saxons showed no mercy and cut them down in their thousands.

Only when both sides reached Riccall did the slaughter finally cease. There King Harold offered terms to Prince Olaf, Hardrada’s son. He allowed the prince and all the surviving Vikings to return home if they promised never to sail to England again. Of the 300 ships that made up the bulk of the fleet it was said that Prince Olaf only had enough men left to crew 30 vessels.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge was a great victory for the Saxon King Harold. He had destroyed the largest Norse army ever to threaten England and killed the famous King of Norway. It was a high point in Saxon military history but it was also the breaking point as well. Eorl Edwin and Eorl Morcar had made a fateful decision when they chose to fight the Battle of Fulford Gate 5 days earlier instead of closing the gates of York and resisting a siege, which is what everyone had expected would happen. The loss of their army had compelled King Harold to move north to rescue the situation leaving the south of the kingdom vulnerable.

It was probable that King Harold had been persuaded to take this drastic action because the unseasonal storms that had roared through the English channel and kept the Normans bottled up in their port were still raging when he set out. Duke Guillaume was running out of time and Harold gambled that he could return to London before the Normans were able to set sail. Of course this was not the way it turned out and King Harold was forced to return to London with a battered army that had lost many of its most notable warriors at Stamford Bridge.

King Harold’s defeat of King Hardrada was a significant achievement, however. The King of Norway was a very successful commander who had experience of fighting for the Byzantine Empire and, it was said, had only known defeat once in his first battle fought when he was a boy. Harold did not just defeat his enemy, he destroyed him. This victory alone would have made Harold’s position in England almost unassailable but he was called all too soon to the battlefield once more at Sentlache Ridge near Hastings. Duke Guillaime forced the issue and King Harold chose not to wait for the reinforcements that his army so dearly needed. The rest is the history written by the victors.

Subtle Changes

After completing the final manuscript for publication of For Rapture of Ravens I decided to revise the original manuscript for The War Wolf. The idea was to correct some typographical errors and clean up the formatting. However, as I was in the mood to review the whole book I decided to have a look at the cover. The original cover I liked very much but it was not long after publication when I started to notice things that I thought I had got wrong with it. Only little things but as I tend to be my own harshest critic they were knowing away at me. So obviously I saw a chance to put things right. It is not, I think, anything drastic, just a little alteration that is, in my opinion, an improvement. I hope that you like it?