By God’s good grace the Normans and their allies had received the one day of good weather and southerly winds that the expedition had required, and their leaders had held the army together long enough to make a crossing almost impossibly late in the season.
The few residents of Pevensey, a small town little more than a village, did their best to make themselves invisible.
The next day was 29th September- Michaelmas, the feast of St Michael. There was little in the way of feasting, although most of the contingent still had a few supplies that they had brought with them. Almost the whole army attended a series of outdoor Masses held that day- there was no shortage of Bishops and their entourages, as many had contributed armed forces towards the army.
Several days were spent by the men raising an earthen motte and erecting a castle by installing prefabricated wooden sections that had been brought to make the walls and keep. The tents of the army were erected on the high ground to the west of the town.
It was soon clear that the choice of landing place had been a poor one. Marshes dominated the landscape to the north and east. There was no usable road and the army stripped the countryside bare of fresh food within days. Perishable food had not been brought with the supplies on the ships, which were limited mainly to sacks of dried peas and beans, root vegetables, flour and oats- the latter for the horses.
Word passed around the army that they were to move further east along the coast to Hastings. While Hastings was only ten miles away ‘as the crow flies’, the journey would entail thirty miles of difficult slogging across swamps, sluggish tidal rivers and around Bulverhythe harbour. The foot-soldiers were ferried by boat around the worst of the land and marched along the coast; the cavalry rode the long way around. Nobody wanted to load and unload horses from ships ever again.
Hallisham and Hooe were laid waste by the cavalry. Ninefield and Catsfield were badly damaged and stripped bare. On the more southerly route the foot-soldiers devastated the four villages in their path; Bexhill, Crowhurst, Wilting and Filsham. Leaving two paths of death and destruction behind it, the army entered the land at Hastings belonging to the Abbey of Fecamp. There William and much of his army took Mass on 1st October and then spent several days constructing another pre-fabricated fort.
Alan was less than happy with the actions of the army. He’d marched with most of the cavalry on the northern route to Hastings. The devastation that an army on the march wreaked was distasteful to him. Any army, even if on friendly soil and well managed, wrought devastation and pillage as it moved. In enemy territory, even if unresisting, the situation was worse. Alan was sick to the stomach of seeing burnt-out farms, the dead bodies of men whose only crime was to seek to protect what was theirs, and the violated and dead corpses of their womenfolk.
“I may be inexperienced, but I like not the actions of our men towards the local populace,” commented Alan as they rode through the burnt ruin of the village of Wilting. A few trees were decorated with the bodies of those soldiers caught in flagrant breach of the ban imposed by William on such activities, but this had done little to control the excesses of many in the army, particularly the mercenaries.
The equally inexperience Robert sighed his agreement, but Hugh replied, “Mercenaries and foot-soldiers fight in the expectation of loot to supplement their meagre pay.”
“That may well be the case, but at least one of those bodies swinging in the breeze wore a tunic of reasonable quality- I would guess that man to have been a knight, although now stripped of his armour and weapons. How much plunder do they expect to find in a poor village where the serfs scrape a bare existence from the soil?”
“Perhaps something of worth from the manor houses of the local thegns, perhaps a hoard of silver or some plate,” replied Hugh. “A substantial part of the problem is the lack of fresh provisions for the army. An army on friendly soil can expect to receive supplies either bought or requisitioned from the local villages, or brought in by wagon from further away. An army on the march in enemy territory is expected to feed itself as it moves, meaning that it had to constantly keep moving, emptying the countryside of food like a plague of locusts. An army in enemy territory that stands still is at a severe disadvantage. Apart from the strategic implications of a stationary army losing any advantage of manoeuvre, within days it cannot feed itself.”
While the move from Pevensey to Hastings was an improvement, a few hours on horseback showed Alan that the situation was still unsuitable for an army. Hastings was effectively a small triangle of land with Bulverhythe harbour to the west. To the east were the marshy valleys of the Bede and Rother rivers. To the north a track led through the Andreas Forest on the way to London, some sixty miles away.
Alternatively, a route east led across the Bede and Rother rivers and the coastal route to London via Dover. Both routes placed William’s army at a disadvantage due to the ground being unsuitable for cavalry. The area was heavily wooded and contained few villages and little food. Some ships arrived with food and provisions, but these were few and made little impact on the situation for an army that would soon be slowly starving.
Within a week the area had been ravaged of all food. There was scarcely a chicken or pig within five miles. Haystacks were carried off to feed the warhorses. What little money or loot was available had long gone- stolen by the soldiers or hidden by owners who had fled.
And still nothing was heard of the English or their army.
CHAPTER THREE
CALDBEC HILL OCTOBER 1066
On 7th October a messenger rode in for Duke William from Robert fitzWymarc, a distant relative of the duke who had long lived in England after being given land by King Edward. FitzWymarc advised of Harold’s incredible march from London to York, his crushing victory over the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge and his rapid march back to London where both the professional troops who had been victorious at Stamford Bridge and the thegns and fyrd of East Anglia and Hertfordshire were being raised against William’s army- together with the men from Harold’s own lands of Kent, Middlesex and the lands of the West Saxons. Harold would soon possess an army of crushing strength.
“We can’t sit here, that’s for sure,” commented Alan on hearing this latest news. “Harold is coming, as we always knew he would. We’re penned up in a tiny pocket of land, where we’ll soon be starving. There’s no way we can winter here.”
“And Harold’s ships will soon be cutting off what little supplies and reinforcements we receive by sea,” agreed Robert morosely. “Why do you think that William has ordered a harrying of the land around here? It’s been stripped pretty bare anyway but that’s just what happens when you have a hungry army with time on its hands, particularly when at least a third of the men are mercenaries. Now he wants everything torching except the abbey’s lands.”
Alan shook his head in mystification. “Harold seems to be able to move his army fifty or sixty miles a day. If he was in London two days ago, he could be here today.”
“But not in force,” replied Robert. “The longer he waits the stronger he will be when he arrives.”
“What of the pope’s threat of excommunication to any who oppose William? What effect do you think that will have?” asked Alan.
Hugh de Berniers, who had been listening, laughed sardonically. “I think it’ll mean little to the English. If Harold wins and we’re defeated, I’m sure that Harold will convince the pope that it’s all a mistake and no sentence of excommunication should be proclaimed. If he loses this battle and there’s a prolonged campaign, perhaps it’ll affect the English morale in the long term. Don’t forget they’re fighting for their homes against us foreign invaders. What another foreigner, however influential, says is likely to be of little consequence to them. After all, ‘The Bastard’ was in trouble with Pope Leo over his marriage to Matilda and that didn’t prevent him from getting what he wanted eventually- it just took some time and cost a lot of money to bribe the pope. I understand the cost was the building and endowment of two new abbeys. Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been under anathema of excommunication for years- excommunicated by five successive Popes, and both Edward the Confessor and Harold retained him in the most influential ecclesiastical position in the land for political reasons. To me that indicates the English pay scant attention to the interdictions issued by the Holy Fathers in Rome.”