Godwinson's England

So this timeline is a sort of a reboot of the timeline William will always be a bastard... .


I always liked the idea of the English winning at Hastings, and I liked a lot of things about that timeline in general, although I do believe that it is in need of revision. Namely, the nature of the timeline's investiture conflict.


So, I hope I'm not breaking any social norms on the forum here, and I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes either. The premises of the timeline are going to be a LITTLE bit different as well, which of course will lead to some very different series of events in the future.


I hope you guys like it

The Battle of Hastings


The year is 1066 AD. After a march of epic proportions (London to York in four days), King Harold Godwinson has defeated the Norse at Stamford Bridge, killing King Haraldr Harðráði of Norway (and giving him the promised six feet of earth, or as much as he is taller), and also killing Tostig Godwinson, Harold's brother who had sided with Haraldr. The Norse army is eliminated as a fighting force.
While the celebrations are on, news of Willelme li Bastard's landing in southern England arrives in York, and Harold and his huscarls promptly begin the march south. Willelme is burning the south, and Harold feels compelled to bring him to battle as quickly as possible.
So far, no change from our timeline. Harold and his huscarls, after a second epic march, face Willelme and his Normans at the hill later to be called Battle. Harold's army is formed up on the top of a long hill, with Willelme's formed at the bottom. In our timeline, the battle went on through most of the day, past sunset, when the Saxon line broke.
The point of departure here is the first retreat by the Breton forces in Willelme's army, which most historians believe was not a deliberate ploy. Panic started to ripple through Willelme's army, when the cry went up that Willelme was slain. In our timeline, Willelme was able to rally his shaken army by lifting up his helmet to show the men that he was indeed still alive. In this one, the Bretons are not rallied, not because they didn't see – everybody saw, including a young English archer named Æðelstan who took the liberty of firing an arrow directly into the throat of the Norman king....


Oops!


So where's the point of departure here? In Willelme's death on the field? Actually, no. The point of departure lies in the steps of a few of his soldiers that allowed young Æðelstan to see what was happening. In our timeline, Æðelstan didn't see anything because there was too much going on in his immediate line of sight, and he, like the majority of the English forces that day, died on the field.





This left the Normans in something of a tricky position, the left flank was open, and the king was... well, choking on an arrow. Willelme's half brother, Eudes, tried desperately to rally the army and was able to launch a fierce assault on the Saxon right flank, which did not have the slope advantage. Heavy fighting followed as William tried to eliminate this flank threat. Gyrth fell, Leofwine did not, but led a counter-attack that routed Eudes. Demoralized and without a king, the Norman center broke, allowing Harold to advance down the slope, sweeping aside those Normans who tried to stay and fight.
The Norman cavalry was able to escape, and with it, quite a bit of the Norman nobility that had come along. The riders didn't draw rein before reaching the stockade at Hastings. They found themselves in a bit of a quandary, however. They could embark and return to Normandy - safe, but with their tails thoroughly between their legs, OR they could stay and force Harold to attack them in this strong defensive site. Luckily, they had time to think it through, and let their troops and horses catch their breath. Cavalry travel faster than infantry.
Their dead “king” Willelme wasn't the first to underestimate the strategic marching power of the huscarls, and seeing how they cut through everything Norman in those woods was rather intimidating. What was the end game if they stayed and fought, anyways? To put Eudes on the English throne? To put Willelme's 15 year old son, Robert on it so that Eudes could rule as regent? It was certainly plausible, but was it really worth it? All of them knew that even if they won against Harold today, or in the next couple of days, there was the whole of the country to subjugate. Harold was a strong man in his prime – so too was Willelme. But Willelme was dead now. Would the English people come as quietly under the circumstances now? I mean, Harold had a slew of boys, some of them already old enough to rule, and at least one brother on English soil who do so as well.


The cost of any potential venture at the moment seemed to be outweighing the benefits. If Normandy wanted England, then it was going to have to be later, when Robert was a man and they had had a proper chance to gather themselves again. For the moment, it seemed best to accept defeat and get the fuck off the island before Harold and his huscarls caught up. The nobles had taken half a day to decide to withdraw, and his troops were embarking, when the hard-marching huscarls approached the beach, it wasn't much of a battle. As far as Harold Godwinson was concerned, these Normans were to be treated the same as Haraldr Harðráði – they were to be killed on the spot. Fortunately, for them, quite a lot of them were able to get away. But among the dead were Robert de Mortain, Hugh de Montfort, and of course Walter Giffard, who all died valiantly trying to hold off the English on the beach so that the others could escape.


Harold had kept the English throne secure.

Ripples: Securing the Realm


King Harold had, at some cost, destroyed the powers of Harald and William. England was now no longer threatened by invasion... at least from continental powers.


The changes to the coinage that he had started to introduce carried on, easing trade within the country, and allowed the wool trade to expand. Although just because the English had won the Battle of Hastings, does not mean that they had not been impacted by it. Harold knew that although the battle had gone unexpectedly well, he had come dangerously close to losing his throne, and we all know what the consequences would have been should this have been the case. Although the heavy cavalry hadn't done so tremendously in the battle, he knew that that was because cavalry doesn't climb hills that well, but he had been impressed with the job that it had done before Willelme li Bastard had his throat skewered. He could see what very few other people around him had been able to, and so Harold decided to start training his huscarls to fight on horseback, who become England's first heavy cavalry unit. Of course, Harold himself is no heavy cavalry expert, but he has kept one such expert alive – Hugh de Grandmesnil. Hugh de Grandmesnil was one of William of Normandy's great supporters, but after Hastings, he would forever go down in history as one of the men who militarily reshaped England. Of course he only did so at the point of a sword, but nobody ever sees the victim's side of history. Hugh was from a family of horse trainers, and an accomplished horseman himself as well as a cavalry commander of William's; no one could have been more qualified for the job as far as the English were concerned. For his service, he was awarded lands in Cheshire, in staunchly Saxon territory where he could not be of any trouble to the king.


Now, having dealt with the two major threats external to the islands, Harold would have liked to launch a counter invasion of Normandy. Why? Well, to show the Normans who had the bigger schlong, but also, more importantly, because his brother Wulfnoth and his nephew Hakon were still being held prisoner there. But he knew that, given how many of the Normans had been able to get away, this wasn't the best idea at the moment. No, if he wanted his brothers back, it was probably best to use diplomatic means. What those means were, he didn't yet know. Perhaps if the English military were strong enough in the next few years, the Normans might fear invasion enough that they would give them back in order to prevent it. For now, heavy cavalry units needed to be tested somewhere else, and he knew just the spot – Wales.


Welsh raiders had been problems from time to time, and had indeed enabled Harold to develop the forced march as an effective strategy in the days of Edward the Confessor. Caradog ap Gruffydd, the young King of Gwent, had destroyed Harold's hunting lodge at Portskewet in 1065, and had been continuously raiding up the River Severn ever since. Determined to put the Welsh king in his place, to build his damn hunting lodge, and prove the prowess of heavy cavalry, Harold defeated Caradog at the Battle of Portskewet where he won half of the the Kingdom of Gwent. It was here that Harold would initiate the second part of his own personal Normanization of England, with the building of Chepstow Castle, (yes, in the same spot as we know it today), which he ordered his now 19 year old son, Godwine, to oversee.


Harold had been a hostage in Normandy previously, when he had gone there to broker peacefully with the Normans for his brother and his nephew's safe return home, and so he was familiar with the French use of castles, so this was just the beginning of a string of construction projects across the country to build up her defenses. If England was ever to come as close as it just did to foreign dominance again, he wanted real, viable defense options for his progeny.


It of course took Grandmesnil two years to train enough heavy cavalry unites for this little raid into Wales to be possible. But with the Welsh king subjugated to the power of the English heavy cavalry, his heavy cavalry proven as a formidable force, and English confidence at an all-time high, Harold decided that the time was ripe to... sit on his ass.


Yes, Scottish raids over the border were still a problem. But Harold had no interest in provoking a war with the powerful, wealthy, and well-connected Scottish king Máel Coluim III mac Donnchada. No, that was a problem for another day. England, for the moment, could afford a little bit of peace while the king labored to update the country's defenses and its military.


The year was 1068.

Long live Harold Godwinson!

Can't wait to see how this develops! One small quibble; William was never the Norman King, he was the Norman Duke Other than that, a great start, and I can't wait to see this continue!

Ripples: Way up North


Things had been happening outside of England following Harold's victory at Hastings, as one would expect.


In Norway, the army that had come over in 300 ships had returned in 20. This destruction of its best warriors left it in no condition to be an immediate threat... to anyone. As Scotland itself was a divided entity, and Norwegians sovereignty in the area could no longer be considered a reality, it left the Norse islands off Scotland rather more vulnerable than they liked. The islanders were not interested in becoming part of Scotland, but could no longer expect to receive much in the way of support from Norway. Realizing that the Danish were probably going to invade Norway and declare sovereignty over the Isles, the Norse-Gael kings just sort of bit their thumbs and waited to see what was going to happen – and things did indeed happen.


Magnús and Óláfr Haraldsson still divided up Norway, the way they did in our timeline. Magnús did not die of ergot poisoning however in 1069. Because he kind of didn't live long enough for that to happen. See, Sveinn II Ástríðarsson, the king of Denmark, had been humiliated by Haraldr Harðráði in their feud some years earlier at the Battle of Niså when his rival had been able to beat him with a mere 150 ships when Sveinn himself had showed up with 300. That defeat had left a lasting impression on him, and he was now in a position to pay back the debt he owed Haraldr. Of course, Haraldr was dead, but his sons were still alive and well and dividing the Kingdom of Norway between each other. Haraldr may have relinquished his claims to Denmark in pursuit of an English crown, but Sveinn was now in a position to force his own claim on Norway, and he fully intended to do just that. He had the men, he had the money, and Norway was ripe for the taking.


Óláfr Haraldsson returned to Norway in early 1067 after his father's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Stamford Bridge at the hands of Harold Godwinson. Sveinn Ástríðarsson invaded in the summer, and, uninterested in engaging in a long and tumultuous land campaign to get at Magnús, the older brother and senior ruler with more lands in his name, he went straight for the heart of the problem – Niðarós, where he knew he could find Magnús at the seat of his power.


Magnús did of course, try to block Sveinn's entry into the bay near a place known today as Lensvik. But Sveinn not only had a lot more ships this time, but he was determined to put them to good use. Still, Magnús was no fool, and had accompanied his father on his ventures in Denmark and knew very well how to use his own ships. But unfortunately for him, the day did not favor the Norwegians the way it had at the Battle of Niså, and although he was able to do considerable damage to the Danish fleet of Danes and Geats (the latter sent by Ingi Steinkelsson), he was not able to hold them off, and he drowned in the bay that day along with the remaining Norwegian defenses in the area.


Sveinn had successfully just cut off the head of the snake, and there weren't a lot of people to fight for the 18 year old Óláfr Haraldsson between there and Viken. Sveinn offered the young king a choice – go into exile in Sweden willingly, or join his father and his brother in the afterlife. Bravely, Óláfr chose to fight, and thus began a series of bloody skirmishes for control of Norway's crown that finally ended in the young king's defeat and retreat into Sweden, where he found himself unwelcome at the hands of the Swedish king. He promptly went into exile... in Finland, where the pagan Finns received him willingly... because by that time, he was able to pass himself off as one, because Finns had no love at the time for Norwegians.


By 1070, Norway was firmly under the control of the aging Danish king, and the Norse-Gaels in the Isles found themselves quite unmolested by the notion. They operated rather autonomously anyways, but it was nice to know that back on the mainland they had an over-king they could count on if they needed him. Trade between the Isles, Scandinavia, England, Scotland, and Ireland therefore carried on as normal, and so did the bickering between the island kings.

Subscribed of course.

Ripples: Sentiments


Elsewhere, there were rather more dramatic changes. Pope Alexander II had given mild support to the Norman cause (the support was hardly full-blown, but he did say words to the effect that if Willelme could win, it would probably be a good thing, and gave him a consecrated banner). That banner was now in English hands, and caused a lot of questions in religious circles in both England and Normandy.


This begged the question of what real good consecrated papal paraphernilia was in a conflict. Now, if you had asked the Normans in Italy what a papal banner or a papal ring was good for, they would have said something to the effect of “not a fucking thing”. They had defeated and imprisoned a pope in 1053, one pope Leo IX at the Battle of Civitate. For them, when popes opened their mouths in support of anything, it was a blah moment, unless that support could be used to their advantage in some sort of military venture – like subjugating a population. They however still understood the importance of good military tactics, and quite frankly, Willelme's Battle of Hastings was not the best planned military venture in Norman history. Willelme had tried to use his banner as a morale builder for his troops AND as evidence for the English clergy that he was the rightful King of England as declared by the pope himself... even though the pope never said anything that direct.


Now English people and Normans alike were questioning the nature of their religion, and NOT in the way that you would think. See, the Catholic Church at the time was in a process of extreme reform. The Church was outwardly condemning a practice called simony, that is, the sale of Church offices. Prior to what we came to call the “Gregorian Reforms”, the title of “bishop” usually came with the title of a lord as well – this was something that many within the Church were desperately trying to stop, but not for the reasons that they purported to their congregations. Clerics across Western Europe at the time were decrying simony as something evil that intertwined the Church with secular politics. In truth, they had their own secular political ambitions; the problem with simony had nothing to do at all with the Church behaving as a political entity and more to do with the clerics WITHIN the church having less control over the Church itself. Those reformers wanted the Church to be electing its own popes and choosing its own bishops – as opposed to popes being appointed from somewhere within the German nobility, and bishoprics passing through noble families. They wanted political autonomy... NOT to be separated from secular politics.


Well all of that was fine and dandy... if the Church was so interested in separating itself from secular politics, then why exactly was it still handing out papal banners to failed invaders? If the Church was an efficient political body, that would be one thing, but the past 20 years looked kind of bad, and people in Normandy and England didn't really feel like the pope was a man worth his salt after Willelme lost at Hastings.


Why? Well, in England, because Harold Godwinson had been elected by the Witanegemot, and the pope had well overstepped his boundaries of authority by lending his support to Willelme li Bastard. As far as both the clergy and the nobility of England were concerned, Harold was the best man for the job, and the pope and his banner and Willelme li Bastard could all piss up a rope. In Normandy, it was really a little more simple – Willelme had lost, and Norman adventurers in Southern Italy had made a shit show of the papacy within the memorable lifetimes of the nobles there. But what about in Rome itself? Well, Hildebrando was NOT going to be the next pope, thanks to his talking the pope into making a fool of himself. That was for damned sure.


What were the immediate consequences? Some discontent with the Church's leadership, for now... the ripples would get wider as the years pressed on.

Aaaand subscribed!

Lemme just find the subscribe function.

...

There we go.

Ripples: The Makings of a Bad Situation


We have left England in a state of relative peace, and Norway in a state of being ravaged by Danish conquest. The rest of the world was, obviously, going to be affected to a greater or a lesser extent, according to distance and interactions.
Willelme, Normandy's duke and king-wannabe, was dead. His half brother, Eudes, still alive, and and Robert was still a little young for the title of duke and a little impudent as well. Eudes had no intention of taking the duchy for himself, but he did have every intention of exerting total control over the boy and ruling from behind the scenes himself, distrusting his Flemish mother and her ambitious family. If that meant beating him into submission if the occasion called for it – fine. If that meant terrorizing his mother – fine.


After the death of his father, young Robert's childhood went from picturesque to a boy's worst nightmare. At first, with the world seemingly mounted on his shoulders, Robert took his uncle's advice gladly, but he soon began to dislike the dismissal with which he was treating his mother, and soon found himself as Eudes' personal punching bag within the first year of his rulership. Despite being quite the young athlete, he always seemed to lose when the not-so-celebate and manipulating Bishop of Bayeux came after him.


Robert was lazy in his early teens, and spoiled, and a bad politician. What 12 year old IS a good politician? His father had granted him the sizable County of Maine because he had been unsatisfied with the authority allotted him, and that county was ready to revolt when the Norman nobles arrived back in defeat. But his spoiled, haughty, and rambunctious character changed very quickly when his uncle returned to rule as regent. He became shy, reclusive, and very depressed. The death of his father had a very big emotional impact on him, and when he confided in food his uncle told him he was getting fat, and restricted his meals – Robert subsequently started eating considerably less and engaging in absurd amounts of physical exercise to compensate, and got really skinny, really fast. He was definitely chiseled – one historian would later comment that he was strong, and his body looked like ropes wrapped around bone, but he was THIN, and the body image problems he would develop lasted for the rest of his short life.


Normandy's most immediate and pressing threat was the loss of the valuable and LARGE County of Maine. Maine had, in the past, been highly contested territory. To secure Maine, Robert needed to marry his betrothed Marguerite, the sister of the dead Count Herbert II immediately, and marry her he did almost the moment the Normans got home. The couple was very, very young – Robert was barely able to make children, and he didn't like his adult bride, but his uncle didn't care, and neither did anyone else save his mother, who Eudes scolded for making her son “soft”. In 1066, Robert married Marguerite, and was expected to produce a royal heir on the spot if Normandy was going to hold onto Maine. When scolded about how he needed to perform, Robert didn't understand the sense of urgency that his uncle was feeling. After all, Angieus (Anjou) was under the lordship of the blatantly incompetent Geoffrey III le Barbu de Wastinens (Gâtinais) who had allowed the formerly powerful Angieus to be raided by Bretons and his vassals to walk all over him... how could the Angevins present that much of a threat? His lack of understanding earned him a good beating from his uncle. What Robert didn't see, to Eudes' dismay, was that Fulco le Réchin, Geoffrey's brother, was brooding in the background, about to explode with disgust at his brother's inability to maintain control over the county. A regime change was about to take place in Angieus, and Eudes could see that, and he wanted to make sure that the Normans had as tight a grip over Maine as they could get.


But it wasn't just Robert's life he was playing like a harp, but also Robert's siblings. He plotted to marry a 10 year old Cecilia to Alan of Brittany, the son of Duchess Hawiz and by extension nephew to Konan II, with whose duchy her father had actively sought to undermine. However Hawiz, quite out of control of her lands and her vassals was in no position to refuse an alliance with Normandy, especially given the nature of the engagement, i.e. her son and Willelme's daughter. She didn't like it of course, and neither did her husband, but oh fucking well, right?


Cecilia was not the only one of her father's children whose sexuality was for sale though. Richard, approaching sexual maturity, was a prime candidate for betrothal, and who was available for betrothal but the 14 year old daughter of Guilhèm VII d'Aquitània? Another two or three years, and the two would be able to marry and have children, right? Well... if the most powerful man in all of France was interested in treating with the Normans, that was. For now, Eudes was willing to settle with a betrothal of 10 year old Willelme junior to the 4 year old daughter of the Count of Vermand (Vermandois), Adelaide and call it a year.

Now this one i can get behind. And it is going at a reasonable pace as well.

Never liked the Rape of Normandy in the original, and then there was also the secular church division (which did happen many times, just consider Arianism, and even Orthodox between East and West, and even the whole anti-pope problems as well)....i just hope you do this at a better and more "realistic" pace.

subscribed.

So I'm writing an update concerning the political marriages of the Godwinson children as well as a surviving Leofwine. Does anyone have any ideas?


Harold has two daughters by 1068, one of them of marriageable age, the other not quite, and three sons that are there as well. Thus far, all I can think of is:


- Màel Coluim III, King of Scotland
- Sveinn Ástríðarson's children
- Murchad mac Diarmata


I like the idea of getting England more into continental affairs via some alliances with different houses in the Holy Roman Empire. The thing is, I'm just not sure who to do this with.

Edgar the Shrew said:

So I'm writing an update concerning the political marriages of the Godwinson children as well as a surviving Leofwine. Does anyone have any ideas?


Harold has two daughters by 1068, one of them of marriageable age, the other not quite, and three sons that are there as well. Thus far, all I can think of is:


- Màel Coluim III, King of Scotland
- Sveinn Ástríðarson's children
- Murchad mac Diarmata


I like the idea of getting England more into continental affairs via some alliances with different houses in the Holy Roman Empire. The thing is, I'm just not sure who to do this with.

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maybe you could try and bring Edgar Aethling into the family proper? maybe. that is if butterflies didn't kill him or send him to hungary.

Edgar is too young, and is probably going to get sent back to Hungary. I don't see why the Godwinsons would want to keep them around.

So ummm... does anyone know how to get in touch with Zirantun, the author of William will always be a bastard...? I am told that plagiarizing is a bannable offense on here, and I have been copying and pasting some of the updates from the old timeline and modifying them.


I don't really want to get banned, so... yeah. Does anyone know him, or some way that I can get in touch with him?

Edgar the Shrew said:

So this timeline is a sort of a reboot of the timeline William will always be a bastard... .


I always liked the idea of the English winning at Hastings, and I liked a lot of things about that timeline in general, although I do believe that it is in need of revision. Namely, the nature of the timeline's investiture conflict.


So, I hope I'm not breaking any social norms on the forum here, and I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes either. The premises of the timeline are going to be a LITTLE bit different as well, which of course will lead to some very different series of events in the future.


I hope you guys like it

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The original author isn't credited nor is the original timeline linked to, even though you've copied text from it. I'm giving a warning for plagiarism, nothing more since you admitted it in the HOI.

The original author isn't credited nor is the original timeline linked to, even though you've copied text from it. I'm giving a warning for plagiarism, nothing more since you admitted it in the HOI.

Click to expand...

Maybe repeat myself then.


DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH ZIRANTUN, THE AUTHOR OF William will always be a bastard...?

Considering the author of this rewrite is also banned, that begs the question has there ever been a finished timeline on Harold Godwinson wining at Hastings?

BBadolato said:

Considering the author of this rewrite is also banned, that begs the question has there ever been a finished timeline on Harold Godwinson wining at Hastings?

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Well there's Crown of the confessor. With the writer there not being banned and hopefully won't be banned in the near future.