"The war of the Godwinsons, from History for dummies. (Kumanlad Press, Cardydd, 1993)
Early skirmishes
The Peterborough chronicles record that, in February of 1082, a Hiberno-Manx army loyal to Harold Godwin MacHarold landed near Chester and quickly captured the castle at Meols. This winter attack was unexpected, and it seems the forces loyal to King Harold III were sorely unprepared. The response from the legitimist forces was disastrous, the elderly Earl Eadwine of Mercia was killed at Wilmslow in an attempt to dislodge the interlopers, echoing his fool-hardy solo attempt to stop the invasion of Harald Hardraada in 1066.
To be fair to the aged Earl, he may well have been attempting to stop the Hiberno-Norse forces from uniting with those of Uhtred Oswulfson, Earl of Bamburgh, who was advancing southwards with a force bolstered by Thegn Malcolm of Dunbar, chief of the English of Lothian, and a subject of the King of Scots. This force was stopped at Winwood near Leeds, by the forces of Aelfgar Morecareson, Earl of Northumbria, and the garrison of the Witan Host from the castle at Leeds. The victory cannot have been overwhelming, Uhtred remained in command of Durham, far South of his Earldom, until the end of the war in 1086. The effect of these two pockets of opposition in the north was to tie up Aelfgar’s forces protecting the shire of York, and preventing Northumbrian soldiers from taking part in the battles further South.
The battle of the three brothers
On the 15th of May 1082, a force of Wessexmen, led by Edmund MacHarold, set out from Winchester under the command of Edmund MacHarold, his brother Magnus, and Aelfred, Ealdorman of Winchester. The army was marching on London, in an attempt to take that city in the name of Harold Haroldson.
The army was a mixture of Cornish, Devon and Wessexmen, and contemporary records state that Edmund MacHarold harangued the troops before their departure in both Aenglish and Cornish. A supposed portion of this address survives in Maelcun’s “The War of the Godwinson’s”:
Men of Wessex! Wolf feeders, and widow-makers all. Today we walk the bone road to London, to put a Wessexman on the throne. We march beneath the banners of Harold King, the red dragon and the fighting man, the red dragon Merddin saw, shall triumph once again.
After 4 days march, the Wessexmen were met by an army coming down The Great West Road from London, composed of East Anglian and Kentish troops, under Gyrth Godwinson, with a small contingent from Northampton commanded by the pretender Harold Godwin MacHarold.
What must these three brothers have been thinking when they faced each other at the stone circle of Stanwell? It can be assumed that Harold Godwin felt betrayed, but what about his brothers? Did they suspect Harold had a part in their father’s death? We will never know.
However, the location of the battle is revealing. It is almost certain that Gyrth and Harold Godwin MacHarold had had sufficient notice that Edmund’s force was planning to march on London to block the ford at Staines, and force them to march many miles to the north to cross the Thames. Yet they had allowed them to cross the river and set up camp at Stanwell on the afternoon of the 14th. The only possible reason for this would be that they intended to trap the legitimist forces East of the river, and annihilate them.
In a parley prior to the battle, Edmund and Magnus had offered Harold a peace, and a new Earldom in Chester, in exchange for recognizing Harold Haroldson as king. Harold had refused. Edmund’s army consisted of around 4500 men, of which 500 were heavy cavalry, and 700 were Cornish and Devonshire archers. Harold’s men were largely infantry, 6000 strong but with a larger number of fyrdmen, free farmers who owed military service to the king.
The men of Kent and East Anglia took up positions on Dragon Hill, just north of Stanwell, and jeered down at the Wessexmen, they were sure the weaker legitimist force could be no match for them in battle. Edmund’s strategy was brilliant, he ordered his archers to advance fire volleys into the ranks of the fyrdmen who were lightly armoured and often lacked shields. The fyrd took quite heavy casualties, which lead Arnulf, Ealdorman of Sandwich to charge down the hill in an attempt to stop the lethal volleys, away from the shield wall Edmund’s cavalry charged and cut down several hundred of Harold’s better troops. Throughout the morning Edmund used feigned retreats and attacks by his cavalry to lure down Harold’s troops from the ridge, and cut them down when they were isolated on the lower ground, all the while maintaining a deadly barrage of arrows.
At three o’clock, Edmund ordered his infantry to charge the shield wall, while his cavalry crashed into the side of Harold’s lines, after two hours of fierce fighting Gyrth Godwinson was killed and MacHarold’s forces fled, leaving Gyrth Godwinson’s Housecarles to fight to the last man and cover the retreat. Barely two thousand made it to the safety of London, but Harold Godwin MacHarold was among them.
In the fighting, his younger brother Magnus MacHarold, Earl of Devon, lost his sword-hand, and would have lost his life, save for the intervention of a Jewish doctor who had recently arrived in England, fleeing the turmoil in Iberia.