One great difficulty beset Harold and William alike.Either in Normandy or in England it was easy to get together an army ready to fight a battle; it was not easy to keep a large body of men under arms for any long time without fighting.It was still harder to keep them at once without fighting and without plundering.What William had done in this way in two invasions of Normandy, he was now called on to do on a greater scale.His great and motley army was kept during a great part of August and September, first at the Dive, then at Saint Valery, waiting for the wind that was to take it to England.And it was kept without doing any serious damage to the lands where they were encamped.In a holy war, this time was of course largely spent in appeals to the religious feelings of the army.Then came the wonderful luck of William, which enabled him to cross at the particular moment when he did cross.A little earlier or later, he would have found his landing stoutly disputed; as it was, he landed without resistance.Harold of England, not being able, in his own words, to be everywhere at once, had done what he could.He and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine undertook the defence of southern England against the Norman; the earls of the North, his brothers-in-law Edwin and Morkere, were to defend their own land against the Norwegians.His own preparations were looked on with wonder.To guard the long line of coast against the invader, he got together such a force both by sea and land as no king had ever got together before, and he kept it together for a longer time than William did, through four months of inaction, save perhaps some small encounters by sea.At last, early in September, provisions failed; men were no doubt clamouring to go back for the harvest, and the great host had to be disbanded.Could William have sailed as soon as his fleet was ready, he would have found southern England thoroughly prepared to meet him.Meanwhile the northern earls had clearly not kept so good watch as the king.Harold Hardrada harried the Yorkshire coast; he sailed up the Ouse, and landed without resistance.At last the earls met him in arms and were defeated by the Northmen at Fulford near York.Four days later York capitulated, and agreed to receive Harold Hardrada as king.
Meanwhile the news reached Harold of England; he got together his housecarls and such other troops as could be mustered at the moment, and by a march of almost incredible speed he was able to save the city and all northern England.The fight of Stamfordbridge, the defeat and death of the most famous warrior of the North, was the last and greatest success of Harold of England.But his northward march had left southern England utterly unprotected.Had the south wind delayed a little longer, he might, before the second enemy came, have been again on the South-Saxon coast.As it was, three days after Stamfordbridge, while Harold of England was still at York, William of Normandy landed without opposition at Pevensey.
Thus wonderfully had an easy path into England been opened for William.The Norwegian invasion had come at the best moment for his purposes, and the result had been what he must have wished.With one Harold he must fight, and to fight with Harold of England was clearly best for his ends.His work would not have been done, if another had stepped in to chastise the perjurer.Now that he was in England, it became a trial of generalship between him and Harold.
William's policy was to provoke Harold to fight at once.It was perhaps Harold's policy--so at least thought Gyrth--to follow yet more thoroughly William's own example in the French invasions.Let him watch and follow the enemy, let him avoid all action, and even lay waste the land between London and the south coast, and the strength of the invaders would gradually be worn out.But it might have been hard to enforce such a policy on men whose hearts were stirred by the invasion, and one part of whom, the King's own thegns and housecarls, were eager to follow up their victory over the Northern with a yet mightier victory over the Norman.And Harold spoke as an English king should speak, when he answered that he would never lay waste a single rood of English ground, that he would never harm the lands or the goods of the men who had chosen him to be their king.In the trial of skill between the two commanders, each to some extent carried his point.William's havoc of a large part of Sussex compelled Harold to march at once to give battle.
But Harold was able to give battle at a place of his own choosing, thoroughly suited for the kind of warfare which he had to wage.
