ave worked in favour of the English; Harold may have known this as it lay so close to his own estate at Catton. The Norwegians, encamped in the river valley, truly may not have been aware of Harold’s army until it was nearly upon them. In contrast, King Harold knew exactly where the Norwegians were, and advanced with his forces to engage them in battle with a clear advantage.
As King Harold’s army approached, the Norwegians appear to have fallen back across the river Derwent. The surprise and shock of the sudden English attack probably meant that the Norwegians were unable to hold them at the river, where defence would have been much easier had they been ready. The account at the end of Chronicle C of a lone Norwegian holding the bridge against the English is a much later addition to the text. It was perhaps drawn from a later English saga about the battle and probably has no basis in fact. Harald of Norway as likely as not rallied his troops in the area later known as Battle Flats, to the east of the river. The battle which then began probably took the customary form for an all infantry battle – two opposing masses slugging it out at close quarters. The account in the prose sections of the much later Harald’s Saga speaks of the English use of cavalry in the battle. This does not fit with what we know of English warfare from more contemporary sources, where horses were not used in battle itself, and must be disregarded. Although the English had the initial advantage of surprise, they probably suffered from fatigue later in the day as a result of their 15 mile advance from Tadcaster that morning. Consequently, the battle was long and bloody, but the Norwegian lack of body armour must eventually have reduced their power of resistance.
The crisis of the battle apparently came late in the day, after many had fallen on both sides, when both Tosti and King Harald of Norway were slain. As the Norse poet Arnor recounts it;
It was an evil moment
When Norway’s king lay fallen
Brought death to Norway’s leader.
All King Harald’s warriors
Preferred to die beside him.
Sharing their brave king’s fate,
Rather than beg for mercy.
Despite the sentiments expressed in the poem, the fall of their great leader probably broke the morale of the remaining Norwegian troops and the survivors attempted to flee. This is certainly the sequence of events found in the Chronicle accounts and it reflects the usual fate of armies whose leaders were slain. The English army pursued the survivors vigorously, all the way to their ships. The retreat became a rout, and Norwegian losses were so heavy that only twenty-four ships were required to carry the survivors home. This suggests that perhaps only about 500 to 1,000 men survived the battle and rout that followed. The shattered remnant of the Norwegian army was brought to bay by the English at Riccall, but instead of destroying them King Harold gave them quarter. The Norwegians had invaded his kingdom and slaughtered many of his countrymen, but in spite of this Harold was generous in victory. He did not seize or imprison the survivors, although they included Olaf, the son of the dead king, and Earl Paul of Orkney. Instead, King Harold allowed them to return home after obtaining their oaths to maintain peace and friendship with him thereafter. Certainly no further invasions were attempted by young Olaf, who would later be known as ‘the Peaceful’.
King Harold was now at the summit of his career. He had earlier driven off Tosti’s raids, and outfaced the threat of a Norman invasion across the Channel. Now he had defeated and slain one of the most renowned warriors of the day, in open and decisive battle. We can perhaps see traces of what was originally intended as a celebratory poem dedicated to Harold in the
And who will write that Humber, vast and swollen
With raging seas, where namesake kings had fought,
Has dyed the ocean waves for miles around
With Viking gore. . . .
This campaign also demonstrated further the continued effectiveness of the English military system. Thus Earls Edwin and Morcar were able to re