Battle of Hastings Two Page Digest

People often ask us to summarise why we think that the Battle of Hastings was fought at Sedlescombe. Too polite, most probably, to tell us that our book is boring. Abridgements are not our strength either, but it is good to engage as many people as possible, so we will try. 

The action took place on and near the 'Hastings Peninsula'. It was a true peninsula in those days, roughly triangular, bounded by the River Brede to the north, the River Ash Bourne to the west and the sea to the south. It had a narrow (500m wide) isthmus to the north at Spray's Wood. The terrain was dominated by the steep-sided 'Hastings Ridge' (HR) which crossed the peninsula from Ore in the southeast to modern Battle (B) in the northwest. Land access and egress was mainly by the Rochester Roman road (black line) which crossed the River Brede at Sedlescombe (S). Light traffic could alternatively use an an ancient ridgeway through the isthmus (white line heading south from Darwell Beach - DB) or a probable ancient trackway (white dotted line) that crossed the Brede at Whatlington (W).

So, why do we reject the traditional narrative? Harold was an experienced and smart commander who was not encumbered by "the fault of rashness or levity" according to his sister. It would be totally out of character for him to try, as tradition dictates, a red-mist immediate attack on the fortified and well-guarded Norman camp with an understrength army. Likewise, if the English army was caught on the Hastings Peninsula, Harold would not, as tradition dictates, have chosen to defend a hill that barely justifies the name, nor would he have chosen to fight an unwinnable battle to the death when it would have been easy to retreat or flee. In the unlikely event that Harold did make all these idiotic choices, William would not have spent the entire day attacking the English shield wall from the only direction they could hold out, when he could have sent his cavalry around the open ends of the English line to lop off Harold's head in the first 15 minutes. The entire traditional narrative is preposterous nonsense.

William needed to kill Harold, and ideally both his brothers, to claim the English crown. He would have known that Harold would probably want to blockade the Hastings Peninsula egress points, giving him only a few days to kill Harold before the invaders ran out of food. If they managed to hold out any longer, when Harold's reserves arrived he might have appointed his brother Gurth to lead an attack on the Norman camp, with equally disastrous consequences. His only hope would have been that he knew Harold would want to come in person to lead the defence of his realm. But he would also have known that Harold would stand off to command his troops at a safe distance.

William's best chance of an easy victory was to ambush Harold at Sedlescombe, Whatlington or Spray's Wood, if he tried to cross onto the Hastings Peninsula. William might have hoped for such easy conclusion but he could not have expected it. Harold was too experienced to fall for such a simply ploy. And it did not happen. An ambush in Spray's Wood would have been a woodland battle. An ambush at Sedlescombe or Whatlington would have been a boggy river valley battle. These would all contradict the treeless hilltop battle described in the contemporary account descriptions.

So what was William's plan? It was clearly not, as tradition dictates, to wait for Harold to attack with a powederpuff understrength army. That would have been a recipe for disaster. William's actions speak louder than words. He placed himself and his barons at a remote corner of the Hastings Peninsula, where they would be visible to Harold's scouts from across the river. It must have been deliberate because he stayed at this sea camp for two weeks before the battle when he could have moved to anywhere in southern England. He advertised his location to Harold by exchanging messages. He gave Harold's messenger spies access to his camp. He gave other English spies a guided tour of his camp. It gives every impression of someone sandbagging, trying to show that they are stupid, arrogant, toothless and unthreatening when they are none of these.

In our opinion, William was a step ahead, trying to make Harold think that his plan was an ambush when it was really to trap Harold in his camp. To achieve this, he needed to make Harold think that his camp was at a safe distance when it was not. The trick was to conceal his huge cavalry. Harold clearly did not realise that William had brought thousands of war-horses, or he would not have crossed the Rother. William of Poitiers,  the most trustworthy contemporary account, says that the Norman knights were out foraging for food when Harold arrived in the battle theatre. We guess that they were sent out foraging for food every day, so that English spies and scouts never saw them together. This would also get them out of the camp, so that they could not be spotted by Harold's messengers either.

If we are right, William implemeneted a sophisticated ruse that relied on unusual local topography and expert local knowledge. It might seem unlikely, but this land had recently belonged to the Norman Abbey of Fécamps. As Jo Kirkham proposed 25 years ago, we think these monks planned the invasion. We are convinced that they devised a way to draw Harold into a trap. It started months previously, according to Roman de Rou, by providing false intelligence to Harold's court spy, the Count of Flanders, who reported back that William could not bring many horses. William's part was to conceal his cavalry and to appear as far distant and as unthreatening as possible. With any luck, it would lure Harold too close to the Hastings Peninsula, where he would be trapped by William's concealed cavalry.

Harold was coming from London. In between was the immense Andredsweald forest, 120 miles east to west and 25 miles north to south. It was crossed by two paved Roman roads - the London to Lewes and the Rochester to Sedlescombe - as well as by some ancient forest paths. Historians think Harold arrived at the battle theatre on forest paths, either from Lewes or from Sevenoaks, because these were the only ways he could have ended up at Battle. They have forgotten that Harold would have had hundreds of carts - not one of them mentions the English cart train. Daniel Defoe travelled on pre-turnpike Wealden forest paths. He wrote that the ground was so difficult that it took 22 oxen to draw a cart carrying one log. The tracks were no better in the 11th century. William explored his surrounds soon after landing, then "came back on foot because the paths were so difficult", according to Poitiers. In our opinion, there is no conceivable circumstance in which Harold would have taken hundreds of carts through 25 miles of the Andredsweald on forest paths. Defoe says that it sometimes took a year or more to carry timber across this same route. Moreover, in our opinion, there is no conceivable way that Harold would have risked getting ambushed by stringing out the English army into a long thin line on a single cart wide forest track.

Therefore, we think that Harold used the Rochester Roman road. Exactly as one would expect, we think his plan was to gather enough intelligence to allow him to devise a plan of siege or attack to be implemented as soon as the rest of his army arrived. In the meantime, he needed a safe and secure camp. The ideal place would have seemed to be the last defendable hill before the Hastings Peninsula, Great Sanders ridge (G). Harold would have thought himself safe from snipers and skirmishers, amidst thousands of men on a ridge surrounded by deep mine workings on three sides and a steep slope on the fourth. He would have thought himself safe from a Norman sortie, guarding the only useful Hastings Peninsula egress point, and just four miles from the absolute safety of the Rother estuary while the Normans were nine miles away. Unfortunately, he was wrong because he did not know about the Norman cavalry.

If Harold camped at Great Sanders ridge, subsequent events are easy to work out. As soon as the English has passed Cripps Corner on the Rochester Roman road, the Norman cavalry occupied the Udimore Ridge to prevent an organised retreat and to catch anyone that tried to flee. The following day the Normans scouted the English camp to devise the best plan of attack. The day after they attacked the English camp. As soon as Harold saw the Normans coming, he moved the English army 400m closer to Sedlescombe, on the other side of the mine workings, where there was an ideal sized defendable treeless spur. This is Hurst Lane spur, our proposed battlefield.