CHAPTER EIGHT

PORTENTS.

Thanks to the ‘Aglo Saxon Chronicles' we have a record of the causes of that stress I was talking about. They begin in 538AD and end in 1140 AD There is little point in speculating why they began such a record, but it does appear to be a ‘cause and effect’ as well as a list of events of great moment. It is my guess these sightings were also seen in other area’s on the Contenent but not recorded or the records were lost. I have before me the list of recorded events that took place. However the only ones we should look at are those that would have taken place within the span of a hundred years prior to 1066A.D. Those are within living memory of 3 generations. And if you think back on your own family history what the old folks knew and experianced affected you in some small way.

So we start with a bit before 962 AD, A date just over the 100 years, but of great importance to all England at the time. A plague took place in 962 described as ‘Great Mortality.’ It appears England recorded plagues not recorded in Europe. Not just human plagues but of animals as well.

664==Plague, England and Ireland
671==Great mortality of birds
793==Great famine (crop failure, etc.)
962==Plague, great mortality
976==Famine, more crop failures
986==Great cattle desease
1046=Pestilence, Murrain. (sickness)
1048=Pestilence
1054=Cattle Plague


The last six are within our time frame. I doubt very much that they would have recorded local outbreaks of disease, as that would have been seen as the normal course of events. The last three took place during the riegn of Edward the Confessor.

In 975, 995, and 1066, Comets were seen in the sky. If we keep in mind that there was no neon lighting and great cities to dull the night sky, on clear nights the heavins were ablaze with lights. Anything moving would be clear to see. Nor were they an ignorant people as to what was or wasn’t normal in the night sky. So in that regard what wasn’t recorded should also be noted. What wasn’t recorded was the Northern lights or what we call the Aurora Borealis. From 538 AD to ll40 AD not one mention of this phenomina?

The explaination given for this phenomina by our scientists should have applied equally to those days as to ours. They should have seen it at least as well as we do today if not better. Yet the only entry that seems to refer to it is 927, and then it only reads, ‘fiery lights in Northern sky!’

If that does refer to the Northern lights then it appears the sight was unique. Not a common occurance at all. So we can add that to our list of stress causes.
In 976 another Famine is recorded, with the word ‘great’ added. It also mentions disturbances throughout the land! These Chronicles do not record human events! So if they record a disturbance it is a physical event. But what kind of physical disturbance? They certainly knew about Earth quakes in those days. They were not ignorant people. They had contact with people from all over who knew about earthquakes. Yet, this is not what is recorded. It appears something was taking place that they had no name for. Famines were recorded before and after this event and if they meant human disturbances like riots or battles then why only record it this time? A quick glance at the chronicles and you can see that no human activities as such are recorded. These are all events of nature.

In 979 a bloody cloud of fire is seen at midnight. Formed in various shafts of light. It dissappears at dawn. North, East, South or West? It doesn’t say! At first glance this appears to be a sighting of the Northern lights. Think again.

Give these people the intelligence they deserve. This is England. Not the continent gripped in the fear and ignorance of the Holly Roman Empire. Not only is there great commerce with other lands but they are close to Ireland which was a land of great schools of learning at this time. Also, if anyone was familiar with the Northern lights it would have been England! After all, she had been constantly invaded and settled by the peoples of the Northern latitudes; Vikings, Swedes, Danes. Who better than they would know about those lights? Unless, of course they didn’t exist before this time in recorded history! Which opens a different can of worms! One I won’t get into!

Could this event of 979 be seen all over England? Without knowing in which direction it appeared it is hopeless to speculate. But the words, "Shafts of light", are interesting. The Aurora is a chevron shape dancing across the sky in sheets or waves. A shaft refers to a long beam of light unconnected to any other. This is not the only rocorded instance of beams or shafts of light coming out of the sky’s over England. Shades of UFO’s?

986 AD, A ‘Great cattle disease appears'. (Murrain)

This kind of event is frightening in our own day! How much more in theirs. Cattle is food. It is milk, butter, cheese, meat. It is survival or despair. When you don’t know how or why disease appears, you don’t know how to stop it, or when it will stop, if ever. Imagine the panic today in England if cattle started dying all over the Island.

995 AD = Another comet, that’s four comets in less than a hundred years. Or were they Comets? Did they just have the appearance of comets then?

1005 AD = Worst famine yet. Just those words. Clear and succinct. That was during Aethelred II ( the unready) time979-1016AD.

1014AD Sept. 28th, Flood, huge tides. Nature appears to be on a rampage in England.

1032 AD = Wild fire. To understand this entry you would need to read through a number of other records to find the answer. The great mystey is not in the entry for this date, but why this is not recorded in the chronicles oftener as it had been going on both before this date and after. It seems that on a regular basis fire fell from the sky hitting individual places. The fire was intense. The first cause that comes to mind is meteors. But that doesn’t make sense. When they fall today they are more like rocks falling. They make holes, break roofs, but they do not start fires. They went on for at least 500 to 800 years in the records I have seen. They certainly don’t fall in recorded times.

1044AD = Another great famine. While it never describes the nature of this famine, we can only assume that it is wheat or grain and crop failure. There are no records of the weather for this period, but again we must figure it is nature on the rampage again.
1046AD = Pestilence, Murrain. ( another cattle disease) 1048AD = Earthquakes. 1st of May. Pestilence, murrain (wildfire). They were having quite a bad time of it this year. Note that they know that they had an Earthquake. They didn’t call it, ‘disturbances’ as they did in 976AD. That implies that what they called ‘disturbances’ had no name they could give it other than that. And would this very important Chronicle have mentioned, ‘Wildfire’ if only one house was burned?

1048AD =Cattle Pestilence,(Great). I have been greatly puzzled and intrigued by these entrys in the Chronicles. A close study of the entries shows that they were mainly records of unusual Phenomena. Mainly. It’s as if they felt that something was going on in England that needed to be carefully recorded. One thing they didn’t do was speculate or dramatize. So when I see entries for cattle disease and famines I wonder if these were of a nature that was out of the ordinary. Man had been keeping cattle and growing crops a very long time. Certainly by this age he could recognize those cattle diseases that were common since time began, like hoof and mouth disease? And farmers all over the world know crop disease and its cause enough to give it a name. Why not say what caused the cattle disease or the famine?

1066AD 24th April. Comet. Lasted 1 week.
This of course took place the year of the Conquest. To say that the events that preceded the conquest had nothing to do with how people behaved both prior to and after is foolish. In my own time (1997) I have seen how people are shaken and troubled by changes in nature. The doom sayers gather at plagues, Earthquakes, Phenomena and U.F.O.’S. There is a feeling in the air and all around that some great change is taking place or about to take place. We become fatalistic when too many strange events or changes occur in nature.

When too many unexplained sights occur that we have no understanding of in our daily lives, we lose faith in our experts, our leaders, our wise men who cannot lay our fears to rest. And we live in a world that claims answers to all the things, or events pertaining to that world. These people did not live in a world of answers. Actually, niether do we.

What I maintain is, that England was under stress from nature as well as man. And may even have felt under stress from God if he attributed some of the happenings to him.

Needless to say the year 1066AD was indeed a horrible time. I intend to show that it was one of utter dispair.

CHAPTER NINE

ENGLISH? WHO ARE THEY?

The Greeks know who they are. The Italians know who they are. But the English haven’t been able to tell who they are as a people since the Romans invaded. They know who they are as a nation but not as a people. Canada is in the same boat. We become a nation by a form of osmosis. Much like a good family who’s sons wives from all over are brought into the family circle. They might not be the same race as the family but their children will be absorbed. That’s what England has done. And I would say it has been a great success.

First there were the Picts, then the Britons, then the Romans, the Norse, the Danes, the Saxons, then the Danes again, then the Normans who brought some french and other assorted peoples. They didn’t all fight and kill each other. They made concessions and deals. They also intermarried.

You might say the story of the Conquest begins with the Saxons who were invited over to England to help them beat back the Danes who were invading the country. This took place in or around 871A.D. We really have no idea why they needed this help. But they ruled quite well it seems until the time of AETHELRED II(the unready). That’s when the problems began. (follow chart) His first wife was AELFGIFUM who bore him EDMOND II (Ironside). When she died he then married EMMA, daughter of RICHARD I, DUKE OF NORMONDY.

CHAPTER TEN

THE CONQUEST.

Now that we have reviewed the events before the conquest;ie; family history, known facts, the physical and mental strains of living in those times, the possible greed of Rome for Englands wealth, the evidence that England was a blend of races, lets just go over that year one last time, step by step.

What we know for sure;

1. Tostig was out of the country. It is claimed he went around England in a fleet of small boats trying to get in but was repulsed. That he went and brought Harold Hadrada to invade.

2. From Feb. on, no one was leaving England. No one was being let in except for one boat load of monks from Rome in July. Not a fish boat. Not a trader left or touched her shore.

3. We know that the newly crowned King Harold was camped opposite the Isle of Wight waiting for Williams invasion. That he marched his army up to York when Hadrada’s men were seen on the River. That he fought and won the Battle of York and destroyed Tostig and Hadrada. When Word came that William had reached the shores of England with his invasion force he was compelled to march his army back down to London and from there to Hastings.

William landed his massive fleet at Pevensey,(there is much controversy over where he landed. Another proof that there were no records made of this invasion by the English), and disembarked his men. They then proceeded to Hasting where they set up camp and prepared for battle at Hastings mill.

How interesting! This was a huge fleet! I am sure that Harold was a smart king. He would have had look-outs posted around the coast. An armada would have been seen from miles away. Plenty of time to get up another army from around the countryside to repel them. Or even try to. But no, William pretty well walks through any attempt to stop him. This from a country that had a whole year to prepare to fight him? Where the only arms are swords, spears, battle axes, bows and arrows, and lances. Did the Saxons and Danes and British not have these weapons? Spears and lances are only wood. Bows and arrows need only wood. Pitchforks are a weapon. Only two reasons spring to mind of why William didn’t have to fight for every inch of British soil;(1) plague. (2)The Danes and the Saxons let hin in. As you will see later I show that the real reason had to be plague. One that had run its course and left only a skeleton of humanity behind it.

We have all read enough of the slaughter at hastings. Naturally the conqueror always gets to write the history showing them to have fought well and bravely. In this case the Battle of Hastings was not written up until 10 to 15 years later. And did Harold and his men justice. William didn’t need to do that. He didn’t do that for any of his battles in France.

After Hastings he does not take the heart of England; London. He has free access to Englands Major city, yet he goes around the River. Why? Could it be because he knows that if there is plague still in England it will be worse in the city?

The next few weeks are odd to say the least. There is only one other battle reported in which William takes part. It is said that he marched through the south of England and crossed over the Thames near it's source and here he encountered the only other resistance to his army that is recorded. But on his trek through the land below the Thames, he burns many towns and villages. Why? He is not encountering any resistance. He claims none in his records later. (If he had to fight battles to claim this land he would have recorded it.) Or could it be that he is burning plague centres?

We hear little more of his movements after this except for broad generalizations. He has conquered all of England with only two battles. One major, one minor. He doles out the land to his generals and friends, his hero’s and brave soldiers are rewarded. For some strange reason he spends most of his time with his army fighting the Welch on the borders of Wales. The British are not mounting any battles. It is as if with that one great Battle at Hasting he has conquered the entire land of the English! One of the greatest defenders of it's land? That doesn't make any sense at all unless you admit to another agent having done his job for him.

Only three years after the Conquest,(no one records a king or anyone else surrendering) he sends his entire foreign army home, leaving only the small Norman armies of his Barons. Ten years after his conquest he has a tapestry made and a history written by Biship Odo, who he had brought over from Normandy. His man. There is no other record of those events! Nothing by anyone of the conquered. Then the strangest thing of all takes place. At Christmas time in 1085 he commissions a record of every city, town, village, hovel, house, castle, farm, and estate in England. A census, as well as a tax base. No one or anything is left unrecorded the entire length and breadth of England. No one has ever done this before. It is unheard of. It takes only one year and culminates in what is now known of as the Domesday Book, although it is a number of books.

Life goes on and all of this if forgotten. When life gets better and people have the money and leasure to research their history the Domesday books are remembered. No one can figure out why they were called, "Domesday Books"? Poor spelling is ruled out immediatly as this is archaic for the word 'doomsday'. Or maybe because they could not concieve of William seeing his Conquest as a Doomsday event for the people. Which is quite right. It wasn’t. But if there was a terrible plague in England just before the invasion then it did spell doom for Britain. But that does not explain why William commissioned the book and named it Domesday.

I have been doing something very odd for months now. With the aid of some very good maps of England, a copy of Domesday book, I have been comparing and searching for those towns and villages mentioned, taking note of the tally of people at the time of the census and how many I feel should have made up the place. One of the first thing I noticed was that only men were numbered. No women, no children.

Many things surprised me. How filled with settlements England was at the time. There was scarce a square mile that was free of a settlement of some kind. You can imagine my surprise when I read that they estemated only 1-2 million people in England at the time of the book.

There was another thing that caught my eye. It would name a place and then record the words;’lost’. One of the hardest hit seems to have been the land of Godwin and Tostig. Where there had been many cities, towns, and villages there were only two or three left. And yet there is no mention of great battles fought there. There is mention of Malcolm of Scotland invading and taking away slaves but he was Tostigs friend. He claimed Tostig was in Rome on pilgramage. After studying all the books and records I give my version of history:

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HISTORY REVISED

After harold was crowned King of England a plague entered the land. Harold knew William wanted the Crown of England. Maybe Edward had named him heir. Harold knew William would make the effort to take it from him. At first when the plague broke out it was just bad enough that Harold needed to keep it from William because it showed that Britain was weak and vulnorable at that time. Harold closed the ports and the bounderies. No one in. No one out. The problem with that was that the rich trains of offerings to the church at Rome stopped. As did the tithes from all the Churches in England. When William called for volunteers for an invasion force, the church at Rome did not hesitate to back him. We know William had the Popes approval. The Church had already sent a party of 5-7 monks to seek the answers to why no trains were leaving England. They were not heard from. We know that a boatload of monks were allowed in to England, but were not allowed out again. Rome was used to the wealth that poured in from England. It wanted that renewed. William promised them it would be. They sanctioned his conquest. We cannot understand fully today what that would have meant to William.

Not knowing what was happening in England, Rome may have thought that they had reverted to paganism and the old celtic beliefs. It must have been a terrible shock and a perplexing mystery to Rome.

That would explain much about the coverup later. William left Normandy,s shore with the approval of the Church at Rome to attack one of Romes staunches supporters of her religion. There can be no other reason than the one I have outlined above. All of Europe would have known the Church was backing Williams army. Imagine the shock if he entered an England decimated with plague. Where most of the men were dead. And the only healthy ones left had just marched from the bottom of the Island to York, fought a major war there and defeated one army, then marched back down to fight him. Maybe the battle of Hastings was more of a slaughter than a battle. If he knew that Harolds men had come through London with some plague or he questioned survivors he may have known that London was filled with victims of the plague; the dead and the dying. That would explain why he did not go immediatly to Winchester to crown himself King.

Instead he marched his men around the Thames river, across the garden area of England to check out the food situation. Remember, I mentioned that Harolds army was starving in the breadbasket of Britain! There is no way he was ignorant of the lay of the land in England. One of the commonest methods of trying to kill off plague was by fire. Burning the houses, the corpses, and all else. William records no battles on his treck across the bottom of England, yet he burns a number of villages and towns. This is a man who has won a country. These are now his towns and his villages. Why not just kill the people? He is burning plague towns and villages!

From my work on the Domesday Book I feel sure that the plague started in the North West corner of England. There is some evidence that it entered the North East corner of Wales but got no farther. If Tostig was in Rome in the later days of 1065, he would have missed the Death of Edmund. If he heard about it at Rome, he would have rushed straight back home to the family estate in the North West of England. By-passing the rest of the country. Arriving home he finds everyone dead or dying. By now it is January or February. Rather than go by horse to Westminster to where his brother Godwin would or should be, with the king, he takes what men are left and travels around the coast. Everywhere is death or the fear of death by those who live on the shore. If they knew from which direction the plague was moving and they knew of Earl Tostig and where he was from, they would not have let him land in case they carried plague. When he left for scotland he must have known about Williams plans for an invasion. It was no secret. Tostigs visit to Harold Hadrada was a bid for the Crown for himself. If he could beat William to England he might make it. And by the time he got an invasion force together the plague would have played itself out. It usually did. If this plague was flu or measles, or small pox it would have played itself out by sept..maybe.
The rest is History. Hadrada and Tostig lost. William won.

While I am claiming a plague hit England, I do not believe it hit all places the same. So when Williams armies spread out all over England in the next two years they may have run into small pockets of resistance. Communication was not a great factor in those days maybe. They may not have known what was going on in other parts of England. But it must have been small or almost negligable for William to send his vast army home to Europe so soon. During the next five years Englands riches and estates and castles and farms and Duchies, and Earldoms, were parceled out to his men. That’s what most people think. Not so.

A detailed study of the entries in the Doomsday Book shows that wherever there was a survivor of the ‘war’(plague?), they were allowed to retain their holdings after swearing fealty to William. And that brings me to the reason for the Domesday book itself. It was reading that book on the plague of 1362? that made me realize what had happened in 1066AD. It was so bad in 1362 that only 1 out of every 12 people survived. Whole villages were gone, with no one to bury the dead. Estates left with no survivors. The book spoke of how hard it was after it to find true heirs or any survivors of Great Estates. That in many cases it was found that total strangers were claiming what didn’t belong to them. Or officials were refusing to believe real survivors in order to gain property.

The same thing may have happened in Williams time if there had been a plague. Claims for property after the armies had left and the sons and heirs had come to manhood and wanted to claim their estates from William.

You must understand Williams position. He saw himself as the true inheritor after Edmund. He WAS Englands true king in his own eyes. Therefore these were his subjects. He wanted continueity for his realm. He must also have been very upset and embarrased and ashamed of his easy victory. At claiming a conquest of a beaten land and people. And it wouldn’t have helped him at all if the Church and the pope were allowed to look like ghouls robbing the dead if the world new the true state of affairs. Therefore both William and the Pope needed to keep a lid on the true state of England.

That would not have been hard. What was left of the people only wanted to survive. They would obey orders. The Church would certainly have given strict orders to its men and women to keep a lid on things. And as for the recruits who were sent home? How would it look if, instead of hero’s and brave men who conquered the British, you were ghouls who picked the bones of the dead? You kept quiet. Or if you did talk the church shut you up or you were called a liar. No one would believe you. And I don't think that fighting men are too prone to sit down and write history books just to make themselves look bad.

So you see, it really was a Doomsday Book after all, because it recorded the loss of life, home and country. William tried to make a record of who was left, and what was left of England and his new people. Only when and where there were no survivers did his men get land and estates. But there were plenty of those to be had. More than there were men who died at Hastings. Where they had sons at home, they kept their inheritance. Or wives left with small sons. That’s what surprises me.

Another surprise I had was that the only other fighting that took place in the next 5-10 years after Hastings, was in isolated area’s of England where it would be hard to say if the people were rising up against the Earls or the Earls used this as an excuse to reduce an estate to take it over. Especially if William’s rule was to let the English keep their lands.

Unlike other countries that had been invaded, there was no uprising after 1086 that are recorded. The British were surprisingly content to live (or survive!) under Norman rule.

CONCLUSION

It is as easy to see my interpretation of events as it is to see all the other interpretations. They had no more to go on than I had and yet they followed the accepted path that they were led to by Bishop Odo. There are many mysteries about those days that are not going to be answered. Among them are the lack of writings that would have told the tale of the british side. They were intelligent people. There is no doubt that they had the ability to tell their side of those events, yet they do not speak to us. In fact even William has only one person on his side who tells us what happened. This from a nation that gave us the Saxon Chronicles. Where were all the religious writers of the time? Had the mother church muzzled them as I suggested? Whatever the mystery was, I hope I have given you another point of view of the history of the Conquest. I have seen William as a saviour for the British, or should I say English people. For if the original people of the land were celts then the Normans are not different- only latecomers to those shores.

the end.