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Professor John Robertson OBA
Watching the above new BBC series on the Norman invasion of England in 1066 and seeing how close a thing it was, I wonder if, had it failed, might we all be better off, English, Welsh, Scots, Irish and every part of what was to become the British Empire with its regular massacres, genocides and famines?
Reading again a blog post by Professor David Churchill, University of Leeds, my thoughts were reinforced.
Churchill writes, in 1066: What If…?
Let’s say the English withstood all-comers. Imagine they entered the Middle Ages as an even-happier breed of men and women living on their sceptred isle. What then?
Without the Normans, and the ties of blood and land to continental Europe that they brought with them, the English would have remained more insular. They might have expanded into the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. But they would not have been embroiled in a Hundred Years War, for their kings would have had no claims to France to advance or defend.
The Anglo-Saxons showed little desire to colonise. The Vikings were impelled to roam the world, the British Isles included by the poverty of their own soil. But the English inhabited one of the least challenging, most agreeable environments on earth. The Normans, however, were originally Vikings: the clue is in the name ‘Norse-men’. That Scandinavian aggression and longing to roam lived on in William’s veins. It informed his style of leadership, his ravenous hunger for territory and power and the ruthless governing culture he created around him.
https://hforhistory.co.uk/h-for-history-posts/2018/02/19/1066-david-churchill/
In this alternative history, Scotland remains free and does not suffer the depredations of the Union and Empire. It’s hard to see how this could have been worse.
We see ‘his ravenous hunger for territory and power and the ruthless governing culture‘ in all those kings who, after him, sought to conquer and to dominate Scotland as part of a strategy to dominate Europe. Without the Normans, it might never have been so.
What was special about the Normans?
The Normans retained many of the traits of their piratical Viking ancestors. They displayed an extreme restlessness and recklessness, a love of fighting accompanied by almost foolhardy courage, and a craftiness and cunning that went hand in hand with outrageous treachery. In their expansion into other parts of Europe, the Normans compiled a record of astonishingly daring exploits in which often a mere handful of men would vanquish an enemy many times as numerous. An unequalled capacity for rapid movement across land and sea, the use of brutal violence, a precocious sense of the use and value of money
https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/normans.html
Just some undeveloped thoughts. What do you think?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
It’s an often mistaken slice of history translated into modern times to think of the English people as “Anglo-Saxon” In fact the vast majority of peasants were also of Scandinavian descent. It amuses me that friends who do an Ancestry check find to their surprise Scandinavian descent in their DNA.
It happened that the Anglo-Saxons (just one tribe) became the ruling class started by Alfred the Great who fought back against the Viking warlords from Wessex (Winchester) to control Mercia (central England) and the job eventually finished by King Athelstan who united the various Kingdoms Northumbria being the last. Thus England created as one Kingdom. In fact, King Knut (Canute) who followed him was Danish by descent.
The invasion by the Normans in 1066 certainly changed the course of “English” history.
A little aside that I used in schools was “there are no such things as swear words” to diffuse bad language used in class rooms.
Right up to Richard II Norman French was spoken in the Royal Court and Anglo-Saxon English was considered uncouth
Hence, modern swear words were common Anglo-Saxon words that were frowned upon.
A bit of an over-simplification but an interesting period of history.
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In many ways, the Normans were the successors to the Romans, extending their influence as far as Jerusalem. Except they employed a kinship framework which embedded them in local cultures so successfully that people eventually forgot they had ever been conquered.
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Brilliant! I’ve said it many times “I blame the Normans”. English people seem to be barely aware that their Norman overlords stole their land and turned them into serfs. After the brutal invasion, immortalised in the Bayeux Tapestry, William the Conqueror surveyed the land in the Domesday Book so that he could reward his military with vast estates.
Toffs spoke French and all the military ranks are French – colonel, lieutenant, general etc. “Dieu et mon droit”. The court spoke French for generations until eventually the Germans took over the crown and the court spoke German until Queen Victoria. Being a woman, she could not inherit the Saxe Coburg estate so had to make do with England (though she did like Albert’s little German-style castle at Balmoral).
Stupidly, King David I invited them into Scotland. He had been a prisoner in England and saw the advantage of the feudal system for himself. So Scotland became Normanised by stealth.
I believe that Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” was written to flatter King James VI and reinforce the idea that his Norman ancestors were the rightful heirs to the Scottish throne instead of the real king Macbeth who could sue Shakespeare for defamation. Spin doctoring is an ancient art.
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” Spin doctoring is an ancient art ” – You misspelled curse again…
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Thanks
Interesting addition
John
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I think often forgot Capella that Shakespeare wrote topical plays of his time. Richard III was demonised by Shakespeare to please Elizabeth I …an astute bit of fawning to an absolute Monarch
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What the Normans did was bring with them to force on the existing population in England the brutal and oppressive system that turned most of the population into virtual slaves.
Although Scotland became somewhat Normanised after the rein of King David I, the extent of that is often exaggerated. Feudalism was never fully adopted and much land remained in the hands of freeholders, unlike in England. That is why one of the groups most targetted by the English during the Wars of Independence were freeholders, a point generally ignored.
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I have said this for years… half joking… whole serious. The whole world changed when those feckers finally got the power they sought. A thousand years of misery inflicted on the world by a relatively small group of greedy and brutal people.
All the other viking peoples seem to have outgrown their warlike past, but not the Normans.
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There’s an excellent book by David J Bernstein called “The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry” where he examines the motifs and embroidery styles in which the ghastly invasion is recorded. He concludes it was made by a group of subversive monks and nuns determined to smuggle out the horrors of the Normans. They probably were based in Canterbury which was ruled over by William’s gross, greedy and ruthless half-brother, Bishop Odo. Odo became obscenely wealthy having the whole of Kent to ransack.
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My first thought after reading Professor Churchill’s blog post was that it was written from a perspective of English exceptionalism, with its quotes from Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt speech, which has become a paradigm myth of ‘this England’.
It could have been written for the Brexit campaign.
Having claimed that the Anglo-Saxons were not warlike as the Normans allegedly were, he has Wessex starting the process of an Anschluss of Mercia and other kingdoms as well as the Danish controlled parts, to create what we now know as ‘England’. I suspect that there would have been some war-making in this process. He then goes on to suggest that through time the English would control the whole island of Britain. Again, he makes no reference to conquest, but clearly the Celts are absorbed (subjugated). Professor Churchill is assuming the England/Britain identity.
Remember, too, that the Angles and the Saxons came from North Germany adjacent to Denmark. Why did they move over several centuries to England? What happened to the peoples who were at that time living in a post-Roman England? Were these things achieved without force of arms? ‘
’What if …?’ history is fictional history; it is not true. Real history might be substantially true and based on fairly reliable data, but it depends on who is telling the history. For many of us in Scotland the history we got in school was partial history. It was intended to make us British. But, it was not ‘What if…?’ history.
King Harold got gubbed and William the Bastard took over. That is a fact and we cannot change it much as some like Professor Churchill wish it could be.
Alasdair Macdonald
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‘Having claimed that the Anglo-Saxons were not warlike as the Normans allegedly were’
He said, rather:
The Anglo-Saxons showed little desire to colonise. The Vikings were impelled to roam the world, the British Isles included by the poverty of their own soil. But the English inhabited one of the least challenging, most agreeable environments on earth.
John
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I reckon my dad’s side of the family were part Scottish, part German or ‘Scandinavian.
I know there’s some French in there too, a real mix as we all are.
Apparently the DNA tests aren’t that accurate?
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My reaction when I read Professor Churchill’s blog post was: ‘English exceptionalism’. Shakespeare’s ‘This England’ speech by John of Gaunt which pervades the post has assumed the status of a ‘foundation myth’ of England.
The characterisation of the hyphenated Anglo-Saxons as non warlike because of the bounty of England, compared to the belligerent Normans, descendants of the rapacious and murderous Vikings is presented without evidence.
The Angles and Saxons originated in Schleswig Holstein and Saxony in North Germany adjacent to the land of the Jutes in Denmark. They migrated to a post-Roman England and set up Saxon kingdoms like Kent and Angle ones such as Mercia. What happened to the peoples who were living in these areas? Did they just accept the rule by Saxons and Angles or did they fight back and lose?
There was conflict between the various kingdoms, with Mercia becoming the most powerful for a while, but, later, Wessex under Alfred were superior. Did this not involve conflict. In addition to struggles for power there was intermingling and Anglo-Saxon became the joint group. Eventually, Athelstan united England in what is largely its current shape. This included the Northumbrian Angles as well as the Danes in the area centred on York.
Professor Churchill would have us believe this took place without battles.
He then speculates that the English/British would over time have ruled the entire islands of Britain and Ireland and the Celts would just be absorbed. He clearly sees England and Britain as interchangeable names for each other. This is the Rule Britannia mentality.
’What if …?’ history is fiction. ‘Real’ history has a substantial quota of imaginative reconstruction, but based on a growing base of reasonably objective verifiable facts. It permits revision in the light of new information. However, the imaginative reconstruction aspect depends to a fair degree on the perspective of the person imagining – ‘history is written by the victors’. For example, the history of Scotland I was presented with at school was the history written by the Hanoverian victors over the Jacobites.
it is possible to write a ‘What if…’ history of Scotland had the Jacobites stopped at the border, not gone on to take Carlisle and push on to Derby. In effect, they had liberated Scotland from the United Kingdom. But, that did not happen.
Similarly, The Normans defeated Harold and William the Bastard became king. Professor Churchill might wish it otherwise, but, it did not happen.
Alasdair Macdonald
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