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I’m sure there is a law somewhere against it being cold in October!
And if there isn’t, then there should be. Nasty stuff like that isn’t supposed to happen until Halloween, or even later.
I actually lost count of the number of times last weekend I checked my thermostat, wondering when my heating was going to switch itself on automatically.
Yes, I realize it is going to get a lot colder yet. But I expect that in December, January and February. This is October!
There is no record of those brave Anglo-Saxon warriors who lined up on Senlac Hill on Oct. 14, 1066 to defend Mother England against Duke William and his Norman invaders (unsuccessfully as it turned out) bringing woollen mittens and thermal underwear with them!
Perhaps they should have — that may just have been the difference on the day!
Standing on top of the hill, they would have been fully exposed to the elements, even if they were squashed together like sardines. And on days like we’re having right now, that would put a chill up anyone’s hauberk!
The history books tell me that they huddled together because there were so many men trying to fit into a limited amount of available ground.
But my theory, now I know what October in the Northern Hemisphere is really like, is that they were just trying to keep warm!
The Normans meanwhile spent most of the day running up and down the hill, which must have helped them build up quite a sweat underneath their armor.
The Norman victory on that day saw William, Duke of Normandy, become King William I of England, and brought England under French and southern European influence, whereas previously the Saxons had been more closely aligned with the Scandinavians and northern Germans.
The English remember this as the last successful foreign invasion of their land, and one particular Englishman I worked with back in New Zealand still hasn’t forgiven the French for it to this day.
I’m not quite so willing to accept that argument though, as it overlooks the fact that William of Orange, who from 1672 governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic, had to bring an army with him when he deposed King James II in 1689 to become king of England, Scotland and Ireland.
I may be a little biased, as my Irish ancestors fought for King James. But that certainly seems like a foreign invasion to me, even if he was “invited in” by some of the English nobles.
Those dastardly traitors!
There were definitely battles fought, so it was far from a peaceful takeover.
Had the Normans not won at what became known as the Battle of Hastings, history could have been very different.
England certainly would have remained allied to Scandinavia, and one of King Harold Godwinson’s daughters, Gytha of Wessex married Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh of Kiev, at a time when Kiev was the leading city state in what we today know as Russia.
So there was quite an international power block building, even in those days, right across northern Europe. The early Rus were themselves of Scandinavian lineage, so there was a common heritage linking these nations at this time.
There would have been far less interaction between England and France in the following years, and possibly even centuries, so the English language that we speak today, would have been more influenced by Swedish, and Danish and Russian, than French and Latin.
So that would have been very different for a start.
England and France wouldn’t have had any reason to start their Hundred Years War, so Joan of Arc would probably never have been anything more than just another illiterate peasant.
Our view of the crusades would almost certainly be very different.
The British nations would probably not have got caught up in the action in the Holy Land, although the southern European nations still probably would have.
However, after being driven out of the Holy Land, the Teutonic Knights then embarked on a separate series of “crusades” against (ironically Christian, albeit Eastern Orthodox) Russia as part of their own little empire rebuilding exercise, so it is conceivable that these wars could have expanded into something far larger.
Would the “crusades” then have been regarded as more of a European Civil War, than a fight for Jerusalem?
Would so many of the early immigrants to America come in search of religious freedom?
Given that Columbus hadn’t yet “discovered” America, they would probably have had to look elsewhere for their freedom?
Ironically at this time, the most likely contender was the Ottoman Empire - the heart of the Islamic world!
Early attempts by Viking adventurers to settle further west than Iceland had proved unsuccessful. The only other real alternative was probably to push east across Russia, taking advantage of the decline in Mongol power?
Would the English have gone on to build their global empire? And if not, from whom would any settlers in North America declared independence?
It could indeed have been a very different world if only Queen Edith had insisted King Harold put on his winter woollies before he set out for his hard day on the hill, 933 years ago today!
by FRANK SHANLY
frank@news-banner.com
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