The Battle of Hastings

[gradus]

No, not the Bayeux Tapestry. I'm talking about the Stanley Holloway monologue, written by Marriott Edgar, with a piano accompaniment. I've been trying to track down the accompanying music for The Battle of Hastings for many years now.

Can anyone point to a source for this? I have a good number of these musical monologues now, but I've never been able to get hold of the piano part for this one.

Frau A and I perform these at parties. She can do any chosen accent. In fact she unconsciously speaks to anyone she meets in their native accent.



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS
by
Marriott Edgar


I'll tell of the Battle of Hastings,
As happened in days long gone by,
When Duke William became King of England,
And 'Arold got shot in the eye.

It were this way - one day in October
The Duke, who were always a toff
Having no battles on at the moment,
Had given his lads a day off.

They'd all taken boats to go fishing,
When some chap in t' Conqueror's ear
Said 'Let's go and put breeze up the Saxons;'
Said Bill - 'By gum, that's an idea.'

Then turning around to his soldiers,
He lifted his big Norman voice,
Shouting - 'Hands up who's coming to England.'
That was swank 'cos they hadn't no choice.

They started away about tea-time -
The sea was so calm and so still,
And at quarter to ten the next morning
They arrived at a place called Bexhill.

King 'Arold came up as they landed -
His face full of venom and 'ate -
He said 'lf you've come for Regatta
You've got here just six weeks too late.'

At this William rose, cool but 'aughty,
And said 'Give us none of your cheek;
You'd best have your throne re-upholstered,
I'll be wanting to use it next week.'

When 'Arold heard this 'ere defiance,
With rage he turned purple and blue,
And shouted some rude words in Saxon,
To which William answered - 'And you.'

'Twere a beautiful day for a battle;
The Normans set off with a will,
And when both sides was duly assembled,
They tossed for the top of the hill.

King 'Arold he won the advantage,
On the hill-top he took up his stand,
With his knaves and his cads all around him,
On his 'orse with his 'awk in his 'and.

The Normans had nowt in their favour,
Their chance of a victory seemed small,
For the slope of the field were against them,
And the wind in their faces an' all.

The kick-off were sharp at two-thirty,
And soon as the whistle had went
Both sides started banging each other
'Til the swineherds could hear them in Kent.

The Saxons had best line of forwards,
Well armed both with buckler and sword -
But the Normans had best combination,
And when half-time came neither had scored.

So the Duke called his cohorts together
And said - 'Let's pretend that we're beat,
Once we get Saxons down on the level
We'll cut off their means of retreat.'

So they ran - and the Saxons ran after,
Just exactly as William had planned,
Leaving 'Arold alone on the hill-top
On his 'orse with his 'awk in his 'and.

When the Conqueror saw what had happened,
A bow and an arrow he drew;
He went right up to 'Arold and shot him.
He were off-side, but what could they do?

The Normans turned round in a fury,
And gave back both parry and thrust,
Till the fight were all over bar shouting,
And you couldn't see Saxons for dust.

And after the battle were over
They found 'Arold so stately and grand,
Sitting there with an eye-full of arrow
On his 'orse with his 'awk in his 'and.

Alpie, you don't by any chance 'do' Sam Hall as well, not funny but can be great. The best performance I ever heard was by Martin Best and his early music group in a Monday lunchtime concert years years ago.

[french frank]

>>William’s personal role in the barbaric killing of an anointed king<<

There is another way of interpreting that;

There certainly is - that's a very anachronistic way of describing it.

There were two types of invasion: one where the aim was simply to extend territory by force, and another in pursuit of what was often a legitimate claim. An anointed king wasn't necessarily a legitimate king. And as M. Maréchal rightly points out, the Anglo-Saxons were invaders who fought the British and conquered them. That was simply to enrich themselves and expand their territory.

As for the Battle of Hastings (to get back to what Alpie wasn't talking about), there are so many uncertainties. We don't know for sure that Gui d'Amiens wrote the existing Latin poem. We know that he wrote a poem (lost) and that much later a Latin poem was found. So it must be his. But if it's not by him, then there's no reason to believe it was written very shortly after the battle.

In any case, the poem, replete with set speeches and dialogue, need have no closer resemblance to historical fact than the Iliad or Odyssey. But true, it does describe how four soldiers attacked and killed Harold, one of them cutting off his leg as in the tapestry (coxa here surely meaning thigh rather than hip). For the benefit of Latinists, here are the four attacks:

… Heraldus cogit pergere carnis iter.
Per clipeum primus dissolvens cuspide pectus
Effuso madidat sanguinis imbre solum.
Tegmine sub galeae caput amputat ense secundus,
Et telo ventris tercius exta rigat:
Abscidit coxam quartus, procul egit ademptam.
Taliter occisum terra cadaver habet.

But, there are also very early stories of Harold being shot in the eye. I don't think the angle of the arrow argument would hold water since Harold is described as standing atop a hill, so would have been looking down, not up in the sky.

The embroiderers of the tapestry might well have been following the narrative of 'Gui d'Amiens', so the figure on the ground would originally have been Harold. But the poem may not be accurate. The medieval versions of Harold being shot in the eye may be right. Therefore, even if the tapestry was altered very much later, it could still have been 'correcting' the story, not distorting it. The Gui d'Amiens poem is emphatic about the treachery of the English, so the violent attack on his body might have seemed much more like justice than one single lucky arrow.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains very little detail. Just 'there he fell'.

Case not proven.

[Sir Velo]

There is no reason to suppose the poem is any more accurate than any other testimony given without corroboration Would we accept as evidence in a trial by jury, a written statement without corroboration - not even an affidavit - by someone who may or may not have been there? Hang on a minute, doesn't that sound like the New Testament? Now, don't get me going!

[Historian]

Currently most first year (Year Seven in the present dispensation) English secondary school pupils spend some time looking at '1066 and all that'. Generally they are taught that there are (at least) two alternative interpretations of which knight (or housecarl) being killed is Harold. However, in his History of Britain series Simon Schama seems to prefer the older version (arrow in the eye).

With reference to the legitimacy of William's invasion, Alain M.'s version is fine if you go along with the 'Norman' interpretation that Harold knew he was swearing an oath on holy relics. His subsequent taking of the throne therefore makes him an oath-breaker, justifying his deposition by force. However, there is (so I believe) an Anglo-Saxon version that has Harold's promise being extracted by force and maybe also under false pretences (the relics being covered up until after Harold had (unknowingly) sworn his promise. Harold had probably forfeited any chance of papal support by his support of the excommunicate Archbishop of Canterbury Stigand (excommunicated by no less than five Popes for pluralism - holding the See of Winchester at the same time as Canterbury). So, Pope Alexander II welcomed the chance to support William of Normandy, well-known as a benefactor to the Church, who would allow the 'backward' English Church to be reformed after his (divinely-ordained) victory.

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

[french frank]

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

The government [over]view is quite interesting, especially the statement: '... there were no simple constitutional principles that defined who must be the next king'. Exactly. Fight it out among yourselves. And in the end, might is right.