The broken sunlight shines on the land after the war. Countless corpses are spread on the battlefield. Broken cloth strips and armor are everywhere. It is difficult to imagine their former glory. The brave warriors are now reduced to corpses, and the thick
The smell of rust filled the air.
The dragon flag of Wessex whistled in the autumn wind, but the flag was broken, and the warriors who fought under its flag were all dead. It was now the home ground of the Normans.
The best of England is buried in this land. King Harold's three thousand guards have been completely destroyed. Even if the king is killed in battle, the guards still fight for their master until the last moment, preserving their glory and the glory of their master.
The victorious Normans scattered in twos and threes among the corpses to collect weapons and trophies, while crows jumped boldly among the corpses.
According to the long-standing practice, after the war, humans collect steel and crows eat flesh and blood.
"Quack, quack, quack."
A group of crows gathered on the mountain of corpses were frightened away by the waving arms, as if they were complaining that humans did not follow the rules, why didn't they just let them eat them?
But the person they wanted to peck out his eyeballs was still alive, so it was natural to resist.
Edward Wessex crawled out of the pile of corpses with difficulty. He was knocked unconscious when King Harold was hit by a stray arrow in the eye. The former king watched the king die.
He was covered in blood and had many wounds on his body, but fortunately the strong chain armor blocked these attacks and allowed its owner to survive.
As for why it was once, it was because Edward voluntarily resigned from the position of King of England through the Council of Wise Men and gave up the throne to Harold Godwin.
Why Edward chose to resign is a long story.
After returning to England, Edward was not so moved. Instead, he felt strange, strange in every sense of the word.
And because of his experience in Hungary and Rus, Edward was surrounded by a large group of Hungarian and Rus' retinues. It was precisely because of the existence of these foreigners that Edward failed to establish a circle of Anglo-Saxon dignitaries of his own.
This situation was caused, on the one hand, by the dominance of the Godwin family, and on the other hand, by the awkward attitude of the other penitents.
Although Edward returned, the Confessor did not want him to be king.
In private family conversations, Edward understood why. In the original words of the confessor, even if you become the king, you are still Godwin's puppet.
This has nothing to do with Godwin being good or bad, it is a matter of location.
The king let this passage leak out to disgust Harold, and then succeeded in making many of the royalists not move closer to Edward because they were afraid of the king's attitude. After all, who knew what the king's attitude was towards this.
Edward had been very frustrated in the past few years. He felt like he was standing between Harold and the Confessor like a sandwich biscuit, becoming a tool in their struggle.
Therefore, although Edward was in England, he was still concerned about matters in Eastern Europe. For example, in mid-1063, Bella of Hungary suddenly died due to "throne collapse", and Andrew's son returned to the throne, which made him happy.
For a while.
And he was even more satisfied with Rostislav's war in Bulgar. He was happy to see this junior becoming stronger and stronger.
After the death of the Confessor, Edward ascended the throne as usual, but faced with the fact that most of the kingdom belonged to the Godwin family, and there was almost no support from the Anglo-Saxon dignitaries around him, he felt extremely helpless.
Therefore, even after becoming king, his first thought was to give up the throne. On the one hand, he was not confident in his rule, and on the other hand, he was threatened by Normandy.
Unlike these Anglo-Saxon dignitaries who had lived in the islands for a long time and were not interested in European forms, Edward was very concerned about this aspect and many events in Europe.
And when he saw the various efforts of William, who was promised the throne by the penitent, and the support of the Pope, he found this matter difficult to deal with.
The illegitimate son William was a feared figure in the West, and Edward did not think he could fight against such an enemy.
Under the combined influence of internal and external factors, Edward decided to abdicate. Harold is still moderately loyal to the Wessex family, but his sons are not like this. Rather than being subjected to unspeakable things, it is better to take the initiative on his own.
Give way.
Edward's character does not like fighting for power. In contrast, his character is more easy-going. It would be nice if he and his family could live comfortably. If Harold hadn't actively invited him and he had left before
In vain, Edward could not follow him back to England out of guilt and awakened desire to succeed.
In order to make the abdication successful, Edward also contacted Harold's sons in advance to build momentum. These guys were very enthusiastic about making their father the king, and they immediately agreed to Edward's request.
So at the meeting of wise men, Harold's son began to agitate as soon as Edward proposed to abdicate, and then after asking for abdication, Harold became the king of England.
As for Edward, he planned to return to Rus, where being a local lord would at least be more comfortable than being the so-called king.
Moreover, it would be safe to leave early. He knew that Harold was a good person, but he didn't know anything else. God knows whether Harold's son or someone else would come to "cut off future troubles."
But Harold forced him to stay, and he did this for his reputation. After all, the previous king had just abdicated and ran abroad. Wasn't this pointing at Harold's nose and suggesting that he usurped the throne?
So Edward became the Earl of Oxford, but Harold promised that Edward could leave after one year, which reassured Edward.
As a result, in the year he abdicated, things happened one after another. First, there was turmoil in Northumbria, and the new King of England sent troops to conquer it. Then, there was an invasion by the King of Norway, and then William's army crossed the sea.
As the lord of England, Edward naturally had to fulfill his military obligations, so he led the Thanes (who could be understood as good men) and retinues in the territory to follow Harold in the battle.
In the battle with the King of Norway, he almost killed Harald, but thinking of his kinship with the king, he finally let the King of Norway go and only wounded him.
Then the defeated Norwegian army escorted their injured king to retreat, and while the Anglo-Saxons were celebrating their victory, news of William's landing came.
Then Harold forced a march to Hastings to set up a formation and fight the Norman army crossing the sea.
On the battlefield of Hastings, European knights and English guards fought bloody battles on this ancient land. The two sides fought inextricably, with no distinction between superior and inferior, until that fateful arrow.
Harold died, and his three thousand guards guarded the king's body until the last man was alive, and Edward was shot in the head and buried among the corpse.
Now awake, Edward looked at the broken battlefield around him and immediately understood the situation. In fact, the moment Harold was shot in the eye, Edward knew the ending.
Next, a force suddenly burst out from Edward's body, causing him to crawl out of the pile of corpses, and then began to escape, heading towards the forest where there were no Normans.
As the last descendant of Wessex, he had to take his family away from this land before those people crowned his son. He managed to escape that fate and could not let his son suffer the same fate.
As for counterattack, it seemed impossible for Edward. Without Harold, the whole of southern England was leaderless and no one could mobilize.
As for Northern England, the two guys who defeated Harald and secured the territory with Harold's help, but were still unwilling to send troops south? They were just two useless people with high ambitions and low hands.
So Edward now made up his mind to run away. He could not let his descendants get involved in such bad things. He would not let his son be killed and his daughter give birth to a child early and then be drunk with a glass of poisonous wine.
And it was Edward who was walking on the battlefield strewn with corpses, avoiding the sight of each Norman, and when he was about to enter the forest, a voice of "What are you doing?" came from behind.
Then Edward ran into the forest without hesitation, and the Normans quickly chased after him, but Edward soon disappeared in the forest.