Today one world that endured for centuries died and a new possibility for England came into being. Harold, last King of Saxon England, died in battle and William, Duke of Normandy, became King of England.
The good king Edward the Confessor died with no heir. His tomb at Westminster remains worth a pilgrimage for prayer and reflection. Edward left England an immortal gift of sanctity, but sinful men destroyed her stability. The invaders who had ended Roman and Celtic Britain now faced an end to centuries of cultural dominance in England.
Edward left a powerful noble, Harold, in charge of England and this was a wise choice. Two foreign powers, one Scandinavian and the other Norman, came to challenge his power. Harold defeated the Norwegian king, but lost to William. The future culture of England would shift from a Germanic and Scandinavian center to a Norman and French influence.
The old order was swept away and gave way to the new. 1066 put a tiny island into the heart of European history from the fringe and set her on the path to super power status. The change from the Saxon culture to the Norman one was a shock and it took centuries for the two nations to find harmony and become one.
I was struck by our arrogance in thinking our own world is immune to such rapid change when one great man, one William become Conqueror can rewrite history. Hastings was a tiny battle by modern standards, but it shifted the language we speak in the US, our heritage, and the fate of nations all over the earth.
The world can change so quickly and assumptions that we have made for centuries can become historical curiosities. All Americans have grown up in the world created by the World War II generation and sustained since then by their efforts and those of their children. Now my generation, their grandchildren, are the rulers and we take for granted the peace and security they won.
It all could have been different then and as the Conquest reminds us, the world could change quickly tomorrow. A saintly king left Harold the King of Anglo-Saxon England, but a stronger Duke decided differently. Who knows the justice of his cause today? I am sure of this: if William had not been the Duke of Normandy, then England would not have been Norman. The French language would not have influenced Britain so deeply. The long wars between England and France might not have been fought. Even so small a thing as the Reynolds family learning English and eventually coming to the New World as British began with the Conquest.
We should take nothing for granted.
Charles Dickens describes the end:
O what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights were shining in the tent of the victorious Duke William, which was pitched near the spot where Harold fell—and he and his knights were carousing, within—and soldiers with torches, going slowly to and fro, without, sought for the corpse of Harold among piles of dead—and the Warrior, worked in golden thread and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled with blood—and the three Norman Lions kept watch over the field!
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