Harold, Harald etc. first blog post...

...And I'm using it to talk about the exciting world of History. Specifically the year 1066AD. I would argue that the events of no other year in British history were as defining as that one year.
The invasions and battles, in particular the Battle of Fulford, that resulted from the power vacuum caused by Edward The Confessor's death shaped the way Britain is today.

Well, the English crown wasn't viewed so much as a power vacuum, more of a power Dyson; expensive and not as desirable to some people who already have perfectly good vacuums. The vacuums I speak of? The Dukedom of Normandy and the Kingship of Norway.
My God, what a roundabout analogy.

My extensive research (I read it in a book) shows that it was in fact King Harold's brother, Tostig, who was the architect of both Harald, King of Norway and William, Duke of Normandy's invasions in 1066.

Why, you may ask, would his brother be trying to bring down his kingdom? Well I'll tell you. Again, according to my research (it was in the chapter before the other bit) Tostig was exiled from England while Edward was on the throne. This was due to the fact that while he was hunting on Salisbury Plain with King Edward, Edwin, Earl of Mercia, orchestrated a coup on Tostig's Earldom of Northumberland, placing his younger brother Morcar into this position. This was helped by the fact that Tostig was an unpopular leader in Northumberland, bringing lots of Saxon ways from down south up to the Scandinavian modeled North when he was appointed.
Here comes the schism in the family. Edwin and Morcar marched south with their armies in case they had to fight for Morcar's position. Edward, Tostig, and Harold (himself Earl of Wessex, the second most powerful man in England after Edward) marched to meet them.

No battle ensued. After talks, it was agreed that Morcar would keep his position. Edwin insisted that Tostig must be exiled, and Edward agreed. Harold did nothing to stop this, wisely stopping a civil war between north and south. Tostig took it to heart, however, and fled to Flanders...

Early in 1066 Edward the Confessor died, and Harold was agreed to become king. Tostig may have seen this as the perfect time for his brother, now King of England, to welcome him back and reinstate his position. Harold did not. Instead, he married Morcar and Edwin's sister. This was a further slap in the face for Tostig, who was likely to have traveled from Flanders to Normandy, where he met with William. William himself had a claim to the throne, and may have even been planning his invasion before Tostig visited. Tostig would have known the exact size of forces that the English could raise, so using this information he may have formulated his plan for two simultaneous invasions.

After Normandy, Tostig moved north to Denmark. He met with the king, whom he attempted to persuade to invade England. The Danish king refused, so Tostig then went to see King Harald of Norway. Harald was persuaded. Here was a man who had spent a lifetime fighting, manly in the employ of the Byzantine Emperor fighting all around the Holy Land and Mediterranean, and then went back to Scandinavia and became King of Norway. So, at the age of 50, he left on possibly his last adventure, mustering a fleet of 200 ships and heading for England.

It was late Mid-September. William's own fleet was turned back in the Channel by bad weather. Harald landed at Scarborough (presumably because the hotel rooms would be cheaper in September), and guided his fleet up the River Ouse to Ricall, where he set up a base of operations. Much raiding and pillaging was done, and Morcar and Edwin summoned their forces. The two armies met south of York at Fulford. The battle was a defeat for the two brothers. In one day, half of England's army was scattered and annihilated.

Although Harold beat Harald at the Battle of Stamford Bridge (England beating Norway 2-1 on aggregate) a few days later after racing up from London, had the Battle of Fulford gone the other way and Harald been defeated, Harold would have had many more men two weeks later at Hastings, possibly giving him the edge over William of Normandy.

It just goes to show that the most crucial parts of history are those that are often the parts that people know the least about.