Bitesize Battles

Nearly a thousand years ago, a Game of Thrones was played for real across the old Kingdom of England. In the struggle between Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, and Viking Scandinavians, it’s the Battle of Hastings of 1066 that won fame and glory as the seismic moment that ended a dynasty and began another. But a conquest is rarely so simple, and battles both before and after Hastings played pivotal roles in the sculpting of English, British and European destiny.

Our debut series, the English Game of Thrones, begins with a battle exactly 50 years to the week before Hastings – a battle at which a single act of betrayal changed the course of English history – the Battle of Assandun in 1016.

 

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Our second episode in the English Game of Thrones looks at a battle which has often been overshadowed by events at Hastings just three weeks later. But this was a key moment at Stamford Bridge near York in England, a clash between Viking and Anglo-Saxon without which may have seen an entirely different outcome to the whole game. It’s place in this story is monumental.

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This was one of the most colossal moments in English history. On this, the 954th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, we look at the battle which ended a dynasty and began another.

This was no ordinary battle. It was a titanic struggle between elite units - Anglo-Saxon housecarls vs Norman cavalry. The Anglo-Saxons were exhausted after two forced marches and the battle at Stamford Bridge three weeks earlier. The Normans were in a foreign land with no safe place to retreat to.

Nearly a thousand years ago it would have been anyone's guess who would come out on top. Listen to our retelling of this famous story which changes the course of history. England and Europe would never be the same again.

 

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When Edgar Aetheling's northern army fled into Scotland in 1069, William the Conqueror took his frustration out on the civilian population of Northumbria, Yorkshire and the other northern shires of England.

In order to end the seemingly ceaseless rebellions emerging from the region, William ordered every foodstuff, animal and dwelling in northern England to be utterly destroyed, and every armed man killed.

By sword, fire, exposure and starvation, Orderic Vitalis tells us 100,000 died.

Hear about the Anglo-Saxon resistance which sparked this shocking event, and why it was so important in the Norman Conquest of England.

 

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The English Game of Thrones is nearly at an end.

William the Conqueror had spent the three years since Hastings crushing one rebellion after another, culminating in the terrible Harrying of the North in 1069/70. Through tactical brilliance and sheer brutality, he finally must have sensed that the Kingdom of England was truly his.

But, a last flame of resistance spat into life in the form of a dispossessed English thegn, named Hereward. This was the Anglo-Saxon last stand.

Find out how close William came to giving in to Hereward, how Vikings, again, nearly turned the tide, and how the victors and vanquished alike continued to play a game of thrones in other European states for centuries to come.

 

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On this dark Halloween night, meet the real life Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. If you don't like spooky and gruesome tales, turn off now. If you do, listen to be horrified.

Vlad the Impaler was born in Transylvania, and is the inspiration behind the most famous of all vampires - Dracula. With a legendary taste for blood, and for impaling his victims, it's easy to see why.

In this story, Vlad battles the invading Ottoman Empire and uses sheer gruesome horror to turn his enemies away at the gates.

Happy Halloween.

 

 

When the Goths turned up on the banks of the Roman frontier of the Danube river, they were desperate asylum seekers.

But through some utterly inept Roman policy-making, they were turned into enemies and the Gothic War of 376-382 erupted.

The Battle of Adrianople was the turning point in this war, allowing the Goths more or less free rein to rampage throughout Thrace, the Balkans and Greece - and it was the local Roman population which bore the brunt.

The battle, the war, and the subsequent peace that was made had huge consequences for the integrity of the Roman Empire.

There was a long way to go to the Fall of Rome, but it was a decisive moment with long-lasting repercussions. 

Welcome to the first episode in our series on the Fall of Rome.

 

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The moment some Romans started to think the end was nigh.

The Rhine invasion of Gaul in December, 406, was an unprecedented incursion by up to 200,000 men, women and children of the Vandal, Alan and Suevi nations.

As a direct result, Spain was lost, Gaul ransacked and Britain abandoned. Hear about it all here, only @bitesizebattles.

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The Sack of Rome by Alaric's Goths was a seismic moment which sent shockwaves throughout the Empire.

Find out why and how it happened right now, and what it meant for the Fall of the Roman Empire.

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Britain and Spain were lost, Gaul in the hands of a usurper, and Italy ravaged following the Sack of Rome. The Empire looked doomed.

By then rose Flavius Constantius, a brilliant and experienced Roman commander. Just seven years after Rome's sack, he had put much of the Empire back together and it seemed to be about to embark on a new golden age.

Find out how he did so, against overwhelming odds.

 

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