An article on the harrying of the north - post 1066 and all that......

[aligern]

Av possible reason for the continuance of Norman expansion is  the rather different spirit at the core of both societies. Both provide military forces based upon land holding. The agricultural productivity of the land is assessed and a number of warriors agreed upon. The superior lord is responsible for these warriors turning up for military service.  The contrast is that the Anglo Saxons are  organised by shires and summoned by the earldorman. With the Normans a lord might have holdings in several areas and would expect the men owed to report to him when he mustered for service with the king. I am , of course aware that at the top end of Late A/S Society the contingents from an earl's personal following will have looked quite like the immediate circle of a Norman baron.
What the Saxons do not have is the equivalent of a Norman younger son f a lord contracting with a baron to seize land from say the Welsh on the basis that the superior lord will provide support whilst the new lord will  perform service with a number of men on an agreed basis. The Saxons have a state sponsored and organised  system , the Norman system is more private enterprise.
The Normans were obsessed with landowning as bringing status and the frontier nature of Wales , Southern Italy and Ireland absolutely suited small or nedium scale aggression with a lack of overall control by the 'monarchy'

[Imperial Dave]

in other words......freebooting

[Patrick Waterson]

Whereas, at least under the likes of Aethelstan, the resources of the whole country were united behind subdual of the Welsh or Scots. As Roy notes, public service as against private enterprise - and the Anglo-Saxons (and Anglo-Danish, taking Paul's point about Edmund Ironside being the last truly Anglo-Saxon king) seem to have had a better subdual track record.  They had Wales and Scotland under their thumb during Aethelstan's reign and, while the Welsh were about as much trouble under Edward the Confessor as they were under Henry III, Harold Godwinson gave them just as thorough a smacking in AD 1062-3 as Edward I did in AD 1277, and without breaking the bank.  Funnily enough, this was an almost Norman case of a noble being 'subcontracted' to do the king's work - and Harold did add a bit of 'private enterprise' by marrying Gruffydd's widow.

Although Wales and, ultimately, Ireland were subdued - one may use the term 'conquered' - by the Normans, the attempt to incorporate Scotland being overall a complete failure, it was a slow, painful, frog-in-a-well sort of progress.  Curiously, the Anglo-Saxon system seemed to give more rapid and effective results.

[Mark G]

As noted elsewhere, the normans did pretty much claim all the bits worth having in Scotland.
And Scots noble culture looks pretty similar fairly soon after they arrived.

So you can view it as fairly successful.

Depending on your criteria, of course.

[aligern]

Of course it may be that the Normans viwed the borders differently because they were not rooted in any one part of the island.  To a Norman lord the English were as foreign as the Welsh or Irish. They were definitely more chotic and rebellious than the English, even when there were external threats the Normans would rebel and have at each other.
I am not at all sure its a matter of freebooting. Surely a freebooter is in it for loot and characteristically leaves after raiding, unkess he is establishing a nest of robbers to orey on an area. The Normans were focussed on holding land because that gave status. Raiding was a tool of oppression, used to destabilise an enemy, perhaps to force him to fight rather than for the loot that might be gathered.
I suppose the big difference between Scotland and the other areas of extemded conquest is that the Scots had a unified state behind the army that responded to invasion, the Irish, Welsh, Southern Italians and Sicilian Moslems were disunited. Also, between Scotland and England is a fairly poor area in terms of resources, whereas in most of the other examples the best land was immediately adjacent to  the Norman jumping off point. Even in Ireland the best land, the few towns and the rivers are in the East and give easy access to a force coming fromSouth West  Wales or Chester.

[Patrick Waterson]

Aethelstan managed to subdue Scotland quite convincingly in AD 934, although the Scots as usual did not take the result as binding, and were back with allies shortly afterwards to try and reverse the result.  They tried conclusions with Aethelstan at Brunanburgh and were obliged to settle for the result he wanted.  Thereafter, English kings tended to make sure a friendly Scot was on the throne, the last such intervention toppling an existing king to place Malcolm III Canmore on the throne (this is remembered by McBeaths to this day ).

Under the Normans, matters went less smoothly.  Edward I almost achieved conquest, but died too early (the less said about Edward II the better).  Edward III might have completed the job had he not had bigger fish to fry on the continent.  Of course, holding down the Scots may have been another matter, as one would expect rebellions that would have made Owen Tudor look tame. In terms of general international relations the traditional Norman approach of uninhibited devastation tended to increase dislike and to be repaid in kind when opportunity offered (although Scots efforts were by no means confined to reprisal - they were out and about whenever 'spulzie' was to be had).  While the Plantagenets came close to incorporating Scotland, the fact is they did not manage to do so, and the net result was the persistence of the 'auld alliance' into the Renaissance, giving England a difficult frontier for most of the period.  The Anglo-Saxon method of keeping the king friendly and reminding him on which side his bread was buttered seems more painless.

I am not sure the area between Scotland and England, or at least bordering both, was particularly 'resource poor': it was a frequent target for raiders, who seemed happy enough with what they could extract.  With regard to supporting an army and its efforts at conquest, traditionally the most effective means of supplying an English army, Anglo-Saxon or Norman, was by sea.  Aethelstan seems to have made particularly good use of his fleet in AD 934, allowing him a clean sweep of Scotland.

[aligern]

Beating the Scits is relatively easy...do not compare t with conquering them. England has something like ten times the population of Scotland . It is not too difficult to kunt a campaign and outnumber/ outresource tgem, it is hard to hold down what is mostly an agriculturally poor land. Jim will now tell us the rich bits, like Fyfe and he'll be right, but overall it is not a rich country. The strategic geography is constant. The Zromans pull back frombactive defence of the Antonine wall and holding the whole country is not cost effective. Why? well its lijely because there are too few areas attractive to settlers and there were no arptteactive mineral deposits to make a milutary occupation pay. The Romans effectively set Hadrian's wall as the boundary because the next leap costs too much to run.
Similarly with the Anglo Sacons.bThe Northumbrians colonise the area around Edinburgh, but they cannot hold it Why? because the power of a king in Bamburgh is not enough against a king based in or around Perth. The Nirthumbrians can win victories, but they cannot hold the centre of gravity of Scotland and that is the East of the country across the Forth.
So the Later English can go North and win a victory, but they do not attempt to hold the country. maybe that's just sensible. The Edwards have a go, but they fail because the effort of colonisation is too much compared to the returns. Edward II is maybe not the greates general, but he is battling against the geography. Only a very determined effort would conquer and absorb Scotland and,bas you say owning the terroir of Bordeaux was more attractive.

[Duncan Head]

Beating the Scits is relatively easy...do not compare t with conquering them. England has something like ten times the population of Scotland .

More like four to six times: still a big disparity, but much less so than in modern periods (it's about 10:1 now). See for instance http://www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Campbell122.pdf section VI. 

The size of Scotland's population at this date is shrouded in far greater mystery. Recently, historians of medieval Scotland have come to favour a figure of around 1.0 million, on the reasoning that in 1290 the country's population is unlikely to have been much smaller than the 1.1 million it is estimated to have been in 1707. As a rule of thumb, they also reckon Scotland to have possessed about a sixth the agrarian resources and therefore to have been capable of supporting about a sixth the population of England  ....   if the mean populations of Scottish parishes corresponded with those estimated for the province of York, a national population of 0.64 million would appear most credible ... Alternatively, if the estimated mean population densities characteristic of the six northern English counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, and Lancashire   ...  were repeated throughout Scotland, after allowance for the country's far greater share of inhospitable upland, a higher total population of 0.94 million would result .... If this were, indeed, the case, on the eve of the outbreak of the War of Independence Scotland would have supported the equivalent of between a fifth and a quarter of the population of England.

[Jim Webster]

As the Romans found out, Scotland isn't worth the effort. Agriculturally there's some decent land along the borders that is probably worth having, but it's a long way from London and from there France always looked more profitable.

[Erpingham]

IIRC, the English land-grab in the 1330s tried to annex these good bits.  If the English hadn't become distracted by continental affairs, they could possibly have held this.  Much depended on the allegiances of local landowners and whether you disinherited the natives or brought them onside.  Nationalist loyalties were weaker and local loyalties around established relationships were more important to many.  So an Anglo-Scottish regime in which local landowners were confirmed in place on giving allegiance to the King of England may have worked with a king militarily muscular enough to back them up.

[Jim Webster]

Indeed at the time there might have been more commonality of interest between those on the borders and the English than there was between them and the Scots to the north of them.

[Imperial Dave]

dont forget the 'Men of the North' or rather the Strathclyde Welsh, its not just 'Scots' and 'Angles'

[Patrick Waterson]

Quite.  Playing on the divisions in Scotland could have avoided having to take it on as a united whole.  Unfortunately (for those south of the border) the Normans were not up to it.

As to why the Romans never fully subdued Scotland, in fact they did - temporarily.  Septimius Severus really meant to take the place, and vanquished all resistance during his AD 208-210 campaigns, but the conditions he imposed were too harsh and the desperate and hungry tribes revolted in AD 211.  He prepared to crush them utterly, but died the same year, leaving the Empire (and the campaign) to Caracalla.  In a 'preprise' of the Edward I/Edward II situation, the Romans were soon back behind Hadrian's Wall.

[Imperial Dave]

here's another twist....

what if Harold had tarried on the South Coast even when Harald had invaded the North and assuming he won at Fulford......what would have happened next? Would Harald consolidate the North and just await events in the South before deciding what to do next.

Could we envisage therefore an eventual face off between Harald and Harold assuming William was repulsed from a ready and waiting reception committee. And more importantly, where and with what forces?

[Patrick Waterson]

Could we envisage therefore an eventual face off between Harald and Harold assuming William was repulsed from a ready and waiting reception committee. And more importantly, where and with what forces?

We would be getting close to December by this time, so unless both were keen on a winter campaign, Harald would probably consolidate around York while Harold wintered in London and sent out notices for everyone to be in the field as soon as the weather cleared (less those who would be doing the spring planting).  Hence we have the winter campaign option and the spring campaign option.

For a winter campaign, both sides would have pretty much what they had to hand, except that Harold would collect up any contingents which had been heading for Hastings and not reached there in time.  These would probably have replaced most if not all of his losses against the Normans.  Harald would have had everyone who survived Fulford.

Fort a spring campaign, Harold would collect the 'select fyrd' from everywhere he had not been able to muster prior to Hastings while Harald could expect reinforcements from Norway.  Say add 10-15% to both armies.  Harold my also have been able to call in a Welsh IOU and bring a few thousand Welsh allies/auxiliaries.

Harold would probably have favoured the winter campaign option, because he was not given to sitting on his hands when there was an enemy to fight. This would result in A Hastings Anglo-Saxon OB against a Stamford Bridge Norwegian OB, the big question being whether Harold could catch Harald with his army and fleet separated, even if only by a few hours' march.  If he could, the result would be a practically certain English victory.  If on the other hand Harald kept everything together and moved overland, forces would be much more even and the matter would be decided by positioning and generalship.

Assuming that Harald would move on London and Harold would march on York, the two armies would meet at some point between the two, depending on how soon Harald began moving.  Assuming he did not dawdle, we can posit the Battle of Peterborough, a river crossing action with shades of Maldon.  If he was slow off the mark, we can hypothesise the Battle of Retford, an English positional defence not unlike Hastings.