But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy of Harold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada of Norway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, King Harold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians had rebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice of Morkere for lord.

When we remember that he had himself just won the battle of Stamford Bridge over Harald Hardrada by the manoeuvre of a feigned flight, it is impossible to suppose that he could be deceived by the same stratagem on the part of the Normans at Hastings.

They prevented the Normans from crossing the Channel until the Saxon King and his army of defence had been called away from the Sussex coast to encounter Harald Hardrada in Yorkshire; and also until a formidable English fleet, which by King Harold's orders had been cruising in the Channel to intercept the Normans, had been obliged to disperse temporarily for the purpose of refitting and taking in fresh stores of provisions.

Neither Morkere nor his brother Edwin, with their local forces, was able to meet Hardrada with success.