The TARDIS occasionally found its way to early medieval England and these visits of the nation’s most beloved ‘Time Lord’ can also teach us something about Anglo-Saxon history. This post focuses on the Norman Conquest and is the last of a series of three blogs that deal with the visits of BBC’s Doctor Who to Anglo-Saxon England.
The Time Meddler (1965): A space helmet for a cow and a meddling monk with a cannon
The Time Meddler, a Doctor Who classic of the second series, features the first Doctor (William Hartnell) and his companions Vicki and Steven Taylor. The four episodes are set in pre-Conquest England and provide an interesting introduction to some of the events that took place in the year 1066; the episode also reveals that the Doctor could have prevented the Anglo-Saxon loss at the Battle of Hastings!
The story starts with the TARDIS, stranded on a beach. Vicki chances upon a horned helmet, which the Doctor establishes as having belongedd to a Viking, rather than a bovine from outer space:
Soon after, the Doctor enters a Saxon village and, disguised as an old, forgetful pilgrim, he finds out that they have landed in the year 1066. A little later, the Doctor makes his way to a monastery, where monkish singing can be heard. To his surprise, the place is empty, except for a gramophone playing Gregorian chant. Suddenly, bars come down and the Doctor is trapped – a monk laughs hysterically.
That monk turns out to be ‘the Monk’: another Time Lord, who is up to no good. Eventually, the Doctor escapes the monastery and, reunited with his companions, he finds out what the Monk is doing in 1066. Helpfully, the latter had written down an 8-step plan:
- Arrival in Northumbria
- Position atomic cannon
- Sight Vikings
- Light beacon fires
- Destroy Viking fleet
- Norman landing
- Battle of Hastings
- Meet King Harold.
The Monk, as it turns out, wants to alter history by stopping the Vikings from invading. Should he succeed, the Battle of Stamford Bridge (25 September, 1066) would never take place; Harold Godwinson and the English troops would not have to march all the way to Northumbria; they would not have to suffer any losses; and they would not have to rush all the way south again to fight of the Normans (who would land at Pevensey only three days after the battle against the Vikings). In other words, the Monk wants to make sure the Anglo-Saxons would win the Battle of Hastings!
As an Anglo-Saxonist, I rather fancy the Monk’s idea, but, alas, the Doctor will not stand for any time meddling: history must “be allowed to take its natural course!”. Regrettably, then, the Doctor thwarts the plans of his fellow Time Lord and disables the Monk’s TARDIS, effectively stranding him in the year 1066:
Marooned in 1066…things could be worse!
“The real Hereward the Wake” (1984): True identity of proto-Robin Hood revealed!
Some years after the Battle of Hastings (which, apparently, the Doctor had swayed in William the Conqueror’s favour!), the TARDIS once again materializes in England. This visit is recounted in the Doctor Who Annual (1984), a collection of illustrated short stories featuring the colourfully dressed sixth Doctor.
In a cottage in the Fens (North Cambridgeshire), the Doctor and his companion Peri meet up with a group of Saxon rebels, lead by the legendary Hereward the Wake…
“Hereward the who?”
“The Wake. I forgot, you’re American. Hereward the Wake was the foremost of the Saxon outlaws who led a guerilla campagin against the Normans after the battle of Hastings. He tended to concentrate on the fen country, where we are now.”
“Did he win?”asked Peri.
“Don’t be silly,” the Doctor said acidly. “How could he have won with the Normans safely on the throne for the next dozen or so generations? No, after a while he just vanished into the mist, never to be seen again.”
The Doctor overhears the Saxon rebels contemplate joining with the Danes and marching on London, to take back the English throne. When the Doctor advises against this plan (since the Danes would never allow the Saxons to rule, he says – or is the Doctor still siding with William the Conqueror?), one of the Saxons retorts that ‘King Harold’ can claim Danish allegiance, since his mother was the sister of King Cnut (d. 1035; king of Denmark and England).
After an awkward moment of silence, the Doctor realises that Hereward the Wake is, in fact, Harold Godwinson, who reportedly died during the Battle of Hastings:
Then the Doctor spoke. “But Harold was killed at Hastings,” he said slowly. “At least, that was the word the Normans sent round. The body was identified.”
The tall Saxon turned back to the Doctor. “Identifed by the Countess Gytha [Gytha Thorkelsdóttir (c. 997 – c. 1069); Harold’s mother],”he said, and smiled. “And the Lady Edith, known as the Swan-Neck [Edith the Fair (c. 1025 – c. 1086; Harold’s wife or mistress]. Both of whom knew the king very well, one his mother, the other the mother of his children. Who better to identify him? But do you think for one moment that they would fail to do as he asked?”
“You mean – they knew that you were alive? Even while they looked at the body of some unknown Saxon soldier and wept over it as yours?”
Hereward/Harold here refers to the famous stoy of how the English king’s body had been mutilated in such a way that only his wife had been able to identify it. The notion that Edith and Gytha may have faked the identification is an intriguing one and not wholly unimaginable. In fact, the myth that Harold survived the Battle of Hastings has a long history, stretching back as far as the twelfth-century chronicler Gerald of Wales); if you are ever in Chester, you can still see ‘The Hermitage’, where Harold is supposed to have lived out his days as a hermit (more info here).
The story continues with a near run-in with Norman troops. Luckily, the Doctor manages to scare them off with a little toy robot! Having escaped the Normans, the Doctor convinces Hereward/Harold to forego the march on London and remain Hereward the Wake, in order to give the Saxons the strength to persevere during the Norman yoke: “Let the country think that Harold is dead – but let it believe in Hereward”. The King decides that this is indeed the best course of action and bids the Doctor and his companion farewell: “Farewell, Doctor. You too, Peri. May you meet no more Normans.”
Reflections: Doctor Who as an ‘Anglo-Saxonism’
Over the past three blogs, I have looked at the depiction of Anglo-Saxon history in BBC’s Doctor Who (see: Part 1: Lǣce Hwā: Doctor Who in Anglo-Saxon England and Part 2: Lǣce Hwā: Doctor Who and Alfred the Great). To conclude this Whovian trilology, I want to reflect on Doctor Who as an ‘Anglo-Saxonism’, that is to say:
The perception of the history and culture of Anglo-Saxon England at different times from the sixteenth century to the present day, developing in response to contemporary purposes or fashions, and the representation of these perceptions in word and image. (Keynes)
The concept of Anglo-Saxonism allows us to study representations of Anglo-Saxon history or culture not just by focusing on their historical accuracy, but also by taking into account how the representation of Anglo-Saxon England was shaped by the interests and concerns of the makers and/or audience of the cultural products under scrutiny.
With regard to Doctor Who, two general observations can be made:
1) The aspect of Anglo-Saxon history which most appealed to the makers of Doctor Who was the Vikings; even to the point that the Vikings were presented as invading as early as the fifth century (see part 1). Tom Shippey (2000) has rightly observed that Vikings are regarded as more interesting and accesible than the Anglo-Saxons and, as such, they make far better historical icons for the early Middle Ages (pp. 217-219). In the case of Doctor Who, an additional factor for the interest in Vikings may be the show’s interest in ‘alien invasions’. The Viking invasions of the early Middle Ages may be said to resemble the extra-terrestrial threats depicted in the TV series; the Vikings as historical alien invaders!
2) A second general tenor in the representation of Anglo-Saxon history in the Doctor Who universe is the absence of the religious history of early medieval England. Monks rarely feature in these Doctor Who stories, neither do bishops, nor do we learn anything about the conversion. This religious void may be explained by the fact that Doctor Who is, in a way, an ‘atheist'(or: humanist) television series, in which religions tend to be portrayed as backward and primitive, whereas science represents the only truth. This areligious aspect of Doctor Who, then, may explain why the Christian history of Anglo-Saxon England is either ignored or shown to be corrupted (like the meddling monk in The Time Meddler). In much the same way, the Viking religion is not taken seriously either (see, e.g., the silly Vikings who believe the TARDIS to be a magic box sent by Woden in part 1).
Thus, while the Doctor Who franchise is an interesting introduction to some aspects of Anglo-Saxon England (its myths, its kings and some of its celebrities), its focus on Vikings and its downplay of religion creates a sense of the early Middle Ages that is warped by the interests and fashions of another time. Whodathunkit?
This completes my Whovian trylogy, which celebrates the fact that, on the 26th of April 2016, I became ‘Doctor Porck’; you can read more about my, now finished, PhD-project here: Growing Old among the Anglo-Saxons
Works referred to:
- T.A. Shippey, ‘The undeveloped image: Anglo-Saxons in popular consciousness from Turner to Tolkien’, in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. D. Scragg and C. Weinberg (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000), pp. 215-236.
- S. Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxonism’, in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (2014)
Thijs Porck 
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