“Harald earned the nickname ‘Hard Ruler.’ He lorded over his people with a tyrannical hand.”

By Don Hollway

MILITARY HISTORY buffs recall King Harald III of Norway as Hardrada, the “Hard Ruler,” last of the great Viking overlords. He famously launched an invasion of England in 1066 only to be surprised and defeated by the armies of king Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Although Harald would be slain in the clash, the Anglo-Saxon ruler who defeated him would be left ill-prepared to halt a Norman invasion at the pivotal Battle of Hastings just a few weeks later, the outcome of which would irrevocably alter history.

But before he was Hardrada, Harald was called Harfager (Fairhair), the Burner of Bulgars, the Hammer of Denmark, the Thunderbolt of the North, and he led a life of adventure unequalled in medieval annals.

Harald burst into history as a 15-year-old prince, following his elder half-brother King Olaf II at the Battle of Stiklestad in northern Norway in 1030. It was notable for being fought in part under a total eclipse of the sun, a night fight in the middle of the day. Pagans would have believed it was one-eyed Odin looking down on them. Christians would have recalled the dark sky on the day of the Crucifixion, a thousand years in the past. Either way, the omen bore itself out. Olaf was slain and Harald, wounded, barely escaped with his life.

Exiled, outlawed, he went to Russia, a kingdom ruled by descendants of Swedish Vikings, and rose high in the service of his distant kinsman, Grand Prince Yaroslav of Kiev. He even aspired to marry Yaroslav’s daughter Elisaveta, but first needed to earn his fortune. In 1034, he journeyed downriver to Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. There he enlisted in the Varangian Guard, the all-Viking cadre who served both as elite combat troops and the imperial bodyguard. They were famous for their preferred weapon, the two-handed Danish axe, but also for drinking and carousing. The Greeks called them “wineskins.”

They were also justly famed for their fighting skill. The empire was at war with the Fatimid Caliphate, which reached from Syria all the way across North Africa to Sicily. At sea, Harald fought in the critical, but little-known, Battle of the Cyclades. The ram-tipped triremes of Roman days being obsolete, bireme Byzantine galleys aimed to peel the oars off enemy ships, grapple and board. In the hand-to-hand fighting on deck Harald would first have experienced “Greek fire,” medieval napalm.

On land, under the command of the Byzantine general Georgios Maniakes, he helped push the Saracens all the way across Anatolia. When peace was declared, Harald served as a guard for the first imperial delegation to Jerusalem, battling desert bandits and even bathing in the River Jordan, setting an example for later pilgrimages by Scandinavian kings.

The Fatimids desired peace with Byzantium because of their own internal troubles. Their emirates in Sicily and Tunisia were in near rebellion and open conflict with each other. The Byzantines took the opportunity to intervene. In command of a contingent of Varangians, Harald, now 23, joined Maniakes’ invasion of Sicily in 1038. The two squabbled as much with each other as with the enemy, but Harald remained loyal even as Maniakes’ heavy-handed leadership caused their Norman and Lombard allies to revolt. As a result, the Byzantines lost most of the territory they had gained, not only in Sicily but in Italy as well. By then, however, Harald had been recalled to Constantinople, where more momentous intrigues were afoot.

Emperor Michael IV was dying. Meanwhile Empress Zoe had taken a fancy to big blond Harald and wanted him and his Varangians on her side when his nephew, Michael V, took the throne. Zoe was a renowned beauty, but not to be trusted. In 1034, she and Michael IV were rumored to have murdered her first husband, Romanos III, in order to put him on the throne. Michael V, though, was even more of a snake. The minute he assumed the throne in 1041, he replaced the Varangian guardsmen with his own eunuch slaves, and soon had Zoe arrested and sent to a nunnery.

She was beloved by the people, however, and her imprisonment sparked open revolt in Constantinople in 1042. The Varangians under Harald led the way. Street fighting saw large parts of the city destroyed. Zoe regained her throne. Michael was banished, but not before Harald personally cut out his eyes.

This was a high point in Harald’s career. At 27, he was Zoe’s protector and, as many sources agreed, her lover and even a possible candidate for emperor. Yet the imperial court would not stand for a barbarian ruling over them. When Zoe instead raised low-level bureaucrat Constantine IX to the throne, Harald turned the tables on both by launching an affair with the new emperor’s mistress, the princess Maria. She was probably the great love of Harald’s life, but in 1043 jealous Zoe had Harald thrown into prison, where he might have remained for what was left of a short life.

Fortunately, and probably not coincidentally, this was at the same time as Prince Yaroslav decided to mount an invasion of Constantinople. A fleet of 400 ships sailed down the Dnieper River and across the Black Sea. The Kievans had little experience with Greek fire and suffered a catastrophic defeat, but in the confusion, Harald escaped and took Maria with him. In the end, though, they both knew that a Byzantine princess could never be happy as a barbarian queen, and he let her return home.

By this time Harald’s conquests and looting had made him rich, a worthy match for Yaroslav’s daughter Elisaveta. In Russia they were duly married, and Harald, now 30, took her along on his return to Scandinavia in 1045. There, the old North Sea Empire of Viking King Canute the Great—England, Norway, Denmark—had fallen apart. England had gone its own way. Olaf’s son Magnus ruled Norway, but was fighting with Denmark’s King Svein. Harald intervened, literally buying half of Norway and co-ruling with Magnus against Denmark. As might be expected, they had a contentious relationship. When Magnus unexpectedly took ill and died in 1047, his claim to Denmark ended. Harald’s however did not. He would wage a 15-year war of attrition with Svein.

In 1050, it was Harald, now 35, who destroyed the great Danish trading center at Hedeby, which arguably spelled the end of Scandinavia as the central driver of European culture. In August 1062, Harald and Svein fought the greatest sea battle of the Viking Age, off the mouth of the River Nisa in what is now Sweden. Harald had 150 ships, Svein twice as many. The two fleets battled through the night (though at that latitude, in summer, darkness lasts only a few hours). The outnumbered Norwegians defeated the Danes, but Svein escaped and the war dragged on. In the end Harald had to settle for a stalemate, which made him more willing to launch his invasion of England a few years later.

Harald earned the nickname “Hard Ruler.” He lorded over his people with a tyrannical hand. He drove off, and in some cases personally killed, his own nobles. He took a second wife, alienating Elisaveta. When England and Scandinavia were moving in a more democratic direction than most of Europe, Harald still ruled in the manner of the bloody-handed kings of yore.

After the disastrous Viking invasion of England in 1066, which resulted in Herald’s own death at the age of 51, Scandinavia became a backwater for centuries. In many ways Harald Hardrada really was “The Last Viking.”

Don Hollway is the author of The Last Viking: The True Story of King Harald Hardrada, available from Osprey Publishing. Free sample chapters and links to order at lastvikingbook.com