This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

Harold Godwinson met Duke William of Normandy, later William the Conqueror, on a battlefield near Hastings in September 1066. The English king had just defeated Viking invaders in the north, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and had rushed the length of the country to meet William on the battlefield in Sussex.

The first thing to say about the Battle of Hastings is that it was a very unusual face-off – a fact that contemporaries recognised. You can see it clearly on the Bayeux Tapestry, a contemporary source which shows that the English elite did not fight using cavalry.

Instead, they stood to fight in the tradition of their Anglo-Saxon predecessors and their traditional enemies, the Vikings. They drew themselves up in the famous shield wall and presented this static face to their enemy.

The Normans, since giving up being Vikings a century or so earlier, had completely embraced the Frankish mode of warfare, which was based on mounted cavalry.

The Norman elite hurtled up the hill on their horses trying to break the Saxon shield wall by throwing missiles, javelins and axes at it, but they didn’t have much effect.

The shield wall breaks

For hours, the shield wall held. Then, in what might have been a ploy, or an accident that became a ploy, the Norman line started to give way.

There was a panic on the Norman side and a rumour ran through the Norman line that William was dead.

On the Bayeux Tapestry there’s a famous scene where William takes off his helmet and rides along the line, showing his men that he’s still alive and encouraging them to follow him. William personally stopped the line from collapsing.

Whether that was a ruse or not is unclear. But, when the Anglo-Saxons up on the ridge saw that the Normans were running away, they believed that the battle was over and started running down the hill to pursue them. The Normans then wheeled around and picked off the scattered Anglo-Saxons at will.

The flight of the Normans, feigned or otherwise, compromised the integrity of the shield wall.

From that point on, the Anglo-Saxons started to become more vulnerable and gaps began to open up in the formerly impenetrable barrier.

An unusually long battle

It was also very unusual that the battle went on all day. It was a long attritional conflict, which was only ended by groups of Anglo-Saxon warriors breaking discipline and charging, getting surrounded and cut off, and finally being cut down. It was a very slow moving battle.

At that time, you would have expected such a battle to have been over in an hour or a couple of hours.

The unusual length might have been due to the fact that there were two different types of warfare clashing, but it also shows that the two sides were well matched.

There are any number of books guessing the numbers on both sides, but the truth is that we haven’t the foggiest idea of how many were fighting for either army. It is likely there were no more than 10,000 Normans, however.

That estimate is based on the numbers who fought in battles that occurred in later centuries, from which we have better evidence, such as payrolls and muster lists.Since no English king in the later Middle Ages ever managed to get more than 10,000 men across the Channel, it seems almost impossible that William the Conqueror – who was, after all, only the Duke of Normandy at that time – could have topped that figure.

There was possibly about 10,000 on both sides at the Battle of Hastings – simply based on the fact that the battle went on all day, which suggests the two armies were extremely well matched.

The shield wall’s strength was in its unity; when solid it could last all day. But once it was fractured, it became very vulnerable.

We’re told that the shield wall was compromised and that the Anglo-Saxons started to fall in greater and greater numbers. But that didn’t have to mean the end for Harold; although he would have likely lost the battle regardless at that point, the Anglo-Saxons could have started running away.

But Harold ends up dying – perhaps because he stayed and fought. His death naturally put an end to his chances of resisting William any further and cemented the Norman conquest of England.

Here are 10 facts about King Harold Godwinson.

1. Harold was the son of a great Anglo-Saxon lord

Harold’s father Godwin had risen from obscurity to become the Earl of Wessex in the reign of Cnut the Great. One of the most powerful and wealthy figures of Anglo-Saxon England, Godwin was sent into exile by King Edward the Confessor in 1051, but returned 2 years later with the support of the navy.

2. He was one of 11 children

Harold had 6 brothers and 4 sisters. His sister Edith married King Edward the Confessor. Four of his brothers went on the become earls, which meant that, by 1060, all the earldoms of England but Mercia were ruled by sons of Godwin.

3. Harold became an earl himself

Harold touching two altars with the enthroned Duke looking on. Image credit: Myrabella, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Harold became Earl of East Anglia in 1045, succeeded his father as Earl of Wessex in 1053, and then added Hereford to his territories in 1058. Harold had become arguably more powerful than the King of England himself.

4. He defeated an expansionist King of Wales

He undertook a successful campaign against Gruffydd ap Llewelyn in 1063. Gruffydd was the only Welsh king ever to rule over the entire territory of Wales, and as such posed a threat to Harold’s lands in the west of England.

Gruffydd was killed after being cornered in Snowdonia.

5. Harold was shipwrecked in Normandy in 1064

There is much historical debate over what happened on this trip.

William, Duke of Normandy, later insisted that Harold had sworn an oath on holy relics that he would support William’s claim to the throne upon the death of Edward the Confessor, who was at the end of his life and childless.

However, some historians believe this story was fabricated by the Normans to legitimise their invasion of England.

6. He was elected King of England by an assembly of noblemen

13th-century version of Harold’s crowning. Image credit: Anonymus (The Life of King Edward the Confessor), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After Edward the Confessor’s death on 5 January 1066, Harold was chosen by the Witenagemot – an assembly of nobility and clergy – to be the next King of England.

His coronation in Westminster Abbey took place the very next day.

7. He was victorious at the Battle of Stamford Bridge

Harold defeated a large Viking army under the command of Harald Hardrada, after taking them by surprise. His traitorous brother Tostig, who had supported Harald’s invasion, was killed during the battle.

8. And then marched 200 miles in a week

Upon hearing that William had crossed the Channel, Harold swiftly marched his army down the length of England, reaching London by around 6 October. He would have covered around 30 miles a day on his way south.

9. Harold lost the Battle of Hastings to William the Conqueror on 14 October 1066

Harold’s death depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, reflecting the tradition that Harold was killed by an arrow in the eye. Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After a hard-fought battle that lasted all day, the Norman force defeated Harold’s army and the King of England lay slain on the battlefield. The Norman cavalry proved the difference – Harold’s force was made up entirely of infantry.

10. He was killed by an arrow in the eye

A figure is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry as being killed at the Battle of Hastings by an arrow in the eye. Although some scholars dispute whether this is Harold, the writing above the figure states Harold Rex interfectus est,

“Harold the King has been killed.”

For over 600 years, from the departure of the Romans in 410 to the arrival of the Normans in 1066, England was dominated by the Anglo-Saxon peoples. These centuries saw many great wars between Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, such as Mercia and Wessex, and against Viking invaders.

Here are 12 of the men and women who commanded armies in these bloody conflicts:

1. Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 886 and later King of the Anglo-Saxons He spent years fighting Viking invasions, eventually winning a great victory at the Battle of Edington.

During this engagement against Guthrum’s Vikings, Alfred’s men formed a mighty shield wall which the invaders could not overcome. Alfred routed the Vikings ‘with great slaughter’ and negotiated a new peace agreement called the Danelaw.

Portrait of Alfred the Great by Samuel Woodforde (1763-1817).

Alfred the Great was also a man of culture. He established many schools in England, bringing together scholars from all across Europe. He also advocated widespread education in the English language, personally translating books into English.

2. Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians

Aethelflaed was the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, and the wife of Aethelred of Mercia. After her husband grew sick, Aethelflaed personally took up the defence of Mercia against the Vikings.

During the siege of Chester, her people supposedly poured hot beer and dropped bee hives from the walls to repel the Vikings.

When her husband died, Aethelflaed became the only sole female ruler in Europe. She expanded Mercia’s domains and built new forts to protect them against the Danes. In 917 she captured Derby and soon also forced the Danes of York to surrender. After her death in 918 her only daughter succeeded her as Lady of the Mercians.

Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians.

3. Oswald of Northumbria

Oswald was a Christian King of Northumbria during the 7th century. After his brother Eanfrith was killed by the Celtic ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald attacked Cadwallon at Heavenfield.

Oswald is recorded having a vision of Saint Columba before the battle. As a result, his council agreed to be baptised and accepted Christianity. As the enemy approached Oswald even set up a cross and prayed, encouraging his small force to do the same.

They killed Cadwallon and defeated his much larger host. Oswald’s success as a Christian king led to his veneration as a saint throughout the Middle Ages.

Oswald of Northumbria. Image credit: Wolfgang Sauber / Commons.

4. Penda of Mercia

Penda was a 7th-century Pagan King of Mercia and a rival of Oswald of Northumbria. Penda first crushed King Edwin of Northumbria at the Battle of Hatfield Chase, securing Mercian power in the Midlands. Nine years later he fought Edwin’s successor and his main rival in England, Oswald, at the Battle of Maserfield.

At Maserfield the Christian Northumbrians were defeated by Penda’s Pagan forces. Oswald himself was slain on the battlefield whilst praying for the souls of his soldiers. His body was dismembered by the Mercian troops, and his head and limbs mounted on spikes.

The Battle of Maserfield, where Penda slew Oswald.

Penda ruled Mercia for another 13 years, also vanquishing the East Angles and Cenwalh of Wessex. Eventually he was slain while fighting Oswald’s younger brother Oswiu.

5. King Arthur

If he truly existed, King Arthur was a Romano-British leader from c. 500 who protected Britain from the Saxon invasions. Many historians also argue that Arthur was a figure of folklore whose life was adapted by later chroniclers.

Nonetheless, Arthur holds a unique place in our conception of the early Anglo-Saxon period. The Historia Brittonum describes his great victory against the Saxons at the Battle of Badon, in which he apparently slew 960 men single-handedly.

Other sources, such as the Annales Cambriae, describe Arthur’s combat at the Battle of Camlann, in which both he and Mordred died.

6. Edward the Elder

Edward the Elder was the son of Alfred the Great and ruled the Anglo-Saxons from 899 to 924. He defeated the Northumbrian Vikings on several occasions, and conquered southern England with the help of his sister Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. Edward then ruthlessly took control of Mercia from Aethelflaed’s daughter and defeated a Mercian revolt.

His victory against the Vikings at the the Battle of Tettenhall in 910 resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Danes, including several of their kings. It marked the final time a great raiding army from Denmark would ravage England.

Portrait miniature from a 13th-century genealogical scroll depicting Edward.

7. Aethelstan

Aethelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, ruled from 927 to 939 and is widely regarded as the first King of England. Early in his reign as King of the Anglo-Saxons he defeated the Viking kingdom of York, giving him command of the whole of the country.

He later invaded Scotland and forced King Constantine II to submit to his rule. When the Scots and Vikings allied and invaded England in 937, he defeated them at the Battle of Brunanburh. The fighting lasted all day, but eventually Aethelstan’s men broke the Viking shield wall and were victorious.

The victory guaranteed the unity of England under Aethelstan’s rule and secured Aethelstan’s legacy as the first true King of England.

8. Sweyn Forkbeard

Sweyn was King of Denmark from 986 to 1014. He seized the Danish throne from his own father, and eventually ruled England and much of Norway.

After Sweyn’s sister and brother-in-law were killed in the St Brice’s Day Massacre of English Danes in 1002, he avenged their deaths with a decade of invasions. Although his successfully conquered England, he ruled it for only five weeks before his death.

His son Canute would go on to fulfill his father’s ambitions.

9.  King Cnut the Great

Cnut was King of England, Denmark and Norway. As a Danish Prince, he won the English throne in 1016, and within a few years was crowned King of Denmark. He later conquered Norway and parts of Sweden to form the North Sea Empire.

Cnut, following his father Sweyn Forkbeard’s example, invaded England in 1015. With 200 Viking longships and 10,000 men he fought for 14 months against the Anglo-Saxon prince Edmund Ironside. Cnut’s invasion was nearly defeated by Ironside but he snatched victory at the Battle of Assundun, marking the beginning of his new empire.

He is also renowned for the story of King Cnut and the Tide. Canute allegedly demonstrated to his flatterers that since he could not hold back the incoming tide his secular power was nothing compared to the power of God.

King Cnut the Great.

10. Edmund Ironside

Edmund Ironside led the defence of England against Canute and his Vikings in 1015. Ironside successfully raised the siege of London and defeated Canute’s armies at the Battle of Otford.

He was King of England for only seven months, dying not long after Canute finally defeated him at Assundun. During the battle, Ironside was betrayed by Eadric Streona of Mercia who departed the battlefield with his men and exposed the English army.

Combat between Edmund Ironside and King Cnut the Great.

11. Eric Bloodaxe

Relatively little is certain about the life of Eric Bloodaxe, but the chronicles and sagas inform us that he got his nickname by killing his own half-brothers while taking control of Norway.

After his father King Harald of Norway died, Eric betrayed and butchered his brothers and their armies. His despotism eventually led the Norwegian nobles to drive him out, and Eric fled to England.

There, he became King of the Northumbrian Vikings, until he too suffered betrayal and was killed.

12. Harold Godwinson

Harold Godwinson was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. His short reign was tumultuous as he faced invasions from Harald Hardrada of Norway and William of Normandy.

When Hardrada invaded in 1066, Godwinson led a rapid forced march from London and reached Yorkshire in 4 days. He took the Norwegians by surprise and crushed them at Stamford Bridge.

Godwinson then marched his men 240 miles to Hastings to repel the invasion of William of Normandy. He was unable to replicate his success at Stamford Bridge, and died during the fighting. His death, either from an arrow or at William’s hands, brought an end to Anglo-Saxon rule in England.

This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

The year 1066 saw several candidates emerge as rivals for the English crown. Having defeated the Vikings at Stamford Bridge, King Harold Godwinson journeyed south very quickly to respond to the new Norman threat that had landed on the south coast.

Harold could have travelled 200 odd miles from York to London in around three or four days at that time. If you were the king and you travelled with a mounted elite, you could ride hell-for-leather if you needed to get somewhere quick, and the horses could be replaced.

Whilst he was doing that, Harold would have had other messengers riding out into the provinces, proclaiming a new muster in London in 10 days’ time.

Should Harold have waited?

What we’re told by several sources about Harold is that he was too hasty. Both English and Norman chronicles tell us that Harold set out for Sussex and William’s camp too soon, before all his troops had been drawn up. That fits with the idea that he disbanded his troops in Yorkshire. It wasn’t a forced march south for the infantry; it was instead a gallop for the king’s elite.

Harold would likely have done better to wait rather than to rush down into Sussex with fewer infantry than might have been ideal.

He would have had more troops if he had waited a bit longer for the muster, which involved counties sending their reserve militiamen to join Harold’s army.

The other thing to note is that the longer Harold waited, the more likely he was to gain more support from Englishmen who didn’t want to see their farms put to the torch.

Harold could have played a patriotic card, positing himself as a king of England protecting his people from these invaders. The longer the prelude to battle went on, the greater the danger for William’s position, because the Norman duke and his army had only brought a certain amount of supplies with them.

Once the Normans’ food ran out, William would have had to start breaking up his force and going out to forage and ravage. His army would have ended up with all the disadvantages of a being an invader living off the land. It would have been much better for Harold to wait.

William’s invasion plan

William’s strategy was to loot and sack settlements in Sussex in an attempt to provoke Harold. Harold was not only a crowned king but a popular one too, which meant he could afford a draw. As a 17th-century quote from the Earl of Manchester, about the Parliamentarians versus the Royalists, says:

“If we fight 100 times and beat him 99 he will be king still, but if he beats us but once, or the last time, we shall be hanged, we shall lose our estates, and our posterities be undone.”

If Harold was defeated by William but managed to survive, he could have headed west and then regrouped to fight another day. That exact thing had happened 50 years earlier with the Anglo-Saxons versus the Vikings. Edmund Ironside and Cnut went at it about four or five times until Cnut eventually won.

This illustration depicts Edmund Ironside (left) and Cnut (right), fighting one another.

All Harold had to do was not die, whereas William was gambling everything. For him, it was the biggest roll of the dice of his career. It had to be a decapitation strategy. He wasn’t coming over to plunder; it wasn’t a Viking raid, it was a play for the crown.

The only way William was going to get the crown was if Harold obliged him by coming to battle early and dying.

William thus spent time harrying Sussex to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of Harold’s lordship, and Harold rose to the bait.

Harold’s defence of England

Harold used the element of surprise against the Vikings to win his decisive victory in the north. He rushed up to Yorkshire, secured good intelligence on their location and caught them unawares at Stamford Bridge.

So surprise worked well for Harold in the north, and he attempted a similar trick against William. He tried to hit William’s camp at night before the Normans realised he was there. But it didn’t work.

Hardrada and Tostig were completely caught with their pants down at Stamford Bridge. That’s literally the case in terms of dress, because we’re told by an 11th-century source that it was a hot day and so they had gone from York to Stamford Bridge without their armour or their mail shirts, putting them at a massive disadvantage.

Hardrada really dropped his guard. Harold and William, on the other hand, were probably equally matched in their generalship.

William’s reconnoitring and his intelligence were better than Harold’s, however; we’re told that the Norman duke’s knights reported back to him and warned him of the impending night attack. William’s soldiers then stood guard throughout the night in expectation of an attack.

When an attack didn’t come, they set off in search of Harold and in the direction of his camp.

The site of the battle

The tables were turned and instead it was William who caught Harold unawares rather than the other way round. The place he met Harold at the time didn’t have a name. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says they meet at the grey apple tree, but nowadays we call that place “Battle”.

There has been some controversy in recent years about the site of the battle. Lately, there has been a suggestion that the only evidence that the monastery, Battle Abbey, was placed on the site of the Battle of Hastings, is the Chronicle of Battle Abbey itself, which was written more than a century after the event.

But that isn’t true.

There are at least half a dozen earlier sources that say William built an abbey on the site where the battle was fought.

The earliest of them is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in William’s obituary for the year 1087.

The Englishman who wrote it says that William was a great king who did many dreadful things. He writes that of the good things he did, he ordered an abbey to be built on the very spot where God granted him victory over the English.

So we have a contemporary voice from the time of William the Conqueror, an English voice from his court, that says the abbey is situated where the battle was fought. It’s as solid evidence as we will find for this period.

One of the most titanic, climactic battles in British history, saw Harold begin in a very good defensive position, anchored to a large slope, blocking the road to London.

Harold had the high ground. Everything from Star Wars onwards tells us that if you’ve got the high ground, you’ve got a better chance. But the issue with Harold’s position is that it was too narrow. He couldn’t deploy all of his men. Neither commander had an ideal position. And that’s probably why the battle descended into a long, drawn-out melee.

This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

The first reason why the Norman invasion resulted in such significant changes for English society was because it succeeded. That reason isn’t axiomatic. Harold could have made any invasion far more difficult for William, because all he had to do was not die; he could have just retreated.

It wouldn’t have been great for his self-image, but he could have easily sounded the retreat at the Battle of Hastings, disappeared into the woods, and regrouped a week later. Harold was a popular ruler, and he could probably have coped with a small blow to his reputation. But what absolutely signalled the end for Harold’s reign, of course, was his death.

The death of Harold

On what finally caused Harold’s death, the answer is: we don’t know. We can’t possibly know.

All you can say is that, in recent years, the arrow story – that Harold died after getting an arrow lodged in his eye – has been more or less totally discredited.

It’s not to say it couldn’t have happened because there were tens of thousands of arrows being loosed that day by the Normans.

The portion of the Bayeux Tapestry that depicts Harold (second from left) with an arrow lodged in his eye.

It is fairly probable that Harold might have been injured by an arrow, but the only contemporary source that shows him with an arrow in the eye is the Bayeux Tapestry, which is compromised for any number of reasons – either because it was heavily restored in the 19th century or because it is an artistic source that copies other artistic sources.

It is too technical an argument to go into here, but it looks like the death scene for Harold from the Bayeux Tapestry is one of those occasions where the artist is borrowing from another artistic source – in this case, a biblical story.

The destruction of the aristocracy

It boils down to the fact that not only does Harold get killed at Hastings, but his brothers and many other elite Englishmen – who constituted a core of English aristocrats – also die.

In the years that followed, in spite of William’s professed intention to have an Anglo-Norman society, the English continued to rebel to try and undo the conquest.

These English rebellions generated more and more Norman repression, culminating famously with a series of campaigns by William known as the “Harrying of the North”.

But as devastating as all this was to the general populace, the Norman conquest was particularly devastating to the Anglo-Saxon elite.

If you look at the Domesday Book, famously compiled the year before William died in 1086, and take the top 500 people in 1086, only 13 of the names are English.

Even if you take the top 7,000 or 8,000, only about 10 per cent of them are English.

The English elite, and I’m using the elite in a very broad sense here, since I’m talking about 8,000 or 9,000 people, have been largely replaced.

They have been replaced to the point where, nine times out of 10, the lord in every single English village or manor is a continental newcomer speaking a different language, and with different ideas in his head about society, the way that society should be regulated, about warfare, and about castles.

Different ideas

Castles are introduced as a result of the Norman Conquest. England had about six castles prior to 1066, but by the time William died it has several hundred.

The Normans also had different ideas about architecture.

They ripped down most of the Anglo-Saxon abbeys and cathedrals and replaced them with huge, new Romanesque models. They even had different attitudes towards human life.

The Normans were absolutely brutal in their warfare, and they rejoiced in their reputation as masters of war. But at the same time, they couldn’t abide slavery.

Within a generation or two of the conquest, the 15 to 20 per cent of English society who had been kept as slaves were liberated.

On all kinds of levels, as a result of the replacement, complete replacement or almost complete replacement of one elite by another, England was changed forever. In fact, it may have been the biggest change that England has ever experienced.

This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

King Harold Godwinson spent much of 1066 anticipating a Norman invasion in the south of England, led by the Duke of Normandy, the future William the Conqueror. Since Scandinavia had been wracked by internal conflict for the last decade, the English monarch was not expecting a Viking attack.

After waiting around four months for a Norman invasion, Harold could not sustain his army any longer, and disbanded it on the 8 September.

He sent his men back to the provinces, and then proceeded to ride inland to London.

The Vikings arrive

When Harold returned to London two or three days later, he was informed that an invasion had taken place – but that it wasn’t a Norman invasion. Instead, it was an invasion by Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, and Tostig Godwinson, Harold’s very own estranged and bitter brother, who had a large fleet of Vikings with them.

Harold was probably very frustrated at that point, because he had held an army together for around four months to resist William, and, as he was literally in the process of standing it down, the Norwegians arrived in northern England.

If they had arrived any sooner then the news would have reached Harold in time for him to keep his army together.

It was very bad timing for Harold. He then had to race northwards with his own bodyguard, the Housecarls, and his household cavalry, all while sending out fresh writs to the shires saying that there was a new muster in the north to deal with the Viking invasion. He marched north from the end of the second week in September.

The Normans had been waiting in Saint-Valery since mid-September. But they must have known about the Viking invasion because it only took up to around 24 hours to get a ship across the Channel at that time, and usually less than that.

We know there were spies and information passing between the two countries the whole time. The Normans know the Norwegians had landed and that Harold had set off to confront them.

But the extraordinary thing is that when the Normans set sail for England on the 27 or 28 September, they could not have known the outcome of that clash in the north.

Harold Godwinson destroys them

We know that on 25 September, Harold Godwinson met Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge and smashed the Viking army to pieces.

It was a great victory for Harold. But the news could not have travelled the 300 odd miles from Yorkshire to Poitiers – where the Normans were waiting – in two days. When they set sail, and even when they landed in England, they didn’t know which King Harold (or Harald) they were going to have to fight.

The amazing thing about the Battle of Stamford Bridge is that, if it had been the only thing to happen that year, 1066 would still have been a famous year.

It was one of the great early medieval victories in English history, and Harold Godwinson completely annihilated a Viking army.

We’re told the Vikings turned up in 200 or 300 ships, and that they returned in 24, or somewhere close to that. Critically, King Hardrada was killed, and he was one of the foremost warriors in Europe at that point.

Described by William of Poitiers (William the Conquerer’s biographer) as the strongest man in Europe, he was known as the “Thunderbolt of the North”. Thus, Harold’s was a huge victory. If the Norman invasion hadn’t happened then we might still be singing songs about King Harold Godwinson and his famous victory.

The Vikings did threaten to come back frequently, including in 1070, 1075 and, in a very serious way, 1085 – with the latter provoking Domesday. But Harald Hardrada’s invasion marked the last major Viking incursion into England, and Stamford Bridge the last big Viking battle. There were, however, other battles that happened in Scotland in the later Middle Ages.

Following Stamford Bridge, Harold believed that he had secured his kingdom. Autumn was coming on, and the king had nearly got through his first year on the throne.

Responding to the Norman invasion

We don’t know exactly where or when Harold got the news that William had landed on the south coast because, with this period, determining certainties is like trying to nail jelly to the wall a lot of the time.

The certainties when it comes to Harold’s movements are Stamford Bridge on 25 September, and Hastings on 14 October. But where he was in the meantime is a matter of supposition.

Because he had already stood down his army in the south, a reasonable supposition is that Harold’s assumption – or maybe his prayer – must have been that the Normans weren’t coming.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge marked the last major Viking engagement in England.

The unexpected invasion by the Norwegians had forced Harold to call out an army again and rush north. On the morrow of Stamford Bridge, Harold would probably still have assumed that the Normans weren’t coming. He had won his victory against the Vikings. They had been decimated.

Like any commander in the Middle Ages, with the battle won and the dragon slain, Harold disbanded his army for a second time. All the call-up troops were sent home. Mission accomplished.

Until about a week later, it is reasonable to assume that Harold was still in Yorkshire, because he needed to pacify the region. Lots of people in Yorkshire had been very pleased to see the arrival of a Scandinavian king because that part of the world has strong cultural ties, political and cultural ties to Scandinavia.

Harold, therefore, would have wanted to spend time in Yorkshire, pacifying the locals and having a serious conversation with the people of York about their loyalty, while also burying his dead brother, Tostig, among other things.

Then, just as he was settling down again, a messenger arrived posthaste from the south and informed him of William the Conqueror’s invasion.

This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

Harold Godwinson proclaimed himself king of England in 1066, and immediately braced for retaliation. His biggest rival was Duke William of Normandy.

Harold didn’t fear anything from the north, so he stationed his army and fleet – and we’re told it was the biggest army anyone had ever seen – along the south coast of England from the spring of that year, and they waited there for the whole summer. But nothing arrived. No one came.

Bad weather or a strategic move?

Now, the contemporary sources say that William didn’t sail because the weather was bad – the wind was against him. Since the 1980s, historians have argued that the weather idea was clearly just Norman propaganda, however, and that William was evidently delaying until Harold stood his army down. But the numbers don’t seem to work for that argument.

Historians with greater nautical experience would argue that when you’re ready, when D-Day comes and the conditions are right, you have to go.

The great problem with arguing that William was waiting with his army until Harold stood his own army down, however, is that the two men were facing the same logistical problem.

William had to keep his thousands-strong mercenary force in a field in Normandy from one week to the next, all the while dealing with the attendant difficulties of supply and sanitation. He didn’t want to watch his army consuming his carefully hoarded stockpile, he wanted to get going. Thus, it is perfectly credible to see how the Norman duke could have been delayed by the weather.

We’re told by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that on 8 September 1066, Harold stood down his army because he couldn’t keep it there any longer; it had run out of material and foodstuffs. So the king was forced to disband his forces.

The invasion fleet sets sail

About four or five days later, the Norman fleet set sail from the place where William had mustered his fleet – the mouth of the River Dives in Normandy.

But he set out in terrible conditions, and his whole fleet – which he had carefully prepared for months and months – was blown, not to England, but eastwards along the coast of northern France to the neighbouring province of Poitiers and a town called Saint-Valery.

William spent another fortnight in Saint-Valery, we’re told, looking at the weathercock of Saint-Valery Church and praying every day for the wind to change and the rain to stop.

He even went to the trouble of exhuming the body of Saint-Valery himself and parading it round the Norman camp to obtain prayers from the whole of the Norman army because they needed God on their side. This wasn’t a cynical move – 1,000 years ago, the person who decided battles at the end of the day was believed to be God.

The Norman invasion fleet lands in England, as depicted by the Bayeux Tapestry.

The Norman must have thought, after weeks and weeks of rain and contrary winds, that God was against them and that the invasion wasn’t going to work. Then, on the 27 or 28 September, the wind changed direction.

This is where we are really reliant on only one source, William of Poitiers. People have it in the neck for William of Poitiers because he’s a propagandist source, but he was also one of William the Conqueror’s chaplains. So although he’s exaggerating everything all the whole time, he was very close to William, and thus a very important source.

The legend of William

He is the source that tells us that, as they’re crossing the Channel from Saint-Valery towards the south coast of England, William’s ship flew ahead of the others due to its sleek design. The Normans were crossing at night so William’s ship became separated from the rest of the fleet.

When they awoke the next morning, when the sun came up, the flagship couldn’t see the rest of the fleet, and there was a moment of drama on William’s ship.

The reason why William of Poitiers’ version of events is slightly suspicious here is that it serves as a great character note for the Norman duke.

Like all great generals, he apparently displayed nothing but sangfroid in that period of stress and we’re told he just sat down to a hearty breakfast, washed down with some spiced wine.

By the time he had finished breakfast, the lookout saw ships on the horizon. Ten minutes later, the lookout said there were “so many ships, it looked like a forest of sails”. The problem with William of Poitiers is his attempts to emulate classical authors like Cicero. This is one of those occasions, because it looks like a legendary tale. It looks slightly suspicious.

There’s also a story from Robert Wace in the 1160s, which is probably apocryphal, where William is said to have landed on the shore and tripped over, with someone saying, “He’s grabbing England with both hands”.

When William landed in England, Harold wasn’t even there – by that time, the Vikings had landed. So in some ways, the delays actually benefited him, and he was able to establish himself in the south of England, before going on to defeat Harold in the Battle of Hastings later that month.

This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

With Harold Godwinson’s coronation as King of England in 1066 – a single day after the death of his predecessor, Edward the Confessor – Duke William of Normandy, the future William the Conqueror, went ballistic. Harold Godwinson had no blood link to the crown and, while he did have a marital link, his claim to the throne was weak enough that rivals to the crown emerged.

William’s claim to the English throne rested on Edward the Confessor’s designation – 15 years before, in 1051 – which had promised him the crown.

William had a slightly stronger claim than Harold because he had a weak blood claim – he was a second cousin of Edward the Confessor. But his main claim came through the designation.

The contenders emerge

We only have later sources, around 100 years after the event, that actually describe William’s reaction. He apparently felt that, after 15 years of being promised the English throne, he was suddenly hearing that Harold had claimed what belonged to him.

A couple of years prior, Harold had been in Normandy and had sworn an oath to William that he would uphold the Norman duke’s claim. Thus, William supposedly went into a rage.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Scandinavians were interested in the crown of England. The first time anyone on the British mainland seemingly realised that the Scandinavians were interested, however, is when they arrived in England in September 1066.

Indeed, there’s nothing in the original source material to suggest that an invasion from Scandinavia was expected or feared at the start of 1066.

To the victor the spoils

England was a very rich and prosperous country. In spite of all the invasions it had endured in the 11th century, the reason that the Vikings had been raiding it since the 10th century was precisely because it was a rich, well-governed country that could raise huge taxes.

The English had been raising taxes to pay off the Danes since the late 10th century. It had a very strong government that could raise lots of money with a strong silver coinage.

This was all based on the fact that England specifically (rather than the rest of the British Isles) is an easy country to farm – it is lowland and arable.

Conflict begins

Harold fired the starting gun by having himself crowned immediately upon Edward’s death. But prior to that, William was already preparing his invasion force. It was William who actually made the first move.

Harold Godwin’s coronation, as depicted by the Bayeux Tapestry.

Indeed, Harold didn’t start preparing his troops until he realised that William was serious about mounting an invasion.

This was a surprise because launching an invasion across the sea hadn’t been tried for a really long time. Although the Normans began their career as Vikings, by 1066 they were not famous for their seafaring activities.

William went into preparation mode. He twisted the arms of his magnates to get them to promise him military service. He ordered ships to be built or borrowed or bought. He wrote to the pope and even sent a messenger to lay out his case and get papal support.

It was only when William was in overdrive on all these fronts, military, political and diplomatic, that Harold realised in the spring of that year that the Norman duke was actually going to put his money where his mouth was.

That was when Harold responded, beginning to raise and call out the English army and the English fleet in early May.

The Scandinavian threat

There are older books by very eminent scholars on the Norman conquest that discuss a threat from Scandinavia mounting throughout the 1050s and into the 1060s. But there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support such an idea.

Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, was completely preoccupied with internal warfare in his own country and another war with Denmark until the eve of 1066 itself. He was fighting his own battles in Scandinavia, and he didn’t have time to launch an attack on England.

The key figure was in fact Tostig Godwinson, Harold Godwinson’s troublesome younger brother.

Throughout the 1050s and early 1060s, Harold and Tostig had collaborated very well, including successfully invading Wales together in the 1060s. Tostig had been made Earl of Northumbria in 1055, which wasn’t then the modern county of Northumbria, but a huge swathe of land comprising everything north of the River Humber up as far as the Scottish border.

Tostig contrived very quickly to alienate Northumbrian society, provoking a big rebellion against him in 1064.

Harold and Tostig fell out because Harold refused to back his brother against the Northumbrian rebels, and Tostig was sent into exile. From that point on, the two men were enemies.

It’s not entirely clear what happened with Tostig because we only know the story from much later legends, either 12th-century chronicles or 13th-century Norse sagas. It is clear, however, that Tostig roamed the courts of northern France and Scandinavia, looking for military support to topple Harold.

It doesn’t seem as though Tostig was aiming at the crown himself. He seemed more interested in toppling his brother, while also restoring his own power. So it was a revenger’s tragedy.

He ended up persuading Harald Hardrada to support an invasion, with the ultimate goal of restoring his earldom.

Nobody in England was predicting an attack from Scandinavia, because the region had been on good terms with England since the 1040s. The previous reference to Harald Hardrada in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle prior to 1066 is 1042 or 1043, when he made peace with Edward the Confessor.

The status quo with Scandinavia was peaceful.

Just 50 or 60 miles across the water in Normandy, however, it was no big secret that an invasion was coming. The boatyards of Normandy were humming with activity.

William rounded up a fleet from all the way across the northern coast of France from friendly powers. Harold and everybody in southern England saw that this was where the threat was brewing, and the English king stationed an army on the south coast throughout 1066 in preparation for William’s invasion.

This article is an edited transcript of 1066: Battle of Hastings with Marc Morris, available on History Hit TV.

Harold Godwinson was one of the contenders for the English throne in 1066, along with William the Conqueror and Harald Hardrada. However, Harold Godwinson’s claim to the throne was delicate.

According to English sources, on his deathbed Edward the Confessor nominated his brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, as his successor.

A variety of sources, both English and Norman, argue that Edward the Confessor merely entrusted the crown to Harold or imply that he appointed Harold to something less than the crown itself, suggesting it was only a regency or that Harold was supposed to be a stopgap ruler.

Then Edward died. Edward’s problem was that, despite having been the king of England for nearly a quarter of a century (he was 24 years into his reign at that point), he hadn’t produced any children of his own.

His whole career, but particularly the last few years, had been overshadowed entirely by the question of who would succeed him.

In the meantime, Harold Godwinson had become the most powerful man in England – arguably even more so than Edward himself.

He was the power behind the throne and when Edward died on 5 January 1066 he simply took the throne. The next day Edward was buried and Harold was crowned in his place.

A 13th century illustration of Harold Godwinson’s coronation.

Rapid coronation

In that period, it was very unusual that a king would be crowned so soon after the death of a predecessor. In fact, it can be seen as the most suspicious act in the whole drama of the Norman conquest.

In the period before 1066, kings were not made by the act of crowning them, they were simply chosen. We frequently see phrases in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle such as, “He was chosen king by the whole people,” or, “All the thanes chose him as king”.

Normally you would be sworn in as king the moment your predecessor died, but you wouldn’t need to be crowned.

Coronation was just a confirmation, and it was unnecessary to hold a big ceremony and have God bless your rule until months later.

A good example was Edward the Confessor himself, who became king in June 1042 but who didn’t have his coronation until Easter 1043. He waited a whole nine months before being crowned.

Harold, very significantly, was crowned the day after Edward died, and on the same day that he was buried. He had nothing to support his claim other than designation by his predecessor; he didn’t have a blood link, so he was keen to have God’s blessing bestowed upon him.

He needed to bolster his rule in any way he could, and he viewed a rapid coronation as his best bet.

An elective monarchy?

There’s a story about the Anglo-Saxons that claims the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was elective, and that the great men would get together in the Witenagemot (an assembly of the ruling class whose primary function was to advise the king) and pick the worthiest among them.

It sounds wonderfully proto-democratic but is likely a myth because it was very rare during that period for the crown to pass to anyone other than a close relative of the former monarch.

Even if you look back a couple of centuries before 1066, to the time of King Alfred, and you look at who took the crown, the line of succession runs from son to brother, to son, to grandson, to son, to son, to brother. The crown was always kept within the royal family. There wasn’t a democratic process to decide on the question of succession.

The only time that the crown wasn’t kept within the royal family was in the 11th century, when there was a Viking conquest just 50 years before the Norman conquest. King Cnut then inherited the throne, which altered the tidy succession from father to son somewhat.

Really, the first person to crash in out of left field without any kind of blood link to his predecessor was Harold himself. Instead, he was married to Edward’s the Confessor sister, so he was linked by marriage but not by blood.

In fact, the rhetoric around the early Anglo-Saxon monarchy being so ahead of its time in its elective nature may have come from the circumstances of Harold’s coronation.

People who seize the throne without any dynastic link are always keen to argue that they have the popular vote and that people are supporting them over any potential rivals.

King Stephen did the same thing in 1135 when Henry I died. He had a blood link but it wasn’t as strong as Matilda’s claim to the crown, and so he claimed that he had the support of the people.

That’s where the urgency around Harold’s coronation comes from, a desperate need to assert his fledgling status as a monarch.

1. It was sparked by the invasion of Viking king Harold Hardrada

Harald, King of Norway, was one of at least five claimants to the English throne in 1066. After Edward the Confessor died in January of that year, his right-hand man, Harold Godwinson, ascended the throne. But the Harald with an “a” believed that he had a rightful claim to the crown and in September landed in Yorkshire with an invading force.

2. Harald had teamed up with Harold’s own brother

Tostig Godwinson wanted vengeance after being exiled by King Edward and Harold in November 1065. The decision to outlaw Tostig had come about after he refused to step down from his position as Earl of Northumbria in the face of a rebellion against him. But Tostig saw the move as unjust and, after first attempting to bring Harold down himself, eventually asked Harald Hardrada to invade England.

3. Harold’s force caught Harald’s men by surprise with their armour off

The Vikings hadn’t been expecting a clash to take place at Stamford Bridge; they had been waiting there for hostages to arrive from nearby York, which they had just invaded. But when Harold got wind of the northern invasion, he raced north, gathering an army along the way and catching Harald and Tostig’s forces unawares.

5. Nearly half of the Viking army was elsewhere

The invading force was made up of around 11,000 Norwegians and Flemish mercenaries – the latter hired by Tostig. But only some 6,000 of them were at Stamford Bridge when Harold arrived with his army. The other 5,000 were about 15 miles to the south, guarding the Norse ships that had been beached at Riccall.

Some of the Vikings at Riccall did rush to Stamford Bridge to join the fight, but the battle was almost over by the time they got there and many of them were exhausted.

6. Accounts talk of a giant Viking axeman…

Harold’s approaching army was reportedly on one side of a single narrow bridge crossing the River Derwent, and the Vikings on the other. When Harold’s men tried to cross the bridge in single file, sources say they were held up by a giant axeman who cut them down, one by one.

7. … who suffered a gruesome death

Sources say this axeman soon got his comeuppance, however. A member of Harold’s army reportedly floated under the bridge in a half-barrel and rammed a large spear up into the vitals of the axeman standing above.

8. Harald was killed early in the battle in a state of berserkergang

The Norwegian was struck in the throat with an arrow while fighting in the trance-like fury for which the berserkers are famed. The Viking army went on to be heavily beaten, with Tostig also killed.

Although a number of major Scandinavian campaigns took place in the British Isles over the next few decades, Harald is commonly held to be the last of the great Viking kings and so historians often use the Battle of Stamford Bridge as a convenient end point for the Viking Age.

9. The battle was incredibly bloody

The Vikings may have ultimately been defeated but both sides suffered heavy losses. Around 6,000 of the invading army were killed while around 5,000 of Harold’s men died.

10. Harold’s victory was short-lived

As Harold was busy fighting off the Vikings in the north of England, William the Conqueror was en route to southern England with his Norman army. Harold’s victorious forces were still in the north celebrating their win at Stamford Bridge when the Normans landed at Sussex on 29 September.

Harold then had to march his men south and gather up reinforcements on the way. By the time his army met with William’s men at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October it was battle-weary and exhausted. The Normans, meanwhile, had had two weeks to prepare for the confrontation.

Hastings would ultimately prove to be Harold’s doing. By the end of the battle, the king was dead and William was on his way to taking the English crown.