Hastings, 1066: The Day England Changed

By Chris Livemore

On the morning of 14 October 1066, King Harold Godwinson stood on a ridge in Sussex facing an invading army led by William, Duke of Normandy.

By sunset, Harold was dead.

England would never be the same again. Sacré bleu!

What makes Hastings so, so interesting is how close it was. William was not conquering a weak kingdom. Harold was an experienced commander who had already won one of the most remarkable victories in English history just weeks earlier at Stamford Bridge, defeating a Viking invasion led by Harald Hardrada of Norway.

The problem was in the timing...if you were called Harold.

After marching north to defeat the Vikings, Harold was believed to have been forced to march south again when William landed on the Sussex coast. His army arrived tired. William's army arrived prepared, which is what you would have been told at school.

However, this has recently been debunked, as new research has shown that Harold's legendary 200-mile march from Yorkshire to Sussex never happened! Historians discovered that this grueling overland trek was actually a Victorian mistranslation; instead of marching his army into the ground, Harold likely sailed south using a coordinated fleet

The English formed a shield wall along Senlac Hill. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood behind overlapping shields and held their position for most of the day.

Again and again, Norman attacks failed.

At one point a rumour spread that William himself had been killed. The invasion nearly collapsed before it had really begun. William was forced to ride among his troops, lifting his helmet so they could see he was still alive.

Eventually the Norman army broke through.

Exactly how Harold died remains one of history's great mysteries. The famous image of an arrow in his eye appears on the Bayeux Tapestry, but historians still debate whether that is what actually happened.

Historians generally believe that around 6,000 men died during the battle - breaking down to roughly 4,000 Englishmen and 2,000 Norman invaders.

What matters is what happened next.

William became king. Norman nobles replaced much of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. Castles appeared across England, hundreds and hundreds of them. French became the language of the ruling elite. New laws, customs and systems of government followed and their influence remains today. Words such as "castle", "justice", "court", "parliament" and "chivalry" all arrived through Norman influence.

Hastings was not simply a battle.

It was the moment one England ended and another began.

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