The Norman Conquest of 1066: Hastings and What Followed

The Norman Conquest was not one battle but a sequence: a disputed succession in January 1066, two invasions that autumn, three battles in under four weeks, and then six years of revolts before William of Normandy could treat England as his. Its end point, in many accounts, is a document — the Domesday survey of 1086, which shows how completely the old English landholding class had been replaced.

Three men with a claim to Edward's crown

Wikipedia's account begins with a succession problem. Edward the Confessor, son of the English king Æthelred and the Norman Emma, had spent years in exile in Normandy and brought Norman courtiers and clerics into English government after taking the throne in 1042. He was childless, and Wikipedia says he "may" have encouraged William of Normandy's hopes.

When Edward died at the beginning of 1066, three men moved:

• Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and the richest English aristocrat, elected by the Witenagemot and crowned.
• William, Duke of Normandy, who said Edward had promised him the throne and that Harold had sworn to support the claim.
• Harald Hardrada of Norway, whose claim rested on an earlier agreement between his predecessor Magnus and the English king Harthacnut.

The Normans were themselves descendants of Scandinavian settlers. In 911, Wikipedia notes, the Frankish ruler Charles the Simple let a Viking leader, Rollo, settle in what became Normandy in return for guarding the coast — a story that belongs with the Vikings as much as with England.

Fulford, Stamford Bridge, Hastings: a 1066 timeline in days

Harold spent the summer on the south coast waiting for William, but his militia needed to harvest their crops, and on 8 September he sent them home. Hardrada then landed in the north with more than 300 ships carrying "perhaps 15,000 men", in Wikipedia's hedged figure.

Worked example. Using the dates Wikipedia gives:

From Stamford Bridge to Hastings is 19 days, in which Harold marched from Yorkshire to London, paused for about a week, and went on to Sussex. At Stamford Bridge, Wikipedia records, the Norwegian losses were so heavy that only 24 of the 300 ships were needed to carry the survivors home — 8 per cent of the fleet.

Numbers for Hastings itself are soft. Contemporary writers gave William between 14,000 and 150,000 men; modern estimates cited by Wikipedia include 7,000–8,000, 10,000–12,000 and 7,500. For Harold, two Norman sources claim 1.2 million or 400,000 — impossible figures — while recent historians, Wikipedia says, have suggested anything from 5,000 to 13,000, though most agree on 7,000–8,000. Only about 35 named individuals can reliably be placed with William.

A shield wall on Senlac Hill and a disputed death

The battle began at about 9 am on 14 October and lasted all day. Harold's army, all on foot with few archers, held a shield wall along the ridge at what is now Battle, East Sussex. William had cavalry, infantry and many archers. After Breton troops on William's side broke and some English pursued them, Norman cavalry cut the pursuers down; Wikipedia says the Normans then made two more feigned withdrawals to draw the English out.

The decisive event was Harold's death, and here the sources diverge. William of Jumièges says William killed him. The Bayeux Tapestry has been read as showing an arrow to the eye, but Wikipedia notes this "may be a later reworking" to match twelfth-century stories. Other accounts say no one could see who struck the blow; William of Poitiers, a contemporary French historian whose obituary of the king Wikipedia describes as "full of praise", gives no details at all. Wikipedia also cautions that his claim of papal backing before the invasion was "probably made to strengthen William's claims to legitimacy". That spread of testimony is a good test case for spotting bias in history writing.