The Battle of Hastings (1066 CE)

For four centuries or so, Britain was part of the Roman Empire. When Rome collapsed, in 476 CE, the region was taken over by people from northern Europe.

It's the same thing that happened in places like Francia and modern day Spain: migrating groups arrived on the scene to fill the void left behind by the Romans.

In Britain, these groups were collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, and Britain was transformed under their rule. They introduced kings and queens, and the Old English language, from which Modern English is derived.

In 1042 CE, after several centuries of Anglo-Saxon rule, a new king ascended to the throne. His name was Edward the Confessor, and he's mainly remembered for being a devout, pious Christian.

Despite being king, Edward wasn’t the richest man in the country. This position was held by a powerful lord: Godwin, the Earl of Wessex. Godwin knew he was the richest man in Britain. He also fancied himself as the most powerful. And in 1045 CE, he arranged for his daughter, Edith, to marry Edward.

Godwin wanted his daughter to produce a royal heir. That way, the Godwin bloodline would ascend to the throne. But Edith and Edward never had a child.

It's hard to know why Edward and Edith never had a child. Norman sources said that the pious king had previously taken a vow of celibacy, but modern historians have another theory. They believe that Edward the Confessor hated Earl Godwin, and refused to give him the satisfaction of an heir to the British throne.

Whatever the reason, this lack of heir turned out to be a bit of a problem.

Edward the Confessor passed away at the beginning of 1066. And without a clear heir, people weren't sure who should replace him on the British throne. A royal council – the Witan – was hastily assembled, and given the urgent task of selecting England’s next king. The Witan had four main candidates to choose from.

Candidate #1 was Harold Godwinson. He was the son of Earl Godwin, but unlike his father, his relationship with Edward had been positive. Edward had actually promised him the throne while lying on his deathbed. Candidate #2 was William of Normandy, an ambitious duke from northern France. He was Edward's cousin, and claimed that Edward had promised him the throne when he'd visited England a couple of years earlier.

Candidate #3 was Harald Hardrada, the current King of Norway. He believed that Britain was rightfully his, as the country had been ruled by Scandinavian kings in the decades before Edward the Confessor. Candidate #4 was Edgar Atheling, the great-nephew of Edward. Unfortunately for him, he was only a teenager at the time, and probably too weak to hold a royal throne.

It didn't take long for the Witan to come to a decision. On January 6th, just a single day after Edward’s death, Harold Godwinson was crowned the new King of England.

It's easy to see why the Witan chose Harold Godwinson rather than the other candidates for the crown. As the son of Earl Godwin, he was already rich and powerful in his own right. He also had Edward the Confessor's blessing, while his sister, Edith, had been Edward the Confessor's wife.

However, despite the Witan's decision, the other candidates for the throne refused to give up without a fight.

In the September of 1066 CE, Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, assembled an army of 10,000 men. He landed in the north of England, captured the city of York, then prepared to launch an attack on the rest of the kingdom. Harold Godwinson was forced to launch an immediate defense of his new throne.

Harold Godwinson led his army to York with astonishing speed, traveling 185 miles in just 4 days, and caught the Norwegian forces by surprise. In a decisive victory, the majority of the Norwegian soldiers were killed, including Harald Hardrada himself. King Harold, meanwhile, only lost one third of his total force.

But this battle was only the beginning. As the fighting drew to a close, Harold received word that another one of his rivals, William of Normandy, had arrived in the south of England.

Harold was forced to march back south for another round of fighting. But his army was pretty exhausted now, and teetering on the brink of collapse. Many of his soldiers didn’t make it back south, and Harold had to recruit new men from towns and villages along the way. These men were generally farmers and laborers with no previous fighting experience.

When they arrived at Hastings, in the south of England, Harold urged his ragtag army to take a defensive position on a small hill. He managed to arrange them into an impressive shield wall, before waiting for the Normans to attack.

William of Normandy ordered his archers to fire at Harold’s army, but the shield wall prevented damage. William launched his infantry, then his cavalry, but these attacks were failures too.

At one point, the Normans panicked, after hearing rumors that William had died. But William quickly rode to the front of the army and lifted his helmet to show his men that he was still alive. He proceeded to lead another attack on the shield wall, but it was no more successful than the others.

After failing to break the English shield wall, William tried another strategy: something known as a feigned retreat.

Essentially, this meant pretending to flee from the field of battle in the hope that the enemy would take chase. Under normal circumstances, this might not have worked, but some of Harold’s less experienced soldiers made the mistake of breaking rank. They were tired of enduring all that enemy fire, and wanted to take this opportunity to chase the Norman invaders away.

The shield wall crumbled. Then the Normans spun back around. Before the English could get into position again, the invaders launched another attack.

In the chaos that followed, an arrow killed King Harold, who was fighting with his men on foot. He is commonly believed to have been pierced through the eye, but this claim has been questioned by a number of historians. His exact cause of death remains a topic of scholarly debate.

Whatever it was that killed him, the loss of Harold was a devastating blow. The English army lost their discipline, and most of them were massacred by the Norman forces in a decisive, bloody victory.

The site of the battle became known as Senlac – ‘blood-lake’ in Norman French.

After defeating the forces of Harold Godwinson, William of Normandy, now William the Conqueror, marched to London. On Christmas Day in 1066, the Witan reluctantly crowned him king.

Some people in England tried to resist this appointment, but King William brutally repressed this opposition, slaughtering thousands along the way.

After emerging victorious from the Battle of Hastings, the Normans proceeded to transform the British kingdom.

In the first 20 years, they built nearly 700 castles, many of which can still be seen today. They tore down Anglo-Saxon churches, replacing them with versions built in the Norman style, with large towers and decorative arches. These buildings were a symbol of Norman strength: the castles represented military power, while the churches signified religious authority.

They also made changes to the system of government, with William reducing the power of earls, so that nobody could challenge him in the way that Earl Godwin had challenged Edward the Confessor. This change was effective, allowing William’s descendants to hold the throne for almost a thousand years. Even the current monarch, King Charles III, is William’s direct descendant.

In contrast to a lot of earlier battles, the Battle of Hastings was recorded by a number of contemporary sources, including one possible eyewitness account. The Anglo-Saxons and the Normans both valued literacy, with their priests and monks making an effort to keep records of important events.

William of Poitiers was a Catholic priest who worked closely with William the Conqueror. It's difficult to know for certain, but there is every chance that he was present at the Battle of Hastings. In The Deeds of King William, he wrote an extensive report of the battle, describing how William confronted the 'vast forces of English' and 'was the first to charge forward, sword flashing.'

William of Poitiers might have overstated the size of the English army. Anglo-Saxons spoke differently of the battle, with William of Malmesbury, an English historian, explaining how the English were 'few in number.' This discrepancy is easy to explain: the Normans wanted to exaggerate the scale of their victory, while the Anglo-Saxons wanted to downplay it as much as possible.

If Harold Godwinson had defeated William at the Battle of Hastings, this Normanization of the British kingdom would never have taken place. The great, stone castles which litter the country would never have been constructed, while churches and cathedrals would have remained in an Anglo-Saxon style.

And the line of monarchs descended from King William would never have ruled the country. King Henry VIII would never have created the Church of England. James I would never have unified England and Scotland. Queen Elizabeth I would never have started the British Empire, and Queen Victoria would never have ruled it at the height of its power.

If the descendants of Harold Godwinson had ruled in the place of these famous monarchs, there's no way of knowing what the world would have looked like. But one thing is certain: it wouldn’t have been the same.