A crown with three claimants
King Edward, later called the Confessor, died in early January 1066 without a child to succeed him. Within a day or so, the leading English nobles and the church chose Harold Godwinson, the most powerful earl in the kingdom and Edward’s brother-in-law, and he was crowned at Westminster. Two other men believed they had a better right.
William, the Duke of Normandy, was a distant relative of Edward. He said that Edward had promised him the throne and that Harold had sworn an oath to support him. Medieval writers, almost all of them favoring one side or the other, give different versions of when and how that oath was taken, and historians still debate how much weight it deserves. Harald Hardrada, the king of Norway, claimed the crown through an agreement that his predecessor had supposedly made with an earlier king of England. Harold’s own exiled brother, Tostig, also stirred up trouble and joined the Norwegian invasion.
Waiting on the south coast
William began preparing at once. He gathered ships and soldiers from Normandy and neighboring regions and secured the pope’s blessing for the venture, which gave it the feel of a righteous cause. Harold, expecting an invasion across the Channel, kept an army and a fleet along the south coast through the summer. Armies of the time were mostly short-term levies, and men had to get home for the harvest. By early September the force was largely sent home, and the Normans were still held in port, reportedly by unfavorable winds.
The northern invasion
Around then, Hardrada and Tostig landed in the north with a large fleet and defeated a northern English force near York. Harold marched north with remarkable speed and caught the invaders by surprise, winning a decisive victory at Stamford Bridge in late September. Both Hardrada and Tostig were killed. The threat from Norway was over, though the English army had been hurt and was now at the far end of the country.
William lands
Within days, the wind changed and William crossed, landing near Pevensey on the Sussex coast. He moved to Hastings and began to raise a simple motte and bailey fortification there, as a base, and to raid the surrounding countryside. This was a calculated move: those lands belonged to Harold’s own family, and a king who did nothing might lose support.
Harold gathered what troops he could and marched south in a matter of days. Some historians think he moved too quickly, before all his forces could assemble. Others note that waiting would have let William ravage the region and might have been politically impossible. The argument cannot be settled with certainty.
The battle on 14 October
The armies met on a ridge about seven miles from Hastings, on the day usually given as 14 October 1066. The fight is traditionally named after Hastings, though it took place near the later town of Battle. Exact numbers are uncertain. Most modern accounts put both armies at several thousand men, and roughly comparable in size.
The English fought mostly on foot, in a dense formation along the ridge, with their shields locked together. The professional household troops of the king and the earls stood in the front ranks. The Normans had archers, foot soldiers and a large force of mounted knights. This contrast is one reason the battle is often used as an example of medieval battle tactics: a defensive line on high ground against a combined force of different troop types.
Norman attacks uphill made little headway for hours. Accounts say that part of the English line broke ranks to pursue retreating Normans, and that this left them exposed. Whether the Norman retreats were deliberate feints or genuine panics is debated, and the sources are not clear. What is generally agreed is that the fighting lasted most of the day, that the English line eventually weakened, and that Harold was killed, according to the best-known tradition by an arrow to the eye. That detail comes from later sources and the Bayeux Tapestry, and some scholars treat it with caution. His brothers had also fallen.
What happened next
The death of the king did not end matters on its own, since the English had no obvious successor of William’s weight: Edgar, a young relative of Edward, was proclaimed by some in London. The defeat did, however, take away most of the experienced leaders who might have organized a lasting defense.
The English lost many of their leaders along with the king. Even so, the contest was not instantly over. William advanced through Kent, and moved on London, where leading men submitted to him. He was crowned king at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. Resistance continued for several years in various parts of the country, and the consequences of this victory are treated in other articles on this site.
The outcome was close and depended on timing, weather and chance as much as on strategy. A second army arriving days earlier or later could easily have changed the result, which is why Hastings is such a popular subject for historians of what might have been.