The Importance of the Battle of Hastings
How England was Conquered in a Single Battle in 1066
Aug 27, 2009
Amazingly, the Battle of Hastings - the third large scale battle of 1066, but the only one involving William the Conqueror - handed control of the country to the Norman invader in one fell swoop. Harold had been King for just forty weeks and one day, and had never accrued much loyalty from the English. William was able to capture Devon and Winchester without drawing back another bowstring, and when he moved towards London, the capital too surrendered without a struggle. The new King was crowned on Christmas Day, 1066 in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But how was it possible for William to conquer an entire nation after just one battle?
The English Channel Prevents Invasion
Harold had himself crowned King following the death of Edward the Confessor. But he knew that William would try to invade, and mobilised a defensive fleet in early July. As a precautionary measure, should his navy fail, he also stationed a regional militia at strategic points along the coast, mostly comprising untrained peasants and small-holders.
William put off invading, not through fear of Harold’s militia however, but because the weather would not permit him to set sail. The English Channel, just 21 miles at its narrowest point, had already proved a stumbling block for one noted invader, Julius Caesar. Caesar however did at least succeed on his second attempt; the Channel was less kind to the Spanish Armada, and to two modern megalomaniacs - Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler - who also considered naval invasions of England.
The Good Fortune of William the Conqueror
William is in exalted company then in being frustrated by the channel. And eventually he was rewarded for his patience, for not only did the weather turn in his favour, it did so at the most opportune moment of the year.
Had he sailed before the second week in September, William would have had to contend with Harold’s fleet, and, had he defeated them, with the militia. But by early autumn Harold had run out of money to keep up his naval presence. His fleet sailed for London, only to be sunk by the same storms that were hemming William into the continent. Meanwhile the peasant army had to be demobbed to reap the harvest. Still more significantly, Harold himself was forced to abandon the South of England - where he commanded his strongest support - in order to repel yet another man with designs on the throne of England: Harold Sigurdsson.
Although Harold defeated Harald at Stamford Bridge, the dust had barely settled on his victory before the wind across the English Channel betrayed him and blew fair for the first time in months.
Fortune was clearly smiling on William, for at that moment the Channel was unguarded; the coast was unguarded; and his two rivals for the crown were hundreds of miles to the north, one with a depleted army, the other enjoying the seven feet of England that would be forever Danish.
William made an uneventful crossing and spent a week on the south coast, and quickly put up fortifications at Hastings. Certainly everything had gone the Norman’s way, but had Harold simply returned to London and left him to occupy Sussex, it is difficult to imagine what William could have done, for he had not landed in enough strength to occupy much of the country, and while the English in general were not particularly avid followers of their new King, neither were they lining up to support the invader.
A Lack of Support for William and Harold
It may sound ridiculous to say that Harold should have ignored the Norman threat, but there were many in the country willing to do so: very few Yorkshiremen could be persuaded to march south with their King, and it is likely that many in the sparsely populated North-West did not even realise an invasion had taken place. If Harold had followed his peoples example instead of rashly rushing into a second battle so soon after Stamford Bridge, the conquest might have quietly petered out.
But Harold’s was not a cautious personality, and having ridden from London to York and back again in record time, he hastened down to Hastings with all the support he could muster, thus staking the entire future of England on that single battle.
Sources:
The Engima of Hastings by Edwin Tetlow (London, 1974)
