A new reading of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles has cast doubt on one of the most cherished stories from English history. We learned that, in 1066, King Harold marched 200 miles after the Battle of Stamford Bridge to face William of Normandy¹, the leader of the invasion force, and was ultimately defeated at the Battle of Hastings. But this may not be the case.

Anglo-Saxon England

The battle of Hastings, fought on the 14th October 1066, was a turning point in English history. The previous Anglo-Saxon monarchy, which had reigned since about 450, was ousted in the Norman Conquest. Replacing the monarch wouldn’t normally have been all that interesting, but the successful conquest had further, lasting repercussions in the monarchy, society, and language.

Why did William invade?

The penultimate Anglo-Saxon king was Edward the Confessor. He died childless, which wasn’t necessarily the crisis that might be expected. The Saxon kings were largely elected, albeit from an upper ruling class, and primogeniture wasn’t established. Harold Godwinson was the second son of Godwin of Wessex. He was also the brother-in-law of Edward and had been named successor. However, William of Normandy also had a claim to the throne. He was the first cousin once removed of Edward and therefore eligible to be king. He also had a witnessed oath made by Harold in 1064 that Harold would support William’s claim to the English throne.

When Harold accepted the throne on Edward’s death in January 1066, trouble was inevitable.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge

William wasn’t the only nobleman with a claim to the English throne. Harald III of Norway’s had a less straighforward claim to the English throne² . However, Tostig, Harold’s younger brother, encouraged him to invade and take England by right of conquest.

Harald arrived in early September 1066 with about 300 ships and reinforcements from Orkney and Shetland, then under Norse rule. King Harold, based in London and anticipating an invasion by William of Normandy, brought his army north to meet the Norse invaders. The Battle of Stamford Bridge took place on the 25th September and resulted in a decisive English victory. Although the number of casualties remains unclear, the defeated Norsemen needed just 24 ships to return to Orkney. They went without Harald and Tostig, both of whom died in the battle.

Meanwhile, in Normandy…

William had been planning to invade England all year. Building an invasion force from scratch in under 9 months, he was ready to invade by mid August. What kept him back was a mix of bad weather and fear of the Saxon navy. He finally landed on the 28th September, rapidly established a beachhead and set about building a wooden fort from which to raid the area.

News of the invasion reached Harold, 200 miles away. The Battle of Hastings took place on the 14th of October. Less than three weeks after victory at Stamford Bridge, King Harold was dead, his army defeated and the Saxon rule of England was over.

What’s new?

The story as told to us in school is that Harold reached Stamford Bridge by forced march from London. He won the battle, then force marched back south to meet William at Hastings. Four hundred miles and two battles in the space of a month would have left any army exhausted. No wonder the Saxons lost.

However, a recent re-evaluation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles by Prof Tom Licence of the University of East Anglia casts doubt on this story. The ‘forced march’ story stems from a misreading of the Chronicles. According to the Chronicles, the fleet ‘came home’ after blockade duties in the English Channel. This suggested to Victorian historians that Harold disbanded the Saxon navy in the Summer of 1066. Sending the ships to their home ports around the country and freed the militia to bring in the harvest. A lack of ships meant that there was no alternative for Harold but to march to Yorkshire, fight, then march back.

Licence suggests that this is not the case. His interpretation is that the navy relocated to their home port of London; it’s not only the Chronicles that suggest this, but other contemporary sources say that there was an active navy at the time.

So rather than marching 200 miles, Harold took the more sensible option of loading his men on ships and sailing up the coast. After Stamford Bridge, he would have sailed back, possibly with some Norwegian-build ships as booty, and marched on Hastings from London.

King Harold the general

This version of events casts Harold in a different light. Harold’s loss at Hastings may not have been mainly the result of exhaustion. The battle was hard-fought. The invaders had cavalry while the English were mostly infantry, but the numbers were about even³. Harold had stationed his men behind a shield wall at the top of Senlac Hill, making it difficult to attack on horseback.

According to the history it a feigned retreat by the Normans decided the battle. Poor discipline among the Saxons led to them chasing after the cavalry, breaking the shield wall and making a successful cavalry charge possible. Harold died late in the battle, likely killed by a cavalryman though the ‘arrow in the eye’ story has its adherents. William the Conqueror⁴, as he is known, was crowned king on 25th December 1066.

And so the Saxon rule was over and the Norman monarchy began. We are still living with the consequences. King Charles III claims the throne as a descendant of William. Our language changed, to become a weird hybrid of a Germanic language with mostly French vocabulary and Celtic grammar.

What might have been

It’s interesting to speculate on what might have happened if Harald’s invasion had been delayed by a month. William invades in late September, Harold meets them with a fresh army before they have established a beachhead and defeats them. Then he has to ship his army up to Yorkshire to fight an established invasion force of Vikings and disaffected locals and loses. Norway and England form a united kingdom and retain Saxon rule until… when? Who knows.

1. Spoiler: He is known to history as William the Conqueror. ↩︎
2. There was an agreement reached in 1038 between Magnus, the previous King of Norway, and Harthacnut, the king of Denmark and England, that the other would inherit their lands on their death. Harthacnut’s death led to a split in the monarchy with Magnus taking over as King of Denamrk and Edward as King of England. When Magnus died in 1047 Harald took over the claim, which included one of many promises made by Edward that they would be named his successor. At least three such promises were made by Edward. ↩︎
3. Some Norman sources later claimed up to a million English soldiers fought at Hastings against 10,000 Normans. Which is impressive, given the population of England was less than 1.5 million at the time. ↩︎
4. Previously known as William the Bastard. Though not to his face. ↩︎