Hastings: William Conquers England, Harold Falls

An arrow struck King Harold II in the eye — or so the Bayeux Tapestry appears to show — and with his death on a Sussex hillside on October 14, 1066, an entire civilization was replaced. The Battle of Hastings lasted roughly nine hours, but its consequences reshaped the English language, legal system, architecture, and class structure for the next thousand years. William, Duke of Normandy, had crossed the English Channel with approximately 7,000 men and several thousand horses, claiming the English throne based on an alleged promise from the previous king, Edward the Confessor. Harold had just force-marched his army 250 miles south from Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, where he had defeated and killed the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada only nineteen days earlier. His exhausted troops took up a defensive position on Senlac Hill, about seven miles from Hastings. The English fought on foot behind a wall of shields, a formation that initially proved devastatingly effective against Norman cavalry charges. William's forces faltered multiple times, and at one point a rumor spread that the duke himself had been killed. William rode along his lines with his helmet raised to show his face, rallying his men. The Normans then employed a tactic — whether planned or accidental — of feigned retreats that drew English soldiers out of their shieldwall and into the open, where mounted knights cut them down. Harold's death, likely late in the afternoon, broke the English resistance. His brothers Gyrth and Leofwine had already fallen. The surviving English troops fled into the approaching darkness. William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066, and the Norman Conquest began in earnest. French became the language of the court and ruling class, fundamentally altering English vocabulary. Norman castles rose across the countryside. The feudal system was imposed with ruthless efficiency. England before and after Hastings were essentially two different countries.