Dan Snow's History Hit - Storytime with the Snows: 1066

Episode Date: August 28, 2022

1066 is one of the most critical and dramatic years in British history. In the space of one year, the country had three kings, three major battles and a year that decided the fate of British history. To tell the thrilling story of this infamous year Dan is joined by three very special guests his children Zia, Wolf and Orla. They test Dan's historical knowledge to its limits and ask the questions we're all too afraid to ask.This episode was produced by Marianna Des Forges, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. After the, well, let's be honest, mixed success, mixed reviews, which I attracted for a previous podcast in which I tried to tell my kids a story from the past, in that case, Boudicca's Revolt of 60 AD, we decided to give it another go. That was a Christmas special. This one is for everyone driving somewhere on this long bank holiday weekend, as we say in the UK. For everyone else, we've got a famous public holiday here in the UK this weekend,

which means we sit in long traffic jams in bad weather to go and visit people we'd rather not see. And then we come back again. Anyway, for those of you doing this journey, this is a podcast for all the family. This is one of the greatest stories in English and British history.

This is the story of 1066, a year of three kings, of at least three major battles, and a year that decided the fate of subsequent British history. So here's me and my little brood of housecarls, my three kids, Zia, Wolf and Orla, talking through 1066 and the Battle of Hastings. Enjoy your bank holiday weekends. Enjoy this pod. All right everyone, this is the story of one of the most famous battles in British history. It is a story that everybody in this country knows about. It is the battle of... Waterloo?

No, not Waterloo. Agincourt? No. Watling Street?. Watling Street. Not Watling Street. I remember that was Boudicca we did last time. It is... Zanzibar! No.

Zanzibar? No, that was the shortest war in British history, the Zanzibar. Yeah, it was not that one. It was the one fought in 1066. It was the Battle of... Hastings! Yeah, there you go. That's more like it, which was fought where? Where was Battle of Hastings fought? Hastings. No. It was the Battle of Hastings. Yeah, there you go. That's more like it, which was fought where?

Where was Battle of Hastings fought? Hastings. No. It was fought... Waterloo? No, it's not fought in Waterloo. Anyway, never mind. It was fought at a place simply called Battle,

which is north of Hastings, a village north of Hastings. And I will tell you why it was fought there. Are you ready? This is one of the most dramatic stories in British history. It's a year, 1066, when there were three kings in the space of a year. Oh, I know these people. The first king was an old man. A new confessor. Easy. All right. In New Year's Eve, 1065, 1066, an old king lay dying in a bed, coughing up his guts. Lovely. Old, broken.

His wife stood by his bedside. His wife did not like him very much. He did not like his family. Why did they marry then? Well, that's a very good question. They were forced to marry by the wife's family. She was from the Godwin family. And her dad was the most powerful man in Britain.

Her brothers were the most powerful warriors in Britain. Oh my God. Wait, so her brother? Okay, stop recording while Ola goes to the toilet. Okay, Ola's been to the toilet. We're back in the rooms. The Godwin family, the most powerful family in the land. They made the king marry the daughter of the Godwin family.

It's not a happy relationship. And they had no children. They had no children at all. So I never knew that he was married to... A Godwin. I know you did. A Godwin? That's what I'm telling you. That's what I'm telling you right now.

That's the purpose of this operation, to tell you things you did not know about. It's the midwinter of 1065 going into 1066. An old king is lying dying on his bed, and there is a problem. The king has no children. There is no heir to the kingdom, and when someone dies without an heir to the kingdom

in this period of history there's a battle there's a battle it means there is trouble brewing it's going to be a time of tumult a time possibly of civil war as great families like war of the roses

similar because Henry VI was a weak king the war of the roses is my favourite battle. Really? All right, well, we'll do that next time. There you go. So it means that the land was going to be fought over. And in 1066, there were many people who thought they ought to be the next king, but they had to wait for Edward the Confessor, the king, to die first.

And he did in the early days of 1066. Early January 1066, he finally died, his wife looking down. She would have rushed off immediately to tell her brother, because her brother was the leading nobleman of the kingdom. His name was Harold.

Harold Godwinson. Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex. Didn't Edward Confessor already promise over some old guy's bones or something that he would

make the conqueror guy king after that don't get ahead of the story here guys no I'm not no that is the story I know that is the story okay

so Edward the Confessor there were several people that could take over at that point there was Edward the Confessor's sort of cousin who was a young boy. I don't know this story. No, that's why I'm telling you the story now.

So we're okay. Okay. He's called Edgar the Ethling. All right? There was also Edward the Confessor's cousin called William, Duke of Normandy. He was a Duke of where? Normandy. Which is where?

In the north somewhere. Isn't it France? It's in France. It's in northern France, so Normandy. So that's good. Yeah, that makes a bit of sense. William of Normandy came from Normandy, which is in northern France.

It was originally a part of France that had been basically conquered by the Vikings, the north men. And so he thought that Edward the Confessor promised him the throne of England. But there was an English claimant to the throne, the most powerful nobleman, the greatest warrior in England. His name was Harold, Earl of Wessex, we've already heard about Harold Goldwinson. He thought he would take the throne because, you know what?

He was near, he was tough, he was strong, he was rich, why not him? And in fact, then there was somebody else who wanted the throne. The Viking. The Viking King of Norway. Well, the biggest and strongest warrior, unfortunately for everybody else of his generation, a gigantic lunatic called Harald Hardrada. And so it would be a year when all of these different competing warriors would try and seize the throne. But Harold was first off the mark. Which Harold? Good question. Harold Godwinson of England was first off the mark because he's nearby. His wife is married to the king. She probably let him know. He was probably hanging around

in the outskirts of the palace. The minute Edward the Confessor was dead, Harold seized the throne. We think he had himself crowned king on the very day that Edward the Confessor was buried in Westminster Abbey. You forgot that bit about promising over the dead bones. We'll get back to that. So Harold basically took the crown and he had himself crowned. There was a funeral in the morning and he had himself crowned. There was a funeral in the morning and a coronation in the afternoon. And the reason he managed to take that

crown, we think, is because he went to the two of the other most powerful men in the kingdom, Edwin and Morcar, who were the lords of the north. He promised them they would keep ruling in the north and he married their sister almost on the spot after a couple of weeks. So that meant they were happy because suddenly their nephew would one day be King of England, and they'd still be the most powerful men in the north of England. So Edwin and Mork are happy. The English noblemen are happy.

Harold is happy because he is now King Harold II of England. But I guess he's not happy. Everyone else. That is precisely right. Everyone else. Harold Hardradarada the mighty norseman william of normandy a very impressive warrior who's been fighting all his life yet to fight for the throne even as a child his guardian basically was killed in his bedroom when he was a

boy he has a guardian he had a guardian when he was a kid because his dad died young he killed his god no his guardian was killed by people that were trying to like seize William and take control of Normandy when he was young. There were lots of civil wars in Normandy when he was young.

So William is a tough guy. All right. And they're not happy. So they plan to invade England. So England will be invaded in the year 1066. Kings will fight. Kings will die in this year

of battle. So are there other people who want to be king on the Viking side? No. Harald Hardrada is from Norway, who we call Vikings, like Norsemen. William the Conqueror is sort of French, but he's descended from Vikings, but he's basically French. Alright? Is he fighting with

the Vikings? Good question. Good question. We don't know. Did they have an agreement? We're not sure. Because I think they would both fight together to beat... Harold of England. Yeah, and then they would fight each other again. Well, that's very possible, that's very possible that that could have happened, but we don't know, we don't have evidence for that because it was 1,000 years ago. So it's quite tricky. How come they have evidence for every other thing? Well, the evidence for the things that I'm telling you were written down at the time.

We have one or two sources written down at the time, although they're a bit biased because one source was William the Conqueror's private chaplain, unfortunately, so obviously he's a bit biased. But another source is the Bayer Tapestry, which is a beautiful picture story of this whole thing happening that was sewn after the event. Okay, Orla, are you with me so far? Yeah.

Okay, great. Who's the Viking king from the north? William? No, but never mind. Let's keep going. So Harold gathers a mighty army throughout the whole summer of 1066. And again, which Harold are we talking about? Harold of England, King Harold gathers a mighty army. He whole summer of 1066. And again, which Harold are we talking about? Harold of England, King Harold gathers a mighty army.

He knows that people are going to invade. And then he got one big problem as well. His brother Tostig used to be the Lord of the North of England. He was a very bad Earl and Harold helped chase him out and he went into exile. Now he starts raiding along the coast, attacking the coast. Maybe he wanted to be king as well. We're not sure. So it might be another guy who wanted to be king, that was Tostig. He raided on the coast, he didn't have enough men, so he disappears off and he joins forces

with Harald Hardrada in Norway. So now the king's brother is actually fighting against him. I know, can you believe it? The king's brother has gone off to Norway to join his bitter enemy. So anyway, Harald of England is down in the south of England. He keeps his forces near Portsmouth, near Southampton, near the Isle of Wight. He's expecting William of Normandy to cross the Channel and invade. But nothing happens. William of Normandy gathers a mighty army over in France. Lots of people join up.

He gets the Pope to support him. Harold of England had visited Normandy years before, had sworn on some sacred bones that he would let William be King of England. And now Harold had made himself King of England. He said that Harold was an oath breaker. He'd broken the promise he made on these religious bones. That made him an evil person.

And so the Pope said, sure thing. Here's a special flag, a banner that your army can march under. And anyone who marks with you has god on their side so you sign up you have god on your side if you win you might get lots of money get some land in england it's a sweet deal so william of normandy builds up a big army he puts them in these ships but the wind is against them and they pray for different winds but they cannot get to england because the wind is blowing against them why don't they just go the other side of normandy because if they go he doesn't

have another side well there is a sort of other side of normandy the trouble is if they sail out there they're going to end up in america no they just say around the world so around the world okay you do realize how long that takes okay so don't worry what they're going to do they've got open boats they can't surround the world they can only go to sea for a day or two at a time, right? They've got horses in these open boats. They're not boats to survive an oceanic voyage, okay? So they can't sail out into the Atlantic. They have to wait until the wind blows, well, ideally from the south

or from the southwest and blows them across to England. It doesn't happen. They could just tack. All right, Mrs. Sailor. The trouble is they have square sails. They're very bad at tacking these ships. They can't really tack. Oh.

They can only go downwind. How sad. Yeah. So Harold is waiting all summer, but eventually King Harold of England has to send his army home because they have to collect the harvest. They have to go and bring in the crops from the fields. It's September.

You can't just keep an army sitting around doing nothing. These are all the healthy young people. They need They need back in the fields, all right? And so he has to disband the army and send them home. He returns to London. And as he gets to London, thinking, well, it looks like I'm okay for another winter because no one's going to cross the ocean in the winter, right? Too dangerous. You don't start a military campaign in the autumn or the winter. I'll be probably good till next year. Looks like 1067 is going to be a big year. But he was wrong. Because when he was in London, a messenger arrived. Horse, frothing and sweaty, a messenger bedraggled, spattered in mud. He's been going constantly for days, breathless, staggers into the king's presence. And he tells the king electrifying news

and that news was Harold Hardrada has arrived yeah well it's the right story England has been invaded but not in the south not by William of Normandy but in the north by Harold Hardrada

and Harold Hardrada's sidekick who is Tostig T, and Harold Hardrada's sidekick, who is... Tostig! Tostig? Harold of England's brother. Imagine that, discovering your kingdom's been invaded and your brother is on the enemy team. The worst example of that, to be fair, was Edward II, whose country was invaded, guess what, by his... Brother. Wife.

Yeah, well that's a different story. That's a different story. That's a different story. Anyway. England had been invaded in the north. Harold had to get his elite warriors together. They're called housecarls. Permanent professional soldiers. And they galloped north as hard as they could.

His plan was to take Harold Hardrada by surprise. News came that England's second city, York, had been captured by the Norse. And so Harold needed to get up there as quickly as possible. His brothers-in-law, Edwin and Morcar, these two guys I was talking about, had been defeated at a battle called Fulford. York had fallen. Wait, they were defeated by who? Harold Hardrada, with his Viking warriors. Not good, folks. Not good. Now the Goddard war. So Harold of England marched north. Now, with his Viking warriors. Not good, folks. Not good.

So Harold of England marched north. Now, his secret plan was to go as quickly as he can to surprise them by marching from London as hard as he could. He went hard on his horses. They arrived in Yorkshire. They arrived in north of England. And they discovered that Harold Hardrada was waiting in a field where the people of York were going to go and officially surrender the city of York to him.

And so he wasn't expecting the English army to be there. He was expecting a nice exchange of polite words, and they'd formally give him the keys to York and all that kind of stuff. So he's cruising around this field with about half his army. They've left their armor behind on their ships. They were doing a bit of sunbathing. It was a nice warm September day. And the Viking sources say, suddenly Hardrada saw in the distance what looked like the flash of sunlight on broken ice. And guess what that was? Armour. Armour. The sun shining off the armour, the polished armour of the English army marching

north to exact their revenge, to drive the invader from their soil. England! All right, lionesses, very good. So Harold of England has arrived in the north. Hardrada looks out and he says the funniest thing. He says, we're going to be killed today, but the English will have a hard fight before we are killed. He knew exactly what was coming.

He knew they could never stand up to the English army. We listened to Dan Snow's history of more coming up. Did you know that some of literature's greatest characters were real people? It's so fascinating, isn't it, that some of the Three Musketeers are also based on real soldiers. That Sir Walter Raleigh wasn't all that he's been cracked up to be. Chemist, poet, scholar, historian, courtier. He could have been great in all these different things.

And that if your name is Dudley, you better watch your back. For the Tudors, each one of them took something from the Dudleys, either by working with a member of the Dudley family, or of course, by having one executed. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and I'm learning all this and much more, bringing you Not Just the Tudors, twice a week, every week. Subscribe now to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings.

Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit.

Wherever you get your podcasts. But on came the English. The Vikings tried to form a shield wall, but they didn't have enough armor, they didn't have enough shields. Their troops were spread out on either side of a river and there was a bridge on that river called Stamford Bridge

and that would be the bridge that the battle was named after the English swept down killing and smashing down the Vikings the Battle of Stamford Bridge catchy I think it is quite catchy

do you not like that title? hmm don't mind it alright what's better? Towton Bosworth Passchendaele Zanzibar Zanzibar alright Zanzibar Don't mind it. All right. What's better? Towton? Bosworth?

Passchendaele? Zanzibar. Zanzibar. All right. Zanzibar. Okay, don't worry about Zanzibar. So the English starts killing the Vikings on the close side of the river, and then they try to get across the bridge to get the main Viking army.

But one gigantic Viking buys time for his friends to escape. This one massive Viking stood on the bridge and stopped the English going across. He cut down lots of men and the Viking poets in years to come spoke of this man and his bravery. Until, do you know how the English got him off the bridge? They pushed him? No, they did not push him into the water. They got a barrel.

They floated down the stream, the river, and they shoved a spear up through the bridge into his groin area. Oh my god, dad, you're so embarrassing sometimes. They stabbed him right there and he collapsed into the river and the water turned red with blood. And the English were able to rampage across the bridge. They closed with the Viking army. Harold Hardrada decided to compose a death poem before the battle. closed with the viking army harold hardrada decided to compose a death poem before the battle it's the viking way they love making poems and he composed a

short poem how relaxing yeah it's very relaxing i am about to die and then harold hardrada went on a rampage he left the shield wall behind the shield wall as you guys know because we have made many shields haven't we you lock your shields together so it's like an impenetrable barrier of steel and wood. And then from out behind the shield wall, you stick out your spear tips, your knives, and your swords. So it's prickly all the way along. It's jagged with ultra-sharp steel and iron sticking out from the shield wall. So it's quite a hard thing to break into. But Harold Hardrada apparently goes on this crazy mission. He just leaves the shield wall,

runs down and starts stabbing and attacking English a sword in either hand until eventually he's felled as an arrow smashes into his throat. One of the great warriors of the 11th century was killed in a field in Yorkshire. The mud underneath their feet turned red with blood as the two sides pushed and shoved and fought but in the end the lack of armour and the fact they were outnumbered meant that the Norse, the Vikings, the Northmen were beaten at the battle. Some reinforcements that arrived running from their ships but as they arrived they saw the battle was almost over and they were helpless to stop the destruction of the Norwegian army. King Harold of England had won a crushing victory. Harold Hardrada had fought under a banner called the Land Waster

and it was torn down and trampled into the mud of England. A few survivors panicked, they ran back to the ships, they pushed off. Only a handful of survivors and a few ships made it back to Norway. Harold's brother Tostig dead on the battlefield. Harold Hardrada dead. There's now one or two less claimants for the throne of England. Harold of England's won one of the great victories of English history. But we don't remember it because a few weeks later there would be another battle. Because two days after that victory at Stamford Bridge, guess what happened? England was invaded again.

Oh yeah. Where were they invaded? In the south. Very good, Orla Bean. And so, with his army exhausted, his elite soldiers knackered, wounded, the Northern Warriors have fought two battles now, Fulford and Stamford Bridge. They've had a very busy September so far.

And now they've got another terrible threat to England, an army of Frenchmen marauding about on the south coast. Do you know what William of Normandy did? He burned and raided and smashed and destroyed to try and provoke, to try and force Harold to rush into battle against him. And sure enough, Harold got back on his horses. They galloped south from York. They arrived in London. Harold's brothers said, please don't go out there. Don't go and fight William. Wait until the army is fully assembled. Wait until we're stronger. Wait until extra soldiers come in from the north, the Midlands and the west.

And guess what Harold said? He said, no. Well, he's an idiot. He said, no, I'm going to fight William. He's raiding and burning our villages and towns. And I am going to fight this Norman. He will wish he'd stayed behind in his nice castle at Falaise rather than land on these shores and meet his destiny.

And so Harold, against the advice of many of his loved ones, marched down again. He wanted to do the same trick he'd done against Harold Hardrada. He marched fast trying to take William by surprise he marched down south of London

towards Hastings where William had set up camp William had already built a castle in Hastings which you can still visit to this day

one of the first castles wait he already built a castle yeah he had these flat pack castles like from Ikea he basically had castles that he could

just put up as soon as he landed from Ikea no they weren't from Ikea but they were like you know they were almost in castles that you could just put up as soon as you landed. From Ikea? No, they weren't from Ikea, but they were like, you know, they were almost in a big box. You could just put them up if you had the instructions. But what were they made out of?

Made out of wood, and then you got local people to do all the hard work. Oh, nice. Yeah. Portable castle, folks. Yeah, portable castle. Very handy. If you're invading a country where everyone hates you, don't forget to take Port-A-Castle.

Ha-ha. Okay. So, it's now early October. It was a crisp autumn day. Harold has left London with fewer troops than he needed. He rushed down. He wanted to nip this invasion in the bud. William was waiting for him, and he marched north out of Hastings. And they met at a site a few miles north of Hastings.

Harold on top of a hill, a big ridge commanding the road to London. William's troops entered the valley below and the scene was set from the greatest and longest battles in English medieval history. It would be known as the Battle of... Hastings. Good girl. Impressive. You've been listening. William organised his troops with his archers in the front, shooting their arrows. He also had his crack.

You know, he managed to bring lots of horses across the English Channel in their boats as well. The English did not fight on horseback. They fought on foot in the shield wall that we have already talked about. A shield wall. So as they looked up to the top of that slope, William and his French troops would have seen a gigantic wall of wood and steel with spears, swords, knives poking out. He'd also seen the housecarls, King Harold's legendary elite warriors. Now they like to fight using a double handed battle axe. So in front of the shield wall, there were men whirling these huge double-handed battle axes over their heads.

They could chop the head off a horse with one blow. Terrifying weapons. And so, kind of mid-morning, William's troops started advancing up the hill. The archers went first, shooting their arrows, trying to pick holes in the shield wall. Then came the infantry, the foot soldiers, looking to break a hole in the shield wall. And after that, lurking on the edges were the knights riding their horses. Their job was to crash into the shield wall. If there were any dents in it, any little gaps, blast into it, tear it apart and destroy the English army.

It's quite tiring walking up the hill in all that armour. I've worn armour and walked up the hill, and you're sweating and breathing heavily by the time you get to the top of the hill. And swords are really heavy. And swords are really heavy, exactly. You get really tired. You get really tired. And as they got to the top, the English started hurling down missiles, basically, anything they could get their hands on. As you're climbing up to the top, the English are hurling down things. You're blocking them with your shields. You're breathing heavily. You're knackered. You get to the top. You get to the shield wall. And then the press

of battle starts. You're crushed in against the English shield wall. Knives and spears stabbing through the gaps. Your arms pinned to your side, you can hardly lift your sword to fight, the people behind you are pushing forward, the English are pushing forward, you're trapped in the middle and it's a killing field. The English did not budge and the Normans were the first ones to break. The Normans actually blamed some of their French allies, obviously everyone likes to blame each other when bad things happen, and some troops streamed back down the hill shouting the hill shouting retreat retreat and the English thought they'd won the battle here were the invaders streaming back down the hill screaming and some of the French were retreating shouting that William Duke of Normandy was dead now if the leader was dead there's not much point fighting

if the whole reason you're here is to get your leader the crown and he's dead there's not much more point fighting anymore is there so some of them started running back down the hill at this point William Duke of Normandy makes one of the great battlefield interventions in British history. He rides along the battlefield. He takes his helmet off so people can see his face. And he shouts, I am alive. And God willing, this day I will be victorious. And he rides through the fleeing men, rallying them, convincing them to stand and fight. And the Normans do. The Normans and the French, they turn around and they cut down the English that are chasing them.

The English who thought the French were retreating found themselves a bit isolated. They'd run down the hill. Now the French turn around and they cut them down. Aha! You have been outsmarted. Well, was it outsmarting? By the Normans. Yeah, was it outsmarting or was it accident and good luck? We don't know.

What we do now think happened is the Normans saw that and thought they might do that tactic again. And they had used this in a previous battle we know about. So they advanced up the hill. They went, oh no, we're retreating. They ran down the hill and some of the English would follow them each time. And then each time they'd turn around

and kill those English that were following them. It's a tactic that you'd think the English would get smart to fairly quickly. So we don't quite know why they kept doing it. But it does appear, folks, that Harold, King of England's brothers, Girth and Leofwin, were killed in this way, in one of these attacks and counterattacks. His two brothers cut down. Can you imagine? Tostig has already been killed on one

battlefield fighting against Harold. Now two other brothers, Girth and Leofwin, are dead. So it's a day of personal tragedy for Harold. But as the day went on, it seemed likely that Harold might keep his throne. He might keep his army at the top of that ridge. Stop William advancing on London and cause the invaders terrible casualties because remember all Harold has to do is survive the day because we'd be supporting William of Normandy or William Godwinson it's not William Godwinson it's Harold Godwinson would we support I think we'd be Harold guys wouldn't we I think so yeah we live right on Harold's patch remember we went to Bosham that was like one of Harold's main headquarters,

one of his main houses. So I think we'd probably be Harold people, wouldn't we? We'd fight to keep an invader off English soil. Well, you guys would. I'm too old now. You're only... How old are you? Fourteen. Three? Yeah.

Not too old. Could I still fight, do you reckon? Yeah. Oh, thanks. What about you? I don't think he could. All Harold had to do was survive the day, and because he's King of England, more and more troops would join him, his army would get bigger and bigger,

whereas the invaders, the Normans and the French, they needed to win because otherwise they'd be cut off in a foreign land with winter approaching, and it was very, very difficult to resupply, to get more troops over from the continent. So as the day is going on the battle is raging. The Normans have managed to kill some English like the King's brothers but still King Harold is at the top of that slope. He's got his banner the dragon of Wessex flying over his head and the English are not yet defeated. But then as the afternoon wore on and the shadows lengthened, we don't quite know

what happened, but something occurred on the battlefield that transformed the outcome. William of Normandy gathered his troops for one more assault. This time he seems to have put his foot soldiers in the front rank with some of his knights. They marched along and behind them he put archers who were shooting their arrows over the heads of the people advancing. William or Harold? No, William, because Harold is anchored to the spot. The chronicler, the person who writes about this battle, said it was extraordinary. One side was all movement and the other side was just static.

It was like a wall, an immovable wall of shields and swords and spears. So William sends him up for one last attack. Arrows shooting over the heads of the men advancing up the hill. They must have been exhausted. They're marching over the bodies of their recently killed comrades, stepping over them, heading up the hill, past broken shields and swords, and they get to the top, they get to the English lines.

Now, what happens now? We don't know. One story says that one of those arrows, shot by the Normans, flew up, up, up, into the air, and down, down, into... Harold's Eye. Harold's Eye. A king of England blinded by this terrible arrow raining down from above. But another story says that William took his best warriors,

created an elite assassination squad, a hit squad, and galloped those warriors straight at King Harald. They could tell where he was because he was standing under his banner. And they hacked their way into the shield wall and they just managed to get Harald and they slaughtered him and they chopped him to pieces. I think I like the arrow in the eye one better. Well, many people do.

I don't. I like the one where he got chopped to pieces. Oh, really? Orla, you got the deciding vote. Which do you think it was? In the Bay of Tapestry, it says the arrow in the eye, doesn't it? The arrow in the eye. Okay, we've got two against one, the arrow in the eye. But there's a long and very interesting debate about whether the Bay of Tapestry does actually show that,

which I will not bore you with at present. How dare! I know, don't worry. I will not bore you with. So either way, in the evening of battle, King Harold of England was cut down on that ridge. And after the king was killed, his army started to vanish away into the woods, each making their own escape.

Individuals deciding that if the king was dead, there was no point sticking around to die pointlessly. Now, Harold's housecarls, remember these professional warriors, they were sworn that they would never leave the battlefield if their king stayed behind. And so they perhaps formed little shield walls, little huddles of men, perhaps around the corpse of Harold, and they fought to the end against the Norman invaders. But the Norman horses were now able to break into the shield wall

as it was fragmenting, as it was falling apart. Gaps were appearing. The horses crashed in. Terrifying, huge, furious, gnashing war horses, riders on their backs slashing down with spears and swords, and the English troops melted away into the dusk. And as night fell, William of Normandy was victorious on the field of Hastings. And that was the end of one of the most decisive battles in English history. It was decisive because after that battle, despite the English having a think about continuing

resistance against William, they never really got anything together. And by Christmas, they'd surrendered to William the Conqueror. They'd offered him the throne of England. He was crowned on Christmas Day in Westminster Abbey. There was a shout outside the Abbey when he was crowned. His guards thought there was a riot going on and they started smashing everybody up and burning houses nearby. So it wasn't a great start to William's rule. Over the next few years, William had to force his regime, his rule on the people of England,

also the people of Wales and southern Scotland as well. He marched across the country. He built castles everywhere. You know what castles are, folks? Yes, obviously. You will not know what castles are. What did you say the time I drove you to a castle and you looked out the window

and saw we were going to another castle? She said, not another smashed house. Yeah, she went, oh, daddy, not another smashed house. And that's kind of what castles were, really. They were houses. They were super powerful houses built with great defences. Castles are what you've got to build when the locals and the neighbours absolutely hate you. And the English did not like the Normans.

They did not like these new French rulers who came across. They were given all the best land. They were given the finest jobs in the kingdom. They were given the wealth. And so they had to build castles to protect themselves and extend their control across the country and that is to this day why England and Wales have got some of the highest concentration of castle anywhere in the world so William of Normandy had become King William of England he'd become William the Conqueror he and his descendants would rule over England for centuries

to come. And it was the last time this country has seen a conquest in which one ruling dynasty, one ruling class entirely replaces another. You know, French became the language of England at that point. For 400 years, the king and the court spoke in French. And it was a total transformation in how Britain was governed. With consequences, folks, that last to the present day, 1,000 years later. That was the Battle of Hastings, everybody. Woo!

So what do you want next, folks? Francis Drake. Okay, fine. Spanish Armada. Moana! Moana. Okay. We'll do the history of Moana

and her Polynesian adventuring. All right, folks. see you next time. Bye. Bye. I feel we have the history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone. you