While Stamford Bridge was a great victory for Har-
old and the Anglo-Saxons, the battle had badly depleted
his forces and material. Three days after the battle ended,
William of Normandy and his forces landed at Pevensey,
East Sussex (although recent archaeological discoveries
show that William probably landed at Hastings), and
Harold received the news with dismay. He rushed his
forces south while William established his force’s posi-
tion at Hastings and waited for Harold’s army to come
south. On 3 October, they began their march to Hast-
ings, pausing at Waltham Abbey to pray for divine guid-
ance. On 13 October, they reached the main battle point
at Caldbec Hill, assembling at the “hoary apple tree” ap-
proximately seven miles from Hastings. On the follow-
ing day, Harold’s 6,000 or 7,000 troops faced about the
same number of Normans, who had cavalry and archers.
The Anglo-Saxons held their own for a while, defeating
the Norman archers and inflicting heavy casualties with
battleaxes. When the Normans began an orderly move
backward, the English rushed forward, a fatal move that
broke their hitherto impregnable close formation—the
“shield wall.” The Norman archers attacked again, and
it was perhaps during this attack that Harold was struck
and killed. His brothers Leofwine and Gyrth were also
killed, leaving the English without a natural leader.
In his 1869–76 history of the Norman conquest of
England, Edward A. Freeman notes that contemporary
and later English historians have differed on the man-
ner and timing of Harold’s death. Historian Margaret
Ashdown, in a 1959 work, claimed that Harold survived
the battle of Hastings and moved to Iceland, where he
later died. Some modern historians, rereading the writ-
ing on the Bayeaux Tapestry, now feel that Harold was
not hit by an arrow in the eye but was beheaded. Free-
man writes:
While Harold still lived, while the horse and his
rider still fell beneath his axe, the heart of En-
gland failed not, and the hope of England had not
wholly passed away... the Duke [William] bade
his archers shoot up in the air, that their arrows
might, as it were, fall straight from heaven. The
effect was immediate and fearful. No other device
of the wilely Duke that day did such frightful
execution. Helmets were pierced; eyes were put
out; men strove to guard their heads with their
shields, and, in doing so, they were of course less
able to wield their axes.... As twilight was com-ing on, a mighty shower of arrows was launched
on its deadly errand against the defenders of the
Standard [the English flag]. There Harold still
fought, his shield bristled with Norman shafts;
but he was still unwounded and unwearied.
At last another arrow, more charged with des-
tiny than its fellows, went still more truly to its
mark. Falling like a bolt from heaven, it pierced
the King’s right eye; he clutched convulsively at
the weapon, he broke it off at the shaft, his axe
dropped from his hand, and he sank in agony
at the foot of the Standard. Meanwhile twenty
knights who had bound themselves to lower or
to bear off the English ensigns strove to cut their
way to the same spot. Most of the twenty paid
for the venture with their lives, but the survivors
succeeded in their attempt. Four of them reached
the Standard at the very moment when Harold
fell. Disabled as he was, the King strove to rise;
the four rushed upon him and despatched him
with various wounds.... [O]ne pierced through
the shield of the dying King and stabbed him in
the breast; another smote him with the sword just
below the fastenings of his helmet. But life was
still in him; as he still struggled, a third pierced
his body through his lance, and a fourth finished
the work by striking off his leg with the sword.William founded a church on the site of the bat-
tle—Battle Abbey—and some believe Harold is buried
there. Most historians now agree that his body was taken
away and buried at Waltham Abbey, 20 miles north of
London. In the 1950s, a church renovation at Battle
Abbey found a tomb with a headless body that was also
missing a left leg and part of a right—injuries that his-
torians claim Harold sustained on the field. Despite this
controversy, Harold’s death is considered a turning point
in European history. As shown in the Bayeaux Tapestry,
it led to the first French king of England, William, duke
of Normandy, better known as William the Conqueror,
whose descendants still sit on the throne of England.References: Loyn, H. R., Harold, Son of Godwin (Hast-
ings, U.K.: The Hastings and Bexhill Branch of the His-
torical Association, 1966); Freeman, Edward A., The
History of the Norman Conquest of England, Its Causes
and Its Results, 5 vols. (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press,
1869–76), III:495–497; Lloyd, Alan, The Making of the hARolD ii