Stamford Bridge and Hastings: the Battles of 1066
A Year of Two Invasions
By September 1066 Harold Godwinson had been king for eight months. He had spent the summer with the largest army England could field on the south coast, watching for William’s ships. Provisions ran out on 8 September and the army went home. Within a fortnight the wind he had been waiting for blew the wrong way: Harald Hardrada, not William, was the first to land.
Fulford Gate, 20 September 1066
Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson sailed up the Humber with around 300 ships and 9,000 men. The northern earls Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria gathered the local fyrd and met them at Fulford Gate, just south of York, on 20 September. The Norse line outlasted the English; Edwin and Morcar’s army was broken and York opened its gates. Hardrada now controlled the north.
The March North
Harold heard the news in London in mid-September. He summoned his housecarls, called out the southern fyrd, and rode north. He covered roughly 185 miles in four to five days — an exceptional pace for an 11th-century army. He arrived at Tadcaster on 24 September, picking up local levies as he came.
Stamford Bridge, 25 September 1066
Hardrada had agreed to meet hostages from York at Stamford Bridge, seven miles east of the city. His men had left their mail behind in the ships at Riccall, expecting nothing more than ceremony. Harold’s fast march caught them by surprise. After heavy fighting, including a famous stand by a single Norse warrior on the bridge itself, the English broke through. Hardrada was killed by an arrow to the throat; Tostig was killed in the melee. Of around 300 ships only 24 returned to Norway. Stamford Bridge was a comprehensive English victory — and the last great battle of the Viking Age in Britain.
At Stamford Bridge on 25 September 1066, Harold’s housecarls and southern fyrd destroyed Harald Hardrada’s Norse army. Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson were both killed. Only 24 of about 300 Norse ships sailed home.
William’s Landing on the South Coast
Three days later, on 28 September, William’s fleet landed unopposed on the Sussex coast at Pevensey. He moved his base to Hastings within days and threw up a wooden castle there. His men ravaged the local countryside, partly for supplies, partly to force Harold to march and fight before his army could fully recover. Harold marched south with his housecarls and the surviving fyrd, gathering reinforcements as he went, but his army was tired and depleted before the battle began.
Hastings, 14 October 1066
Harold reached the area on 13 October and chose his ground well. He drew up his men on Senlac ridge, blocking the Hastings–London road. The English formed a tight shield wall on the crest of the ridge: housecarls in the front rank with two-handed Dane axes, fyrd behind them. William attacked uphill with three lines — archers, infantry, then mounted knights.
Norman archers shot first but their arrows had little effect against the shield wall on higher ground. The infantry charge was thrown back. The cavalry charge stalled. A rumour ran through William’s left flank that the duke had been killed; it began to break. William rode bare-headed along the line to show he was alive, rallied his men and charged again. Sometime in the afternoon a section of the English right pursued retreating Bretons down the slope — whether by genuine retreat or feigned retreat is debated — and were cut down by the cavalry on the open ground. The shield wall thinned. Late in the day Harold was killed; the Bayeux Tapestry shows him struck in the eye, then cut down by a mounted knight. With the king dead and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine already fallen, the housecarls fought to the death around the standard. The fyrd dispersed into the woods.
Why Hastings Was Close-Run
It is tempting to assume Norman cavalry and archers always beat an Anglo-Saxon shield wall, but the battle was decided in the last hour of daylight. The English had repulsed two major Norman attacks. Harold’s army was depleted from Stamford Bridge and the rapid march, but the ridge negated William’s cavalry advantage for most of the day. Modern historians stress the role of the feigned (or genuine) retreats and the death of Harold himself: had Harold survived to night, William’s army — far from supplies, in hostile country, with no reinforcements — might have had to retreat to its ships. The myth of inevitable Norman victory grew up after the conquest, written by the winners.
Norman armies fought with three arms working together: archers softened the enemy line, infantry advanced under cover of the shooting, and mailed knights on warhorses charged on command. They also brought prefabricated castles — Hastings was fortified within days of landing. The Anglo-Saxons fought on foot in massed shield walls, with elite housecarls swinging two-handed Dane axes capable of cutting through mail. Both ways of war could win; the question was who controlled the ground.
Hastings was decided in the last hour of daylight on 14 October 1066. The shield wall had repulsed Norman archers, infantry and the first cavalry charge. The combination of feigned retreats, the wearing-down of the housecarls and Harold’s death — not Norman tactical superiority alone — turned the battle.