Events before and after the Battle of Hastings in 1066... alternate reality

[Sveinn_F]

I am doing a language project to work out how English could have turned out if Harold Godwinson had decided not to defend against Harald Hardrada, but instead stay and fight the Normans and succeed. My language project depends on a few things... number one... the Normans having no influence on English language... and number two... the kingdom of England having York as the residence of the king to where modern day England would have York as the capital city.

I know my language and linguistics, but I don't know my history very well. I want a historian who really knows his/her stuff about the events before and after the Battle of Hastings, to think up a plausible, interesting theory (as detailed as possible) which could explain how Harold Godwinson's alternate decision could have lead up to these two things that support my language project.

My weak theory is "Godwinson chose to keep his men in the south to defend the Normans and won... thus Harald Hardrada invaded and established (perhaps a smaller) new Danelaw and set up York as the heart of his kingdom. Then Edgar the Aetheling went up with his men from the south and fought Harald back to York and defeated him... and then for some reason decided to stay in York and make that the heart of the new reclaimed England... to where of course modern day England would have York as the seat of government and capital city... the best I can come up with is that Harald had made York such a nice looking city that Edgar liked it so much."

You can see why it's a bit weak as a theory... I just want someone to fill in the gaps or maybe change it completely. :D Just so long as the Normans lose and York becomes the capital city before the 14th century.

[mike11111]

"What if, Christopher Columbus had stopped at home?"
Indeed, and if the Puritans had not been harried under James I, no Pilgrim Fathers and no USA! Sometimes history plays dirty tricks; we just have to accept what was, not what might have been, unfortunately.

[Marijn]

@ Scylax - I think you misinterpreted what I was asking. :P I'm not asking for a definite answer as "What would have happened?" I just want a plausible, interesting detailed theory. If someone could think up a chain of historical events that would mean that a New Danelaw is established... maybe by Hardrada... maybe later by Cnut IV... who knows... so that England becames cut in half with the north half forming a new nation... perhaps called Humbria or Humberland. :P
So we have two separate nations with two separate languages over time. Not a great difference between languages... only as different as say Dutch and Afrikaans.
The language I can do... but the history, I can't. :)

[Marijn]

@ heathfield - Thank you. I will certainly use it for reference. :)

[Sveinn_F]

Ugh... didn't sign in as me again. Will have to check everytime I go on here. >.<

[Mosaic]

Mike, I think you're slightly misconstruing the idea: it isn't history - it's fantasy based on a framework of possibilities - just like Simcity etc but in narrative rather than gaming form.

[jake-the-peg]

In physics there is a lot of work done in non-linear dynamics or Chaos theory modelling. A key concept in this is determining how sensitive to the intial condions an outcome is.

A good example of this is weather forecasting. After the forecast is done they will re-run the calculations with slightly different values for temperatures, pressures etc. If the resulting forecast is very similar they know that the system is quite stable and that there is a good probability that the forecast is accurate, if not then it's a relatively unstable system.

I suspect that history is quite like that.

Some circumstances are quite stable. There would likely have been a World War with or without the assassination of arch-Duke Ferdinand.

Others are less so - like the battle of Hastings