Hastings 1066

[davo2376]

Why did harold lose hastings?

[Cathy]

As I understand it he lost because his army was exhausted. They had fought the Danes, and defeated them, but then had to march back down to Hastings, with no chance to rest.

[WaldoMcFroog]

There was a cracking programme on about Hastings about three weeks ago. BBC 2 about 6 o'clock as I recall.

As Cathy says above, Harold's men were knackered having literally marched from up North. Harold ignored his advisors requests to let someone else lead the army, but Harold view this as weak and insisted he led the men, rather than staying in London to raise more troops.

Harold's men were on the site of Battle Abbey, a steep hill which provided them with a great advantage over the Normans. 3 lots of Norman cavalry attacked and the lot on the less steep left flank recieved a stern beating from the Saxon shield wall, and retreated.

Stupidly, the Saxon's were too blood crazed to behave sensibly and charged down the hill after them, exposing themselves and leaving the exposed flank open on the easily climbable hill. From there it all fell apart.

[Alice]

Is it true that his last words were: "Stop messing about with that bow and arrow, you'll have somebody's eye out"?