1. Why did William win in 1066? William’s Effective Leadership
As the victorious general, William might have won because of his own actions.
Evidence you could use:
William took full advantage of Godwinson visiting Normandy in 1064 and made him swear an oath on religious relics, as well as knighting him. This helped William portray Godwinson as a usurper (not the rightful king) and helped him gain support, including from the Pope.
William sent men to Rome as soon as he heard of Edward the Confessor’s death to ask for the Pope’s support for his invasion. He understood that getting the Pope’s blessing would help to gain him lots more men for his invasion.
William burnt, pillaged and destroyed the south coast around where his army landed, to try to get Godwinson to come to the south coast and fight him quickly.
During the battle, when a rumour went around that William was dead, he took off his helmet and rode around the battlefield to show his men he was not dead and that they should fight on. He may have prevented a disastrous retreat and defeat by doing such a brave thing.
During the battle, the Bretons in William’s army fled from the Saxons they were fighting and ran down to the bottom of Senlac Hill. The Saxons followed and were wiped out by William’s cavalry when they got to the bottom of the hill. William instructed parts of his army to run away from the Saxons, to try to draw them off the hill in this way. This was called the ‘feigned retreat’ tactic and helped to slowly break down the Saxon shield wall.
Why did William win in 1066?
Harold Godwinson’s Mistakes
Godwinson lost and it could be that he himself was to blame.
Evidence you could use:
Godwinson ended up in Normandy in 1064, either through choice, or more likely by mistake. This was careless as William made him swear and oath to him on religious relics and knighted Godwinson to show Godwinson was the lower ranked person compared to William. Both helped William to gain more supporters for his invasion, including the Pope.
When he heard that the Normans had invaded, Godwinson chose to march his men quickly to fight at Hastings, despite his army having marched north to fight the Vikings at Stamford Bridge all the way up in York. He could have waited in London and gathered more men. Both battles took place less than three weeks apart.
Godwinson failed to stop his men from leaving their strong position on Senlac Hill.
Composition of the Armies
The Anglo-Saxon army was quite different in many ways to the Norman army and this might explain the Norman victory.
Evidence you could use:
Normans had cavalry. Without this, the feigned retreat would not have worked as well because it was the cavalry that wiped out the Saxons that left Senlac Hill.
Normans had archers. It was possibly an arrow that killed Godwinson in the end. They would have weakened the shield wall.
Saxon’s had lost many housecarls when fighting at Stamford Bridge. The housecarls were the most feared of the Saxon soldiers.
Most of the Saxon army was made up of the ‘fyrd’ which was basically peasant farmers who had to fight in times of war. Not trained soldiers.
Luck
There were some events that were out of the control of the participants in 1066 and therefore it could be luck that led to the Norman victory.
Evidence you could use:
Not long before William’s invasion force set sail from Normandy, there was a storm in the English Channel. It damaged and sunk a number of the ships that Harold had guarding the channel and forced them back to port. Even if the Saxon ships had lost a battle at sea, they would have taken some of William’s force with them.
The Vikings and Normans invaded England within weeks of each other. They didn’t plan this. It left Godwinson had to fight two battles with two of the most powerful armies in the world at opposite ends of the country in less than three weeks. He still nearly won, despite this. The Battle of Stamford Bridge weakened Godwinson’s army before the battle of Hastings because many men must have died. Many Anglo-Saxons had also died at the Battle of Fulford just before.
It could be that luck left Godwinson shipwrecked in Normandy in 1064, and William was able to take full advantage of that (see William’s effective leadership section).
It was bad luck for Harold that Northumbria rebelled against his brother Tostig in Godwinson chose to turn his back on his brother to prevent rebellion and Tostig convinced the Vikings to invade.
Conclusions: It doesn’t matter which of these factors you argue as the main factor but it does matter that you explain yourself using connectives and explain why your chosen factor was more important than the others. In an essay choose 3 factors to write about.