Why The Normans Lose The Battle Of Hastings

In 1066 the Battle of Hastings began when King Edward the Confessor died leaving Harold Godwinson to be king. This is what triggered the Battle of Hastings; the Norman king William claimed to have been promised the throne of England by Edward. So when word got to the Normans that Harold had been crowned king of England they were outraged and built an army big enough to wipe out the whole of the British army. There are many reasons for the Saxon’s losing the Battle of Hastings but, in this essay I will only be looking at a few: The Norman’s upper hands in their luck and strengths and The Saxon lack of luck and their weaknesses.
The first point I am going to be looking at is the Norman’s strengths. The Norman’s strong and large force was at a massive advantage completely out numbering the Saxon’s by thousands. The army was strong and willing to fight till the death. Some of that army was built up with horse men; also known as cavalry, these horses were specially bred and trained to be strong and agile with the ability to bite and kick their
opponents. Also the Norman army had archers armed with a bow and some arrows fired up into the Saxon’s shield wall. Again they had the advantage with cunning tactics; pretending to run away but as the Saxon’s chased after them they turned around and slaughtered the isolated Saxon soldiers. This also helped as it broke the chain in the shield wall allowing the Normans to pour in in there thousands. But they didn’t win the war purely through their strengths they also needed some luck to kick in.
Lucky for the Norman’s they had God on their side that provided them with enough luck combined with their strength to win the battle; so that is my next focus point.
As they arrived they were unopposed because of the Vikings attacking in the Battle of Stamford Bridge. It was a dream come true for the Norman army no Saxons around to stop them; the Normans had caught the Saxons while they were off guard, weak and their numbers were thin. When they reached Hastings the Saxons have tried their best to reassemble the army and used their only advantage they had; the shield wall. A lucky shot from an archer finished off the battle as the arrow landed right in King Harold’s eye. After the Saxon army fled Norman’s armed with axes were sent to hack the Saxon king into enough pieces to make sure his body could not be recovered to bury, if that’s not luck I don’t know what is! My next point is all about Harold Godwinson’s bad
luck.
Harold Godwinson’s reign was cut short when the most outrageously lucky shot from a Norman archer landed straight in his eye, unlucky timing for Harold meant that his army was already tired and thin on men after fighting the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This wasn’t just unlucky because they would have been tired from the battle it was also because the army had to march from Stamford Bridge, all the way down to Hastings in as little time as possible. They were off guard; unprepared there was no way that they could win two consecutive battles! Especially when the Saxon army had a lot of weaknesses; so that’s what I will be basing my next and final point on, Saxon weaknesses.
Saxon weaknesses played a big role in the Battle of Hastings. For example having untrained soldiers building up a large part of the Saxon army they were at a big disadvantage already; normally these soldiers would have the profession of farming. Another weakness was the size of the Saxon army; against the Norman army even the large Saxon army was small. A lack of discipline in the front line was also a major weakness as when some of the Norman army ran away if the front line of the shield wall had stayed they may have won that battle.
To conclude; there were many reasons that the Saxon’s lost the war. Including the Norman’s strong army that seemed to have luck on their side and some of the weaker parts of the Saxon army may have been part of the reason the throne was handed over to the Norman king William but bad luck may have been a major part of the Norman’s conquering of Britain. You never know maybe Harold Godwinson ran into a black cat on his way down to Hastings.