Gradually, more poorly-equipped select fyrd men were forced to step forward into a front rank that was beginning to visibly shorten along the ridgeline. The fyrdmen were brave and relatively well trained, but they were not housecarles, and William knew it.
Their padded leather jerkins were no substitute for the thousands of interwoven mail links of a hauberk, and Norman arrows and throwing spears punched home, killing them by the dozen and forcing more of their brethren into the wavering line. It was now that the superbly drilled Norman cavalry came into their own, each officer, the so-called magister militum master of knights calling out commands by voice, trumpet call or flag — the gonfanons.
Seeing that sections of the shield wall were now manned by fyrdmen and not carles, the cavalry used their tactic of the feigned flight, pretending to fall away in disarray. Each time, considerable numbers of fyrdmen, freed from the horror of absorbing the punishment of the shield wall, sallied out, hoping to smash their opponents once and for all, only to see their fleeing quarry suddenly wheel around, cut them off from their comrades on the summit and surround them with a wall of horseflesh and chain-mail armour.
By now the English had just about run out of anything to throw at the Normans, every arrow, spear, javelin, hand axe and rock having been sent flying into their ranks. More importantly, the corps of housecarles was dying. Many had arrived at Hastings carrying wounds and injuries from Stamford Bridge, their armour saving their lives but unable to protect them from the broken bones and heavy bruising wrought by sword blows. They had not wavered, nor sallied out like their select fyrd comrades, but they were too few and they knew it.
Most of them were lying where they had fallen, in the front rank, surrounded by the corpses of their foes. The main body of the English army was still intact. True, the housecarles were nearly a spent force, but there were still numbers of professional lithsmen and the bravery of the several thousand select fyrdmen was undiminished. By now it was late afternoon, well after 3pm and it would be dark in less than two hours. Practised eyes looked around the battlefield, counting the numbers, grimly assessing the odds, and the truth was that only time could now save the English army, and both the remaining carles and William recognised it.
If Harold could hold until nightfall, he would win. Cloaked by night, he would be able to take his men north, back to their horses on Caldbec Hill and the safety of the Andredsweald. As for William, his men would have no choice but to retreat back to their encampment of the previous night knowing the dawn would bring them no such relief. There were no fresh men or mounts on their way to the Normans.
The battle had now lasted an unbelievable six hours, and it still hung in the balance. For the fourth and last time that day, it was William, not Harold, who acted decisively. Forsaking the rolling attacks of the last few hours, he ordered an all-out assault. The cavalry and infantry were to crash into the shield wall, all the while the archers were told to loose endless volleys into the hard-pressed English.
The Norman horsemen tried to force their way through into the English line, that same line responding with equal ferocity. Almost all the front line were now select fyrd and lithsmen. Instinct prompted most of the surviving carles to inch backwards to gather together around their lords and their banners, even now looking to protect them from what was to come, and leaving yet more lithsmen and fyrdmen to take their places in the shield wall.
The dead were piled up in heaps, men standing among their own slaughtered comrades, no-one was pulling the corpses away now, and all eyes were on the advancing Normans. Now, for the first time, lack of numbers forced the English line to retreat from the far western and eastern edges of the ridge, and the attacking Normans could see the shield wall perceptibly shrinking before them, its ranks getting thinner and thinner as the last of the carles in the frontlines were bludgeoned to death.
There was no longer a dam of mail-shirts and huge battleaxes. Norman cavalry and infantry seized a foothold on the western end of the summit of Battle Hill, and could now attack straight into the English flank, forcing the shield wall to curve round to try and protect itself.
It was the beginning of the end. The Normans could sense victory at long last. It was getting dark but it was too late, the lithsmen were almost all gone while the fyrd men were dying in droves, their courage not enough to compensate for their lack of armour and training. Then, suddenly, the once-continuous shield wall shivered and then shattered into pieces.
Desperate defenders circled their lords, stabbing with tired arms at the rejuvenated Normans who could smell victory. The biggest knot of fighters was, of course, grouped around the King himself, his twin standards still fluttering in the breeze.
The men who still stood with Harold were his very best. These were the housecarles, lithsmen and thegns who had marched with the Godwinson family for 20 years and more. These men would not surrender and they continued to fight toe to toe with the Normans, while the majority of surviving fyrdmen fled for their lives, desperate to reach their tethered horses back on Caldbec Hill and ride for the safety of the Andredsweald a few miles north.
The English were beaten, but all was not yet lost. If Harold could escape then Anglo-Saxon England would still have a king and a rallying point. His survival was paramount and William knew it; Harold apparently did not. The Normans pressed home their attack, determined to achieve complete victory and wipe out the enemy who had held them at bay for so long, and without the protection of the war-hedge there was only death.
Standing in the circle with their elder brother the King, the earls Leofwine and Gyrth were cut down and killed. The Tapestry has them slain by the lances of heavy cavalry as Leofwine wields an axe, his brother a spear, both of them standing their ground. Between them the two brothers had controlled almost all of East Anglia and south-eastern England, and with them died all of their housecarles and personal retinues, their bodies falling about their lords.
Harold was now the only English leader of note left alive on the battlefield. Why did he not flee in the gathering dark? Was he already dead, or mortally wounded and unable to seek safety? This would at the very least explain his total inaction at every turn.
Yet it seems unlikely that thousands of carles, paid lithsmen and fyrdmen would have stood and absorbed hours of savage punishment from the Normans with their king already dead, so we must discount this theory.
Far more likely is that Harold, as an exceptional warrior leader in his forties with more than 20 years experience, who had never known anything but victory, refused to believe he was defeated. Standing beneath his banners the King was now swinging his sword alongside his beloved Wessex housecarles, men with whom he had trained and fought since he was a boy.
These men would not leave him, and whilst he stayed so did they. It was folly, and William punished it, a solid wedge of Norman cavalry smashing into Harold and his last few housecarles, cutting and slashing, and finally overwhelming the King and his remaining men. Harold may or may not have been hit in the eye by a Norman arrow, but whatever the truth of that popular belief, inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, he was killed in that final all-out attack and his body was hacked to pieces.
With English resistance utterly broken, William gave orders for his cavalry to set off in pursuit and turn defeat into a total rout. But with victory came complacency, and in the darkness a large contingent of Norman cavalry did not see Oakwood Gill, a steep ravine in front of them near Caldbec Hill, its sides and bottom choked with thick undergrowth.
It may have been a natural cleft in the earth or perhaps it had been hollowed out by storms. But in this waste ground it was overgrown with brambles and thistles, and could hardly be seen in time, and it swallowed great numbers, especially of Normans in pursuit of the English.
A battle had been fought and a country won and lost. In retrospect it is doubtful whether any other state in Europe could have achieved what Anglo-Saxon England did in contesting three major battles in quick succession, but in the end it was all too much.
The Earl of Wessex and King of England was undone in the end by lack of armour, the men who wore it, and knowing how to use them to their best advantage. In truth Harold Godwinson was simply outgeneraled and outnumbered.
Hastings The Battle. The Battle of Hastings, without any doubt the most important battle ever fought on English soil and arguably the most historically significant in English history, was not actually fought there. A modern visitor to Hastings will on enquiry be directed seven miles to the northwest along the A21 and A to the picturesque town of Battle, founded in the aftermath of in commemoration.
Harold heads south The headstrong monarch tarried for less than a week before he decided enough was enough and it was time to face his rival. Battle Hill Battle Hill is no mountain, but it is an imposing position and one well suited to an infantry defence of the shield wall. Feudal allies Although the men were arrayed in rows, they were also grouped by shires and feudal dues; the men from Kent stood together, as did those contingents from London, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Essex, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire.
Exhausted and bloody Having been fighting for the best part of two hours most battles of the age would have been over by now the men on both sides were exhausted and bloody. Decisive action For the fourth and last time that day, it was William, not Harold, who acted decisively. The fighting continued for most of the day with the shield wall unbroken. It is said that it was the sight of retreating Normans which finally lured the English away from their defensive positions as they broke ranks in pursuit of the enemy.
Once their carefully organised formation was broken, the English were vulnerable to cavalry attack. This battle changed the entire course of not just English, but European history. England would henceforth be ruled by an oppressive foreign aristocracy, which in turn would influence the entire ecclesiastical and political institutions of Christendom.
You can visit the battlefield, including the spot where King Harold fell, and the abbey that William built as a penance. Every October a great re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings is held at Battle Abbey involving thousands of re-enactors. And believe it or not there's more to Battle's history than — pay a visit to the Battle Museum of Local History to see the world's oldest effigy of Guy Fawkes, relics of a Roman bath house, fossilised dinosaur footprints, and more.
Despite the feeling of seclusion, it's easy to get here by rail, sea or road. Skip To Main Content. Itinerary Planner. The Battle of Hastings. Harold was killed. Leaderless, the English fled. King Harold II of England. Harold Godwinson's reign lasted just nine months and nine days, before he lost the crown and his life in the battle of William Duke of Normandy.
The illegitimate son of a duke and a tanner's daughter, William came to power aged nine. Through adversity, he grew to be a powerful leader. Battle in mainly famous for its Abbey and the great war of — but there's plenty more to find out about the town itself and its history.
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