The Battle of Hastings in 1066 is the defining moment in English history. A truly seismic event that changed a nation forever. This is a fact that English Heritage, the people who manage the site where the battle took place, are happy to exploit. The site is fascinating, the visitor centre interactive, the ruined Battle Abbey built to commemorate the Norman victory picturesque. None of it justifies the whopping £18 entrance fee. I mean, the battle didn’t even take place in Hastings.
The most striking thing about the actual battlefield is just how small it is. This was not a battle that ranged far and wide. It all took place on a gentle slope a few hundred meters wide. Not unlike the size of the Mona Lisa, the field on which the Battle of Hastings happened is completely out of proportion to its fame. As the visitor centre points out though, warfare in those days was mostly a static affair where you could slaughter your fellow humans close up and personal.
As gruelling and bloody as the Battle of Hastings was, it only lasted a single day. On the morning of 14 October, 1066, William of Normandy’s army, recently landed on the coast south of here, faced King Harold of England’s Saxon army across what today is a gentle valley. William’s men were well rested, Harold’s had just marched south from Stamford Bridge after defeating another claimant to the throne, Harald Hardrada, King of Norway.
The English forces on top of a ridge formed a ‘shield wall’, a defensive tactic that worked well against the superior cavalry numbers of the Normans. Behind their shields, rooted to the spot, the English hoped to lure the Normans to attack and then cut them down with their battle axes. This tactic was working, until some of the Norman army turned in panic as a rumour spread that William had been killed.
The English pursued them and the well-and-truly alive William spotted an opportunity. He rode out with his cavalry, surrounded the English troops and killed them all. Realising this was a winning tactic, the Normans repeated it, pretending to run away, isolating and killing any English troops that pursued. Still, by late-afternoon the English shield wall was still intact and it seemed like the battle could end in stalemate.
Then came the assault in which Harold himself was killed. Made famous by that piece of Norman propaganda, the Bayeux Tapestry, it’s said that Harold died from an arrow to the eye. An earlier account describes a more brutal death, Harold was hacked to pieces by four Norman knights. William of Normandy became William the Conqueror, and the England he conquered changed forever. The Brexit wing of modern England may not like it, but everything became a bit more French.
Like so many battlefields this one might have been lost to history forever, but in 1071 King William founded Battle Abbey here to atone, it’s said, for the carnage of the fighting. The abbey’s high altar is alleged to mark the exact spot where Harold was killed. The Benedictine monastery prospered for over 400 years until Henry VIII did away with it. Today it’s an atmospheric ruin.
We’d arrived early and after getting fleeced at the ticket desk first went for a stroll around the battlefield. It was a peaceful morning, the ground in the valley floor wet and boggy as it was that day in 1066. Every now and then the sun would illuminate the field and the abbey on the ridge above. It was just about possible to imagine the violent events that took place here.
The visitor centre taught us a lot about how the battle was fought and just how close it came to being a different outcome. Afterwards we walked through Battle, a pretty place blighted by an inordinate amount of road traffic. We’d passed the Chequers Inn, a gastro pub with excellent food, on our way into town. On the way back to the station we had lunch and a couple of local beers before returning to Hastings, some 10km from the site of the battle.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! I passed through Battle a few years ago but unfortunately had not the time to visit the site where the battle took place.