Nick

As a guest of William the Bastard Harold saw the Norman knights in action. After returning to England he persuades the king to recruit his own lance-armed cavalry. After his coronation and defeat of Hardraada Harold deploys his cavalry at Hastings to support his huscarls and spearmen. Would the English have been able to defeat Norman tyranny or would they still have lost the battle?

PADDYBOY

Yep! He uses them to attack Williams weakened left flank. Harold secures the English throne and now turns his attention to the north, Scotland. The Highlanders take sides with the English against their common enemy, us lowlanders and secures Scotland as part of England and the blue bits are not included in the union jack....Just kidding...
Oh yeah. No hundred years war, so England and France probably like each other

This is Kingtakers area so I look forward to his reply

Interesting idea Nick.

Challenger

Norman cavalry couldn't break the shield wall, but relied on feigned flight to draw some of the poorer disciplined Fyrd out in pursuit. this eventually weakened the wall. cavalry on their own would have made little difference

Toltec

Even when England did cavalry in the medieval era we were pretty poor at it and only proved useful when dismounted. So some hastily recruited and amateurly trained ones wouldn't had made much difference at Hastings. The Norman victory at Hastings came from bow power, the shield wall could hold off cavalry but was a sitting duck for archers. The scots learnt the same lesson at Falkirk.

William used essentially the same tactics as Napoleon, the cavalry pins the infantry in one place and the artillery blows the crap out of them, or archers in his case. If Harold had archers to shoot back with the height advantage he'd have won.

Perhaps then no 100 Years War, the war that unified France as a country. So perhaps no France. Harold also left Wales as a sovereign nation when he left, rather than occupied and the English had shown no ambitions in either Scotland or Ireland, this was a Norman thing. Historically if England hadn't taken Ireland, France would have done, but with no France!!!!!!

Pericles

Is anyone here familiar with Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast? He did a show on this very subject. He is a professional broadcaster and an amateur historian, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of anything in his show, but it is certainly entertaining.

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hh...at-Ifs-Of-1066

If you're interested, better download it sooner rather than later, because he might be archiving it soon.

PADDYBOY

If Harold had archers, then the Norman archers would have had English arrows to fire back when their own arrows ran out.
Btw. What where the Norman infantry doing during all this?........Just curious.
Oh yeah, I thought the Norman cavalry where trying to un-pin the infantry ?? you know.... the feighned flight thing? ....silly me?.

PADDYBOY

Thanks for that Pericles. I enjoyed listening to it.

JohnnyH

An Anglo-Saxon victory at Hastings would have had massive implications more in northern Europe than in England (to a nation that will never have known a Norman occupation.


If Harold had taken William's place as victor, then we can assume that William would have met Harold's fate, and died in battle or held in permanent and ‘honourable’captivity in England?
Just as the "flower of English nobility" was lost at Hastings then we can allow that the Norman-French-Breton army would have been equally decimated, serving as slave-labour or languishing in English gaols.

If William had been slain in battle that day, then Normandy would possibly have descended into the sort of civil strife that marred his own dangerous childhood, each noble jockeying for power in the vacuum during the revolts that sprang up in against both William’s;-
The young French king was still in his minority: his regent was Baldwin V of Flanders, a man with close links to both William and the house of Godwine.
Eustace of Boulogne, apparently wounded at Hastings, he too may have died, then his territories would have been vulnerable to his rival and nominal overlord, Baldwin. Just as William moved swiftly to secure the Channel ports after Hastings (that this may have been a preventative measure against Flanders?), then would Baldwin have moved into Eustace's territory to secure the vital ports of the Boulannais count?
If not, then they would have presented a tempting strategic target to Harold the following spring.

If Harold had reigned as long as William after his victory, then a victory at Hastings would have secured Harold's position as king and 'national hero' (we would be reading about Harold the Great today?); a latter day Alfred- or “thunderbolt” like Athelstan (924-39)!
If we assume that his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine also survived Hastings then Harold would have been in a most powerful position; his young brothers-in-law Morcar and Edwin were secure in the earldoms and nominally loyal, their pregnant sister (Harold's queen) due to give birth to a ‘legal’ heir- their nephew- in 1067.

Harold and his family had long and friendly relations with the Irish of Leinster, the Welsh had learned not to tackle Harold, and Tostig's old ally, Malcolm of Scotland would have been somewhat wary of challenging such a secure and mighty English warrior-king. The Norwegian threat had been crushed for a generation, although Harold's magnanimity towards the vanquished Norwegians may have led to better relations; Harold's son Harold was welcomed to Norway after 1066, apparently because his father had allowed Norwegian survivors of Stamford Bridge to leave unmolested.
The only other major player left on the stage was Swein of Denmark, Harold's cousin. Sweyn was not the warrior in the stature of Hardraada, William or Harold (in my view) and his main ambition may have turned towards conquering a weakened Norway, and therefore is unlikely that the Danes would have been able to challenge a 'united' England under a such formidable king.

Harold had travelled to Europe and to Rome – the Vatican may have had to backtrack and ease their attitude towards him as a mighty victor, but tempered it enough so as not to displease their Norman-Sicilian ‘hosts’?
English ties with the continent, particularly Flanders, were as old as any ties to Scandinavia, and maybe Harold would have sought to gain power in the politics of a restless Normandy and France, maybe to keep it unstable; possibly even trying to gain possession of strategic ports by treaty or by force- or via political marriage?.
Baldwin V of Flanders died in 1067, so the whole situation in northern France would have been even more unstable, thus allowing for a strong England to gain political access.

Would the victorious Anglo-Saxons have been more outward-looking internationally (even though they had visited Rome and criss-crossed Europe), and actually gone on Crusade? What would England have lacked socially without Arabic influence?
England would have continued to look to the continent as it had long been doing (even wealthier with new French and Norman lands), and the links with Scandinavia would have continued. Maybe the surviving Normans- ever at internecine loggerheads, but able to fight together so well when necessary- would have fought their geographical French/Bretons off –and their English masters over the Channel?

Maybe another Norman/French warlord in the same vein as William would have risen from the chaos?

Of course, there may well have been no Hundred Year’s Wars as we know them, or the brutal Wars of the Roses which indirectly arose from that ultimate failure in France. The ramifications for an alternative English future go on and on...