Harold Godwinson escapes at Hastings

Let's assume William the bastard wins Hastings but Harold escapes, perhaps with a portion of his army.

Then what?

Can Harold do more than escape into exile or become corpse, perhaps eventually either rallying another army to his cause ala Alfred the Great or lead a sustained resistance like Robert the Bruce did in Scotland?
 
Let's assume William the bastard wins Hastings but Harold escapes, perhaps with a portion of his army.

Then what?

Can Harold do more than escape into exile or become corpse, perhaps eventually either rallying another army to his cause ala Alfred the Great or lead a sustained resistance like Robert the Bruce did in Scotland?

Maybe he claims to be a champion of poor Anglo-Saxon folk against Norman overlordship and taxation ? ala Robin hood
 
The Saxon nobles would have rallied around Harold.The biggest problem about the Saxon defeat at Hastings was that they were left without functional leadership since the only Saxon candidate for the throne is a child.
 
He could and would have raised another army. One of the great mysteries of 1066 was why he didn't wait until his army was rested and more forces where available before marching against William. Willaim's forces ain't going to get much bigger while the military manpower of England could have still have raised a larger force than Williams albeit of lesser quality.
 
He could and would have raised another army. One of the great mysteries of 1066 was why he didn't wait until his army was rested and more forces where available before marching against William. Willaim's forces ain't going to get much bigger while the military manpower of England could have still have raised a larger force than Williams albeit of lesser quality.

I think the main reason Harold quickly marches against William Is because he was sacking and looting Harolds personal demese. Harold coffers, personal strength in comparison to vessels and respect were being threatened.

To keep his vessels compliant after he Won the Peace Harold needed William gone before he crippled Harolds lands for a generation of two
 
So--if personally controlled demesne land were not a factor, or more to the point in this era where it is, he decided to count on his status as King, the king who fought off two invasions in fact, to recoup his personal relative standing, he'd have held back and accumulated adequate force for better chances of victory.

Now, as the OP says, he does as OTL (LordTerra's point accounting for the "mystery" of "premature attack") and his army is mauled as OTL, but he himself happens not to fall. If he retreats and recovers most of his surviving forces from Hastings (presumably some will desert or be scattered) and waits for more forces to arrive, what are his chances now that 1) he's lost a lot of men 2) to achieve a given balance with William he must wait longer 3) the maximum accrual of force he can hope for is less than if he had held off in the first place and 4) William has longer to do damage, acquire loot, and regroup and rest himself (or strike out to spread out and do more damage). To be sure William has also lost some men and unlike Harold has no immediate sources of more, unless he can pick up English defectors. But he does have the momentum of having won the last battle. This adds to the daunting effect of papal blessing on his invasion and allegations of bad faith on Harold's part.

How will Harold's forces perceive his losing the initial battle? Will it vindicate William's claims, or will knowledgable English leaders and an unguessable amount of the mobilized masses give Harold credit for having had to run from the other end of the kingdom after defeating another feared invader handily, and understand his motives in jumping in at the first moment instead of waiting to muster overwhelming force, and forgive him and rally to him?

I guess a lot depends on just how popular a monarch Harold was. If the English group up as one behind him, England's chances are better; if Harold is liable to be undermined by ambitious rivals who smell blood in the water and think they can cut a deal with William, the Wessex line may be doomed anyway. Note the latter might lead to a better outcome for the English than OTL (if in my opinion still worse than if Harold could repel the invasion completely)--if William knows he needed a lot of defector English lords to win, the Norman kingdom would be more balanced between Norman and English lords; the harrowing of the north might not happen for instance. (Or things could be worse; having promised his co-invaders to divvy up England among them, unless these are terribly decimated he has to choose between betraying his fellow Normans versus betraying some Englishmen of dubious loyalty to him--guess which way he goes!)

If Harold is popular, I daresay that after a second victory defending the land his lords will, albeit grudgingly, acquiesce to measures he takes to recoup his fortunes for the good of the kingdom, at least if these measures are not overbearing and reasonably fair. He might be forced to "modernize" his rule a bit, shifting from being the biggest lord among lords to something more national, shifting revenue from his own demesne to taxes on the realm as a whole--which would be an added burden to relieve some from the immediate victims of William's plundering, but could be sold as the price of a viable defense without which all English would suffer eventually anyway--if only they could know the outcome of OTL and compare!

So anyway along side moral factors such as these, there is the question of how fast Harold can gather additional forces, and set against the more advanced order of battle (if we can call it that) of the Normans (with their fixed and with battles the English can at least survive if not win outright, dwindling numbers) can he draw in enough fast enough to have a good chance of slowing and then stopping and defeating the Normans?

Emotionally the answer I want to hear is "yes" (although that costs us Chaucer, Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, and the gloriously patchwork language that is modern OTL English). But I have no real idea. I'd think a whole kingdom like England ought to be able to beat a duchy, even a duchy reinforced by Flanders, but to be sure a lot of the power Harold can call on is scattered and distant, and the best part that was most mobile, trained, advanced and responsive to his call has already exhausted itself fighting Harald Hardrada, making a fast forced march south while still recovering from that battle, and now been decimated again thrown prematurely into the fray without time for rest or planning. Given his whittled-down core (which also had time limits on service set by law, much time of which has been run out already--in the emergency one would hope they'd waive that and stay with him until the matter is resolved, but one reason for the limits was that the harvest would suffer if the men don't return to the land in time) and that reinforcements would be thinly supplied, late in coming and poorly trained and equipped compared to his best, clearly William has got some shot and will not give up easily. Indeed if it takes Harold too long to concentrate enough force, William may be able to reinforce either by summoning more aid from overseas (inviting in new allies perhaps, such as Brittany maybe? or recruiting local English talent.

So I have to leave this question up to those who can reckon on what additional forces Harold could hope to get, when they might arrive and what quality they would have, versus how fast his interim force would be either bled by William or allowed to decamp, to avoid famine.
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
Wasn't one of the major factors in the Saxon defeat the death of Harold?

Without his death the Saxon are likely to win the battle, aren't they?
 
Wasn't one of the major factors in the Saxon defeat the death of Harold?

Without his death the Saxon are likely to win the battle, aren't they?
Suppose he was hit by an arrow and wounded but not killed. Rumours say that the unconscious king is dead, and the battle is lost. He wakens too late, and has to withdraw in the dark with a few followers.
 
I like the part where he doesn't fall and the Saxons were already winning anyway better! It isn't OP though I guess.

I had rather the opposite impression, that the Saxons were perhaps not defeated yet but neither were they winning handily when news of Harold's death spread. I think if they were winning on most fronts, they'd keep fighting there. Sure, now there is a question who will be king and how much civil war there might be after this battle, but if Hastings field were enough to defeat William at least it wouldn't be him they'd have to submit to--now that they chose to fight him, his mercy might be pretty far to find. So if the news comes to Saxons who are having the tar beat out of them, it makes sense for them to cut and run--but on front where the shoe is on the other foot, I;d think they'd keep fighting to win. If winning fronts also heard of their compatriots elsewhere on the lines fleeing, perhaps that would give them a wrong impression of being the only ones doing OK and thus Williams's other men will be along to crush them in a bit. Plus it is always demoralizing to know anyone on your side is running for any reason of course.

So I can see how maybe if they were winning overall, but it was spotty, the rumor of the king's death could lead to a tragic chain reaction. I rather believed it was the other way though, locally they were taking a beating and knew it generally. That obviously is not enough for me to give up on wishing Harold better; I'd think after an honorable if losing battle, he'd withdraw, save a substantial number of men, and play for time while his reinforcements come up.

If OTL the Saxons were winning but then broke due to their lord falling, then shame on them! And if that were the case, they bloody well should have rallied under some other leader to make their English king, and turned and drove out William later.
 
Harold didnt need to win at Hastings. He needed to just stop William from winning, which is why his battle-plan was essentially defensive. Harold was only going to get more troops, and the fyrd of Somerset, Devon etc was still to arrive at Hastings.

If the battle had gone into a second day, (the length was unprecedented as it was), then Harold would have been back to full strength - perhaps even more troops, with many of them fresh (albeit having marched to Sussex). Williams forces would naturally be depleted and with their morale low.

The death of Harold came right at the end of the day, and the final charges of cavalry to scatter the English fyrd was in the twilight - well after 12 hours of daylight.
 
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