More time between Stamford Bridge and Hastings

If there would be more time between battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings could Harold win at Hastings?

Assuming either Hardrada and Tostig invade earlier or William invades later (few days difference is realistic) with same forces and Norse invasion goes as per OTL.

How much difference does a few days make? Harold's forces are more rested from two forced marches, wounds are healed and some forces that had to be left behind after SB can catch up (or not separated at all and force marches together in larger numbers).
 
Hastings was pretty touch and go. It all hinges on that one feigned retreat which brought the English out of shieldwall. Even then, it was a bit of a fluke that Harald's brothers got killed and then Harald himself getting shot.

If we have a rested and maybe somewhat reinforced fyrd I'm not sure there would be much of a tactical difference. The English will presumably still hold the high ground and stay in shieldwall and there's really bugger all the Normans can do about it. If the feigned retreat works then the Normans have a shot at winning. If not it's going to be inconclusive and the Hastings campaign may turn into a more drawn out campaign of manoeuver rather than being settled in one climatic battle.
 

Thande

Donor
Yeah, I think the whole (oft-quoted) argument that the English lost because they were tired from the march isn't very convincing - as Flocc says, it all hinges on whether they stay on the hill or not, and that isn't dependent on how tired they were.
 
Shield Wall

The Saxon shield wall was a brilliant defensive structure but it required lots of men to undertake properly. So if there was more time the feigned retreat would not have mattered as there would have been sufficient men to fill in the gap.
 
The Saxon shield wall was a brilliant defensive structure but it required lots of men to undertake properly. So if there was more time the feigned retreat would not have mattered as there would have been sufficient men to fill in the gap.

It's interesting because there's a lot of confusion going on in that short timespan. William was actually unhorsed when the English right wing charged the retreating Bretons. IOTL he managed to rally some knights and countercharge, demonstrating that cavalry always beats strung-out infantry.

If, however, William gets the chop in those confused minutes, the English have a good chance of routing the Norman forces.

At this point, the Bretons are running and William's right wing isn't too happy. If William gets either killed or otherwise taken out of action there will probably be no countercharge- Bishop Odo is still on hand but he's got a struggling mass of Bretons between him and the English, unlike William who was able to strike into their midst. Harold can then unleash his housecarls against the Norman right.
 
Hastings was pretty touch and go. It all hinges on that one feigned retreat which brought the English out of shieldwall. Even then, it was a bit of a fluke that Harald's brothers got killed and then Harald himself getting shot.

I am not sure about this. The accounts are often confused. This certainly happens at one point but the Saxon position does not deteriorate until a while later after more sustained attacks.
 
I am not sure about this. The accounts are often confused. This certainly happens at one point but the Saxon position does not deteriorate until a while later after more sustained attacks.

True- that was a bit of an off-the-cuff post on my part. For a more reasoned one, see my post about the retreating Bretons.

I believe that, in the end, an English victory can be achieved in one of two ways

i) By the English not actually coming out of shieldwall. This results in a bit of a stalemate as presumably both sides just end up sitting there for the rest of the day.

ii) By the English being able to follow up on their initial charge into the Bretons. Actually this might work even if William doesn't get cut down in the initial charge. If Harold can throw in the huscarls right behind the charging fyrd he might well be able to break the main body of Norman troops.

This scenario is where the extra troops Harold can potentially collect will come in handy. In situations like these it's always nice to be able to bring more heavy infantry to the party.
 
Harald could easily have mobilized a much larger force had he simply waited to gather the fyrd from more of England. Why he felt the need to hurl a force already bloodied and weakened at Stamford and much smaller than it needed to be against William has never been resolved.

Apparently one of his brothers even told him to stay in London and gather more men while the available forces went out under his brother's leadership(if William loses, problem solved and if William wins, he's still bloodied and weakened).

A case has been posited that he thought William was fightening under the Papal banner and that he(Harold) was going to be or already had been excommunicated, that he felt only an immediate victory would avoid the collapse of his own forces. This might explain the collapse of English resistance despite still having leaders, a claimant to the throne and superior numbers of troops AFTER Hastings.

It also leads to some interesting potential TLs, if Harold wins, having killed the Pope's favorite and slaughtered an army fighting under the Pope's own banner. Alas, I fear the time for Pelagianism or pagan worship was past.:(
 
Some people above mentioned the feigned retreat(s) executed by William to lure Anglo-Saxons out of the shield wall. Well, as many recent sources have stated, these deliberately feigned retreats are unlikely to have actually taken place at Hastings. Doing so with early medieval armies would have been complicated and extremely risky (namely due to the high chance of the rest of the army routing upon seeing the retreat - and this chance exists even in the unlikely event that the entire rank and file could somehow be pre-briefed to expect such staged retreats).

Therefore, by definition I don't believe it works to use the "feigned retreats" as a factor that could have tipped the balance one way or the other. I don't doubt that a number of Saxons ended up charging prematurely only to be isolated from the shield wall and slaughtered (this may well have happened at the stage in the battle where William's Bretons and left wing routed for real), although as Wozza says this probably didn't happen on as wide or as decisive a scale as is often believed.

A case has been posited that he thought William was fightening under the Papal banner and that he(Harold) was going to be or already had been excommunicated, that he felt only an immediate victory would avoid the collapse of his own forces. This might explain the collapse of English resistance despite still having leaders, a claimant to the throne and superior numbers of troops AFTER Hastings.

An interesting theory, which would go some way towards explaining why Harold was in such a hurry. As others have said, Hastings was a close battle, so had Harold just waited to gather substantial Anglo-Saxon reinforcements, the Normans clearly turn into heavy underdogs.
 
None in the eye for you

As I understand it, it wasn't so much the Norman if it was a feint but the indiscipline of the Saxons who followed in pursuit to bre cut down by cavalry and Harald removing his helmet. Unless the greater period between the events lead to the Saxon's being better drilled or Harald thinking better of removing his helmet then the outcome would have bween the same unless of course Harald was able to raise a greater army or intercept the invading ships
 
The Battles of 1066..

An alternative option to the scenario proposed is to have things go as William originally wanted. He aimed to sail across on August 12th but in OTL poor weather meant he only got as far as St Valery and then had to wait until much later in the year for a second opportunity.

Had the weather remained calm, the Norman fleet would have crossed to Pevensey Bay on or about August 14th. It's highly likely their arrival would have been observed as the English fyrd was concentrated in the south near to Bosham, the home of Harold Godwinson.

I think it's reasonable to assume the fyrd would have moved swiftly to engage the invaders. In the OTL, Harold's army would be ready to fight and numerically complete. It's not hard to argue that the battle could have gone differently to the Hastings we know and by the end of the day it could be William dead and the Normans in retreat back to their boats.

With the south secure, the landing of Hardrada on the north-east coast of England would have occurred but it's possible that the forces of Edwin and Morcar, without the diversion of the battle in the south, could have contained the Norwegians at Fulford until the arrival of the fyrd from the south.
 
Harald could easily have mobilized a much larger force had he simply waited to gather the fyrd from more of England. Why he felt the need to hurl a force already bloodied and weakened at Stamford and much smaller than it needed to be against William has never been resolved.

Apparently one of his brothers even told him to stay in London and gather more men while the available forces went out under his brother's leadership(if William loses, problem solved and if William wins, he's still bloodied and weakened).

A case has been posited that he thought William was fightening under the Papal banner and that he(Harold) was going to be or already had been excommunicated, that he felt only an immediate victory would avoid the collapse of his own forces. This might explain the collapse of English resistance despite still having leaders, a claimant to the throne and superior numbers of troops AFTER Hastings.

It also leads to some interesting potential TLs, if Harold wins, having killed the Pope's favorite and slaughtered an army fighting under the Pope's own banner. Alas, I fear the time for Pelagianism or pagan worship was past.:(

Grimm

The alleged throwing of Papal support behind William is one possible factor, especially as I read once Harold was a devout Christian. There are a couple of other factors that may have played a part The Normans were bloodily looting the region around where they were based. This may have been deliberate. Harold's home estates were nearby and many personal retainers and friends were threatened. At the time a king was expected to defend his followers and if he had not moved quickly it might have undermined his position. Especially since there were doubts about the loyalty of the sons of Leowine who ruled the northern earldoms of Mercia and Northumbria. [Would still have been better if he had followed his brothers advice and stayed in London recruiting more men while the brother represented him. Actually a weaker force may have helped in that less likely to be lured, intentionally or otherwise, into rash attacks.

Another factor might be that Harold wanted to pin Williams army to the relatively small peninsula it was based upon before it could get out and raid more widely. Possibly also after Stamford Bridge he may simply have been too overconfident.


As other people have said it was a very close run thing and it only needed for the army to stay on the ridge, even if Harold was killed, for the English to effectively win. The ridge hemmed the Normans into a relatively small largely marshy area they had already heavily looted. With winter approaching, meaning even more channel storms William's army would have found itself cut off and in a desperate position. Without the success at Hastings and subsequent crowning William would not have had a realistic chance of luring more mercenaries to England with promises of land.

I think the real problem after Hastings was that there were too many claimants. Harold's sons by his earlier wife Edith Swanneck were I think in their late teens and with his brothers death were the prime claimants for the Godwine family. He had recently remarried and his wife was pregnant, later to give birth to a son. There was Edgar, who was the last descendant of the main line of Wessex, but who was still relatively young and had spent most of his life in Hungary so had little contact with England. Also the two northern brothers, themselves still pretty young who also had eyes on the throne no doubt. Finally Swain the king of Denmark had a blood relationship and tried to make a claim, although that basically ending up doing some looting and helping provoke the ravaging of the north.

Also, for all he was a murderous thug William was a skilled and experienced warrior. He managed to march quickly on London and panic it into submitting, allowing him to be crowned which gave some legitimacy and also helped him recruit new men in France. Then while the other claimants lacked a clear leadership he was able to pick them off one at a time pretty much.


In terms of the OP, if Harold had waited and rested his forces and gathered more men he would probably have won.


Steve
 
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