WI: Harald Hardrada conquers England in 1066?

The easiest method of him doing this is that delays in his invasion leads to William of Normandy to invade England first, only to be defeated by Harold Godwinson and only succeeding in tiring Harolds army enough to be beaten by Haralds invasion afterwards.

How may English and European history of the following thousand years be affected by a Norse conquest of England? Would Norse control over the kingdom soon collapse and return to the Anglo-Saxons, or would it last long it to make a visible impact to English culture?
 
Depends on what his son is like.

Harald III was 51 in 1066, by 11C standards an old man, so his reign in England is likely to be short. In all probability, Olaf Kyrre will succeed, and perhaps be a Cnut to Harald's Sven Forkbeard.
 
The only problem to that Olaf Kyrre succeeds Harald as King is that Magnus was already crowned King of Norway before Harald left for England. Now if we can perhaps have Harald live a few more years to consolidate his reign the most probable course for the Kingdoms was that they would be co-ruled by both which was a normal occurence in Norway at these times. What could happen ofc. is that Magnus dies in 1069 as IOTL and Olaf is left to rule the Kingdoms. Most likely the English earls would rise up at this moment, when olaf succeeds and find another King of England, and if Olaf either wins this or manage to diplomatically circumnavigate this we might see a Scandiavian influenced England as Olaf was known to be a very peaceful king, rather focusing on peace and prosperity than war. Olaf Kyrre would reign peacefully for 24 years and he implemented reforms that strengthened the Crown, together with introducing guilds and founding the important city of Bergen.
And of course there is the nusicance of Sweyn II Estridsson and the Danish kings...
 
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