I know that this topic has been done to death on this forum, but since you guys don't approve of bringing old threads back to life, I might as well start a thread of my own, that is until it dies out and someone else makes a new thread on the topic. Let's make this thread last as long as we can shall we?
Currently as a devoted Anglophile, I'd like to discuss what would've happened if poor King Harold had successfully ended up repelling the Norman Invasion of William. And there will be no Norman conquest of England.
I prefer my POD's to be mostly based on small changes in the butterfly effect regarding who ends up lucky. Let's say the arrow that killed Harold missed by just a few inches and his forces kept on fighting until the Normans got exhausted, and William ended up being killed.
What would be the full scale effects on such a timeline? For one thing, all the French words that entered English after 1066 that we commonly use today will never be borrowed. The language will be different and sound more like the other Germanic languages like Frisian and Dutch. Instead, English continues to absorb more and more Scandinavian words.
In addition, Feudalism would have never been introduced into England. What kind of impact would have that had? Rather than being associated with the rest of west Europe today, Britain will be more insular northern-type country with closer ties to Scandinavia. Every British monarch that existed post-1066 probably would never existed at all either.