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Hello and welcome to Homeschool History.
I'm Greg Jenner and I've spent my whole career making history fun on the TV show Horrible Histories and more recently on the BBC podcast You're Dead to Me, although that one's for the grown-ups.
With everyone being cooped up in the house, I thought I'd deliver a snappy history lesson to entertain and educate the whole family.
Who says that homeschooling can't be a bit of fun?
Today we are donning our chainmail to explore the almighty scrap that changed Britain forever the Battle of Hastings.
And why was there a battle?
Well, it's a long story, about who should be King of England.
You see, at the start of 1066, the King was an old man called Edward the Confessor, which sounds like he was always admitting to eating the last Jaffa Cake.
Actually, Confessor just means he was very religious.
But even if they had Jaffa Cakes back then and they didn't they would have been pinched off his plate by Godwin Earl of Wessex, who was Edward's wife's dad.
Bolshie Godwin and his Bolshie sons were basically running the kingdom instead of Edward, but in 1051 Edward had lost his patience and booted them out.
Seeing as Edward didn't have a son, he then promised his throne to his cousin William, Duke of Normandy.
Ready, player one.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Well, the problem was Earl Godwin didn't stay banished for long.
And then when he died, his sons, particularly Harold Godwin's son.
Ready, player two.
Became the most powerful lords in the country.
And it all got a bit tense.
Then, in the winter of 1065, edward the confessor got very ill and, even though he'd said that duke william should be king, william was stuck in normandy whereas harold godwinson was standing right there.
Many important people felt that harold would be a good king.
He was powerful, a great warrior and he had a lovely mustache.
According to Harold, Edward changed his mind on his deathbed and promised Harold the throne instead of William.
But Harold would say that, wouldn't he?
Hmm, bit dodgy.
So Harold became the king.
End of story, right?
No.
Over in Normandy, William heard the news and was properly peeved.
Not only had Edward promised William the crown, apparently so had Harold.
Yeah, two years beforehand, Harold had been to see William in Normandy.
And according to the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is actually like a massive hand-stitched comic book about the events of 1066, the two fellas had then enjoyed some quality bonding time by going off to war together.
And at some point, Harold had sworn on holy bones that William would be the next king.
Swearing a sacred oath was like doing a pinky promise with God.
But by taking the English crown, Harold had broken his holy promise.
So William grasped him up to the head teacher, and by head teacher I mean the Pope.
The Pope agreed that William was rightfully King of England, so William raised an army and prepared to invade.
Aware that William wasn't best pleased, Harold also started putting together an army to defend his throne.
So it was basically two powerful warriors fighting over one crown.
But prepare to be surprised because 1066 has more plot twists than the EastEnders Christmas Special.
In May 1066, England was invaded, but not by Duke William.
No, Harold's annoying little brother, Tostig, wanted revenge.
He had a major chip on his shoulder after being banished from England by Harold for being rubbish at his job as Earl of Northumbria.
Luckily for Harold, as well as being stroppy, Tostig was also still rubbish, and his small army was easily sent packing.
So having had a nice warfare warm-up, Harold now waited for William to invade.
And he kept waiting.
And he waited for more. but William just didn't come.
Honestly, what was taking him so long?
Ah yes, on the other side of the English Channel, William was having an absolute nightmare.
He had to feed and equip a whole army, including loads of horses, and this was really difficult.
I mean, have you ever seen how much one horse poos?
Now imagine thousands of them pooing every day.
When people talk about battles from history, they never warn you.
It's mostly about the admin and the toilets.
William also had to build hundreds of wooden ships to get his army across the channel, but he was having awful luck with the weather.
The winds were terrible, so he couldn't set sail.
The whole summer came and went, but William was still a no-show, which was sort of good for Harold but also sort of bad.
It's really hard to keep an army together when you're just standing around all summer and people were starting to get tired and hungry and smelly.
In September 1066, Harold decided to call it a day.
His soldiers went home to their farms and their families, and Harold went back to London.
What a letdown.
But as soon as Harold got to London, dramatic plot twist number two, another invasion.
But it still wasn't William.
Hmm?
No, it was Tostig again.
But this time he'd spent the summer in Norway putting together a gang of the biggest, baddest warriors he could find.
Yep, Tostig was back, and this time he'd brought Vikings.
Tostig had convinced the King of Norway, Harald Hardrada, to back his invasion.
Now, Hardrada was famous throughout Europe as the roughest, toughest warrior of all.
Tostig had basically shown up with the Scandinavian Hulk.
The Viking fleet landed suddenly near York, meaning the English King Harold had to get his army back together really quickly and ride north as fast as possible to fight the Viking King Harold.
The Vikings won a battle against the local forces at a place called Fulford, but then they thought they had time for a bit of a nice rest.
They had no idea that the English King Harold would get there so fast.
And before they knew it, the English army was attacking them.
The Vikings weren't just caught with their trousers down, they were caught without any armour on.
Embarrassing and also, more importantly, deadly.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge was a very bloody one.
Lots of people were horribly killed, including Harold's grumpy little brother Tostig, but also hulking Harold Hardrada.
What a result for King Harold Godwinson.
He'd got rid of the Vikings and his brother, and he assumed William wasn't coming.
So, time for a victory party.
Hip hip.
Hooray!
But then our story gets even more dramatic.
Another invasion.
Yeah, plot twist number three.
Just three days after Harold defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Duke William of Normandy finally managed to get all those soldiers and horses onto his boats and across the English Channel.
And he'd landed at Pevensey in Sussex, which was right down at the other end of the country, from where Harold and his exhausted army were recovering from their injuries.
How blooming inconvenient.
Meanwhile, according to one story, William tripped over when he got out of his boat.
And everyone was like, oh no, that's a bad omen.
But William cleverly grabbed some sand and shouted, look how easily I grab his land.
Nice comeback, William.
Very smooth.
But William faced bigger problems than sand under his fingernails.
The longer he had to wait to fight Harold, the harder it would be to feed his army.
So the smart move for Harold would have been to just ignore William until William ran out of food.
Cunning William realised this and he started burning fields and villages in Sussex to provoke Harold into fighting him immediately.
Of course, Harold had just won a massive victory over the Vikings by doing a speedy surprise attack.
So maybe the English king now thought, alright, I'll just do that again.
He scraped together as many soldiers as he could and he rushed south in the hope of surprising the Normans.
But William's lookouts spotted Harold before he could achieve his sneaky ambush.
His big tactical advantage evaporated quicker than a snowman in a sauna.
On the 14th of October 1066, William's army, made up of Normans in the centre, Bretons on the left and French troops on the right, marched out to meet Harold's English army in a place we now call Battle.
And you can probably guess what happened there.
Clues in the name.
After months of delay, they finally had their big showdown.
Duke William versus King Harold.
The Battle of Hastings.
Final round.
Things got off to a weird start.
A Norman knight called Tyfer tried to begin the battle by riding up to the English, juggling his sword and then taunting them with rude songs.
An English soldier got really annoyed and tried to kill him, but Tyfer was too quick and cut off this guy's head.
But then Tyfer stupidly galloped straight into the English ranks.
One man versus many thousand men isn't much of a fair fight, and he was instantly killed.
You should acquit while you're ahead, Tyfer.
Anyway, the Battle of Hastings began around 9am, but it quickly turned into a brutal stalemate.
The Norman Knights had the advantage of riding powerful horses, whereas the English were fighting on foot.
But then again, Harold's troops were positioned on top of a hill and had formed a big wall with all their shields.
So it was hard for the Norman cavalry to attack them.
After hours of scrapping, the Normans suddenly panicked.
Rumours spread that William had been killed, so the spooked knights started to run away.
The English thought that this was the end of the battle and some of them charged down the hill to chase the Normans into the sea.
Harold Godmanson had definitely won this time, right?
No.
Time for dramatic plot twist number four.
Duke William now took off his helmet to prove he wasn't dead, and the relieved Normans suddenly turned around and started attacking again.
And the chased became the chasers, and lots of English troops were killed.
This left big gaps in the English shield wall so that the Normans could get in and, sensing victory, a crack team of Norman knights spotted King Harold and charged towards him.
It was game over for Harold.
Game over.
You may have heard that Harold Gobinson died from an arrow to the eye, but that comes from the Bayeux Tapestry, which actually isn't a tapestry at all.
It's an embroidery, probably sewn by nuns in Canterbury.
However, written accounts say that Harold was hacked to pieces with swords.
Ooh, nasty.
Ew!
It had been a long and bloody battle that had lasted from 9am till 5pm.
Working night.
But William had won.
He was William the Conqueror.
He marched his army to London and had himself crowned as King William I in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
But 1066 still had time for one last twist.
Some Norman knights decided to celebrate their victory by burning down bits of Westminster, which is not at all Christmassy.
The coronation crowd all ran away in fear. leaving William to be crowned alone, trembling with fear.
What a dramatic end to the year.
Even though the Battle of Hastings happened almost a thousand years ago, we can still see its consequences today.
William handed out loads of land to his chief knights, his royal family and the church, and lots of that land is still owned by their modern descendants.
Also, William got rid of all the powerful English lords, so posh people instead started speaking fashionable French to fit in meaning.
Many modern English words come from Old Norman, including beef pigeon judge royal rude, autumn and beautiful.
You might know some people with old English names like Edward or Alfred, but many other names like Ethelred and Egbert went out of fashion, whereas Norman names like William and Henry are still really popular.
Anyway, that's about it for the Battle of Hastings.
So it's time for the quiz, to see how much you've learned.
Are you ready?
Ready, steady, go!
Question 1.
What was the name of the English king who had promised the crown to both Harold and William?
Question two, what was Harold's grumpy little brother called?
Question three, why were the super tough Vikings easy to defeat at the Battle of Stamford Bridge?
Question four, on what day of the year was William the Conqueror crowned King of England?
And question five.
The Bayeux Tapestry shows Harold getting an arrow in the eye, but how is he killed?
Round finished.
Now it's time for the answers.
The answer to question one, the king was Edward the Confessor.
The answer to question two was Tostig.
The answer to question three, they were caught by surprise, so weren't wearing their armour.
The answer to question four was Christmas Day.
And the answer to question five, he was hacked down by some knights.
Mission complete.
How did you do?
If you didn't get all five, why not listen to another episode on the podcast and try the quiz at the end of that instead?
Hopefully you're now a Battle of Hastings brain box.
Tune in next time for some more homeschool history and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode.
Thank you for listening.
Take care and goodbye.
Homeschool History was a Muddy Knees media production for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
The script was by Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Emma Neguse and me.
The producers were Ben Green and Abby Patterson and the historical advisor was Dr Mark Morris.
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