What really happened at the Battle of Hastings?

[Incongruous]

Except he couldn't wait, could he? The dastardly Normans were raping and pillaging along the south eastern coast in a tactic designed to lure Harry into a battle.

Also a large part of his army left him to gather in the harvest when he struck camp in York.

It took another 400 years for democracy to recover to the level at which it existed during Harolds time.

Here, here! Hussa for Harold!
Death and itchy bottoms to those dastardly Norman Fenchy types!

[Justiciar]

What happened at Hastings? The House of Godwin got what it deserved, dragging England down with it. I still hold to my earlier theory that Harold's assassins + Edward the Exile = the cause of the mess in the first place.

I don't doubt that Harold was a good king. Like his ol' dad he was a shrewd politician and a good administrator. But he should never had been on the bleedin' throne in the first place.

[Incongruous]

Why not?
William most assuredly never bloody should have either.
Edward a self righteous idiot, to think of it, offering the throne to a Norman!

[Furious Mental]

That story is almost certainly a load of tripe cooked up by some Normans after the fact. It was a fait accompli that Harold Godwinson would be king because as the most powerful English earl it was basically his right. Even subsequent Anglo-Norman chroniclers admitted that Harold was nominated by Edward the Confessor on his deathbed and his kingship ratified by the earls afterwards.

[Incongruous]

I was just having a bit of fun m8.

[Justiciar]

Harold had no inalienable right to the Kingship. Edgar did.

That said.. I suppose the word of the Earls and the Witan was absolute. Given the competion and the youth of the Aetheling, I'd probably have voted in Godwinson's favour myself. After all, Edgar wouldn't have stood a chance in the face of the opposition. Harold on the other hand was a proven governor, a decent general, and a considerably popular chappy.

However, this doesn't change my opinion of him, or his family. Norman sources made a song and dance out of Harold's supposed lack of honour. That doesn't somehow make the opposite true. After all, modern sources often exaggerate in their descriptions of Hitler, but that doesn't nescessarily make them worthless and invalid. I'm not comparing Harold to Hitler, by the way, I'm just trying to get the point across and no one else fills the role quite so well.