William the Conqueror's Norman army defeated the Anglo-Saxon king Harold at the Battle of Hastings, founding the English political-administrative tradition that the modern British monarchy descends from. What year?
14 October 1066 is the most famous date in English history — a battle that lasted nine hours and ended with King Harold dying with an arrow somewhere in his face (the famous Bayeux Tapestry image). Within twenty years William had replaced approximately 95% of the English landed elite with Normans. The other dates are all real but later: 1100 was Henry I's accession, 1215 was the Magna Carta, 1485 was Bosworth and the Tudor succession.
Read the full facts →The Norman Conquest was the 11th-century invasion and political takeover of Anglo-Saxon England by William, Duke of Normandy, culminating in his decisive victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 and his coronation as King William I on Christmas Day 1066. It produced the most thorough replacement of a ruling class in medieval European history and reshaped English language, law, and political institutions for the next nine centuries.
Related questions
- William, Duke of Normandy, defeated the Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and was crowned King of England on Christmas Day of the same year. What year?
- Oliver Cromwell ran England after the execution of Charles I in 1649. What title did he hold from 1653 onward — and did he ever accept the offer to become king?
- How long did the Hundred Years' War actually last?
- The mnemonic for the fates of Henry VIII's six wives, in order, is the four-word rhyme: