The Battle of Hastings

Daphné De C raecker, 7A

10.10.09

Journal

26^th September 1066

I have finally arrived to Normandy in the medieval ages, 1066. I have come from the modern times to investigate the Battle of Hastings. I am in a tavern and have called myself Ozouf Dippery (Ozouf means ‘Gods Wolf’’ in Norman). The tavern is full of soldiers ready to go off to war. William has ordered all the soldiers to behave well and not loot all the villages around us. I can feel everybody getting irritated by having to stay in a village doing nothing, waiting hopefully that the wind will change so we can get on those ships and go invade ENGLAND!

27^th September 1066

The winds have changed! I am very excited that the battle is coming up. We are all full of joy at the fact that we will finally fight the English. I don’t know which boat I’m supposed to be on. Oh, well I’ll just go into the far left one with the horses in them. In the battle I am in the Cavalry, so I take this time to have a look at the horse that I will ride. The Norman horses are fine horses they were warriors as well because they bit, kicked and head butted our enemies. As soon as everybody is on the ships we sail off. I look back and see the villagers are waving us good-bye from the shore. We wait in those ships reading ourselves for the battle approaching when we arrive onto the English shore. As I watch the sun sinking into the water, I decide to have an early night before the combat tomorrow.

28^th September 1066

We are in England, we have unloaded everybody and everything, but nobody is on the beach it’s deserted. We were all expecting a battle and there is absolutely nothing here, but sand. What a let down, we were all expecting a huge battle. Even the King is wound up on how there is nothing here. William is very exasperated so he has sent a scout up ahead to find how far the closest village is. I wonder where the English are!

Later on, the scout said that there was a small village called Pevency. William decided to go attack the village and loot it. He did this to provoke Harold into an early battle. We had a go at raiding the few villages around Pevency as well.

14^th October 1066

The Saxons have arrived! Finally. This is the day that will change the future. We met the English near a small slope or hill. The fight was near a village we call nowadays Battle, this village is 6 miles/10km inland from Hastings; this is where the name comes from. They had put themselves on top of the hill they were all standing there with their blockade of shields (facing front). We on the other hand were at the bottom of the slope/hill we were all formed like this:

William thought about what to do. He used the tactic he used to conquer other countries. He fired his archers onto the opposition’s shields to break their 1^st lines, but to no avail. Then, William sent everybody to attack the shield wall. This didn’t help either. We kept on fighting and I was getting tired. The cavalry were useless for the moment while all the Infantry where fighting the English. There were a lot of men on foot, several thousand men. There were about 2000 men on horses, who were waiting to be ordered to do something. Then, on the left hand of the battlefield some men began to retreat, so the English feeling victory followed them.

William then told us to go behind the English that were chasing our men, and kill them. So, we galloped down to them and slaughtered them one by one. One of these Cavalry charges could be quite scary if you are a man just standing on the ground waiting for the heavy blow on your head. When, William saw what happened he told other men to pretend retreating again so the cavalry could charge those few men that followed our retreating men again and again. Still William saw that this was not breaking the shield wall. He ordered everyone back and said to the archers to shoot upwards. It worked! The arrows fell back down on the people behind the shields, who were defenceless. Harold got shot in the eye by one of those arrows.

When the English knew their King and his brothers were dead it became havoc the shield wall sagged and we charged right through them. When all the English had either fled or were dead we chopped up Harold and threw him into the sea. We had won the Battle of Hastings!