Battle of Hastings,1066

Battle of Hastings by Ruben De Fraye

9th October 1066

Dear Diary,

I’m Peter from the future to study the war in the Middle Ages. I have brown eyes and short brown hair. My age is 45 years and I am a man without a wife and children. When I am a soldier I wear armour, a bow, a knife and a small sword.

First I was a blacksmith but not anymore because we are at war. Our King, Edward, died and he doesn’t have children. There are three successors who want to be king, so they started a war; King Harold Godwinson, who belonged to the most powerful family in England from Wessex, Harold Hardrada from Norway and William, Duke of Normandy. I’m on the side of William, Duke of Normandy, because I know that he is going to win. In the army of William, I’m an archer. I can use a bow since I was four years old because my father taught me. In the army I‘m the best archer. I can shoot a duck from 500 yards with my bow; that’s also why I’m not a smith anymore.

I’m now on the coast of Normandy. Soon we are going into our boats and row to England. The boats are really big but there is not a lot of space because there are many people on one boat. We have about 500 boats.

You better not go to our Duke; he is really mad at Harold Godwinson, because he crowned himself in Westminster Abbey the day after King Edward died. But we also heard some good news, Harald Hardrada died at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire and so there are only two successors left. I think I’m going to put my armour on because we are going to England.

14th October 1066

Dear Diary,

We have landed at Pevensey and are now in Hastings, England. We are waiting for the troops of Harold Godwinson. They have been rushing down from the North where they fought against Harald Hardrada. The army of William is really large with 4000 knights and also some Spanish and Flemish soldiers, in total we are with 8000 soldiers. The English army has 8500 soldiers in total. It also has some housecarls, which are professional soldiers. All soldiers carry a conical helmet, a chain mail hauberk, and a kite-shaped shield. The army of king Harold has no knights. We send a knight to look where the Saxon army is. The army of the Saxons doesn’t have as much armour as we do.

4 hours later

Dear Diary,

There! Harold’s soldiers are in front of us in a shield wall. The first attack comes from our archers, but there are two problems. We can’t touch them with our arrows because they are on a hill. There is also another problem, if we can’t kill them today, then we can’t kill them tomorrow because every day they get more resources. So we must kill them today.

The soldiers attack after the archers and then come the knights. Now we, the archers, attack again followed by the soldiers and the knights. We have an advantage. We are split up in three groups; so if one group attacks the other groups can rest and the Saxons cannot rest because they have only one group. So they have to fight every time we attack them, which makes them tired.

Oh no, they take William off his horse. Is he alive or not???

The Saxons are now advancing, but there is our king, coming on his horse with his helmet in his hand. Now we have hope again, so we move to the shield wall, with the Spanish and Flemish soldiers. We still can’t break the wall, so the horses come again followed by the soldiers. In this last attack our soldiers pretend to flee. The Saxons think that they have won, so they run after us but it is a trap. Our horses charge to the Saxons and we encircle them and kill all of them. The archers attack the rest of the army. Suddenly, I see that Harold Godwinson is shot in the eye. He is dead. William has won. Our new king! Hail King William.

The end