come back to these videos looking at the norman conquest videos are looking at the second unit which is about invasion in the previous two videos we looked at norindi in 1065 and claimants to the throne last lesson in this video we'd like to look at the battles of fulford and stamford bridge this lesson focuses really really importantly on the question of what happened at the battles of fulford and stamford bridge and in essence really fills you in on the story of what happens in england from january of 1066 until about september of 1066. the story is a little bit complicated and i'm going to try and simplify it for you with playmobil characters first let's introduce the main characters now in the last video you saw that harold goblinson had taken the throne of england so he is now king harold of england one of the claimants to the throne the second character i'd like to introduce to you is tostig tostig is harold's brother he's angry with his brother and they don't really get on the last character i'd like to introduce you to is harald hardrada and haraldard radha as you can see from his nifty outfit here is a viking and is the king of norway let's begin this story in april of 1066 and as we knew know from the previous video edward the confessor dies in january harold takes the throne and there's a lot of people who are quite angry at him so intense in april of 1066 harold gobwinson has now become king harold meanwhile tostig harold's brother who lost his position as an earl in 1065 arguably because of his brother harold began begins attacking the east coast of england so tostig with his merry men runs up and down the coast of england in their ships attacking people and pillaging villages now those attacks fizzle out and tostig mysteriously disappears in about april of 1066. he will come back into the story meanwhile in june of 1066 over in normandy william starks making preparations for the invasion of england and as we learned last lesson or last video the normans with their fancy horses and their chainmail and their stirrups begin preparing to invade england over in england harold collects taxes and he gathers the third the anglo-saxon army and thousands of englishmen wait on the south coast ready for the invasion of the normans but the invasion doesn't come and they wait there until september and in september of 1066 harold and his third down on the south coast nothing happens and harold is forced to disband the third and the reason nothing happens is the normans have decided to not yet invade and i say yet because we know that they will and so the third is disbanded and sent back to go and gather in the harvests in their regions around england except there's a problem and on the 8th of september another army lands in the north east tostig who disappeared in april had actually ran away to norway and tostig together with harald hardrada launch an attack on england and with their vikings they land on the 8th of september and you will remember from the previous video harald harjrada has a claim to the throne has acclaimed to the throne through half a canute so he lands to take the throne of england with tostig godwinson in september harold down on the south coast quickly gathers the third again and begins marching north this is going to take him a while and the further they're ready to go north now let's focus in on york because by the 20th of september of 1066 harald and tostig have made their base in york and while harold's forces are marching north the english northern earls edwin and morkar here they are lead their forces towards the viking invaders so there are two battles that happen in york and the first one is this one where harald and tostig fight the forces of edwin and morkar and on the 20th of september those two forces meet outside york at the battle of falford and at the battle of fulford the vikings harald and tostig defeat edwin and morkar who escape and the vikings take control of the city they take control and they stay in york for the next five days and by the 25th of september hard rada and tostig had moved their forces outside york to the stamford bridge and they wait at stamford bridge now they had no idea that harold had managed to gather the third so quickly and had managed to march up to york in record time but he does and here he is arriving with his third and harold marches the 200 miles from south of england up to york in less than a week with his entire army that was remarkable at the speed that they did it and as they do it so quickly the vikings are caught unawares and harold launches a surprise attack on the vikings the norwegians didn't even have their chain mail on and they weren't ready the anglo-saxon forces led by god winston were and at the battle of stamford bridge thousands died included amongst them hardrada and tostig godwinson has just defeated hardrada he has won the battle of stamford bridge the remaining norwegians flee home but little does harold godwinson know that over in normandy the norman forces are finally ready to invade their ships are ready the weather is finally turned in their favor and they are ready to invade england and that is the bit of the story that we will cover in the next video