hi everybody and welcome back to these series of videos looking at the norman conquest in this series of videos this second series we've been looking at invasion and we've had four videos that you should have watched up to this point the first one looked at normandy in 1065 the second one looked at claimants to the throne the third looked at battle of fulford and stamford bridge and the four foot to the battle of hastings last fifth video i'd like to consolidate everything we've learned about in a previous four and in this unit the question that we need to look at is why did william win the battle of hastings what enabled william to conquer england so successfully and win that key battle in 1066 and really there was evidence in each of the four previous videos and each of the four previous videos tells a different part of the story that enables william to win we started out looking at the normans in 1065 and the normans really were a force to be reckoned with and that force to be reckoned with enables william to win secondly william had a really strong claim to the throne it wasn't a tangential claim he had a strong claim to the throne and that enables him to power through and he'd lead that invasion thirdly harold gobinson's army after fulfilling stamford bridge was seriously reduced and that meant that when they turned up at hastings william was at an advantage already and then finally the norman tactics at hastings pay off so let's look at the key details in each of these four big themes or four big factors firstly in terms of norman preparation and features of normandy that meant they were a strong force really the big thing we need to look at is the fact that they had knights on horseback that enabled them to lead an army in a way that really nobody else was doing in such skilled way and to do that they needed stirrups and they were the people that invented stirrups that enables these people to fight on horseback the army were covered in chainmail and they had the latest technology ready at their use and then finally the normans had the feudal system and the feudal system meant that their army was so tied together because of this idea of promise of land and promise of paying taxes that their army was tightly knit closely focused and could be called at a very very speedily rate a speedy rate they also really importantly were king of the king of the castle in terms of castle design at this point and they were more advanced than other people in terms of their speed that they could build castles and their use of castles and their wooden modern daily castles meant that they could quickly invade somewhere and impose themselves upon a new land let's secondly look at william had a strong claim to the throne and he definitely did he had a blood link to emma of normandy and so he did have a link to the english throne and a clear link to the english throne that arguably put him ahead of some of these other claimants in 1066. we don't know whether it's true or not but william definitely believed in the fact that harold godwin had given an oath to william saying that he should be the king of england and that oath again gives him legitimacy and lastly william's claim to the throne was massively supported by the pope in the catholic church so he has support of one of the biggest uh structures of power in all of europe at this time the third big factor we need to look at is harold gobinson's army and although they lose the battle of falford they win the battle of stamford bridge decisively but because they fought two battles harold's army is reduced he loses men at both of those battles and the fact that york is such a far distance away from hastings in the south means that his army has marched fast distances his men have marched vast distances his commanders have marched vast distances so we need to factor that in when we consider why william won but we also need to not take it away from william and the normans because their tactics at hastings hugely pay off and is a really big reason why they win firstly william uses the genius tactic of false retreat arguably the anglo-saxons have got a far better position on top of the hill at hastings and they really really had that advantage but william using that tactic of false retreat to break the anglo-saxon shield wall was genius and is the key decisive turning point in that battle they also brilliantly used archers and then really and lastly as we've said before they had knights on horseback and that enables them to do things at hastings that the anglo-saxons can't do in the same way so all these things come together and they all link to each other and they all play together and they all play a small part in a reason why william definitely won the battle of hastings in the next series of videos we'll look at what william and the normans do once they've taken power in 1066.