The story of the 1066 battle that changed England forever may have been built on a bad reading of a single word. New analysis of medieval manuscripts suggests England's last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, didn't force his army through a brutal 200-mile sprint from Yorkshire to London before losing to William the Conqueror in the Battle of Hastings, a legendary march that is still taught in schools and has inspired modern-day reenactments, per CNN. Tom Licence of the University of East Anglia argues Harold's forces largely traveled by ship, not in a punishing overland march long blamed for their defeat, per the BBC. The error, he says, stems from Victorian historians misinterpreting a line in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that said Harold's fleet went "home"—taken to mean disbanded to various ports.
According to Licence's reading, the fleet, having just defeated the Viking king, went "home" to London, allowing Harold's men time to rest before some ventured overland toward Hastings, meeting William's forces who'd landed on England's south coast. Licence, who's writing a biography of the king, recasts Harold as a more capable commander who even tried a naval pincer move against William, though the ships didn't arrive in time. Other scholars say the revised account fits what's known about England's seafaring strength at the time and shows how Victorian-era "factoids" hardened into accepted history. It's not the only 1066 myth under pressure: historians have already challenged the famous image of Harold dying from an arrow to the eye on the Bayeux Tapestry, saying early sources describe him being cut down by Norman knights.
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