The Road to the Battle of Hastings in 1066? Maybe Not a Road After All.

The year was 1066, and after battling marauding Vikings, Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, marched his bedraggled troops more than 200 miles south to the Battle of Hastings where the exhausted men fell to defeat by William the Conqueror.

That is, at least, what generations of Britons were taught about the prelude to the Norman Conquest — the last successful invasion of their island.

But new research suggests that rather than marching for days at breakneck speed, King Harold II’s army may have made a more restful journey — by ship.

That could change the way Britons see Harold and his defeat in one of the nation’s most decisive battles, according to Tom Licence, a professor of medieval history and literature at the University of East Anglia, whose research it is.

The mythology of the forced march — which some Britons re-enacted a decade ago in medieval costume — has shaped the image of Harold as one of the most headstrong losers of English military history.

“It is very much part of Harold’s story in our national psyche,” said Professor Licence. He argues that if Harold traveled by sea, that would show him to be “a better commander, a more sophisticated character, and more versatile general,” rather than someone “rushing up and down the country desperately trying to get from one battle to another.”

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