Why Was William Successful in Becoming King in 1066?

510 Words3 Pages
In 1066, William Duke of Normandy, now known as “William The Conqueror” became king of England for several reasons, after the previous king Edward the Confessor. In the elections in 1066, Harold Godwinson was chosen by the witan to be king. William became king after he had defeated Harold in “The Battle of Hastings”. William won from both, William’s skill and Harold mistakes. William also had the opportunity to become king during the elections, because the other candidates had weaknesses: Edgar Aetheling was only 6 years old and he was too young to become king; Harald Hardrada was a Viking and a foreigner, this was to risky; Harold Godwinson wasn’t related to Edward and wasn’t fully English. This gave William an advantage to become king and hold their weaknesses against them. William had a lot of skills, which gave him an advantage to win. William cleverly used horses that were especially trained for battle. They were used as a weapon, which Harold didn’t have. The horses could run a lot faster, and they were much stronger than humans. This would have helped William’s army, since they had more energy to fight and they didn’t have to use their legs, as for Harold’s army they had to walk and run which made them become more tired and had less energy to fight. Another reason why the Normans were successful was because they were very lucky. When the Harold’s army were up at Stamford Bridge fighting the Vikings, the wind had changed and the Normans could go to invade. William sorted his men carefully and was prepared. This would have made the invasion easier for the Normans because it would have taken at least a week of fast walking for the Saxons to get to where William was invading. William became king was because of Harold’s mistakes. King Harold wasn’t ready for William he didn’t have a proper plan. The army had to march all the way from the north to the
Open Document