Deep Dive: The Battle of Hastings

The Cowards Win: How England Was Born from a Battlefield Con Game

Sometimes the most important victories in history come not from superior courage or brilliant strategy, but from being willing to break the rules when everyone else is playing fair.

What the History Books Say

As I was reading a history book of various countries, the one on England literally started at 1066 AD.

Every English schoolchild learns about the Battle of Hastings (1066) as the moment when William the Conqueror's brilliant tactics and superior Norman military prowess established the foundation of modern England. It's painted as a clash between the old Saxon world and the new Norman civilization—with civilization, naturally, winning through military excellence.

But that's not what happened at Hastings. What actually happened was that the English were winning until they fell for what was essentially a battlefield con game. The Normans didn't triumph through superior fighting—they won by cheating.

And maybe, just maybe, that moment of shameful victory explains something fundamental about the political culture that emerged from it.

What Really Happened on Senlac Hill

Let's start with the facts that usually get glossed over in the heroic retellings:

October 14, 1066. Harold Godwinson's English army held the high ground on Senlac Hill, formed up in their traditional shield wall—a tactic that had served them well for centuries. The Norman cavalry charged uphill again and again, and again and again they were repulsed. The English formation held. Harold's huscarls (professional warriors) were cutting down Norman knights with their two-handed axes.

By most accounts, the English were winning.

The Norman army was getting frustrated, taking heavy casualties, and running out of options. Charging uphill against a disciplined shield wall was a losing proposition, and William's men knew it.

So they tried something different. Something that would later be celebrated as "tactical brilliance" but was really just an elaborate battlefield trick.

The Feigned Retreat: Ancient Warfare's Greatest Con

Here's what the Normans did: they pretended to flee in panic.

Not just once. Multiple times throughout the battle.

The scheme worked like this: Norman cavalry would charge the English line, get beaten back, and then instead of reforming for another attack, they would fake a complete rout—screaming, throwing down weapons, acting like their army was collapsing.

Human nature did the rest. Seeing their enemies fleeing in terror, groups of English soldiers would break from their disciplined formation and chase the "fleeing" Normans down the hill, hoping to finish them off and claim spoils of war.

Once the English were strung out and separated from their main force, the Norman cavalry would wheel around and slaughter them. Then they'd return to repeat the trick.

Each feigned retreat pulled more English soldiers out of position. Each fake rout weakened the shield wall. Each deception made the next one more believable.

The Moment That Changed Everything

The final fake retreat was the one that mattered. Enough English had fallen for the trick that gaps opened in their line. Norman archers could now find targets. The disciplined formation that had been winning the battle began to crack.

And then Harold Godwinson was killed—whether by an arrow to the eye, as legend claims, or by Norman knights who broke through the weakened line—and the English army collapsed.

The English lost because they kept falling for the same con.

Why This Bothers Us (And Why It Should)

There's something deeply unsatisfying about acknowledging that the English had actually won before they got defrauded out of their victory. We want our founding moments to reflect some kind of natural progression or legitimate superiority.

We don't want them to come from successful lying.

But that's exactly what happened at Hastings. The Normans won through systematic deception after losing through conventional warfare. They triumphed not because they were better fighters—the evidence shows they were losing—but because they were willing to turn a real defeat into a fake retreat while their enemies continued to fight honorably.

This goes beyond unsatisfying into genuinely troubling territory when you realize that this fraud became the template for how power was exercised in the political system that emerged from it.

The Pattern That Followed

Once you see Hastings as a victory through deception, suddenly a lot of subsequent English history starts to make sense:

Naval Warfare: English naval tactics became famous for surprise attacks, unconventional strategies, and hitting enemies when they least expected it. The defeat of the Spanish Armada? Fireships sent in the night. Admiral Nelson's victories? Surprise formations that broke all the conventional rules of naval engagement.

Diplomacy: "Perfidious Albion" didn't become a French insult by accident. English diplomatic history is full of last-minute betrayals, strategic about-faces, and alliances abandoned the moment they became inconvenient.

Colonial Strategy: Divide and conquer. Play local rulers against each other. Promise everything to everyone, then honor only the agreements that benefit you. The British Empire wasn't built on superior military force alone—it was built on superior manipulation.

Political Culture: From the English Civil War through modern parliamentary democracy, English politics has always valued pragmatism over principle. What works matters more than what's theoretically right.

The DNA of a Political System

Maybe this is what bothers us most about Hastings: it suggests that shameful victories can shape entire civilizations.

The Normans who won through deception became the English aristocracy. Their descendants ruled England for centuries, and their approach to power—win first, justify later—became embedded in the political system they created.

Consider the implications:

• The Magna Carta wasn't granted out of noble respect for rights—it was extorted from King John by barons who held him hostage

• The English Reformation happened because Henry VIII wanted a divorce, not because of theological conviction

• The Glorious Revolution succeeded because William of Orange invaded while his father-in-law was distracted

• The British Empire expanded through a combination of superior technology and superior treachery

At every crucial moment, English success came from being willing to break the rules when everyone else was playing by them.

The Parallel Problem

This isn't unique to English history, of course. We see the same pattern at the Battle of Actium, where Cleopatra's tactical withdrawal gets rewritten as "cowardly flight" by Roman historians who needed to justify their victory through superior virtue rather than superior positioning.

We see it in American history, where the colonists' guerrilla tactics against British regulars get celebrated as "patriotic ingenuity" rather than "refusal to fight fair."

We see it everywhere victors write the histories: shameful victories become tactical brilliance.

But Hastings might be the purest example, because the deception was so blatant and the consequences so enormous. An entire civilization grew from that moment of successful dishonesty.

What We Learn From Shameful Victories

Here's the uncomfortable truth that Hastings teaches us: sometimes cheating works. Sometimes the side that's willing to break the rules beats the side that follows them honorably. Sometimes the foundation of great civilizations is a moment of collective moral failure.

This doesn't mean we should celebrate deception or abandon principles. But it does mean we should be honest about how power actually changes hands in the real world.

The English didn't deserve to lose at Hastings because they were naive enough to fall for the same trick repeatedly. The Normans didn't deserve to win because they were clever enough to exploit human nature and the conventions of medieval warfare.

But the Normans did win. And that victory shaped everything that came after.

The Question That Remains

So what do we do with this knowledge? How do we reconcile the fact that one of history's most influential victories came through systematic battlefield deception?

Maybe the answer isn't to paper over the uncomfortable truth with stories about Norman tactical brilliance. Maybe it's to acknowledge that shameful victories happen, and that they can have enormous historical consequences, and that understanding how they work is part of understanding how the world actually operates.

The Battle of Hastings teaches us that honor doesn't always win. That fighting fair doesn't guarantee success. That the willingness to deceive can triumph over superior defensive positions, better training, and righteous causes.

These aren't comfortable lessons. But they might be necessary ones.

Because somewhere, on some future battlefield—literal or metaphorical—someone is going to try the same basic trick that worked at Hastings: pretend to lose until your enemy breaks formation, then strike when they're vulnerable.

And if we've learned anything from October 14, 1066, it's that this tactic works as long as people keep falling for it.

The Battle of Hastings changed the course of English history in a single day. But maybe the real lesson isn't about Norman superiority or Saxon weakness. Maybe it's about what happens when one side is willing to win by any means necessary, while the other side assumes everyone is playing by the same rules.

Sometimes the most important question isn't who deserved to win. It's what kind of civilization grows from the way the victory was achieved.

England found out.