Hello and welcome to Home School History. I'm Greg Jenner and I've spent my whole career

making history fun on the TV show Horrible Histories, and more recently on the BBC

podcast You're Dead To Me, although that one's for the grownups.

With everyone being cooped up in the house, I thought I'd deliver a snappy history lesson

to entertain and educate the whole family, who says that homeschooling can't be a bit

of fun.

Today we are donning our chainmail to explore the almighty scrap that changed Britain forever,

the Battle of Hastings. And why was there a battle? Well, it's a long story, about

who should be King of England. You see, at the start of 1066, the king was an old man

called Edward the Confessor, which sounds like he was always admitting to eating the last

jaffer cake. Actually, Confessor just means he was very religious. But even if they had

jaffer cakes back then, they didn't, they would have been pinched off his plate by Godwin,

Earl of Wessex, who was Edward's wife's dad. Balsy Godwin and his Balsy sons were basically

running the kingdom instead of Edward, but in 1051, Edward had lost his patience and

booted them out. Seeing as Edward didn't have a son, he then promised his throne to his

cousin William, Duke of Normandy. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, the problem was,

Earl Godwin didn't stay banished for long, and then when he died, his sons, particularly

Harold Godwin's son, became the most powerful lords in the country, and it all got a bit

tense. Then in the winter of 1065, Edward the Confessor got very ill, and even though

he'd said that Duke William should be King, William was stuck in Normandy, whereas Harold

Godwin's son was standing right there. Many important people felt that Harold would

be a good king. He was powerful, a great warrior, and he had a lovely moustache. According

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