14th October 1066
Battle of Hastings, the great battle
And what a battle! What fighting spirit! I am obliged to admit that the English were indeed courageous, but, in the end, the crown was ours! Early in the morning, the Saxon army's occupation of Senlac Hill offered them a defensive advantage, heralding a risky encounter. Their front lines formed an impenetrable wall of shields. The Bretons were the first to attack these elite housecarls, but nothing was to be done and our attack rapidly turned into a fiasco. It was at that precise moment that the English made a terrible mistake. Instead of maintaining their position, they decided to pursue the fleeing Bretons, hence abandoning and weakening the cohesion of their defensive wall. I then ordered my cavalry, still standing back, to make a lightning charge and got rid of the majority of the English troops on the battlefield. Then, countless repeated assaults, repelled by our Norman horsemen, finally exhausted the English troops. The time had come for our foot soldiers to attack the hill, covered by sustained fire by our archers. Ravaged on all fronts, the overwhelmed Saxons withdrew, leaving my rival Harold of Wessex dead, struck in the eye by an arrow. The battle only ended at nightfall following a last, desperate ambush attempt by the housecarls. It was the longest day in my entire existence, but we won the Battle of Hastings and I will soon be King of England.