King Harold ought to have won the battle of Hasting without difficulty and have lived to enjoy a peaceful and enlightened reign. That he lost to William of Normandy was largely a matter of sheer bad luck.Harriet Harvey Wood’s new history explores the background and lead-up to the invasion, the motives of the leading players, the state of warfare in England and Normandy in 1066, and the events of the battle itself. She shows how King Harold eventually came to be defeated and reveals that, far from bringing culture and enlightenment to England, the Normans’ aggressive and illegal invasion in fact destroyed one of Europe’s longest-established and most highly developed civilizations.