Who finally emerged to take the English throne in 1066 after the Battle of Hastings?

Answer 1

William the Conqueror, who was the former Duke of Normandy. After securing his French title in 1060 he went on to assemble a large invasion force to overthrow the last true Anglo-Saxon English king, Harold Godwinson. This was because of a dispute between him and Harold- Harold's predecessor was Edward the Confessor, who died childless in the early 1060's and who named Harold, his first cousin once removed and a powerful English Earl, as his successor. William claimed that the English throne had been promised to him, not to Harold, and that Harold had sworn to uphold this promise and was breaking the agreement. The Battle of Hastings was not in fact fought at Hastings at all, but at a location a few miles East up the English South Coast where the town and the Abbey of Battle were subsequently established- it's known as the Battle of Hastings because Hastings was the nearest town to it AT THE TIME. King Harold was killed in action at the vanguard of his troops, by an arrowshot into his eye- William went on to be crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey in the December of 1066, and established Norman rule in England, which later went on to become the Plantagenet Dynasty as Norman and Anglo-Saxon nobility inter-married. The Normans never conquered Scotland, and Wales was only briefly taken by them for a period of just over 30 years before they were driven out again, with Wales continuing then as an independent nation up until around 1165 when the Normans established an uneasy alliance with some of the powerful Welsh princes, and began their programme of castle-building throughout Wales to prevent any future Welsh rebellion. However, they did conquer and settle parts of Eastern Ireland. After his coronation, William actually reverted to spending much of his time back on the Continent, but his main benefit to England was to protect it from repeated threats of invasion by the Danes and the ordering of the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of all the landowners in England and the extent of their holdings. But he persecuted the native Anglo-Saxon peasantry and treated them badly, harshly repressing several attempted Saxon rebellions and treating the Saxon lower classes as grossly inferior subordinates. William died whilst leading a military campaign inNorthern France in 1087,and is buried in the French city of Caen- he was succeeded by his son William II, also known as William Rufus.