And he in a prosperous time, a noble ruler
distributed riches. Aethelred's son
ruler of heroes, greatly distinguished
ruled Welsh and Scots and Britons too,
Angles and Saxons, competent champions.
Cold waves thus encircle
all youthful men that loyally obeyed
Edward, princely king.
Poem on the death of King Edward the Confessor, included under the year 1065 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (versions C and D)
Then, throughout all England, a sign such as men never saw before was seen in the heavens. Some men declared that it was the star comet, which some men call the 'haired' star; and it appeared first on the eve of the Greater Litany, that is on 24 April. and shone thus all the week.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (versions C and D), 1066
I will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men
Harold Godwineson on Harald Hardrada, just the first of 1066's invaders; Snorri Sturluson's Saga of Harald Hardrada, early C12th
A French bastard landing with an armed banditti and establishing himself King of England against the consent of the natives, is, in plain terms, a very paltry rascally original.
Thomas Paine on the Norman Conquest; Common Sense, 1776
I have not always in my dealings with General de Gaulle found quotations from Trafalgar and Waterloo necessarily productive, and he has been very tactful about the Battle of Hastings.
Harold Wilson
The Normans turned round in a fury;
And gave back both parry and thrust;
Til the fight were all over bar shoutin’;
And you couldn’t see Saxons for dust.
And after the battle were over,
They found ‘Arold, so stately and grand,
Sittin’ there with an eye full of 'arrer,
On ‘is ‘orse, with his ‘awk in ‘is ‘and.
