What If King Harold Defeated William The Conqueror How Would This Have Affected European And World

How would British history be different if Harold had defeated William and destroyed the Norman Invasion?

England would have remained an outlying Germanic country like the Scandinavian countries. Not part of France or linked to France; not part of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. Not very involved in continental politics, a bit second-rate compared to the major players.There might have been another successful Norse invasion later. However my guess is there would be no new Norman attempt, or any other from France.England would have remained whole. It might never have conquered Wales or Ireland, or merged monarchies with Scotland. On the other hand some kind of change like these might well have happened at some point. Cumbria might currently be part of Scotland.The English language would have continued to use special symbols like thorn and edh, and not adopted French spellings. It would not have absorbed lots of Norman/French vocabulary. Depending on how much change had already happened in colloquial Old English, it may still have the same word order as German or Dutch, rather than a version which is more Frenchified. It probably would have changed more than German or Dutch tho, due to the influence of Norse on it, which was pre-Norman.There would have been no Hundred Years War. It would have been less likely that a figure like Richard the Lionheart emerged as an idolised English king leading crusaders, as his stature and confidence was partly because of his French context as much as his English.It seems likely that the Reformation would have come to England, as it did to most of northern Europe. Maybe it would have even spread to Ireland, with no anti-English resentment to hold it back. It would not have been Anglican tho, as this was a creation of Henry VIII. Maybe something like the earlier Lollardy would have still happened, and England contributed a principled form of Protestantism of its own creation.England still would have been a contender in the Age of Exploration, due to its inevitable sea-going focus on account of its coastline and island nature. But it probably would have been a less developed England than in OTL. Whether it would create as great an empire as Britain did in OTL seems unlikely. It might depend how much it had expanded to the other parts of the British Isles first, as England did in OTL.Beyond this the speculation has no real grounding.

How would England be different if Harold Godwinson had kept power?

I would add a couple of things to Ernest W Adams' excellent answer.From 1066 to 1800 the British Crown claimed ownership over France. This resulted in many wars, countless battles and an antipathy between the two peoples. The French and the British, despite what is said at the political level, have always regarded themselves as 'natural' enemies. In support of that contention I offer three relatively contemporary examples.1. In Robert Graves' autobiographical account of his time in World War I, he quotes a British soldier saying, to general agreement, that if the was to be another war let it not be against the Germans, but against the French. That would be a war that he would get behind.2. Churchill wrote that during World War II, Gen Charles de Gaulle was required for political reasons, to be publicly rude to Churchill, so that he could maintain credibility back in France. Churchill continued to say that de Gaulle seemed to do this with particular relish. No other government in exile holed up in Britain for the duration felt the need to do this.3. In the late 80s I was travelling alone in the United States and for some of that time I teamed up with a French fellow. We shared a car and a few motel rooms to cut down on some of the expenses of travel. For most of the trip he assumed I was Australian, but when I told him Australia was my home, but I was born in England he was horrified. "But we are enemies!" He said, he was genuinely shocked and incredulous that we could get on as will as we did.

If King Harold had won the battle of Hastings, what would have been different about Britain in later years?

That’s a toughy because all we know is what did happen. What did happen was that England became part of the French World rather than remaining predominantly in the Scandinavian World.The English language would’ve remained an almost wholly Germanic language closely related to Frisian.The English Realm wouldn’t have belonged to a French Duke and thus entwined in French politics. The Hundred Years War (actually a series of disputes lasting well over a hundred years) wouldn’t have happened, with the resulting hatred between the English and French peoples. ( The Germans fixed that in 1914. )Italian banking houses made a lot of money lending to the English and French kings, and associated rulers during those wars, siphoning off a significant portion of the wealth of Britain and France.The English honed their martial skills during those wars, becoming one of the leading powers of Europe. The Normans and their descendents invaded Ireland and Wales. So, Europe may have seen an independent Ireland, free to continue to develop its own culture and institutions and a more insular England that did not engage the Balance of Power international politics developed by the Tudor king Henry VIII ( a Welsh House).Henry VIII took England out of the Roman Catholic fold. But the English most likely would’ve joined Northern Europe in the Protestant Reformation anyway.But, no Sir Walter Raleigh, no Queen Elizabeth, no Spanish Armada, etc;The further you get away from 1066, the murkier the picture becomes.On the other hand, maybe William the Bastard would’ve made another try at invading England…

Is it possible that King Harold Godwinson survived the battle of Hastings and lived a full life? If this were the case, how would it change our view of history?

No. If he had survived the battle, he would have raised another army and continued the struggle. Perhaps he even would have ultimately prevailed.Harold was chosen as the new King, even though others had a claim as good or better to the throne, because he was considered the most able man to defend the realm. And in fact, just a few weeks before Hastings, he had driven off an invasion from Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, and then had rushed south to defend England from William.Hastings didn’t end the war. The Witenagemot met and chose Edgar Aetheling, who was then no more than 15 years old (and who may have lived to be 110), as the new King, and the struggle continued for about two months before most of the nobility, and Edgar himself, submitted and William was crowned as King on Christmas Day 1066. Some of the Saxons resisted until as late as 1072. In short, there was still plenty of resistance to William after Hastings, but no one to unite it. Had Harold Godwinson survived Hastings, he was still the best military commander that the Saxons had, and they would have rallied around him. William was nothing special as a commander, his sobriquet “The Conqueror” notwithstanding. Harold’s army was weakened from its victory over Harald Hardrada and its hasty march back to the Channel to confront William—and despite that, Hastings was still a close-run thing.He didn’t survive the battle and go into hiding in some monastery. He was the only man standing between England and the loss of independence for its nobility. Edgar Aetheling became a man of ability himself, but he was too young, which is why he wasn’t chosen as king to begin with. And if Harold was brave enough to fight Harald, one of the most fearsome men in all Europe, then Guillaume le Bâtard, as he was known in Europe at the time, was hardly going to frighten him, even if he won the first battle.