An article on the harrying of the north - post 1066 and all that......

[Imperial Dave]

Interestingly, in his book on the subject, frank mcglynn wondered about whether Harold would have been better off letting harald and William facing off and then lurking in the background until it was the right time to fight the winner takes all battle. He also very briefly considered Harold staying in the south and letting the Northumbrian earls bottling up harald whilst he dealt with William

One thing that is clear is that there were an awful lot of coincidences as well as strikes of good and bad luck throughout the campaigns and indeed the lead up to those fateful 3 battles

[Patrick Waterson]

Harold doubtless felt that his credibility would suffer if he abandoned large tracts of the country to the invaders: an Alfred might have done it, and bounced back afterwards, but not a Harold.

This, I think, is also the reason Harold went off to deal with Harald straight away: he wanted to deal with each threat as it occurred rather than let it fester.  He was very much a 'direct action' general, which means that although the option of letting his foes fight it out between them was available, he just would not have taken it.  History is often steered by individual human temperament, for better or worse.

You are right about the coincidences and luck element: it may have been an occupational hazard of campaigning in a Halley's Comet year.  It is also striking that at both Stamford Bridge and Hastings the battle seems to have hung on one man receiving an injury at a critical time.

Naturally, under today's abstracted fast-play systems, this is simply represented by blaming the dice.