These were Harold's own personal lands, and William may have intended to goad his opponent into hasty action in defence of his people. Harold heard of the Norman landing while he was celebrating his triumph at Stamford Bridge, and set out immediately to meet the new menace.
The speed of his response left contemporaries gasping, but has puzzled historians, who have pointed out that the Saxons might have done better to recover their strength and reorganise on interior lines of communication, rather than hastening headlong into conflict. Harold may have been intoxicated with his success in the north; he may have felt obliged to rush to the defence of his tenants; or he may simply have been reacting with the keyed-up explosiveness of one who had been expecting to meet this challenge for the past nine months. In any case, he moved south at breakneck pace, and was in contact with William by 13 October. His army was a mixture of his own household troops, battle-hardened but by now surely very weary, and local levies including lightly armed peasantry. By comparison with the Normans, Harold lacked what modern military analysts would call firepower - supplied in the 11th century by archers - and a mobile striking force cavalry. In fact, the Saxons came to Hastings to fight as they had fought Viking marauders since the time of Alfred the Great, hand to hand with axes and swords in the shield-wall.