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son, Edward V. Edward V's uncle Richard, who became Richard III, stole the throne from his nephew... but he was younger than George and George had a son still living (the rightful Williamite heir). Then Henry Tudor, who had no Williamite or Alfredian claim, stole the crown from Richard III in 1485. His descendants reigned until 1603 when Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, died without issue and that branch of the family ran out of steam. Help was found, however, in the form of Elizabeth's closest living male Protestant relative, King James VI, King of Scots... the true Alfredian heir to the English throne was sitting on it for the first time since 1016! This true Alfredian line ran England until 1649 and again from 1660 until 1688, when James II of England (and VII of Scotland) was booted out.What other legacies of Hastings are there today? Well, I'm here. I'm half Jewish. It was William of Normandy who let us in in 1066... admittedly it was his grandaughter's grandson's grandson, Edward I, who kicked us out again in the 13th century but the idea and the memory lasted. Without our first stint here, would we have been allowed back in in the 17th century?Finally there's our nation's orientation. Our history has been very tied up with France from 1066 onwards and Germany really hardly had a look in until the early 18th century when we became, for a while, part of the same country as Hanover for dynastic reasons. If Stamford Bridge had gone the other way and King Harald had repelled the invasion of William of Normandy, I'm sure we'd have taken a lot more interest in the affairs of Scandinavia; if Stamford Bridge had gone as it did but Hastings had been reversed (i.e. we'd carried on under Harold Godwinson's rule and not been swamped by foreigners) I think it highly likely that our attentions would have been taken up with the affairs of the little German principalities. That could have affected things like whether or not the Huguenots still saw us as the best safe haven; whether or not the French aristocrats in 1789 would have seen us as a safe haven; whether or not Bismarck might have tried to incorporate us as part of his unified Germany in 1871; which side we'd have been on in the First World War; whether or not there would have been a Second World War at all (after all a Germanic England, America et c. siding with Germany in the First World War should easily have seen off the Kaiser's enemies - with his victory there'd have been no need of a coup against him, no Weimar Republic and no Nazi Germany).Yes, I think we can safely say if things had gone differently on that one October day near the 11th-century Sussex coast, the world we live in now would have been totally different.

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