Harold may have lost England by backing the wrong pope in 1066

A forgotten fragment of a lost papal letter offers a surprising new explanation for the Norman Conquest of 1066. England may have backed the wrong claimant during a bitter papal power struggle, giving Pope Alexander II a political motive to support William the Conqueror's invasion. The discovery suggests Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings was shaped by religious intrigue in Rome as much as by the fighting itself.

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