As William led charge after charge with his cavalry against the English his closest knights were taken out by the combined efforts of English projectiles and close-quarter combat, whereupon he saw that his left flank was starting to crumble and responded with a strong cavalry charge in that direction. The fyrd who'd been resisting this portion of his army could see that the men opposing them were thinning out and were about to launch a charge against the impending retreat when they found a large force of horsemen coming right at them; they responded with a sudden release of a great quantity of projectiles. Leading the charge the Duke of Normandy receives one of these right in his neck, killing him within seconds and leaving his head hanging limply from his neckbones and fronds of flesh. The cavalry charge had too much momentum at this time and slammed against the shield wall, sending William's body tumbling into the fyrd where it lay among the men for a matter of minutes while the charge was resisted.
Eventually a key gap in the assault of the Normans opened up and the Saxons could add still more projectiles upon the army, prompting the cavalry to withdraw with a contingent of the fyrd on the Saxon right-flank in pursuit while the remaining men set upon William's corpse and severed his head completely. Gyrth Godwinson, brother of King Harold, received news of the duke's death and called for the Norman's head to be stuck upon the longest spear the men under his command could find.
For half-an-hour the forces of Normandy and her allies continued the struggle in earnest, blissfully unaware that their commander had been killed, although the left-flank had all but collapsed into a retreat for Hastings. The remainder of the fyrd on the Saxon right-flank turned to engage the exposed flank of the remaining strength of the Norman army while those who set off in pursuit cornered the allied infantry in a copse where they slaughtered the men and plundered their bodies bare; only the cavalry forces reached Hastings where news of William's death spread faster than on the battlefield.
By now Gyrth had lifted William's head high into the air on the end of a spear and began to carry it towards the king's position. Harold saw it soon enough and sent a message for his brother to carry it forwards to bolster the will of his men and sap the morale of the enemy. Sure enough the sight of their duke's severed head in the hands of the Saxon nobility led to a major drop in the Normans' morale, starting a wave of routing men from the Western end of the Norman forces to the East until the whole force fled with a strong contingent of the Saxon army in pursuit.
The forces who'd come directly from Normandy made for Hastings to re-join their cavalry, intending to hold out until William's successor could send reinforcements. The allied forces under command of Alan the Red, having been heavily reduced during the collapse of the army's left-flank, had fled to Pevensey and had begun the process of re-embarkation. The remaining allies under command of Eustace of Boulogne, having the strongest available force, made camp at Bexhill with the intention of guarding communication between the other two surviving contingents.
With nightfall King Harold has a decision to make.
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