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Harold Godwinson (died 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the decisive battle of the Norman Conquest. He was succeeded by William the Conqueror, the victor at Hastings.
Harold Godwinson was a member of the most powerful noble family in England, his father Godwin having been made Earl of Wessex by Cnut the Great. Harold, who served previously as Earl of East Anglia, was appointed to his father's earldom on Godwin's death. After his brother-in-law, King Edward the Confessor, died without an heir on 5 January 1066, the Witenagemot convened and chose Harold to succeed him; he was probably the first English monarch to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. In late September, he defeated an invasion by rival claimant Harald Hardrada of Norway in the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York before marching his army back south to meet William at Hastings two weeks later, where he was killed in battle.
Godwin remained an earl throughout the remainder of Cnut's reign, one of only two earls to survive to the end of that reign.. On Cnut's death in 1035, Godwin originally supported Harthacnut instead of Cnut's initial successor Harold Harefoot, but managed to switch sides in 1037 – although not without becoming involved in the 1036 murder of Alfred Aetheling, half-brother of Harthacnut and younger brother of the later King Edward the Confessor..
When Harold Harefoot died in 1040, Harthacnut ascended the English throne and Godwin's power was imperiled by his earlier involvement in Alfred's murder, but an oath and large gift secured the new king's favour for Godwin.. Harthacnut's death in 1042 probably involved Godwin in a role as kingmaker, helping to secure the English throne for Edward the Confessor. In 1045, Godwin reached the height of his power when the new king married Godwin's daughter Edith..
Godwin and Gytha had several children – six sons: Sweyn Godwinson, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Leofwine and Wulfnoth (in that order); and three daughters: Edith of Wessex (originally named Gytha but renamed Ealdgyth (or Edith) when she married King Edward the Confessor), Gunhild and Ælfgifu. The birthdates of the children are unknown. Harold was aged about 25 in 1045, which makes his birth year around 1020.
The manor of Bosham on the South coast of England had been acquired, originally from the Archbishop of Canterbury as the family seat by Earl Godwin, and was inherited by Harold. The Bayeux Tapestry has two representations of Harold's family residence. The manor of Bosham is just one of four places, in England, named on the tapestry.
Harold's elder brother Sweyn was exiled in 1047 after abducting the abbess of Leominster Abbey. Sweyn's lands were divided between Harold and a cousin, Beorn Estrithson.. In 1049, Harold was in command of a ship or ships that were sent with a fleet to aid Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor against Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, who was in revolt against Henry. During this campaign, Sweyn returned to England and attempted to secure a pardon from the king, but Harold and Beorn refused to return any of their lands, and Sweyn, after leaving the royal court, took Beorn hostage and later killed him..
In 1051, Edward appointed an enemy of the Godwins as Archbishop of Canterbury and soon afterwards drove them into exile, but they raised an army which forced the king to restore them to their positions a year later. Earl Godwin died in 1053, and Harold succeeded him as Earl of Wessex, which made him the most powerful lay figure in England after the king.
In 1055, Harold drove back the Welsh, who had burned Hereford. Harold also became Earl of Hereford in 1058, and replaced his late father as the focus of opposition to growing Normandy influence in England under the restored monarchy (1042–66) of Edward the Confessor, who had spent more than 25 years in exile in Normandy. He led a series of successful campaigns (1062–63) against Gruffydd ap Llywelyn of Gwynedd, king of Wales. This conflict ended with Gruffydd's defeat and death in 1063.
Later Norman chroniclers suggest alternative explanations for Harold's journey: that he was seeking the release of members of his family who had been held hostage since Godwin's exile in 1051, or even that he had simply been travelling along the English coast on a hunting and fishing expedition and had been driven across the English Channel by an unexpected storm. There is general agreement that he left from Bosham, and was blown off course, landing at Ponthieu. He was captured by Count Guy I of Ponthieu, and was then taken as a hostage to the count's castle at Beaurainville, up the River Canche from its mouth at what is now Le Touquet. William arrived soon afterward and ordered Guy to turn Harold over to him..
Harold then apparently accompanied William to battle against William's enemy, Conan II, Duke of Brittany. While crossing into Brittany past the fortified abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, Harold is recorded as rescuing two of William's soldiers from quicksand. They pursued Conan from Dol-de-Bretagne to Rennes, and finally to Dinan, where he surrendered the fortress's keys at the point of a lance. William presented Harold with weapons and arms, knighting him. The Bayeux Tapestry, and other Norman sources, then state that Harold swore an oath on sacred relics to William to support his claim to the English throne. After Edward's death, the Normans were quick to claim that in accepting the crown of England, Harold had broken this alleged oath.
The chronicler Orderic Vitalis wrote of Harold that he "was distinguished by his great size and strength of body, his polished manners, his firmness of mind and command of words, by a ready wit and a variety of excellent qualities. But what availed so many valuable gifts, when good faith, the foundation of all virtues, was wanting?"
Due to a doubling of taxation by Tostig in 1065 that threatened to plunge England into civil war, Harold supported Northumbrian rebels against his brother, and replaced him with Morcar. This led to Harold's marriage alliance with the northern earls but fatally split his own family, driving Tostig into alliance with King Harald Hardrada ("Hard Ruler") of Norway.
In early January 1066, upon hearing of Harold's coronation, William began plans to invade England, building approximately 700 warships and transports at Dives-sur-Mer on the Normandy coast. Initially, William struggled to gain support for his cause; however, after claiming that Harold had broken an oath sworn on sacred relics, Pope Alexander II formally declared William the rightful heir of the throne of England and nobles flocked to his cause. In preparation of the invasion, Harold assembled his troops on the Isle of Wight, but the invasion fleet remained in port for almost seven months, perhaps due to unfavourable winds. On 8 September, with provisions running out, Harold disbanded his army and returned to London. On the same day, the invasion force of Harald Hardrada, accompanied by Tostig, landed at the mouth of the River Tyne.
The invading forces of Hardrada and Tostig defeated the English earls Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria at the Battle of Fulford near York on 20 September 1066. Harold led his army north on a forced march from London, reached Yorkshire in four days, and caught Hardrada by surprise. On 25 September, in the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold defeated Hardrada and Tostig, who were both killed.
According to Snorri Sturluson, in a story described by Edward Freeman as "plainly mythical", before the battle a single man rode up alone to Harald Hardrada and Tostig. He gave no name, but spoke to Tostig, offering the return of his earldom if he would turn against Hardrada. Tostig asked what his brother Harold would be willing to give Hardrada for his trouble. The rider replied "Seven feet of English ground, as he is taller than other men." Then he rode back to the English host. Hardrada was impressed by the rider's boldness, and asked Tostig who he was. Tostig replied that the rider was Harold Godwinson himself.
In the panel of the Bayeux Tapestry with the inscription "Hic Harold Rex Interfectus Est" ("Here King Harold is killed") a figure standing below the inscription is currently depicted gripping an arrow that has struck his eye. This, however, may have been a late 18th- or early 19th-century modification to the Tapestry. Some historians have questioned whether this man is intended to be Harold or if the panel shows two instances of Harold in sequence of his death: the figure standing to the left of the central figure commonly thought to be Harold, and then lying to the right, almost supine, being mutilated beneath a horse's hooves. Etchings made of the Tapestry in the 1730s show the standing figure with differing objects. Benoît's 1729 sketch shows only a dotted line indicating stitch marks which is longer than the currently shown arrow and without any indication of fletching, whereas all other arrows in the Tapestry are fletched. Bernard de Montfaucon's 1730 engraving has a solid line resembling a spear being held overhand matching the manner of the standing figure currently depicted with an arrow to the eye; while stitch marks for where such a spear may have been removed can be seen in the Tapestry. In 1816, Charles Stothard was commissioned by the Society of Antiquaries of London to make a copy of the Bayeux Tapestry. He included in his reproduction previously damaged or missing parts of the work with his own hypothesised depictions. This is when the arrow first appears. Stothard's is the first record of the Bayeux Tapestry after it was damaged during the French Revolution and before repairs were carried out in the 19th century. It has been proposed that the supine figure once had an arrow added by over-enthusiastic 19th-century restorers that was later unstitched. Many believe the figure with an arrow in his eye to be Harold as the name "Harold" is above him. This has been disputed by examining other examples from the Tapestry where the visual centre of a scene, not the location of the inscription, identifies named figures. A further suggestion is that both accounts are accurate, and that Harold suffered first the eye wound, then the mutilation, and the Tapestry is depicting both in sequence.
Another source states that Harold's widow, Edith the Fair, was called to identify the body, which she did by some private mark known only to her. Harold's strong association with Bosham, his birthplace, and the discovery in 1954 of an Anglo-Saxon coffin in the church there, has led some to suggest it as the place of King Harold's burial. A request to exhume a grave in Bosham Church was refused by the Diocese of Chichester in December 2003, the Chancellor having ruled that the chances of establishing the identity of the body as Harold's were too slim to justify disturbing a burial place. The exhumation in 1954 had revealed the remains of a man in a coffin. "It was made of Horsham stone, magnificently finished, and contained the thigh and pelvic bones of a powerfully built man of about 5ft 6in in height, aged over 60 years and with traces of arthritis." It was suggested that the contents of the coffin had been opened at a much earlier date and vandalised, as the skull was missing and the remaining bones damaged in a way that was inconsistent with decomposition post mortem. The description of the remains is not unlike the fate of the king, recorded in the Carmen de Hastingae Proeliormen, that says Harold was buried by the sea. The location of the grave, at Bosham Church, is also consistent with William of Poitiers' description as it is only a small distance from Chichester Harbour and in sight of the English Channel. There were legends of Harold's body being given a proper funeral years later in Waltham Abbey Church in Essex, which he had refounded in 1060.
Harold's son Ulf, along with Morcar and two others, were released from prison by King William as he lay dying in 1087. Ulf threw his lot in with Robert Curthose, who knighted him, and then disappeared from history. Two of Harold's other sons, Godwine and Edmund, invaded England in 1068 and 1069 with the aid of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó (High King of Ireland) but were defeated at the Battle of Northam in Devon in 1069. In 1068, Diarmait presented another Irish king with Harold's battle standard.
There is a tradition that Edith the Fair took the broken body of her husband Harold Godwinson to the Church at Waltham Holy Cross to be buried. What happened to her after 1066, is not known. Also, after their defeat at the Battle of Northam the fate of the sons is unclear although some later sources suggest they took refuge at the Danish court with their grandmother, aunt and sister.
In about January 1066, Harold married Ealdgyth, daughter of Earl Ælfgar, and widow of the Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. After her husband's death at the Battle of Hastings, the pregnant Ealdgyth had been collected from London by her brothers, the Northern earls Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria, and taken to Chester for safety. It is not known what happened to her thereafter.
Some historians have suggested that Harold and Ealdgyth's union was childless, others ascribe two children to Ealdgyth, named Harold and Wulf/Ulf. Because of the chronology it is likely that the boys would have been twins and born after the demise of their father. Another possibility is that Ulf was the son of Edith the Fair.
According to Orderic Vitalis, Harold was at some time betrothed to Adeliza, a daughter of William the Conqueror; if so, the betrothal never led to marriage.
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Legacy
Several stories, including the Vita Haroldi, suggested that Harold had not died at Hastings, but instead fled England or that he later ended his life as a hermit at Chester or Canterbury.
Relationships, marriages and children
Harold was in a more danico marriage with Edith the Fair for approximately twenty years and had at least five children with her.
Notes
Citations
Sources
(1997). 9780851156644, Boydell and Brewer. ISBN 9780851156644
(1980). 9780851151410, Boydell Press. ISBN 9780851151410
(2025). 9781843834700, Boydell and Brewer. ISBN 9781843834700
(1999). 9780851156194, Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9780851156194
Further reading
External links
Categories: 1066 Deaths, Year Of Birth Uncertain, 11th-century English Monarchs, Anglo-norse Monarchs, Anglo-saxon Warriors, Anglo-saxons Killed In Battle, Earls Of East Anglia, Earls Of Herefordshire, Earls Of Wessex, English People Of Danish Descent, House Of Godwin, Monarchs Killed In Action, Monarchs Of England Before 1066, Norman Conquest Of England, People From Bosham
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