January 6, 1066: Election & Coronation of Harold Godwinson as King of the English

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Battle of Hastings, Battle of Stamford Bridge, coronation, Duke William II of Normandy, Earl Godwin, Edith of Wessex, Harald III Hardrada of Norway, Harold Godwinson, King Edward the Confessor, King of England, King of the English, Mangus I the Good of Norway, Tostig Godwinson, Westminster Abbey, Witen, Witenagemot

Following the death of Edward the Confessor on January 5, 1066, he was buried in Westminster Abbey on January 6. The Witan met that day and elected Harold Godwinson as the new King of the English; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.

Harold was a son of Godwin (c. 1001–1053), the powerful Earl of Wessex, and of Gytha Thorkelsdóttir the daughter of Danish chieftain Thorgil Sprakling (also called Thorkel).

Gytha was also the sister of the Danish Earl Ulf Thorgilsson who was married to Estrid Svendsdatter, the daughter of King Sweyn I Forkbeard of Denmark (died 1014) and sister of King Cnut the Great of England and Denmark. Ulf and Estrid’s son would become King Sweyn II of Denmark.

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, 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.

Powerful nobleman

Edith of Wessex married King Edward on January 23, 1045 and, around that time, Harold became Earl of East Anglia. Harold is called “earl” when he appears as a witness in a will that may date to 1044; but, by 1045, Harold regularly appears as an earl in documents. One reason for his appointment to East Anglia may have been a need to defend against the threat from King Magnus I the Good of Norway.

Harold Godwinson, King of the English

In 1064, Harold was apparently shipwrecked at Ponthieu. There is much speculation about this voyage. The earliest post-conquest Norman chroniclers report that King Edward had previously sent Robert of Jumièges, the archbishop of Canterbury, to appoint as his heir Edward’s maternal kinsman, Duke William II of Normandy, and that at this later date Harold was sent to Normandy to swear fealty.

Scholars disagree as to the reliability of this story. William, at least, seems to have believed he had been offered the succession, but there must have been some confusion either on William’s part or perhaps by both men, since the English succession was neither inherited nor determined by the reigning monarch.

Instead the Witenagemot, the assembly of the kingdom’s leading nobles, would convene after a king’s death to select a successor. Other acts of Edward are inconsistent with his having made such a promise, such as his efforts to return his nephew Edward the Exile, son of King Edmund Ironside, from Hungary in 1057.

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 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 Beaurain, 24.5 km (15.2 mi) up the River Canche from its mouth at what is now Le Touquet.

Duke William II of Normandy 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 record 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 point out 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?”

William II, Duke of Normandy

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 III Hardrada (“Hard Ruler”) of Norway.

At the end of 1065, King Edward the Confessor fell into a coma without clarifying his preference for the succession. He died on January 5, 1066, according to the Vita Ædwardi Regis, but not before briefly regaining consciousness and commending his widow and the kingdom to Harold’s “protection”.

The intent of this charge remains ambiguous, as is the Bayeux Tapestry, which simply depicts Edward pointing at a man thought to represent Harold. When the Witan convened the next day they selected Harold to succeed, and his coronation followed on January 6, most likely held in Westminster Abbey, though no evidence from the time survives to confirm this.

Although later Norman sources point to the suddenness of this coronation, the reason may have been that all the nobles of the land were present at Westminster for the feast of Epiphany, and not because of any usurpation of the throne on Harold’s part.

A Game of Thrones: The 5 Claimants to the English Throne in 1066

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Battle of Hastings, Battle of Stamford Bridge, Canute the Great of Denmark, Edgar the Ætheling, Edward the Confessor, Harald Hardrada, Harold Godwinson, King of the English, Sweyn II of Denmark, Tostig Godwinson, William the Conqueror

Yesterday I wrote of the death of Edward the Confessor, King of the English. His death sparked a battle for the English throne.

Prior to the death Edward the Confessor, King of the English on January 5, 1066, he named as his successor Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex. That is the general consensus from historians based on contemporary historical sources.

Earl Godwinson’s claim to the English Throne did raise some issues because there were five other men who believed they held the lawful right to the throne.

Today I will examine who these men were that believed that their claim to the English Throne was the superior and rightful claim.

1. Harold Godwinson (c. 1022 — October 14, 1066)

Harold Godwinson was a member of Godwin family founded by Wulfnoth Cild (died c. 1014) who was a South Saxon thane who is regarded by historians as the probable father of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and thus the grandfather of King Harold II Godwinson.

Harold became a powerful earl after the death of his father, Godwin, Earl of Wessex.

Harold was the brother Ealdgyth (Edith). Their mother Gytha was sister of Ulf, a Danish earl who was Canute the Great’s brother-in-law. This gave Harold’s family, already a prominent Anglo-Saxon family, more prominence because of their ties to Canute the Great who was King of Denmark, Norway as well as King of the English.

On January 23, 1045 Edith married Edward the Confessor. Unlike most wives of the Saxon Kings of the English in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Edith was crowned queen. The marriage produced no children. Later ecclesiastical writers claimed that this was either because Edward took a vow of celibacy, or because he refused to consummate the marriage because of his antipathy to Edith’s family, the Godwins. However, the claim of apathy towards the Godwins is dismissed by modern historians.

Since Harold was the leading noble in England the alleged claim is that the childless Edward gave the kingdom to Harold on his deathbed. Harold was crowned king on January 6, 1066. Harold is also known as Harold II of England.

In September of that year he successfully fought off an attack by one rival claimant to the throne, Harald III Hardrada, King of Norway. But less than three weeks later Harold was killed in the Battle of Hastings against another claimant to the throne: William II, Duke of Normandy, known as the Conqueror.

2. William II of Normandy (c. 1028 – September 9, 1087)

William II, Duke of Normandy, believed that Edward had promised him the English throne long before he had made his deathbed promise to Harold. Edward, who was William’s friend and distant maternal cousin, supposedly wrote to the French duke to tell him England would be his in as far back as 1051.

William the Conqueror was not a descendant of the Kings of Wessex/the English but at this point in history direct blood descent from prior Kings was not a prerequisite for kinship.

Incensed by Harold’s coronation, William gathered up a fleet of around 700 ships and, with the backing of Pope Alexander II, set sail for England — once the winds were favourable. After arriving at the Sussex coast in September 1066, William and his men had their confrontation with King Harold II on October 14.

After winning the Battle of Hastings, William practiced a scorched earth policy as he made his way to London and was crowned King of the English on Christmas Day.

3. Edgar the Ætheling of Wessex (c. 1052 – 1125 or after)

Edgar the Ætheling or Edgar II was the last male member of the Royal House of Cerdic of Wessex, and the great-nephew of King Edward the Confessor. Edgar had spent the early years of his life in exile in Hungary and was not considered politically strong enough to maintain unity within the country.

Following the death of Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan; he is never crowned, and concedes power to William the Conqueror two months later.

King Malcolm III of Scotland married Edgar’s sister Margaret of Wessex, and agreed to support Edgar in his attempt to reclaim the English throne. When the rebellion broke out in Northumbria at the beginning of 1069, it greatly failed and Edgar returned to England with other rebels who had fled to Scotland.

Following this disaster, he was persuaded by Malcolm to make peace with William and return to England as his subject, abandoning any ambition of regaining his ancestral throne.

Edgar lived to see the death at sea in November 1120 of William Adeling (Ætheling), the son of his niece Edith and heir to Henry I, King of the English.

Edgar was still alive in 1125, according to William of Malmesbury, who wrote at the time that Edgar “now grows old in the country in privacy and quiet”. Edgar died some time after this contemporary reference, but the exact date and the location of his grave are not known.

4. Harald III Hardrada, King of Norway (c. 1015 – 25 September 25, 1066)

Harald III of Norway and given the epithet Hardrada, roughly translated as “stern counsel” or “hard ruler, was King of Norway (as Harald III) from 1046 to 1066.

Additionally, he unsuccessfully claimed both the Danish throne until 1064 and the English throne in 1066. Before becoming king, Harald had spent around fifteen years in exile as a mercenary and military commander in Kyivan Rus’ and of the Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Empire.

Harald had renounced his claim to Denmark in 1064 and Tostig Godwinson, former Earl of Northumbria, and the brother of English king Harold II Godwinson, pledged his allegiance to Harald and invited him to claim the English throne.

Magnus I of Norway wanted to reunite Canute the Great’s entire North Sea Empire by also becoming King of the English. An agreement was supposedly made between Magnus and Hardicanute, the Danish King of the English, to give the English crown to Magnus. However, Hardicanute only ruled England briefly between 1040 and 1042 and when Harthacnut died, the English nobles had chosen as their king Æthelred the Unready’s son, Edward the Confessor. However, that did not stop Harald from believing that as the successor to Magnus I, that the English crown should be his upon the death of Edward the Confessor.

Harald Hardrada went and invaded Northern England with 10,000 troops and 300 longships in September 1066. He raided the coast and defeated English regional forces of Northumbria and Mercia in the Battle of Fulford near York on September 20, 1066.

Although initially successful, Harald was defeated and killed in a surprise attack by Harold Godwinson’s forces in the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066, which wiped out almost his entire army. Modern historians have often considered Harald’s death, which brought an end to his invasion, as the end of the Viking Age.

5. Sweyn II Estridsson, King of Denmark (c. 1019 – April 28, 1076)

Sweyn II Estridsson was King of Denmark from 1047 until his death in 1076. He was the son of Ulf Thorgilsson and Estrid Svendsdatter, and the grandson of King Sweyn I Forkbeard through his mother’s line. He was married three times, and fathered 20 children or more out of wedlock, including the five future kings Harald III Hen, Canute IV the Saint, Oluf I Hunger, Eric I Evergood, and Niels.

Sweyn II, King of Denmark, was Harold Godwinson’s cousin but believed that he may too have a claim on the English throne because of his own connections to Hardicanute, who was his uncle. It was not until William the Conqueror was king, however, that he seriously turned his attentions to England.

In 1069 Sweyn II was part of the force with Edgar the Ætheling who tried invade the north of England to defeat William but, after capturing York, Sweyn reached a deal with the English king to abandon Edgar.