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.

These Dates in History: October 14, 1066, 1322 & 1586

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Battle of Hastings, Battle of Old Byland, Duke of Normandy, Edward II of England, Elizabeth I of England, Fotheringhay Castle, Harald Hardrada, Harold Godwinson, King of Scots, Mary I of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, Tostig, William the Conqueror

1066 – The Norman conquest of England begins with the Battle of Hastings.

The Battle of Hastings was fought on October 14, 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II Godwinson, beginning the Norman conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. Senlac Hill (or Senlac Ridge) is the generally accepted location in which Harold Godwinson deployed his army for the Battle of Hastings. It is located near what is now the town of Battle, East Sussex.

The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne. Harold Godwinson was elected by the Witan Council and crowned king shortly after Edward’s death, but faced invasions by William, his own brother Tostig, and the Norwegian King Harald Hardrada (Harold III of Norway).

Harald Hardrada and Tostig defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on September 20, 1066, and were in turn defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge five days later. The deaths of Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge left William as Harold’s only serious opponent.

While Harold and his forces were recovering, William landed his invasion forces in the south of England at Pevensey on September 28, 1066 and established a beachhead for his conquest of the kingdom. Harold was forced to march south swiftly, gathering forces as he went.

The exact numbers present at the battle are unknown as even modern estimates vary considerably. The composition of the forces is clearer; the English army was composed almost entirely of infantry and had few archers, whereas only about half of the invading force was infantry, the rest split equally between cavalry and archers.

Harold appears to have tried to surprise William, but scouts found his army and reported its arrival to William, who marched from Hastings to the battlefield to confront Harold. The battle lasted from about 9 am to dusk. Early efforts of the invaders to break the English battle lines had little effect; therefore, the Normans adopted the tactic of pretending to flee in panic and then turning on their pursuers. Harold’s death, probably near the end of the battle, led to the retreat and defeat of most of his army. After further marching and some skirmishes, William was crowned as king on Christmas Day 1066.

There continued to be rebellions and resistance to William’s rule, but Hastings effectively marked the culmination of William’s conquest of England. Casualty figures are hard to come by, but some historians estimate that 2,000 invaders died along with about twice that number of Englishmen. William founded a monastery at the site of the battle, the high altar of the abbey church supposedly placed at the spot where Harold died.

1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.

The Battle of Old Byland (also known as the Battle of Byland Abbey, the Battle of Byland Moor and the Battle of Scotch Corner) was a significant encounter between Scots and English troops in Yorkshire in on October 14, 1322, forming part of the Wars of Scottish Independence. It was a victory for the Scots, the most significant since Bannockburn.

Ever since Robert Bruce’s victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots had taken the initiative in the wars with England, raiding deep into the north of the country repeatedly and with comparative ease to attempt to force the English to the peace-table.

The English king, Edward II seemed incapable of dealing with the problem, distracted, as he often was, in a political struggle with his own barons and refused to even begin peace negotiations with the Scots which would have required recognizing Robert the Bruce as King of the Scots. In early 1322 the situation had become critical, with some senior English noblemen, headed by Thomas of Lancaster, preparing to enter into an alliance with the Scots.

It seems unlikely that Bruce had much confidence in Lancaster, who referred to himself as ‘King Arthur’ in his negotiations with the Scots, but he was quick to take advantage of the threat of civil war in England. Scarcely had the truce of 1319 expired in January 1322 than Sir James Douglas, Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray and Walter Stewart came over the border on a large-scale attack on the north-east.

The three commanders fanned out across the region: Douglas to Hartlepool, Moray to Darlington and Stewart to Richmond. Lancaster with his army at Pontefract did nothing to stop them. Edward ignored the Scots, instructing his lieutenant in the north, Sir Andrew Harclay, the governor of Carlisle, to concentrate his efforts against the rebel barons, whom he finally defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge. In the wake of this the Scots raiders slipped back across the border.

Edward’s invasion

Boroughbridge was a new beginning for Edward. The baronial opposition had been defeated and tainted with treason: the king had at last enjoyed his long-awaited revenge for the murder of Piers Gaveston. This was the high point of his reign and, emboldened by this rare triumph, he decided to embark on what was to be his last invasion of Scotland. It was to be a disaster.

By the time Edward was ready to begin his advance in early August, Bruce was more than ready. He deployed his usual tactics: crops were destroyed and livestock removed and his army withdrawn north of the River Forth. In all of Lothian the English are said only to have found one lame cow, causing the Earl of Surrey to remark; This is the dearest beef I ever saw. It surely has cost a thousand pounds and more!

In the Scalacronica, Sir Thomas Grey describes the whole campaign thus;
The king marched upon Edinburgh, where at Leith there came such a sickness and famine upon the common soldiers of that great army, that they were forced to beat a retreat for want of food; at which time the king’s light horse were defeated by James de Douglas. None dared leave the main body to seek food by forage, so greatly were the English harassed and worn out by fighting that before they arrived in Newcastle there was such a murrain in the army for want of food, that they were obliged of necessity to disband.

Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, and the border abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh were destroyed in revenge by the English. The invasion had achieved precisely nothing. More seriously, the effect on national morale of the ignominious retreat of a starving army was almost as bad as the defeat at Bannockburn. Worse was to follow; for, as always, an English retreat was the signal for yet another Scottish attack.

Old Byland

Bruce crossed the Solway in the west, making his way in a south-easterly direction towards Yorkshire, bringing many troops recruited in Argyll and the Isles. The boldness and speed of the attack, known as The Great Raid of 1322, soon exposed Edward to the dangers on his own land. On his return from Scotland, the king had taken up residence at Rievaulx Abbey with Queen Isabella.

His peace was interrupted when the Scots made a sudden and unexpected approach in mid-October. All that stood between them and a royal prize was a large English force under the command of John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond. John had taken up position on Scawton Moor, between Rievaulx and Byland Abbey. To dislodge him from his strong position on the high ground Bruce used the same tactics that brought victory at the earlier Battle of Pass of Brander.

As Moray and Douglas charged uphill a party of Highlanders scaled the cliffs on the English flank and charged downhill into Richmond’s rear. Resistance crumbled and the Battle of Old Byland turned into a complete and bloody rout of the English. Richmond himself was taken prisoner, as were Henri de Sully, Grand Butler of France, Sir Ralph Cobham (‘the best knight in England’) and Sir Thomas Ughtred. Many others were killed in flight. Edward – ‘ever chicken-hearted and luckless in war’ – was forced to make a rapid and undignified exit from Rievaulx, fleeing in such haste that his personal belongings were left behind.

After Byland, says Sir Thomas Gray, the Scots were so fierce and their chiefs so daring, and the English so cowed, that it was no otherwise between them than as a hare before greyhounds. This was a significant victory for the Scots after their success at Myton on Swale and was soon followed 5 years later by their victory at Stanhope Park over Edward III.

1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial for conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I of England.

On 11 August 1586, after being implicated in the Babington Plot, Mary was arrested while out riding and taken to Tixall Hall in Staffordshire. In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham had deliberately arranged for Mary’s letters to be smuggled out of Chartley. Mary was misled into thinking her letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham. From these letters it was clear that Mary had sanctioned the attempted assassination of Elizabeth. Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in a four-day journey ending on September 25.

On October 14, she was put on trial for treason under the Act for the Queen’s Safety before a court of 36 noblemen, including Cecil, Shrewsbury, and Walsingham.

Spirited in her defence, Mary denied the charges. She told her triers, “Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England”. She protested that she had been denied the opportunity to review the evidence, that her papers had been removed from her, that she was denied access to legal counsel and that as a foreign anointed queen she had never been an English subject and thus could not be convicted of treason.

She was convicted on October 25, and sentenced to death with only one commissioner, Lord Zouche, expressing any form of dissent. Nevertheless, Elizabeth hesitated to order her execution, even in the face of pressure from the English Parliament to carry out the sentence. She was concerned that the killing of a queen set a discreditable precedent and was fearful of the consequences, especially if, in retaliation, Mary’s son, King James VI, formed an alliance with the Catholic powers and invaded England.

Elizabeth asked Paulet, Mary’s final custodian, if he would contrive a clandestine way to “shorten the life” of Mary, which he refused to do on the grounds that he would not make “a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot on my poor posterity”. On February 1, 1587, Elizabeth signed the death warrant, and entrusted it to William Davison, a privy councillor. On February 3, ten members of the Privy Council of England, having been summoned by Cecil without Elizabeth’s knowledge, decided to carry out the sentence at once.

Mary was beheaded on February 8,1587 at Fotheringhay Castle. Mary’s life, marriages, lineage, alleged involvement in plots against Elizabeth, and subsequent execution established her as a divisive and highly romanticised historical character, depicted in culture for centuries.

On these dates in History: September 18…1964, 1872, 1714, 1180, 1066.

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Constantine II of Greece, Duke of Normandy, Frederick IX of Denmark, Harald Hardrada, Harald III of Norway, Harold Godwinson, Margrethe II, Philip II of France, Tostig Godwinson, William the Conqueror

September 18, 1964

The 55th wedding anniversary of King Constantine II of the Hellenes and Queen Anne-Marie (born Princess of Denmark, daughter of King Frederik IX of Denmark and sister to the current Queen Margarethe II of Denmark).

The couple and their children went into exile in 1967 after a military coup and the monarchy was abolished in 1973. Today the couple lives in Greece again.

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September 18, 1872

Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; January 21, 1829 – December 8, 1907) was the King of Sweden from 1872 until his death, and was also the final King of Norway from the House of Bernadotte.

Oscar II became King on 18 September 1872, upon the death of his brother, Carl XV. At his accession, he adopted as his motto Brödrafolkens väl / Broderfolkenes Vel(“The Welfare of the Brother Peoples”). While the King, his family and the Royal Courtresided mostly in Sweden, Oscar II made the effort of learning to be fluent in Norwegian and from the very beginning realized the essential difficulties in the maintenance of the union between the two countries.

Oscar II was King during a time when both Sweden and Norway were undergoing a period of industrialization and rapid technological progress. His reign also saw the gradual decline of the Union of Sweden and Norway, which culminated in its dissolution in 1905. He was subsequently succeeded as King of Norway by his grandnephew Prince Carl of Denmark under the regnal name Haakon VII, and as King of Sweden by his eldest son, Gustaf V.

Oscar II is the paternal great-great-grandfather of Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden since 1973. Harald V, King of Norway since 1991, is a great-grandson of Oscar II, through his third son Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland.

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September 18, 1714: King George I arrives in London.

George I (May 28, 1660 – June 11, 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from August 1, 1714 and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) in the Holy Roman Empire from January 2, 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarchof the House of Hanover.

Born in Hanover to its Elector Ernst August and Electress Sophia Sophia of the Palitinate), George inherited the titles and lands of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg from his father and uncles. A succession of European wars expanded his German domains during his lifetime; he was ratified as prince-elector of Hanover in 1708. After the deaths in 1714 of his mother and his second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain (r. 1702–1714), George ascended the British throne as Anne’s closest living Protestant relative under the Act of Settlement 1701. Jacobites attempted, but failed, to depose George and replace him with James Francis Edward Stuart, Anne’s Catholic half-brother.

During George’s reign, the powers of the monarchy diminished and Britain began a transition to the modern system of cabinet government led by a prime minister. Towards the end of his reign, actual political power was held by Robert Walpole, now recognised as Britain’s first de facto prime minister. George died of a stroke on a trip to his native Hanover, where he was buried. He was the last British monarch to be buried outside the United Kingdom.

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September 18, 1180

Philippe II (21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223), known as Philippe Auguste he was King of France from 1180 to 1223. His predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philippe II became the first French monarch to style himself “King of France”. The son of King Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne, he was originally nicknamed Dieudonné (God-given) because he was a first son and born late in his father’s life. Philippe II was given the epithet “Auguste” by the chronicler Rigord for having extended the crown lands of France so remarkably.

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September 18, 1066: Harald Hardrada arrives in England.

Harald Sigurdsson (Old Norse: Haraldr Sigurðarson; c. 1015 – September 25, 1066), given the epithet Hardrada (roughly translated as “stern counsel” or “hard ruler”) in the sagas, was King of Norway (as Harald III) from 1046 to 1066. In addition, he unsuccessfully claimed 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 Kievan Rus’ and of the Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Empire.

Harald was born in Ringerike, Norway in 1015 (or possibly 1016) to Åsta Gudbrandsdatter and her second husband Sigurd Syr. Sigurd was a petty king of Ringerike, and among the strongest and wealthiest chieftains in the Uplands. Through his mother Åsta, Harald was the youngest of King Olaf II of Norway.

With the truce and the recognition that he would not conquer Denmark, Harald turned his attention to England. England had belonged to Harthacnut, the son of Canute the Great, until he died childless in 1042. Harald based his claim to the throne of England on an agreement made between Magnus and Harthacnut in 1038, which stated that if either died, the other would inherit the throne and lands of the deceased. When Harthacnut died, Magnus the Good (King of Norway from 1035 and King of Denmark from 1042, ruling over both countries until his death in 1047) assumed the crown of Denmark and considered himself the lawful heir to Harthacnut.

When Edward died in January 1066, he was to Harald’s dismay succeeded by Harold Godwinson, a son of one of Edward’s advisors . Harald allied himself with Tostig Godwinson, (c. 1026 – September 25 1066) brother of King Harold Godwinson. After being exiled by his brother, Tostig supported the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada’s invasion of England, and both were killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066 by the army of King Harold. Harold marched south where he met the army of Duke William II of Normandy at Hastings (near the town of Senlac) and was defeated in battle on October 14, 1066. Duke William marched onto London and was crowned as King of England on Christmas Day 1066.