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.

Were They A Usurper? William I the Conqueror

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Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen, Duke of Normandy, Edgar the Ætheling, Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, King of the English, William the Conqueror, Witan, Witenagemot

At the time of the Norman Conquest (1066) it has been difficult for me to find any concrete rules regarding the succession to the throne. During the reign of the House of Wessex, who were first kings of Wessex only until they began to slowly unify England, the succession doesn’t seem to have many hard and fast rules.

Succession to the throne of Wessex/England was vested in the descendents of King Egbert of Wessex. However, it was not by primogeniture. There were times when young children of the monarch were passed over in the succession for brothers or uncles of the previous monarch.

Another aspect of the monarchy at this point is the governing council, called the Witan or Witenagemot, which also served in electing the monarchy. Prior to hereditary kingship, which was a later development as families sought to consolidated power, the majority of monarchies were elective…even if that election was limited to one family.

To this day historians debate the role of the Witain (even the name itself) but there is evidence that controlling the succession was one of their powers.

Starting as early as William of Malmesbury in the early 12th century, historians have puzzled over Edward’s intentions for the succession. One school of thought supports the Norman case that Edward always intended William the Conqueror to be his heir, accepting the medieval claim that Edward had already decided to be celibate before he married, but most historians believe that he hoped to have an heir by Edith at least until his quarrel with Godwin in 1051.

William may have visited Edward during Godwin’s exile, and he is thought to have promised William the succession at this time, but historians disagree on how seriously he meant the promise, and whether he later changed his mind.

Edmund Ironside’s son, Edward the Exile, had the best claim to be considered Edward’s heir. He had been taken as a young child to Hungary, and in 1054 Bishop Ealdred of Worcester visited the Holy Roman Emperor, Heinrich III to secure his return, probably with a view to becoming Edward’s heir.

The exile returned to England in 1057 with his family but died almost immediately. His son Edgar, who was then about 6 years old, was brought up at the English court. He was given the designation Ætheling, meaning throneworthy, which may mean that Edward considered making him his heir.

However, Edgar was absent from witness lists of Edward’s diplomas, and there is no evidence in the Domesday Book that he was a substantial landowner, which suggests that he was marginalised at the end of Edward’s reign.

After the mid-1050s, Edward seems to have withdrawn from affairs as he became increasingly dependent on the Godwins, and he may have become reconciled to the idea that one of them would succeed him. The Normans claimed that Edward sent Harold to Normandy in about 1064 to confirm the promise of the succession to William.

In January of 1066 King Edward the Confessor died without any issue (children) causing one of Enland’s first succession crisis. The legend goes that Edward promised the succession to William II the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, a relative by marriage.

There was also a co-claim that Harold Godwinson had received a similar promise. When Edward died early that January both men claimed that Edward had promised them the succession. Historians debate the legitimacy of both of those claims. Even in its time there were many conflicting accounts of these alleged promises. They possible were both manufactured by each party.

The strongest evidence that Edward had promised the throne to William comes from a Norman apologist, William of Poitiers. According to his account, shortly before the Battle of Hastings, Harold sent William an envoy who admitted that Edward had promised the throne to William but argued that this was over-ridden by his deathbed promise to Harold.

William’s tomb before the high altar in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen

In reply, William did not dispute the deathbed promise but argued that Edward’s prior promise to him took precedence. In Stephen Baxter’s view, Edward’s “handling of the succession issue was dangerously indecisive, and contributed to one of the greatest catastrophes to which the English have ever succumbed.”

The truth it seems is that Edward had no actual power to name his successor and that the power to name the successor was vested in the Witan. The Witan did choose Harold Godwinson, a member of a powerful noble family with connections to the rulers of Denmark.

Therfore in the month of January Harold was crowned as Harold II, King of England. William, feeling that his inheritence was stolen from him, mounted an invasion of England. I won’t go into detail with the story as everyone is familiar with it. William invaded England from Normandy and defeated the forces of Harold II at Senlac outside of Hastings in October of that year.

After the defeat of Harold the Witan (including Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury & Archbishop Ealdred of York) elected Edgar the Ætheling, the heir to the House of Wessex) as King of the English but since military might was on the side of William this was an empty election. William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day of 1066.

However, it took a few years to consolidate his rule and bring all of England under his thumb. Although at his coronation William desired to stress his legal right to the throne, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury refused to place the crown on William’s head saying “to crown one who was covered with the blood of men and the invader of others’ rights.” Archbishop Ealdred of York was the one who actually placed the crown on his head.

As previously mentioned, the Witan was the legal body that regulated the succession in 1066. They chose Harlod as the legal successor to Edward the Confessor and in October of 1066 after Battle of Hastings the Witan elected Edgar the Ætheling as King of the English.

Despite his claims of being the legal heir to the throne William I “the Conqueror” was clearly a usurper in the legal sense. When William came to the throne he abolished the Witan and replaced it with the “king’s court” or Curia Regis. He also took the power to name his successor and this power gradually made England a more hereditary monarchy.

William was not the first King of the English although some book make him out to be just that. He did profoundly change England though. The amalgamation of old English and Norman culture forged the modern English culture. Every monarch since the Conquest is a descendent of his. When chronicler’s began numbering the kings of England the reign of William the Conqueror was the starting point.

October 15, 1066: Edgar Ætheling is elected King of the English

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Canute the Great, Edgar Ætheling, Edmund Ironsides, Edward the Confessor, Edward the Exile, Harold Godwinson, King Edgar II, King Harold II, King of England, King of the English, King William I, William the Conqueror, Witenagemot

Edgar Ætheling or Edgar II (c. 1052 – 1125 or after) was the last male member of the royal house of Cerdic of Wessex. He was elected King of English by the Witenagemot in 1066, but never crowned.

Edgar was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, where his father Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside, had spent most of his life, having been sent into exile after Edmund’s death and the conquest of England by the Danish king Canute the Great in 1016.

His grandfather Edmund, great-grandfather Æthelred the Unready, and great-great-grandfather Edgar the Peaceful were all kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown. Edgar’s mother was Agatha, who was described as a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor or a descendant of Saint Stephen of Hungary, but whose exact identity is unknown. He was his parents’ only son but had two sisters, Margaret and Cristina.

In 1057, Edward the Exile arrived in England with his family, but died almost immediately. Edgar, a child, was left as the only surviving male member of the royal dynasty apart from the king. However, the latter made no recorded effort to entrench his great-nephew’s position as heir to a throne that was being eyed by a range of powerful potential contenders, including England’s leading aristocrat Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, and the foreign rulers William II of Normandy, Sweyn II of Denmark and Harald III of Norway.

Succession struggle

When King Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Edgar was still in his early teens, considered too young to be an effective military leader. This had not been an insurmountable obstacle in the succession of previous kings.

However, the avaricious ambitions that had been aroused across north-western Europe by the Confessor’s lack of an heir prior to 1057, and by the king’s failure thereafter to prepare the way for Edgar to succeed him, removed any prospect of a peaceful hereditary succession.

War was clearly inevitable and Edgar was in no position to fight it, while he was without powerful adult relatives to champion his cause. Accordingly, the Witenagemot elected Harold Godwinson, the man best placed to defend the country against the competing foreign claimants, to succeed Edward.

Following Harold’s death at the Battle of Hastings against the invading Normans in October, some of the Anglo-Saxon leaders considered electing Edgar king. The new regime thus established was dominated by the most powerful surviving members of the English ruling class: Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ealdred, Archbishop of York, and the brothers Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria.

The commitment of these men to Edgar’s cause, men who had so recently passed over his claim to the throne without apparent demur, must have been doubtful from the start. The strength of their resolve to continue the struggle against William of Normandy was questionable, and the military response they organised to the continuing Norman advance was ineffectual.

On October 15, 1066 Edgar the Ætheling is elected and proclaimed King Edgar II of the of English by the Witan (Witenagemot); he is never crowned.

When William crossed the Thames at Wallingford, he was met by Stigand, who now abandoned Edgar and submitted to the invader. As the Normans closed in on London, Edgar’s key supporters in the city began negotiating with William.

In early December, the remaining members of the Witan in London met and resolved to take the young uncrowned king out to meet William to submit to him at Berkhamsted, quietly setting aside Edgar’s election. Edgar, alongside other lords, did homage to King William at his coronation in December.

Edgar is believed to have travelled to Scotland once more late in life, perhaps around the year 1120. He lived to see the death at sea in November 1120 of William Adeling, 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.

I do consider Edgar as a legitimate King of the English, albeit briefly, after the death of Harold Godwinson. Edgar was legally elected King by the lawful method of succession at that time.

Legal Succession: William I “the Conqueror.”

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Harold Godwinson, Harold II of England, House of Wessex, Norman Conquest, Wessex, William I of England, William the Conqueror, Witan, Witenagemot

As I have researched this topic it is rather complex so I will give the reader’s digest version.

At the time of the Norman Conquest (1066) it has been difficult for me to find any concrete rules regarding the succession to the throne. During the reign ogf the House of Wessex, who were just kings of only Wessex until they began to slowly unify England, the succession dopesn’t seem to have many hard and fast rules. Succession to the throne of Wessex/England was vested in the descendents of King Egbert. However, it was not by primogeniture. There were times when young children of the monarch were passed over in the succession for brothers or uncles of the previous monarch.

Another aspect of the monarchy at this point is the governing council, called the Witan or Witenagemot, which also served in electing the monarchy. Prior to hereditary kingship, which was a later development as families sought to consolidated power, the majority of monarchies were elective…even if that election was limited to one family. To this day historians debate the role of the Witain (even the name itself) but there is evidence that controlling the succession was one of their powers.

In 1066 King Edward the Confessor died without any issue (children) causing one of Enland’s first succession crisis. The legend goes that Edward promised the succession to William the Batsard, Duke of Normandy, a relative by marriage. There was also a co-claim that Harold Godwinson had received a similar promise. When Edward died early that January both men claimed that Edward had promised them the succession. Historians debate the legitimacy of both of those claims. Even in its time there were many conflicting accounts of these alleged promises. They possible were both manufactured by each party.

The truth it seems is that Edward had no power to name his successor and that the power to name the successor was vested in the Witan. They did choose Harold Godwinson, a member of a powerful noble family with connections to the rulers of Denmark. Therfore in the month of January Harold was crowned as Harold II, King of England. William, feeling that his inheritence was stolen from him, mounted an invasion of England. I won’t go into detail with the story as everyone is familiar with it. William invaded England from Normandy and defeated the forces of Harold II at Senlac outside of Hastings in October of that year.

After the defeat of Harold the Witan (including Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury & Archbishop Ealdred of York) tried to elect Edgar Atheling, the heir to the House of Wessex) as King of England but since military might was on the side of William this was an empty election. William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day of 1066. However, it took a few years to consolidate his rule and bring all of England under his thumb. Although at his coronation William desired to stress his legal right to the throne, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury  refused to place the crown on William’s head saying “to crown one who was covered with the blood of men and the invader of others’ rights.” Archbishop Ealdred of York was the one who actually placed the crown on his head.

The Witan was the legal body that regulated the succession in 1066. They chose Harld as the legal successor to Edward the Confessor and despite his claims of being the legal heir to the throne William I “the Conqueror” was clearly a usurper in the legal sense. When William came to the throne he abolished the Witan and replaced it with the “king’s court” or Curia Regis. He also took the power to name his successor and this power gradually made England a more hereditary monarchy.

William was not the first King of England although some book make him out to be just that. He did profoundly change England though. The amalgamation of old English and Norman culture forged the modern English culture. Every monarch since the Conquest is a descendent of his. When chronicler’s began numbering the kings of England the reign of William the Conqueror was the starting point.