6 January: Harold II

The Coronation of Harold II as King of England, succeeding Edward the Confessor, took place on this date in 1066. He reigned for less than a year before meeting his end at the Battle of Hastings. 10 things you might not know about King Harold:

1. His exact date of birth isn’t known, but is estimated as being around 1020.
2. He was the son of a powerful earl – Godwin, the Earl of Wessex. His mother was Gytha Thorkelsdóttir. Harold had five brothers and three sisters, and was the second eldest son. One of his sisters, Edith, married Edward the Confessor.
3. When his father died in 1053, Harold inherited the title of Earl of Wessex, since his older brother Sweyn had been exiled. This alone made him a powerful man, arguably second to the King of England.
4. He was already Earl of East Anglia, having been made so in 1045, and in 1058 became Earl of Hereford as well.
5. As Edward the Confessor lay dying, having had no children, he is said to have regained consciousness briefly and asked Harold to protect his widow and the kingdom. A group of nobles and clergymen called the Witenagemot, and presumably Harold himself, interpreted this as Edward choosing Harold as the next king, despite any claim to the throne by William, Duke of Normandy. Edward died on 5 January 1066 and Harold was crowned the following day in Westminster Abbey. Some might say the whole thing was pretty rushed, to make sure William didn’t get a chance to challenge it. However, another reason might have been that it was the Feast of Epiphany, which meant all the nobles were in Westminster for the feast anyway, so it would save them a journey later on.
6. Harold had a common law wife called Edith Swannesha, although it’s possible they were actually married, by means of a Danish hand-fasting ceremony, not recognised by the church, which viewed her as his mistress. She was also known as Edith the Fair, Edyth the Gentle Swan or Edith Swanneck. They had six children together and it was she who, according to legend, identified his body after the Battle of Hastings, from marks “known only to her”, which may have been love bites. He also had a wife he’d married in church, a few months before the battle. She was called Ealdgyth and was the widow of the Welsh ruler Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. This was a marriage of political convenience, giving Harold claims to even more lands and titles. There were no known children from this union. He may also have been betrothed to William the Conqueror’s daughter Adeliza, although nothing came of it.
7. Harold may have lost the Battle of Hastings, but he wasn’t always the loser. He was victorious at the Battle of Stamford Bridge against a large army of Vikings. He’d also beaten Gruffydd ap Llewelyn in 1063 – Gruffydd was killed after being cornered in Snowdonia.
8. What sort of person was he? According to chronicler Orderic Vitalis, Harold 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?"
9. In 1064, Harold was shipwrecked in Normandy. What happened while he was there isn’t known, but William, Duke of Normandy, insisted Harold had sworn an oath on holy relics that he’d support William’s claim to the throne on the death of Edward the Confessor. Whether the fact he didn’t was evidence of the lack of “good faith” or propaganda by William to support his own claim is not known.
10. Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings by an arrow through the eye. Or was he? The idea that the cause of his death was an arrow in the eye comes from the Bayeux Tapestry, in which the words "Hic Harold Rex Interfectus Est" ("Here King Harold is killed") appear above the figure of a man with an arrow in his eye. There’s another figure nearby being trampled by a knight on a Horse – perhaps that was meant to be Harold. His burial place isn’t known, although in 1954 an Anglo-Saxon coffin was found in a church at Bosham, which contained the remains of a man aged up to 60 with his head and part of a leg missing. Could that have been Harold? Harold is said to have had strong connections with the town, and to have been buried by the sea. The church is within sight of the English Channel. The Diocese refused to allow a full examination of the remains since the chances of identifying the body as Harold was too slim to justify disturbing the grave. There are even legends which say he didn’t die at Hastings at all but escaped and lived out the rest of his days as a hermit in Chester or Canterbury.

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