Harold Godwinson: A Timeless Tale of Treachery, Ambition, & Power

By Gus Latchman, Third Year History

Harold’s father, Godwin, had previously accomplished an extraordinary rise to power from the son of a disgraced Thegn to the right-hand man of four successive Kings of England. Earl Godwin worked tirelessly to restore the honour of his family name, acting deferentially and with calculated duplicity to curry favour with England’s Danish kings. Although Godwin himself was never to be king, his presumed dream of absolute power was realised through his son, Harold.

Inheriting this thinly veiled ambition, Harold Godwinson was crowned King only a day after his predecessor’s death. At a time of immense political insecurity, with many (far-more deserving) claimants vying for the English crown, Harold seized the opportunity to crown himself Dux Anglorum (Chief of the English), at Westminster Abbey, on the 6th January 1066. His claim was premised on King Edward’s dubious deathbed instruction for him to assume the throne, and this cunning manoeuvre has since been recognised as little more than a coup d’etat, directly betraying his earlier promise to William of Normandy to support his right of succession.

Harold surely knew his audacious actions would provoke the wrath of his enemies. However, perhaps he did not expect the extent of their ire. 

Upon hearing news of Harold Godwinson’s coronation, Harald Hardrada of Norway and William of Normandy began assembling their fleets, ready for invasion. By September of the same year, Hardrada’s armada - numbering over three hundred ships – was traversing the River Tyne, sacking English towns as it sailed further and further into England.

Shortly after the Norwegian landing at Riccall, in Yorkshire, Godwinson marched his elite armies northwards to meet Hardrada, who was accompanied by Godwinson’s own treacherous brother, Tostig. On the evening of Sunday 24th September, English noblemen prepared their men for the fateful morning ahead. At the Battle of Stamford Bridge, English forces inflicted an unequivocal defeat on the Norwegian army; both Hardrada and Tostig were killed, making good Godwinson’s vow to give them each only ‘six feet of English soil’.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicting William of Normandy’s Fleet.

Godwinson’s fight was not over yet, though. Only two nights later, having grown tired of waiting for advantageous weather conditions, William of Normandy landed at Pevensey on the south coast, with a much more formidable fleet of seven hundred ships in his wake. Upon hearing this news, and guided by an unwavering confidence following his victory, Godwinson began his journey southwards, intending to meet William with a similar swiftness as that of his previous engagement. 

It was Wiliam, however, who surprised Godwinson, launching an unexpected attack on his vastly reduced army. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the English army as poorly equipped, fewer in number, and largely made up of local farmers and villagers – far from the elite force that had fought ferociously in the North. Nonetheless, battle wore on until the late afternoon, until a contingent of Norman archers loosed a deluge of arrows upon a group of English soldiers. 

Within this number was Godwinson himself, the image of whom bearing an arrow through his eye has become immortalised in romantic medieval history, thanks to the detailed imagery of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicting Harold Godwinson’s supposed death.

Whether Harold was killed in this way or not, or rather whether we are to trust the account of the Norman propaganda piece that is the Tapestry, is almost a trivial matter. The Tapestry is the sole contemporary authority on the Battle of Hastings, and there can be little doubt of its accuracy regarding events immediately after Harold’s death: the immediate collapse of the English army, and the overwhelming victory of the Normans.

Harold’s abrupt death in the heart of a battlefield concluded the 500-year sovereignty of Anglo-Saxon forces over English lands. It ushered in a new age of Norman dominance, which, amongst other developments, saw the formalisation of a judiciary system, the abolition of slavery, and the introduction of the French language into royal and legal courts. It marked the beginning of a new line of monarchs, who in language and culture, were resoundingly foreign. 

Such circumstances beg the fundamental question, were William’s successors English kings or Norman kings? Was, then, Richard the Lionheart - William’s great-grandson - often held as the quintessential English monarch, French? If so, at what point did these French rulers become English?

If nothing else, the great epochal transition from Saxon to Norman rulership upon Harold’s death serves to highlight the complex and somewhat arbitrary origins of the English identity. Remnants of the French language remain in our lexicon today, along with renowned Norman ecclesiastical architecture - commonly (and perhaps oxymoronically) conflated with the image of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. 

Despite sitting on the throne for just nine months, Harold’s reign left an indelible mark on English history. His death passed the baton to a new group of people – equally as legitimate in their claim to the English throne – to leave their imprint on English culture and identity. Harold Godwinson presided over one of the most consequential periods in English history, and rightfully or not, his name will be seared into the imaginations of many more generations to come.