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In 1066, King Harold was meant to save England. How did it all go wrong?
In 1066 the last Anglo-Saxon king was ousted. But how, asks Tom Licence, had Harold, an earl without royal blood, taken the English crown in the first place? Was it truly because he was the strongman demanded by a land fearing invasion?
Published: September 18, 2026 at 4:00 PM
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The English king dies without a direct heir. So a powerful and popular Anglo-Saxon earl, possibly given the nod by the old monarch before he perished, immediately takes the throne – despite earlier promising to back the claim of a foreign duke. We all know what happens next: the duke invades and conquers England, seizes the crown for himself, and ushers in an enduring new dynasty.
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That’s the potted version of the Norman conquest as understood by many – not least because it largely follows the narrative depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. But it leaves us with many questions about the motives of those involved. What does the evidence really show us? Can we trust the accepted timeline? And how did Harold Godwinson become such a dominant figure in the unfolding crisis?
Here are the facts, as far as we can be sure. King Edward the Confessor died in his palace at Westminster on the night of 4–5 January 1066. The following day he was buried in Westminster Abbey – and no sooner was his coffin lowered into the ground than Harold was proclaimed king before the assembled mourners.
The 13th-century monument holding the remains of Edward the Confessor. His handling of a northern revolt may have contributed to Harold’s rise | Credit: Alamy
Harold II, as he would be known, was the brother of Edward’s queen, Edith, as well as being the Earl of Wessex. He was the richest and most powerful man in the land, and no candidate for the throne in English history was quicker to get the crown on his head.
No sooner was Edward’s coffin lowered into the ground than Harold was proclaimed king
An heir had been waiting in the wings before Edward died – but it wasn’t Harold. Edgar Ætheling was the late king’s great-nephew, and next in the bloodline. Later that year, after Harold’s death in battle, Edgar would be proclaimed king by some supporters, “as was his natural right”, according to a contemporary chronicler, though he soon submitted to William. But back in early January, Harold beat him to it, with the support of the Witan – the council of Anglo-Saxon nobles and clergy.
Since it was highly irregular to choose a candidate not of royal blood, Harold’s supporters must have had good reasons for backing his bid for the throne. True, Edgar was still only a boy – probably 14 at the time of his great-uncle’s death – but both Germany and France had boy-kings at that time. So the question of why England’s leading men backed Harold over Edgar is an important one for historians.
Ruthless ambition
The traditional answer is that, fearing invasion by one or more foreign claimants, the members of the Witan chose a strong leader they believed could fight off would-be conquerors from overseas. William’s modern biographer, David Bates, has written that “the sidelining of Edgar Ætheling could have reflected the certain knowledge in England that William of Normandy and, in all probability, King Harald Hardrada of Norway were going to invade”.
Ian Walker, author of a 1997 biography of Harold, likewise supposed that “the youthful, weak and inexperienced Ætheling Edgar… could not be expected to defend the kingdom effectively [against] the ruthless ambition and dangerous claims… of William of Normandy”. Historians Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries agreed that England needed a proven war leader, and saw Harold as “the one most ready to defend it”.
This is a cogent argument. Harold, more than any other general, had proven himself in war, gaining experience of operations on land and sea. He had probably been involved in naval expeditions against pirates in the 1040s, and had himself led a pirate raid in Somerset in 1052 while forcing his way back from exile. He had campaigned in Wales through the 1050s, and in 1063 he had led a raid on Rhuddlan in north Wales before joining forces with his brother Tostig, Earl of Northumbria, the following year to conquer Wales and overthrow Gruffudd, its mighty king.
Harold and his brother Tostig scuffle in a 13th-century manuscript illustration. They joined forces to conquer Wales, but later fell out over Tostig’s handling of Northumbria and the northern earls | Credit: Cambridge University Library
Clearly, there was no more experienced military commander in England in 1066, and such a record would have appealed to his supporters. It was even said by his allies that the old king, Edward, had come around to nominating Harold as heir to the throne upon his deathbed. Of course, they would have said that – whether it were true or not.
Appealing though it is, the traditional argument rests on an idea that is very hard to prove: that England was anticipating invasion. There is a risk of circularity, too, in arguing that the choice of the strongman Harold proves or suggests this.
- Read more | The making of the Bayeux Tapestry: who made it, how long did it take, and how has it survived?
One story told by William’s supporters after the Conquest was that Harold had visited Normandy, probably in 1065, and sworn to back the duke if the Norman were to make a bid for the English throne. If this story is accepted, as it has been by many historians, then a grab for the English crown by William would have been on the cards. But reports of what transpired between Harold and William in Normandy are varied and confused, and all were written after 1066 by writers who knew the sequel – William’s successful invasion.
There is no firm evidence that William was already aiming for England’s throne in 1065. And even if he was, it need not follow that England was on red alert over the ambitions of a pushy duke – especially one who had never before assembled a fleet or mounted a naval campaign.
One passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been read as an indication that Harold was expecting such a Norman invasion long before it transpired. In 1961, eminent medievalist Dorothy Whitelock took that text to mean that “he had been told as a fact that William… meant to come here and conquer this land”. And Michael Swanton’s later translation says that “[Harold] was told for certain that William… wanted to come”.
William with his brothers Odo and Robert (right). Harold’s seizure of the English crown encouraged others, including the Norman duke, to aim for the throne in turn | Credit: Bayeux Museum
Both scholars would have been influenced by the traditional view that England was expecting William’s invasion, and took the passage to mean that fresh intelligence had been received confirming what had already been feared. Yet a literal translation does not necessarily support this interpretation.
That section in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle follows a reference to Halley’s Comet, which is included as a sign of prophetic foreboding because it was believed to portend imminent regime change. So it could be read as a soothsayer interpreting the comet’s appearance to mean that William would conquer. That reading of a prophecy, albeit written in hindsight, does not imply that Harold, and England, already expected an invasion from Normandy – rather, it was a new concern.
The comeback king
How Harold rose, fell, rose... and fell for good 1020s: Harold is born, second son of Earl Godwine of Wessex and Gytha, part of the extended family of the Danish king and conqueror of England, Cnut. c1045: Harold is appointed Earl of East Anglia, only to face a revolt the following year led by Osgod Clapa, the senior official who’d previously dominated that region.
1049: In the first mention of Harold in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he opposes the reinstatement of his exiled older brother, Swein.1051: Godwine, Harold and Swein rebel against King Edward and are driven into exile. Harold flees to the court of King Diarmait in Leinster, eastern Ireland. 1052: Harold and his family force a comeback by attacking England. He raids Somerset, seizing captives and booty.
1053: Godwine dies and Harold is made Earl of Wessex, Swein having died by now.
1055: Harold’s earldom is extended into the Welsh marches, and he begins campaigning in Wales.
1064: Together with his brother Tostig, Harold conquers Wales, taking his army around the south coast by sea and overthrowing the Welsh king, Gruffudd. In this year or the following one, he takes Ealdgyth, Gruffudd’s widowed queen, to be his wife.
1065: Harold tours northern France, visiting Ponthieu, Normandy and Brittany. He is also recorded in Flanders in 1056 and, in an unknown year, as taking a trip to Rome.
1066: Edward dies on 5 January and Harold ascends the throne. He defeats King Harald Hardrada of Norway and his own brother Tostig on 25 September, then dies at Hastings on 14 October fighting William of Normandy.
Sibling rivalry
In fact, there is evidence to suggest that an invasion by William was not anticipated at the beginning of 1066. The worst disaster foreseen on the horizon by Folcard – believed to have been Edward’s contemporary biographer, writing part of his account in the early months of Harold’s reign – was a civil war between Harold and Tostig, whose relationship had lately turned hostile.
William’s invasion was not on Folcard’s radar, and the tragedy that unfolded took him by surprise. The biographer was an insider at court, and therefore should have been worrying about William if other courtiers were fearing invasion. Yet the Norman duke appears nowhere in Folcard’s account – except in a prophetic allegory towards the end, in a section that was written after the Normans had landed.
If Harold were expecting William, we might expect evidence of this in the form of preparations for defending against a Norman invasion – surely his immediate duty if the English leaders had backed his bid for the throne with that purpose in mind. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says nothing of Harold’s actions in the first few months of his reign but, when it picks up the story, it reports his return to London from York at Easter.
Clearly, rather than prepping the south coast to repel a Norman invasion and overseeing the assembly of a fleet, Harold had been travelling as far north as many English kings cared to go. This does not look like the itinerary of a monarch anxiously expecting an incursion by William. Nor does it necessarily indicate that Harold was readying the north against an invasion led by Harald Hardrada: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that when the Norwegian king invaded in September, it came as a surprise.
So there is no evidence that invasion – by either William or Harald Hardrada – was anticipated in January 1066, and indeed there are strong indications that it was not. In that case, the theory that England needed a strongman to defend it is not an adequate answer to the key historical question of how Harold got the support he needed to sideline the blood heir and occupy the throne.
Northern earls Edwin and Morcar. Harold, who married their sister, sided with these noblemen against his brother Tostig, ending their rebellion | Credit: Getty Images
I’d argue that Harold’s rise to power is better understood in the context of the northern rebellion that erupted on 3 October 1065, when an army of Northumbrian rebels broke into Tostig’s house in York and began killing his allies. Their grievances included a punitive tribute that Tostig had levied on the whole of Northumbria (probably to pay for the Welsh campaign of 1064), his harsh rule as earl, and a series of murders by which Tostig and Queen Edith, his sister who was working on his behalf, eliminated leading members of the old Northumbrian nobility.
The revolt gathered pace, with the support of northern earls and brothers Edwin and Morcar. At a fractious assembly, Tostig accused Harold – who had married those northern earls’ sister within the previous year – of encouraging the rebels. It is certainly true that when King Edward called up an army to quash the revolt, his commanders – chief of whom would have been Harold – refused to fight.
By Christmas, the rebels had succeeded in their goal of driving out Tostig, who fled into exile in Flanders. Domesday Book shows that the northern earls and Harold had, meanwhile, divided up Tostig’s forfeited estates, using his downfall to enrich themselves.
When Edward called up an army to quash the revolt in the north, Harold refused to fight
Revisionist history
Chronicles written in the 1070s claim that the rebellion was settled before Edward’s death, with the laws of Cnut being reinstated by Edward, and the northern earls being confirmed in their earldoms. This retrospective rewriting covers up the uncomfortable reality revealed by earlier accounts written in the 1060s, which show that the north was still in revolt against Edward at the time of the late king’s demise.
The fact that the later chronicles begin to register Harold’s actions as king only after his return from York at Easter reflects their concealment of a journey, made by him at the start of his reign, to put an end to the rebellion. That expedition is reported in the biography of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, the original version of which (now lost) was composed in Old English by Wulfstan’s former chaplain, Coleman, and translated into Latin by William of Malmesbury. According to Malmesbury, Harold went north after his coronation to win over the rebels.
The Bayeux Tapestry shows Harold en route to France. Rescued by William after his ship was wrecked, the earl reportedly swore to support the Norman duke’s claim to the English throne | Credit: Bayeux Museum
Over the course of the rebellion, a seismic shift had occurred. The north had thrown off the rule of Edward and his faction, which included Tostig, Edith and the heir Edgar Ætheling, who represented that camp’s survival into the future. Either Edgar was a creature of that faction, or he could be regarded as such by its opponents. Harold, on the other hand, had been pulling away in order to forge alliances of his own. His relationship with Tostig had soured, and he had little time for Edith. At the same time, he was allying with Edwin and Morcar, who bore their own grudge against Tostig, according to Folcard.
Harold’s new alliance bridged the divide that had opened up between the royal court in the south and the powers who held sway in the northern earldoms. In contrast, Edward’s faction had alienated the north by its recourse to brutal tactics and terror. The revolt of 1065 swept that ruling faction aside, replacing it with the new one – with Harold as its head.
South soothes north
Understanding the significance of the northern revolt is key to understanding Harold’s rise to power. By Christmas 1065, Harold was already running the country. Edward’s court allies had been removed or had jumped the fence to side with Harold. When the old king died, therefore, the choice of successor was between a teenage blood-claimant who might reinstate Edward’s allies, or Harold – who, in supplanting the old ruling faction, had inaugurated a new political settlement that was acceptable to leading figures in both north and south.
A medieval illumination shows Edgar Ætheling. Edward the Confessor’s great-nephew was beaten to the English throne by Harold | Credit: Alamy
Harold, in any case, was too cunning and powerful to let England ponder the decision that had to be made. He had himself crowned immediately after Edward’s funeral, forestalling any objection. Given its rapid execution, he and his supporters must have planned that move while Edward lay dying.
Harold was too cunning and powerful to let England ponder the decision that had to be made
There is no reason to think that Harold’s hasty coronation was intended to pre-empt William, who was overseas and had not yet heard of Edward’s death. Rather, the move was made to sideline Edgar Ætheling, the rightful heir by blood.
Harold came to the throne as the one figure who could hold England together and prevent the north from throwing off southern rule. There is no evidence that William – or anyone else – was planning to invade at that stage. But the fact that Harold was a usurper gave encouragement to opportunists, effectively putting a sign on the throne saying: ‘Anyone not of the blood may now apply.’ And that’s exactly what William of Normandy and Harald Hardrada did, gathering armies and invading in a game of might for which justifications could be made afterwards.
The old argument should, therefore, be turned on its head. Harold did not come to the throne because England feared invasion. Rather, England was invaded largely because Harold came to the throne. The irony is that the man who had been accepted as king because he alone could hold England together made it a target for predators hunting new lands to conquer.
Tom Licence is professor of medieval history and literature at the University of East Anglia. His new book is Harold: Warrior King (Yale University Press, 2026)
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This article was first published in the October 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
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