page_title: Harold Godwinson
section_title: Harold in northern France
hierarchical_section_title: Harold Godwinson / Powerful nobleman / Harold in northern France
caption_attribution_description: English: Bayeux Tapestry - Scene 23: Harold swearing oath on holy relics to William, Duke of Normandy. Titulus: UBI HAROLD SACRAMENTUM FECIT WILLELMO DUCI (Where Harold made an oath to Duke William) Français&#160;: Tapisserie de Bayeux - Scène 23&#160;: Harold prête serment à Guillaume, duc de Normandie, sur deux reliquaires. Légende en latin&#160;: UBI HAROLD SACRAMENTUM FECIT WILLELMO DUCI (Ici Harold prête serment au duc Guillaume)
context_page_description: Harold Godwinson, often called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England. His death marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England.
  Harold was a powerful earl and member of a prominent Anglo-Saxon family with ties to Cnut the Great. Upon the death of his brother-in-law King Edward the Confessor on 5 January 1066, the Witenagemot convened and chose Harold to succeed; he was the first English monarch to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. In late September, he successfully repelled an invasion by rival claimant Harald Hardrada of Norway before marching his army back south to meet William the Conqueror at Hastings two weeks later.
context_section_description: In 1064, Harold apparently was 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, Archbishop of Canterbury, to appoint as his heir Edward's maternal kinsman, William of Normandy, and that at this later date Harold was sent 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 notables, 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 Guy I, Count 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 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?"
  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, Tostig, 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 Hardrada ("Hard Ruler") of Norway.
caption: HAROLD SACRAMENTUM FECIT VVILLELMO DUCI ("Harold made an oath to Duke William"). (Bayeux Tapestry) This scene is stated in the previous scene on the Tapestry to have taken place at Bagia (Bayeux, probably in Bayeux Cathedral). It shows Harold touching two altars with the enthroned Duke looking on, and is central to the Norman Invasion of England.
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