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Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 [1] until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the decisive battle of the Norman Conquest. Harold's death marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England. He was succeeded by William the Conqueror. Harold Godwinson was a member of a prominent Anglo-Saxon family with ties to Cnut the Great.
Gytha Thorkelsdóttir (c. 997 – c. 1069), also called Githa, was a Danish noblewoman.She was the wife of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and the mother of King Harold Godwinson and Edith of Wessex, the latter of whom was the queen consort of King Edward the Confessor.
Godwin of Wessex (Old English: Godwine; died 15 April 1053) was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who became one of the most powerful earls in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great (King of England from 1016 to 1035) and his successors. Cnut made Godwin the first Earl of Wessex (c. 1020). Godwin was the father of King Harold II (r.
Godwin's second son, Harold, succeeded him in the earldom of Wessex, while Harold's old earldom of East Anglia was taken by Ælfgar, son of the earl of Mercia. [16] Godwin's eldest son, Sweyn, could not be considered for any title since he had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and indeed was to die in September 1052 on the return journey. [22]
Edith may have been the mother of Harold's daughters Gunhild of Wessex, [5] who became the mistress of Alan Rufus, and Gytha of Wessex, who was taken by her grandmother to Denmark in 1068. [1] Gytha was addressed as "princess" and married the Grand Duke of Kiev, Vladimir II Monomakh .
The 1851 poem "The Swan-Neck", by Charles Kingsley is about Harold and his wife Edith. [6] Several novels were published in the Victorian era about Harold Godwinson. These included Harold, the Last of the Saxons (1848) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, [7] Wulf the Saxon: a story of the Norman Conquest (1895) by G. A. Henty, [8] The Andreds-weald; or The House of Michelham: a Tale of the Norman ...
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The family is named after Harold's father, Earl Godwin, who had risen to a position of wealth and influence in the 1020s under Danish King Cnut the Great. In 1045 Godwin's daughter, Edith, married King Edward the Confessor, and by the mid-1050s Harold and his brothers had become dominant, almost monopolising the English earldoms. Godwin's ...