Skip to main content

The Claimants to the English Throne in 1066

Just before Edward the Confessor, King of England, died on 5 January 1066, he named a powerful English earl as his successor. At least, that’s what many historical sources claim. The trouble was, this earl was not the only man who believed he held the lawful right to the throne. In fact, he was one of five.
So who were these five men who all believed they should be England’s king?

1. Harold Godwinson

The brother of Edward’s wife, Harold was the leading noble in England and the man who Edward supposedly gave the kingdom to on his deathbed. Harold was crowned king on 6 January 1066 but would only last a few months in the job. In September of that year he successfully fought off an attack by one rival claimant to the throne, Harald Hardrada. But less than three weeks later he was killed in battle with another claimant: William the Conqueror.

2. William of Normandy

William, Duke of Normandy, believed that Edward had promised him the English throne long before Harold. Edward, who was William’s friend and distant cousin, supposedly wrote to the French duke to tell him England would be his in as far back as 1051.
Incensed by Harold’s coronation, William gathered up a fleet of around 700 ships and, with the backing of the pope, set sail for England — once the winds were favourable. After arriving at the Sussex coast in September 1066, William and his men had their confrontation with Harold on 14 October. After winning what became known as the Battle of Hastings, William was crowned king on Christmas Day.

3. Edgar Atheling

Edgar, Edward the Confessor’s great-nephew, may have been the king’s closest blood relative at the time of his death but he was never a real competitor in the battle to succeed him. Just a teenager when Edward died, Edgar had also spent the early years of his life in exile in Hungary and was not considered politically strong enough to hold the country together.
He did, however, join forces with the king of Denmark in 1069 to launch an attack on William. But that attack ultimately failed.

4. Harald Hardrada

This Norwegian king’s claim to the English throne stemmed from an agreement supposedly made between his predecessor and a former king of England: Hardicanute. Hardicanute had only ruled England briefly between 1040 and 1042 but that did not stop Harald from believing that the English crown should be his. After teaming up with none other than King Harold’s brother, Harald took an invasion fleet of 300 ships to England.
The Viking warrior had some initial success, defeating English forces at Fulford, on the outskirts of York, on 20 September 1066, before seizing York itself four days later. Both Harald and his invasion met their end the following day, however, when King Harold and his men defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

5. Svein Estridsson

Svein, King of Denmark, was Harold Godwinson’s cousin but believed that he may too have a claim on the English throne because of his own connections to Hardicanute, who was his uncle. It was not until William was king, however, that he seriously turned his attentions to England.
In 1069 he and Edgar sent a force to the north of England to attack William but, after capturing York, Svein reached a deal with the English king to abandon Edgar.

Source: https://www.historyhit.com/the-claimants-to-the-english-throne-in-1066/

Popular posts from this blog

Cholera in Victorian London

  In 1831 a terrifying new epidemic arrived in London, bringing with it fear and panic⁠—and a sense of urgency about the city's sanitation problems. In the 1700s, Great Britain began transforming into an industrialised nation. By the 1800s, London was the largest city in the world as a result of the social changes brought about by industrialisation, such as mass migration from the countryside to the town.  But London was a city overwhelmed by the waste products of its ever-growing population, the majority of whom lived in the squalor of overcrowded slums. Human waste piled up in courtyards and overflowed from basement cesspits into the gutters and waterways. Wellcome Collection (CC BY) Image source for Illustration of London slum with subtitle 'A court for King Cholera' In such conditions diseases were inevitable. Outbreaks of diseases such as typhoid and scarlet fever were common, but the arrival of cholera led to new investigation into sanitation and
Read more

Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?”, text of a conference delivered at the Sorbonne on March 11th, 1882, in Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?, Paris, Presses-Pocket, 1992. (translated by Ethan Rundell)

 I propose to analyze with you an idea which, though apparently clear, lends itself to the most dangerous misunderstandings. The forms of human society are of the greatest variety. They include great agglomerations of men after the fashion of China, Egypt, and ancient Babylonia; tribes such as the Hebrews and the Arabs; city-states on the Athenian and Spartan model; reunions of diverse countries such as were to be found under the Carolingian Empire; communities such as the Israelites and the parsis, lacking a country and maintained by religious bonds; nations like France, England, and most other modern, autonomous polities; confederations after the fashion of Switzerland and America; the great families that race, or rather language, has established between the different branches of Germans, the different branches of Slavs. Such are the types of groupings that exist, or rather existed, and that one confuses only at the price of the most serious inconvenience. At the time of the Fre
Read more

12 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses were the civil wars fought in England and Wales between the Yorkist and Lancastrian dynasties between 1455 and 1485. Though historians can’t agree on precisely when and where the conflicts concluded, the general consensus is that the Wars of the Roses ended with the battle of Bosworth in 1485, when Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII, the first Tudor king) defeated and killed Richard III... But, argues historian Matthew Lewis, the roots of these dynastic civil wars went deeper and the branches reached further than this 30-year timeframe suggests. Here, writing for  History Extra , Lewis shares 12 lesser-known facts about the Wars of the Roses… 1 Jack Cade’s rebellion rocked the Lancastrians In July 1450, a mysterious man known as Jack Cade led a huge force of common men from Kent into London to protest against the ailing government of  the Lancastrian king Henry VI.  This episode is generally regarded as being outside the bounds of the Wars of the Roses
Read more