Harold the Last Anglo Saxon King

259 Pages·2004·1.7 MB·English

by  Ian W Walker

HAROLD
The Last Anglo-Saxon King
To My Mother and Father
HAROLD
The Last Anglo-Saxon King
I W. W
AN ALKER
First published in 1997
This edition published in 2010
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Ian W. Walker, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2010
The right of Ian W. Walker, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 6826 6
MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 6827 3
Original typesetting by The History Press
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Family Trees
General Maps
Introduction
1 Family Origins
2 Harold, Son of Godwine
3 Exile and Return
4 The Lands and Wealth of Harold
5 Earl of Wessex
6 William of Normandy
7 Earl Tosti
8 Harold the Man
9 King Harold
10 Harald of Norway
11 The Last Campaign
12 End of a Dynasty
Conclusion
Appendix One
Appendix Two
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I
would like to thank a number of people for their assistance during the writing
of this book. I would like in particular to thank Sheila. She inspired and
encouraged me to write this book in the first place. I would like to pay tribute
to my tutors at the University of Glasgow, who fostered my interest in history
and provided me with the investigative skills necessary to study the subject. I
would like to express my appreciation to Denis Butler, whose admittedly
somewhat romantic account of Harold Godwineson in 1066 The Story of a Year
(London, 1966) nevertheless first attracted my attention to this fascinating
character, and provided a starting point for many years of interesting research
thereafter. I would like to express my gratitude to the staffs at Glasgow
University Library, Edinburgh University Library, the National Library of
Scotland, Edinburgh, the Library of the University of Wales, Cardiff, and East
Kilbride Public Library, who provided access to many of the sources consulted,
and to the staffs of all those various organizations which supplied illustrations
and provided the necessary permissions to reproduce them herein. I would like
to express my warm appreciation to Jane and Clare and the rest of the staff at
Sutton Publishing, who succeeded in making the process of publication almost
entirely painless. I would also like to thank Dr Bill Aird of the University of
Wales, Cardiff, who read this work at an earlier stage and offered encouraging
advice and helpful suggestions. This improved the final text immensely and
saved me from a number of errors and omissions. I must accept full blame for
any mistakes which remain in the finished book. Finally, I would like to thank
my father and mother, without whose assistance on the word processor and in
type-checking this book could not have been completed.
The Godwine Family
King Harold and his Descendants