The End Of The Oath Breaker

The End Of The Oath Breaker

And, of course, the ruination of the Englishness of England by those bloody Normans, causing endless distress to Tolkien and others...

Originally shared by Dirk Puehl

14 October 1066, #onthisday 950 years ago, Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, fell at the Battle of Hastings.


The situation in England before the conquest was, in fact, a chaos and, ironically enough, it was the Dane Cnut the Great who gave the island the resemblance of political order when it became part of his North Sea Empire in 1016. After his death 20 years later, the confusion went off properly again. Traditionally, the King of England was appointed by the Witangemot, a council of noble advisors, rather than by birthright alone, since the days of Athelstan, when old Wessex essentially became the Kingdom in 927. If Edward the Confessor, one of Cnut’s successors on the throne of England, had promised kingship after his death to Earl Harold of Wessex or William the Bastard of Normandy was debated even back then, when the last monarch of Alfred the Great’s line lay dying. However, by appointment of the Witangemot, Harold was crowned in January 1066. And William the Bastard, famously, vowed vengeance.

But read more on:

http://wunderkammertales.blogspot.de/2015/01/the-death-of-king-harold-godwinson-at.html

Depicted below is Harold’s death from the famous Bayeux Tapestry (ca 1070), the scene bearing the inscription Harold Rex Interfectus Est: "King Harold is killed".

#europeanhistory #history #medievalhistory

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