Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon monarch before the Norman Conquest, was crowned King of England.

Harold Godwinson

King of England in 1066

Harold Godwinson, also 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 on 14 October 1066, the decisive battle of the Norman Conquest. He was succeeded by William the Conqueror, the…

Anglo-Saxons

Early medieval Old-English-speaking cultural group in Britain

The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the…

Norman Conquest

11th-century invasion and conquest of England by Normans

The Norman Conquest of England was an 11th-century invasion by an army made up of thousands of Norman, French, Flemish, and Breton troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror.

List of English monarchs

This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself king of the Anglo-Saxons from about 886, and while he was…