Harold Godwinson has been depicted in a number of modern works.
Plays about Harold include the 1778 play The Battle of Hastings by Richard Cumberland, [1] and the drama Harold, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1876. [2] The one-act play A Choice of Kings (1966) by John Mortimer deals with his deception by William after his shipwreck. [3]
In the 1982 French/Romanian production "William the Conqueror" (aka Guillaume le Conquérant or Wilhelm Cuceritorul), directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu and Gilles Grangier, John Terry played King Harold. [4]
Michael Craig portrayed Harold in a 1966 TV adaptation of Mortimer's A Choice of Kings in the ITV Play of the Week series. [5]
Harold was played by James Norton in the 2025 BBC series King & Conqueror .
Fictional depictions of Harold have appeared in literature. 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 Conquest (1878) by Augustine David Crake; William the Conqueror: An Historical Romance (1858) by General Charles James Napier, [8] and In the New Forest : A Story of the reign of William the Conqueror by Herbert Strang and John Aston (1910). [9] Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story, included in his 1910 collection, Rewards and Fairies , where an aged King Harold (who survives Hastings) meets Henry I and dies in the arms of a Saxon knight. [8] The short story "The Eye of the Hurricane" by Kevin Crossley-Holland (in the 1969 book Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories by Crossley-Holland and Jill Paton Walsh) depicts Harold fighting in the Battle of Hastings. [10] In the posthumously published Robert E. Howard story "The Road of Azrael" (1976), Harold survives the battle and escapes to the Middle East. [11]
Modern novels have included The Golden Warrior (1948) by Hope Muntz, [12] [13] The Fourteenth of October (1952) by Bryher, [14] Harold Was My King (1970) by Hilda Lewis, [15] The Wind From Hastings (1978) by Morgan Llywelyn, [16] Lord of Sunset (1998) by Parke Godwin, [17] The Last English King by Julian Rathbone, [18] and The Handfasted Wife (2013) by Carol McGrath. [19] Fatal Rivalry (2017) by Mercedes Rochelle focuses on Harold's relationships with Tostig Godwinson and Edgar The Aetheling. [20] Rite of Conquest (2003) by Judith Tarr [21] and God's Concubine (2004) by Sara Douglass [22] are both fantasy novels that feature Harold as a character. The Rhyme of King Harold (2014) by Ian Macgill is a verse novel about Harold's life. [23] After Hastings (2020) by Steven H. Silver is an alternate history novel where Harold defeats Williams at Hastings, and subsequently comes into conflict with the Papacy. [24]
Christopher Eccleston played Harold in the 2001 radio play Bayeux by Simon Armitage and Jeff Young, based on the Bayeux Tapestry. [25]