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Ealdred was Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York in early medieval England. He was related to a number of other ecclesiastics of the period. After becoming a monk at the monastery at Winchester, he was appointed Abbot of Tavistock Abbey in around 1027. In 1046 he was named to the Bishopric of Worcester. Ealdred, besides his episcopal duties, served Edward the Confessor, the King of England, as a diplomat and as a military leader. He worked to bring one of the king's relatives, Edward the Exile, back to England from Hungary to secure an heir for the childless king.
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Harold Godwinson, also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon English king. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England. His death marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England.
Godwin of Wessex became one of the most powerful earls in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great and his successors. Cnut made Godwin the first Earl of Wessex. Godwin was the father of King Harold II and of Edith of Wessex, who in 1045 married King Edward the Confessor.
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Tostig Godwinson was an Anglo-Saxon Earl of Northumbria and brother of King Harold Godwinson. After being exiled by his brother, Tostig supported the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada's invasion of England, and was killed alongside Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.
Stigand was an Anglo-Saxon churchman in pre-Norman Conquest England who became Archbishop of Canterbury. His birth date is unknown, but by 1020 he was serving as a royal chaplain and advisor. He was named Bishop of Elmham in 1043, and was later Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury. Stigand was an advisor to several members of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman English royal dynasties, serving six successive kings. Excommunicated by several popes for his pluralism in holding the two sees, or bishoprics, of Winchester and Canterbury concurrently, he was finally deposed in 1070, and his estates and personal wealth were confiscated by William the Conqueror. Stigand was imprisoned at Winchester, where he died without regaining his liberty.
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Sweyn Godwinson, also spelled Swein, was the eldest son of Earl Godwin of Wessex, and brother of Harold II of England.
Wulfnoth Godwinson (1040-1094) was a younger brother of Harold II of England, the sixth son of Godwin.
Ælfred Æþeling (c. 1005–1036), was one of the eight sons of the English king Æthelred the Unready. He and his brother Edward the Confessor were sons of Æthelred's second wife Emma of Normandy. King Canute became their stepfather when he married Emma. Alfred and his brother were caught up in the power struggles at the start and end of Canute's reign.
Events from the 1050s in England.
The House of Godwin was an Anglo-Saxon family and one of the leading noble families in England during the last 50 years before the Norman Conquest. Its most famous member was Harold Godwinson, king of England for nine months in 1066.
Very little is known for certain of the ancestry of the Godwins, the family of the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, Harold II. When King Edward the Confessor died in January 1066 his closest relative was his great-nephew, Edgar the Ætheling, but he was young and lacked powerful supporters. Harold was the head of the most powerful family in England and Edward's brother-in-law, and he became king. In September 1066 Harold defeated and killed King Harald Hardrada of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and Harold was himself defeated and killed the following month by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.
References
- ↑ Frank McLynn (31 December 2011). 1066. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4481-1453-5.
- ↑ "Swein, Earl (d. 1052)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26831.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ↑ Walker, Ian W. Harold The Last Anglo-Saxon King. Stroud, History Press 2010 p222 ISBN 9780750937634
