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Wulfnoth Godwinson (1040-1094) was the youngest brother of King Harold II of England. The sixth son of Earl Godwin of Wessex, Wulfnoth was given as a hostage in childhood, and, as a result of war and political intrigue, was subsequently held in captivity for 43 years before dying, the longest-ever imprisonment of a member of British royalty.
Wulfnoth was given as a hostage to Edward the Confessor in 1051 as assurance of Godwin's good behaviour and support during the confrontation between the earl and the king which led to the exile of Godwin and his other sons. Upon Godwin's return to England at the head of an army a year later, following extensive preparations in Ireland and Flanders, Norman supporters of King Edward, and especially Archbishop Robert of Jumièges fled England. It is likely at this point that Wulfnoth (along with Hakon, son of Svein Godwinson, Godwin's eldest son) was spirited away by the fleeing archbishop, and taken to Normandy, where they were handed over to Duke William of Normandy. [1]
According to Historia novorum in Anglia by English historian Eadmer, the reason for Harold's excursion to Normandy in 1064 or 1065 was that he wished to free Wulfnoth as well as his nephew Hakon. To this end he took with him a vast amount of wealth, all of which was confiscated by Count Guy I of Ponthieu when Harold and his party were shipwrecked.
However, Harold's reasons for travelling to the continent are not clear, and there are other reasonable explanations, not the least of which was a sounding out among continental magnates of a response to his own intention to ascend the English throne at one point, given Edward's advanced age and lack of heir. When later Harold allegedly swore an oath to William agreeing to become his vassal and to support his succession to the English crown, one of the promises made by William in return, according to Eadmer, was that Wulfnoth would be returned safe and sound when William had become king. Harold's assumption of the crown broke this alleged agreement and Wulfnoth was not released until 1087, by the dying King William I in an amnesty. He was only freed briefly, before King William II Rufus took him to confinement in England. [2]
Of course, there are many other explanations of Wulfnoth's enduring captivity. Even following William's victory at Hastings (1066) over Harold and crowning as King of England in London later that year, England's pacification remained uncertain. William may have held Wulfnoth as hostage against a resurgent remnant of Godwinson power.
Wulfnoth stayed in sometimes comfortable, if not enviable, captivity in Normandy and later in Hampshire and Wiltshire, and died in Winchester in 1094, still a prisoner. It is unknown if he ever fathered children. [3]
On screen, Wulfnoth was portrayed by Michael Pennington in the two-part BBC TV play Conquest (1966), part of the series Theatre 625 . [4]
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.
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 on 14 October 1066, the decisive battle of the Norman Conquest. Harold's death marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England. He was succeeded by William the Conqueror.
Godwin of Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who 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.
Edward the Confessor was an Anglo-Saxon English king and saint. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 until his death in 1066.
Harold I, also known as Harold Harefoot, was regent of England from 1035 to 1037 and King of the English from 1037 to 1040. Harold's nickname "Harefoot" is first recorded as "Harefoh" or "Harefah" in the twelfth century in the history of Ely Abbey, and according to some late medieval chroniclers it meant that he was "fleet of foot".
Earl is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of earl never developed; instead, countess is used.
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.
Robert of Jumièges was the first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury. He had previously served as prior of the Abbey of St Ouen at Rouen in Normandy, before becoming abbot of Jumièges Abbey, near Rouen, in 1037. He was a good friend and adviser to the king of England, Edward the Confessor, who appointed him bishop of London in 1044, and then archbishop in 1051. Robert's time as archbishop lasted only about eighteen months. He had already come into conflict with the powerful Earl Godwin and, while archbishop, made attempts to recover lands lost to Godwin and his family. He also refused to consecrate Spearhafoc, Edward's choice to succeed Robert as Bishop of London. The rift between Robert and Godwin culminated in Robert's deposition and exile in 1052.
The Battle of Fulford was fought on the outskirts of the village of Fulford, just south of York in England, on 20 September 1066, when King Harald III of Norway, also known as Harald Hardrada, a claimant to the English throne and Tostig Godwinson, his English ally, fought and defeated the Northern Earls Edwin and Morcar.
Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, also called Githa, was a Danish noblewoman. She was the wife of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and the mother of King Harold Godwinson and Edith of Wessex, the latter of whom was the queen consort of King Edward the Confessor.
Edith of Wessex was Queen of England through her marriage to Edward the Confessor from 1045 until Edward's death in 1066. Unlike most English queens in the 10th and 11th centuries, she was crowned. The principal source on her life is a work she herself commissioned, the Vita Ædwardi Regis or the Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, which is inevitably biased.
Sweyn Godwinson, also spelled Swein, was the eldest son of Earl Godwin of Wessex, and brother of Harold II of England.
Æthelric was the second to last medieval Bishop of Selsey in England before the see was moved to Chichester. Consecrated a bishop in 1058, he was deposed in 1070 for unknown reasons and then imprisoned by King William I of England. He was considered one of the best legal experts of his time, and was even brought from his prison to attend the trial on Penenden Heath where he gave testimony about English law before the Norman Conquest of England.
Events from the 1050s in England.
The House of Godwin was an Anglo-Saxon family who were one of the leading noble families in England during the last fifty years before the Norman Conquest. Its most famous member was Harold Godwinson, King of England for nine months in 1066.
The siege of Exeter occurred early in 1068 when King William I of England marched a combined army of Normans and loyal Englishmen westwards to force the submission of the city of Exeter in Devon, a stronghold of Anglo-Saxon resistance against Norman rule following the Norman conquest of England. After a siege lasting eighteen days, the city surrendered to William under generous terms and allowed the Normans to consolidate their hold over the West Country.
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.
Hakon Sweynson was the only son of Sweyn Godwinson, brother of Harold II of England.
Godwin or Godwine was a son, probably the eldest son, of Harold Godwinson, King of England. He was driven into exile in Dublin, along with two of his brothers, by the Norman conquest of England, and from there he twice led expeditions to south-western England, but with little success.
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