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Historical person
1022–1066
Harold Godwinson was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England. A powerful earl and experienced commander, he succeeded Edward the Confessor in January 1066 despite rival claims from William of Normandy and Harald Hardrada of Norway. Harold defeated the Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge, then marched south and was killed at the Battle of Hastings. Norman victory transformed English landholding, government and aristocratic culture.
Helen Hollick’s Harold the King and Julian Rathbone’s The Last English King place Harold at the centre of the succession crisis and campaigns of 1066. Historical fiction often explores his alleged oath to support William, his relationship with Edith Swanneck and the speed of the march from Yorkshire to Sussex. The sources were heavily shaped by Norman victory, leaving novelists to decide how far Harold was elected king, oath-breaker or defender of an established realm.
In Richard Cullen’s Oath Bound, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Styrkar the Dane escapes wounded from Senlac Hill, where he has seen Harold Godwinson killed and the English army destroyed. In Griff Hosker’s Housecarl, when his uncle, Aethelward, takes him to join the warriors of Harold Godwinson, his life is irrevocably changed. Other novels featuring Harold Godwinson include Georgette Heyer’s The Conqueror, Richard Cullen’s Shield Breaker, K. M. Ashman’s The Fate of a King, Morgan Llywelyn’s The Wind from Hastings, and J. C. Duncan’s Viking Conqueror.
Historical context
Series
Conquest follows England after the Norman victory of 1066. The books use Hastings, rebellion, occupation and the consolidation of William the Conqueror’s rule to show how conquest continues long after a single battle is won. The series is strongest as a post-Conquest saga about dispossession, resistance, new lordship…
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The Last Viking series follows Harald Sigurdsson from defeated prince and exile to Varangian commander, king of Norway and claimant to the English throne. Moving through Kievan Rus, Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire and Scandinavia before reaching the campaign of 1066, the novels trace the ambition, warfare and political…
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Road to Hastings traces the political rise of the Godwin family and the decisions that produced the English succession crisis of 1066. Beginning with Edith of Wessex's marriage to Edward the Confessor, the trilogy follows Earl Godwin and Harold Godwinson through exile, restoration, diplomacy and the growing influence…
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The Aelfraed trilogy follows Saxon survivors through the violent aftermath of 1066. Beginning before the Battle of Hastings and continuing through resistance, outlawry and exile, the series uses the collapse of Harold Godwinson’s England to follow housecarls and rebels forced to decide whether to keep fighting, submit to…
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This collection brings together Georgette Heyer’s historical novels set outside her main Regency-romance sequence. The settings range from medieval England and France to the Norman Conquest, Elizabethan maritime conflict, the escape of Charles II and the Peninsular War. The list follows the ordering supplied by the Fantastic Fiction…
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The Wolf of Kings follows Styrkar the Dane, a surviving housecarl of Harold Godwinson, through the resistance to William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings. Oath Bound begins on Senlac Hill in 1066 and turns Styrkar’s loyalty to his dead king into a campaign of personal vengeance…
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The Norman trilogy follows William the Conqueror and his heirs as they seize and consolidate the English crown. The sequence moves from the Norman Conquest through the reign of Henry I to the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, showing how conquest, inheritance and baronial loyalty reshaped England.
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The Medieval Saga follows interlinked fictional families through two centuries of English dynastic conflict, beginning with the invasions of 1066 and ending with Simon de Montfort’s challenge to Henry III. The sequence places ordinary soldiers, household officers and landed families beside the rulers whose wars repeatedly reshape their…
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The Celtic World is a thematic sequence of novels moving from the migrations and sacred traditions of ancient Celtic peoples into the heroic cycles and medieval history of Ireland and Britain. Its subjects include the legendary origins of Ireland, the warriors of the Ulster and Fenian cycles, Saint…
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Standalone books
