British Kings Bullet Book - Harold II, 1066

BillJones

Harold II Penny, S-1186, 1066

• Harold II became king after the death of Edward the Confessor. Harold was the son of Earl Godwin and had no hereditary claim to the throne. His brother, Tostig, broke with Harold and joined forces with the Norsemen.

• Earl Godwin had given Edward the Confessor considerable problems while Edward was king.

• In the fall of 1066 he led his troops to victory over Norwegian invaders and forces loyal to his brother, Tostig, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Both Tostig and the Norwegian king, Hardrada, were killed in the battle.

• Immediately after Harold’s forces had beaten the Norwegian invaders, they got word that William of Normandy had landed in Sussex.

• Harold’s exhausted army hastened to Sussex where they engaged William’s forces.

• Harold’s army was defeated. Legend has it that Harold was killed by an arrow to the eye, although he may have been hacked to death first by William’s men. The description I have read about his execution is a bit more gruesome.

• William probably ordered his men to execute Harold on the battlefield. I’ve read that they became a bit too zealous in the mutilation of the body which drew a rebuke from William. William probably respected Harold as a fellow warrior, but politics demanded that he had to be removed from the scene. This execution of a deposed king would be repeated many times in English history.

Aethelred

Interesting write-up and what a wonderful coin!

EVillageProwler

Thanks for the write up.

Minor correction: the coin is SCBC 1186, not the rarer but usually poorly struck 1187 (without scepter).

291fifth

Many have probably heard of Harold because of 1066 but few are probably aware of just how short his reign actually was.

The coin also exhibits interesting royal headgear. Do these ever come fully struck?

BillJones

Harold ruled from the middle of January 1066 until mid October when he fell in battle.

As for the fully struck part, just finding a Harold penny was hard enough for me. Here is a photo of a higher grade one that Atlas Numismatics offered a while back.

EVillageProwler

I remember the Atlas coin. It was very nice.

This is mine, ex-Conte:

EVillageProwler

@291fifth said:

The coin also exhibits interesting royal headgear. Do these ever come fully struck?

Due to wartime exigencies, much of these were hastily made. The objective was to pay the troops not showcase his reign.

BillJones

@EVillageProwler said:

@291fifth said:

The coin also exhibits interesting royal headgear. Do these ever come fully struck?

Due to wartime exigencies, much of these were hastily made. The objective was to pay the troops not showcase his reign.

You bring up a good point. Given that Harold II was king for only nine months, it is remarkable that there are as many Harold pennies as there are. As we shall see later, a number kings wore the crown for years, sometimes over a decade, and yet their coins are very scarce, and usually in low grades.

This says to me that the mintages for the Harold pennies were fairly large for only nine months. In addition perhaps more of them were set aside as keepsakes. Many Saxons were not happy about William the Conqueror's victory, but their efforts to resist him were put down brutally. In conclusion I think that number of surviving Harald pennies is remarkable. That’s not to say that they aren’t scarce. They certainly are.