Today in History—October 14: The Famous Death at the Battle of Hastings

Harold II is remembered as the English king who took an arrow to the eye on this day in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings.

But did he?

It is perhaps the most famous scene in the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the earliest surviving records of what would come to be called the Norman Conquest—the 1066 invasion of England led by William, duke of Normandy, who defeated Anglo-Saxon King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings to seize the English crown.

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Beneath the caption Hic Harold Rex Interfectus Est (“Here King Harold has been killed”) on the tapestry, a figure appears to clutch a shaft near his face. For centuries, this scene has been believed to show Harold’s gruesome end.

But the tapestry itself is surprisingly ambiguous.

The story starts with the struggle for the English throne. After Edward the Confessor died with no heirs, Harold was crowned in January 1066, but William also claimed the kingship. Their armies met at Hastings. By the evening of October 14, the English defenses had collapsed, Harold was dead, and William’s path to the throne was clear.

But the caption announcing Harold’s death actually spans two figures: the one on the left, clutching the shaft near his face, and another struck down by a Norman knight. Scholars have long debated whether Harold is represented by the first, the second, or even both.

Further complicating matters, the apparent arrow held by the figure on the left was likely altered during a 19th-century restoration of the tapestry. An earlier engraving shows no feathered flights on the shaft, raising the possibility that the weapon was originally a spear.

Other sources are equally murky. Some simply say Harold perished. One (significantly more vivid) early poem describes Norman warriors hacking him to pieces. Later chroniclers say he was first struck by an arrow—some specifying the eye—and then killed in close combat.

Harold’s manner of death remains uncertain. What is clear is that his demise secured William’s victory and ushered in the Norman Conquest—a cultural and political transformation whose effects are still felt in England nearly a millennium later.