WHO WAS THE RIGHTFUL KING?

Which of four main contenders for the English throne had the strongest claim? Was it the Anglo-Saxon strongman, the Norman duke, the 'Thunderbolt of the North' or a callow teenager? Caitlin Ellis sizes up the rivals

- Caitlin Ellis

It was a terrible start to an extraordinary year.

1066 was barely five days old when Edward the Confessor, king of the English, succumbed to a short illness and breathed his last. Just a week earlier, crowds had gathered to witness the consecration of Westminster Abbey, Edward's personal passion project - and his final resting place. Now the people of England braced themselves for an uncertain future.

Edward's 23 years on the throne had not been easy. He had restored the English royal line after a period of Danish rule under Cnut the Great and his sons. A political pragmatist, he weathered squabbles among the nobles. He was, chroniclers agreed, a good and righteous Christian. Yet Edward had one huge frailty: he had not produced an heir to succeed him. And that created a power vacuum.

Into that vacuum stepped the dead king's formidable brother-in-law, Earl Harold Godwinson. Initially, Harold had the crucial advantages of physically being in England when Edward died, and of commanding plenty of support across the realm. Among those supporters was an unknown poet who wrote that the Confessor had "entrusted the realm / To a man of high rank, to Harold himself / A noble earl who all the time / Had loyally followed his lord's commands."

In the poet's eyes, at least, Harold was the right man to fill Edward's boots. Of course, in the event it was not so simple - and 1066 proved to be a bloody and momentous year.

The stage was now set for a contest for the English crown between three powerful men and a boy. There was Harold Godwinson; Duke William of Normandy; the Viking king Harald Hardrada; and a young man, probably only a teenager, often omitted from this story: Edgar Ætheling, Edward's great-nephew. We know, of course, which one of these contenders held the crown in his possession at the end of the year. What is less certain is who was the most deserving.