Editing Harold Godwinson (section)

== Burial and legacy ==
[[File:Harold stone.JPG|thumb|upright=1.3|The spot where Harold reportedly died, which became the site of [[Battle Abbey]] in [[East Sussex]].]]

The account of the contemporary chronicler [[William of Poitiers]] states that the body of Harold was given to [[William Malet (companion of William the Conqueror)|William Malet]] for burial:
{{Blockquote|The two brothers of the King were found near him and Harold himself, stripped of all badges of honour, could not be identified by his face but only by certain marks on his body. His corpse was brought into the Duke's camp, and William gave it for burial to William, surnamed Malet, and not to Harold's mother, who offered for the body of her beloved son its weight in gold. For the Duke thought it unseemly to receive money for such merchandise, and equally he considered it wrong that Harold should be buried as his mother wished, since so many men lay unburied because of his avarice. They said in jest that he who had guarded the coast with such insensate zeal should be buried by the seashore.|source={{Harvnb|William of Poitiers|1953|page=229}}|author=William of Poitiers|title=Gesta Guillelmi II Ducis Normannorum}}

[[File:Bosham Church Tower.JPG|thumb|upright=1.1|left|[[Holy Trinity Church, Bosham|Bosham Church]] in [[West Sussex]]: the lower three storeys of the tower are pre-conquest, the top storey Norman]]

Another source states that Harold's widow, [[Edith the Fair]],{{Efn|name=swan|also known as Edyth Swannesha (Edith Swanneck)}} was called to identify the body, which she did by some private mark known only to her. Harold's strong association with [[Bosham]], his birthplace, and the discovery in 1954 of an Anglo-Saxon coffin in the church there, has led some to suggest it as the place of King Harold's burial. A request to exhume a grave in [[Holy Trinity Church, Bosham|Bosham Church]] was refused by the [[Diocese of Chichester]] in December 2003, the [[Chancellor (ecclesiastical)|Chancellor]] having ruled that the chances of establishing the identity of the body as Harold's were too slim to justify disturbing a burial place.{{Sfn|Hill|2003}}{{Sfn|Bosham Online|2003}} The exhumation in 1954 had revealed the remains of a man in a coffin. "[It] was made of Horsham stone, magnificently finished, and contained the thigh and pelvic bones of a powerfully built man of about 5ft 6in{{efn|{{convert|5.5|ft|m}}}}  in height, aged over 60 years{{efn|Harold was thought to have been in his 40s at his death{{Sfn|Fryde|Greenway|Porter|Roy|2003|page=29}}}} and with traces of arthritis."{{Sfn|Hill|2003}} It was suggested that the contents of the coffin had been opened at a much earlier date and vandalised, as the skull was missing and the remaining bones damaged in a way that was inconsistent with decomposition ''post mortem''.{{Sfn|Hill|2003}} The description of the remains is not unlike the fate of the king, recorded in the ''Carmen de Hastingae Proeliormen'', that says Harold was buried by the sea. The location of the grave, at Bosham Church, is also consistent with William of Poitiers' description as it is only a small distance from [[Chichester Harbour]] and in sight of the [[English Channel]].{{Sfn|Bosham Online|2003}}

There were legends of Harold's body being given a proper funeral years later in [[Waltham Abbey Church]] in [[Essex]], which he had refounded in 1060. Other stories, including the ''[[Vita Haroldi]]'', suggested that Harold had not died at Hastings, but instead fled England or that he later ended his life as a hermit at Chester or Canterbury.<ref name=Walker181>{{harvnb|Walker|2000|pp=181–182}}</ref>

Harold's son Ulf, along with Morcar and two others, were released from prison by King William as he lay dying in 1087. Ulf threw his lot in with [[Robert Curthose]], who knighted him, and then disappeared from history. Two of Harold's other sons, Godwine and Edmund, invaded England in 1068 and 1069 with the aid of [[Diarmait mac Máel na mBó]] ([[High King of Ireland]]) but were defeated at the [[Battle of Northam]] in [[Devon]] in 1069.{{Efn|At [[midsummer]] in 1069, [[Brian of Brittany]] and [[Alan the Black]] led a force that defeated a raid by Godwine and Edmund, sons of Harold Godwinson, who had sailed from [[Ireland]] with a fleet of 64 ships to the mouth of the [[River Taw]] in [[Devon]]. They had escaped to Leinster after the [[Battle of Hastings]] in 1066 where they were hosted by [[Diarmait mac Máel na mBó|Diarmait]]. In 1068 and 1069, Diarmait lent them the fleet of [[Dublin]] for their attempted invasions of England.}} In 1068, Diarmait presented another Irish king with Harold's battle standard.{{Sfn|Bartlett|Jeffery|1997|p=59}}