How did king harold II die in 1066?
During restoration work on the Bayeux Tapestry it was found that the position of the arrow had been changed at some time in the past – the original stitch-holes showed that the arrow was not in Harold’s eye but in his face (not normally a fatal wound). Most historians today see the two scenes on the Bayeux Tapestry under the words “Harold Rex interfectus est” (here King Harold has been killed) as two moments in time, showing him wounded in the face by an arrow and then cut down by mounted Norman knights. It is significant the the words “interfectus est” are above the scene of a man being cut down by a mounted Norman. This is how contemporary accounts say he was killed – by sword and spear thrusts, not by an arrow. He was so badly mutilated in this way that his mistress had difficulty in recognising the corpse. The “arrow in the eye” is a popular misconception.
