Britain
to hunt for King Harold's body to test theory about his death
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[October 13, 2014]
LONDON (Reuters) - King Harold II,
the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, has long been thought to have been
killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But British archaeologists are
to test a theory he survived on the anniversary of the famous battle
this Tuesday.
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The battle, on October 14 1066, marked a turning point in British
history as the Normans conquered medieval England.
There are different accounts of how he was killed, one of them
pictured in the Bayeux Tapestry, which appears to have him gripping
an arrow that had pierced his eye.
Another account of the battle, said to have been written shortly
afterwards by Guy, Bishop of Amiens, has Harold being killed by four
knights and his body dismembered.
But Peter Burke, an amateur historian in southern England, has said
an alternative version of events exists in a 12th century document
called Vita Harold, which is housed in the British Library.
Burke has suggested Harold may have lived to fight another day and
survived as a hermit for a further 40 years.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2014/Oct/13/images/ads/current/culligan_sda_090414.gif) "We have the Norman story put through the Bayeux Tapestry – the
English story is a different one," Burke told The Independent on
Sunday newspaper.
"You put things together and it begins to build a picture that is
quite solid. If everything backs you up in history, you should look
at it. You shouldn't just leave it," he said.
Archaeologists will begin to test his theory on Tuesday, the
anniversary of the famous battle, by launching a scan of the grounds
of Waltham Abbey Church in Essex, where Harold was supposedly given
a burial.
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The same geological survey company which successfully helped locate
the remains of King Richard III in 2012 beneath a car park will
carry out the scan.
"I'm very hopeful we will find something," said Burke. "I've always
thought you should question things. You shouldn't just take history
at face value. (The Battle of Hastings) is one of the biggest events
in English history. Whether it will go as far as rewriting history
books, I suppose they'll have to," he said.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Stephen Powell)
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