‘The Death of Harold.’ Wood engraving by Edmund Evans. 3 x 4 inches. Illustration in James Doyle’s A Chronicle of England, London: Longman, 1864, 97. Another death in conflict scene, this time showing Harold being struck by the fatal arrow at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. The blue-grey palette here is expressive of the time of day – the king was killed in the early evening – and emblematic of the fading, literally the twilight of Anglo-Saxon England, as the old order gave way to the Normans.

Text by Simon Cooke. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]


Created 15 November 2023