Ulrich Harsh/Bayeux Tapestry

Harold was hasty to Hastings

But now billets at Bosham,

Traveling no more

From the West Sussex shore.*

*Today is the 956-year anniversary of the day William I (the Conqueror) and his gang of Norman toughs landed on the southern English coast at Pevensey. Only three days before, on September 25th, the English king (really the Anglo-Saxon king) Harold Godwinson (one of the few kings to be referred to by his first and last names) had defeated a Viking army at the battle of Stamford Bridge in northern England. But he had no time for victory parades, mead hall bacchanals or fist-pumping appearances on the Tonight Show. Harold had to haul ass south to confront the annoyingly confident William (who reportedly said to his henchmen when stepping ashore and grabbing some pebbles from the beach: “See, I have England in my hands. It is now mine and what is mine will be yours.”). Harold did confront Billy at the Battle of Hastings on Oct. 14, 1066. But Godwinson lost the fight, the throne and his life. The exact whereabouts of Harold’s grave are not precisely known, but are generally accepted to be in Bosham Church in West Sussex not far from the port city of Portsmouth.