Following the death of Edward the Confessor on January 5, 1066, the Witenagemot elected Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, as king, and he was crowned the very next day at Westminster Abbey. His swift coronation, taken partly to preempt rival claimants, provoked William of Normandy to invade later that year, culminating in the Battle of Hastings and the end of Anglo-Saxon rule in England.
Edward the Confessor died childless on January 5, 1066, leaving the English succession dangerously unsettled. Harold Godwinson, the most powerful nobleman in the kingdom and brother-in-law to the dead king, moved with striking speed: the Witenagemot, the council of English nobles, elected him king almost immediately, and he was anointed and crowned at the newly consecrated Westminster Abbey on January 6—the same building where Edward had just been buried.
The haste was deliberate. Harold faced at least two rival claimants: Duke William of Normandy, who claimed Edward had promised him the throne, and Harald Hardrada of Norway, who asserted an older Scandinavian claim. By securing the crown before either could mobilize an argument or an army, Harold hoped to present his kingship as a fait accompli.
It didn't work. William considered the coronation illegitimate and spent the following months assembling an invasion fleet, while Hardrada launched his own invasion in the north. Harold would defeat Hardrada at Stamford Bridge in September, only to march his exhausted army south and face William at Hastings weeks later, where he died with an arrow reportedly through his eye, ending Anglo-Saxon England and beginning Norman rule.