work says he then swallowed the crust, but it stuck in his throat and killed him. However, this appears to be no more than Norman propaganda, contemporary accounts indicating that he just had a sudden illness, possibly a stroke. According to the Abingdon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 1053: "On Easter Monday, as he was sitting with the king at a meal he suddenly sank towards the footstool bereft of speech, and deprived of all his strength. Then he was carried to the king's private room and they thought it was about to pass off. But it was not so. On the contrary, he continued like this without speech or strength right on to the Thursday, and then departed this life." His son Harold (Godwinson) succeeded him as Earl of Wessex, that is, overlord of roughly the southernmost third of England. On the deaths of Earl Siward of Northumbria (1055) and later Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia (1062), the children of Godwin were poised to take near-total overlordship of England, under the king. Tostig was helped into the earldom of Northumbria, approximating to England's northern third. The Mercian earl for the central third of England was then sidelined, especially after Harold and Tostig broke the Welsh-Mercian alliance in 1063. Harold later succeeded Edward the Confessor and became King of England in his own right in 1066. At this point, both Harold's remaining brothers in England were among his nominally loyal earls, Wessex vested in the King directly, and he had married the sister of Earl E(a)dwin(e) of Mercia and of Morcar, Earl of Northumbria (who had replaced Tostig). Thus this "House of Godwin" looked set to found a multi-generational royal dynasty, but instead Harold was overthrown and killed in the Norman Conquest. Family Children Sweyn Godwinson, Earl of Herefordshire (c. 1020 – 29 September 1052) Harold II of England (c. 1022 – 14 October 1066) Edith of Wessex, (c. 1025 – 18 December 1075), queen consort of Edward the Confessor Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria (c. 1026 – 25 September 1066) Gyrth Godwinson, Earl of East Anglia (c. 1032 – 14 October 1066) Leofwine Godwinson, Earl of Kent (c. 1035 – 14 October 1066) Wulfnoth Godwinson (c. 1040 – died after 1087) Alfgar, possibly a monk in Rheims Edgiva Elgiva (died c. 1066) Gunhilda, a nun (died 24 August 1087) Family tree See also Ancestry of the Godwins