Norman Life
Gyrth, the son of Earl Godwin of Wessex, and the brother of Swegen, Tostig and Harold, was born in about 1030.
In 1051 a group of Normans became involved in a brawl at Dover and several men were killed. Edward the Confessor ordered Godwin, as earl of Wessex, to punish the people living in the town for this attack on his Norman friends. Godwin refused and instead raised an army against the king. Godwin marched on Gloucester but a war was averted when it was agreed that the Witan would sort out the dispute.
The earls of Mercia and Northumbria remained loyal to the king and the Witan eventually declared that Godwin and his sons had five days to leave England. Godwin and his sons, Gyrth and Tostig joined Swegen in Flanders.
Over the next year Edward the Confessor increased the number of Norman advisers in England. This upset the Anglo-Saxons and when Godwin and a large army commandeered by his sons, Gyrth, Harold and Tostig, landed in the south of England in 1052, Edward was unable to raise significant forces to stop the invasion. Most of the men in Kent, Surrey and Sussex joined the rebellion.
Godwin's large fleet moved round the coast and recruited men in Hastings, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich. He then sailed up the Thames and soon gained the support of Londoners. Godwin now forced Edward to send his Norman advisers home. Earl Godwin was also given back his family estates and was now the most powerful man in England. Gyrth now became Earl of East Anglia.
Gyrth, who fought at the Stamford Bridge, was killed at the Battle of Hastings.
