The Runaway Nun & the Exiled Princess

What happens to the daughters of a king after everything falls apart?

In this episode, we step into the turbulent aftermath of 1066 and follow the extraordinary—and often overlooked—lives of Gunhild of Wessex and Gytha of Wessex, daughters of Harold Godwinson—the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

Their stories are anything but quiet.

One becomes a royal nun… who doesn’t quite stay that way. The other is swept into exile, navigating a world far beyond England’s shores, eventually tied to powerful dynasties abroad. These are women born into privilege, thrust into chaos, and forced to reinvent themselves in the shadow of conquest.

From cloisters to courts, scandal to survival, we uncover how these sisters carved out lives that were anything but ordinary—and why their stories deserve far more attention.

Because history didn’t end for Harold’s daughters at Hastings…
it only got more interesting.

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Website (and books): https://historytheinterestingbits.com/

A Slice of Medieval Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@DerekBirks-t3o (wherever you get podcasts)

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Host: Rebecca Larson

Guest: Sharon Bennett Connolly