Harold Harefoot or Harold I (c. 1015 – 17 March 1040) was King of England from 1035 to 1040. His cognomen "Harefoot" referred to his speed, and the skill of his huntsmanship. He was the son of Cnut the Great, king of England, Denmark, and Norway by Ælfgifu of Northampton. Though there was some scepticism that he was really Cnut's son, this was probably just propaganda by those who opposed his kingship.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Harold said that he was a son of Cnut the Great and Ælfgifu of Northampton, "although it was not true". Florence of Worcester (12th century) elaborates on the subject. Claiming that Ælfgifu wanted to have a son by the king but was unable to. So she secretly adopted the newborn children of strangers and pretended to have given birth to them. Harold was reportedly the son of a cobbler, while his brother Svein Knutsson was the illegitimate son of a priest. She deceived Cnut into recognizing both children as his own. Harriet O'Brien doubts that Cnud, the shrewd politician who "masterminded the bloodless takeover of Norway" could have been deceived in such a way. She suspects that the tale started out as a popular myth , or intentional defamation. Presumably tailored by Emma of Normandy, the other wife of Cnud and rival to Ælfgifu.

Edward the Confessor, (Old English: Ēadƿeard se Andettere; French: Édouard le Confesseur; 1003–05 to 4 or 5 January 1066), son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066.

He has traditionally been seen as unworldly and pious, and his reign as notable for the disintegration of royal power in England and the advance in power of the Godwin family. His biographers, Frank Barlow and Peter Rex, dispute this, picturing him as a successful king, who was energetic, resourceful and sometimes ruthless, but whose reputation has been unfairly tarnished by the Norman conquest shortly after his death. Other historians regard this picture as only partly true, and not at all in the later part of his reign. In the view of Richard Mortimer, the return of the Godwins from exile in 1052 "meant the effective end of his exercise of power". The difference in his level of activity from the earlier part of his reign "implies a withdrawal from affairs".

Cnut the Great (Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki;c. 985 or 995 – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F. Cantor has made the paradoxical statement that he was "the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history".

Cnut was of Danish and Slavic descent. His father was Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark (which gave Cnut the patronym Sweynsson, Old Norse Sveinsson). Cnut's mother was the daughter of the first duke of the Polans, Mieszko I; her name may have been Świętosława (see: Sigrid Storråda), but the Oxford DNB article on Cnut states that her name is unknown.

As a prince of Denmark, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut held this power-base together by uniting Danes and Englishmen under cultural bonds of wealth and custom, rather than sheer brutality. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut. He had coins struck which called him king there, but there is no narrative record of his occupation.