During William's eighteen-day siege of Exeter, Harold Godwinson's mother Gytha -- who had taken refuge in the city and whose presence had stiffened local resistance -- escaped by sea before the city capitulated. Her escape to the Scilly Isles and eventually to Flanders meant that the Godwinson family retained a potential focus for continued resistance and that William could not claim the complete elimination of the old royal family's leadership from England.
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