We found Dick, now let's try to find Harry

This scene in the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the death of King Harold II.

Is the Bayeux Tapestry about to unravel?

Every schoolchild knows that King Harold II was felled by an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings.

But the 1000-year legend could be shot down by a new scientific examination which suggests that the last Anglo-Saxon King of England lived to fight another day.

The geological survey company used to find the remains of Richard III is starting a search for the body of King Harold II in the grounds of Waltham Abbey Church in Essex, where the fallen monarch was supposedly given a burial.

The scan, to be performed by the Stratascan team this week, will be filmed for a documentary exploring an alternative theory of Harold's death.

The history books record that Harold was brutally hacked to death by four Norman knights, after being struck by an arrow to his eye. The scenes of Harold gripping the arrow were later depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry.

Archaeologists will explore a claim that the King survived the battle and lived as a hermit until he died of natural causes in his 80s - around 40 years after the battle.

The alternative explanation, contained in a 12th-century document housed in the British Library called Vita Haroldi, is championed by Peter Burke, an amateur historian from Waltham Abbey who has been studying an alternative English version of events for the past five years.

"We have the Norman story put through the Bayeux Tapestry - the English story is a different one," said Burke, 64. "You put things together and it begins to build a picture that is quite solid. If everything backs you up in history, you should look at it. You shouldn't just leave it," he said.

If the scan does provide evidence, excavation may still be a while off because of the consecrated nature of the site.

Members of the Waltham Abbey Historical Society have said the king's remains are unlikely to be found because the site has been frequently disturbed for building works.

The account by Guy, Bishop of Amiens of the East Sussex battle, which delivered a decisive Norman victory, says Harold was killed by four knights, probably including Duke William II of Normandy, and his body dismembered.

- Independent