William The Conqueror (Medieval Kings, #1) / Medieval Kings (ePub)

Thursday 28th September 1066 is probably a typical early autumn morning with a pleasant day to look forward to but for the people in part of the earldom of Wessex, hell is about to descend. Around 9am, a Norman duke disembarks his army on the beach. The local population must wonder what is happening. England is not at war, the Fyrd has not been raised, no beacons are lit, so who are these people and what do they want?

One person who is sure what he wants is their leader, Duke William of Normandy. What he wants is the English crown denied to him by the usurper King Harold Godwine. William is certain that the recently deceased King Edward of England promised him the succession and on this autumn morning he has arrived to claim it. So starts the cataclysmic events of 1066 where the future of England and France have their history changed forever. The Saxon rule of England is eradicated in a blitzkrieg operation and just 14 weeks later, on Christmas Day, William of Normandy is crowned "King of the English" at Westminster Abbey by an English archbishop.

With this coronation, the Normans formally arrive and unlike previous "visitors" (Romans, Danes etc) they are here to stay and their impact on society is permanent. For your average English serf, not much immediately changes- same status, different boss and certainly, at first this is probably the case. However, within a generation, most things Anglo-Saxon have been swept away.

What follows is the story of how this happened. The format is a timeline of the key events. No complicated arguments or elaborate theorising, just a straightforward, but detailed, blow by blow account told in date order.