The focus of this episode is on the fateful year of 1066. One kind of England was annihilated, and another replaced it.
The devout Edward the Confessor was not a strong ruler, and there was jockeying for power when he died childless. Edward had married the daughter of the ambitious Earl Godwin, Earl of Wessex, but then refused to sleep with her.
After the death of Godwin, his son Harold Godwinson made a power play for the throne. But when Harold went to France, he became the captive of William the Bastard of Normandy. Harold swore some kind of oath to William that is hotly debated. Did Harold swear a sacred oath of fealty to William? It was a moot point to Harold, who had tunnel vision for becoming King of England.
When Edward the Confessor dies, he touches the hand of Harold Godwinson. But there is no consensus that the touch meant that Edward wanted Harold as his successor. In the power struggle that follows, the pope gives his blessing to William of Normandy and not to Harold Godwinson.
Stamford Bridge was one of the bloodiest battles in English history. Harold Godwinson defeats King Harald Hardrada and his own younger brother Tostig Godwinson.
The worn-out English soldiers now must fight William and the Normans, who have landed to the south. The brutality of the battle of Hastings is memorialized in the Bayeux tapestry. William is crowned in a half-empty Winchester Cathedral on Christmas day, 1066.
The orientation of England now changes from facing east toward Scandinavia to facing south toward the European continent. Orderic Vitalis writes that the Conquest was nothing more than a colonization.
The majority of the English nobility perished at Hastings in 1066. Now, two million Saxons are controlled by twenty-five thousand Normans ensconced in their formidable new castles built by William.
The immense Romanesque columns replace the small Saxon chapels. The Domesday Book defines William as an administrator as well as a warrior. Yet an obese William returns to the saddle to fight in France. He dies when his spooked horse bucked and his large gut is thrushed against the saddle. His bloated remains were left to rot in a church floor, while Harold lies in rest at a monastery where the brethren prayed for his soul.
The devout Edward the Confessor was not a strong ruler, and there was jockeying for power when he died childless. Edward had married the daughter of the ambitious Earl Godwin, Earl of Wessex, but then refused to sleep with her.
After the death of Godwin, his son Harold Godwinson made a power play for the throne. But when Harold went to France, he became the captive of William the Bastard of Normandy. Harold swore some kind of oath to William that is hotly debated. Did Harold swear a sacred oath of fealty to William? It was a moot point to Harold, who had tunnel vision for becoming King of England.
When Edward the Confessor dies, he touches the hand of Harold Godwinson. But there is no consensus that the touch meant that Edward wanted Harold as his successor. In the power struggle that follows, the pope gives his blessing to William of Normandy and not to Harold Godwinson.
Stamford Bridge was one of the bloodiest battles in English history. Harold Godwinson defeats King Harald Hardrada and his own younger brother Tostig Godwinson.
The worn-out English soldiers now must fight William and the Normans, who have landed to the south. The brutality of the battle of Hastings is memorialized in the Bayeux tapestry. William is crowned in a half-empty Winchester Cathedral on Christmas day, 1066.
The orientation of England now changes from facing east toward Scandinavia to facing south toward the European continent. Orderic Vitalis writes that the Conquest was nothing more than a colonization.
The majority of the English nobility perished at Hastings in 1066. Now, two million Saxons are controlled by twenty-five thousand Normans ensconced in their formidable new castles built by William.
The immense Romanesque columns replace the small Saxon chapels. The Domesday Book defines William as an administrator as well as a warrior. Yet an obese William returns to the saddle to fight in France. He dies when his spooked horse bucked and his large gut is thrushed against the saddle. His bloated remains were left to rot in a church floor, while Harold lies in rest at a monastery where the brethren prayed for his soul.
