William I

As told by one medieval chronicler, Britain’s past and future had been prophesied by Merlin, who foresaw its rise, fall and conquest. Did the magician have warnings for the present?

Victory at the Battle of Hastings did not guarantee William control of England. The rebellious North had to be brought into line, which it was, ruthlessly, in the winter of 1069. 

Unpicking a tangle of history, myth and misunderstanding reveals why, for so long, we believed King Harold was shot through the eye at the Battle of Hastings.

In the popular imagination, William the Conqueror is, without doubt, the villain, yet the sources we have for his life are ambivalent. Marc Morris revisits the evidence to show the man behind the mythology: neither good nor bad, but complex and human.

George Molyneaux explores how the realm of the English, conquered in 1066, was formed. 

Arthur Bryant continues his series on the historical development of the country at the United Kingdom's heart.

J.L. Laynesmith unravels one of the mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry.

What did it mean to be an earl, and where did the title come from? Marc Morris looks at the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet kings and their earls.

David Crouch reconsiders William I and his sons as men of genuine piety – as well as soldiers.

Anglo-Saxon art gave way to Romanesque under the Conqueror and his successors, but the change was more gradual and less one-sided than the political changes might lead us to suppose.