William I (Penguin Monarchs) by Marc Morris

William I (Penguin Monarchs) by Marc Morris

On Christmas Day 1066, William duke of Normandy was crowned in Westminster, the first Norman king of England. The ceremony was a disaster: Norman soldiers, mishearing English shouts of acclamation as treachery, torched and looted the surrounding buildings. At the very moment God had been called upon to bless William's rule, all around were scenes of chaos and destruction. To chroniclers who wrote with the benefit of hindsight, it was an omen of the catastrophes to come. During the reign of William the Conqueror, England experienced greater and more seismic change than at any point before or since. The old ruling elites of England were swept away, while rebellion was met with overwhelming force, laying waste huge swathes of the country. Society was reordered, hundreds of castles constructed across the kingdom and every major abbey and cathedral torn down and rebuilt. The map of England itself was redrawn, giving greater power than ever before to the king. Towards the end of his reign, when William attempted to assess the scale of this transformation by launching a great survey, his subjects compared it to the last judgement of God: the Domesday Book.

A historian of the middle ages, Marc Morris's acclaimed books include King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta and The Norman Conquest. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes for, among others, History Today and BBC History Magazine, and appears regularly on radio and television.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780141987460
ISBN 10	0141987464
Title	William I (Penguin Monarchs)
Author	Marc Morris
Series	Penguin Monarchs
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	2018-06-28
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.