This is the British Commonwealth War Cemetery at Bayeux in Normandy,
where are buried 4,OOO men
who fell during the D-day landings.
Over the memorial archway are inscribed the Latin words which mean
''We, conquered by William,
''have liberated the conqueror's native land.''
At first sight, it's extraordinary
that the memory of William and his conquest
still lingers after 900 years.
But it does so for good reason,
because the Norman Conquest
was a defining - arguably the defining - event in English history.
'William and his descendants were foreigners who ruled England
'in a radically different way from previously.
'Eventually, that way proved not to work.
'But it's left its mark on us right up to the present.'
How we talk and how we are ruled
what we believe and what we are
were all reshaped by that man and those events
almost a millennium ago.
'ln the early winter of 1066,
'William, Duke of Normandy,
'rode with his army in triumph to London.
'He had just pulled off the biggest gamble of his career.
'But he'd always been a chancer.
'He'd had to be, as he'd been born
'the obscure bastard of an upstarrt dynasty, son of a tanner's daughter.
'But his boldness and superlative generalship
'had won him a dukedom and now a kingdom.
'The Napoleon of Normandy had come into his own.
'But what was it about England
'that had driven William to risk everyything - his career, even his life?'
The Normans held the English throne in awe because of its age.
Norman power was barely 100 years old.
But in England there was a continuous line of descent
stretching back over 300 years,
to Alfred and beyond.
'For William and his house had ideas above their station
'as this vast and pompous abbey at Jumièges suggests.
'Like rulers throughout Western Europe,
'the Normans had enlisted the powers of the Church to bolster their own.
'This alone made the great Christianised monarchy
'of Anglo-Saxon England attractive.
'William also looked with envy across the Channel
'to the richest, the most stable and best-administered country in Europe.'
When, therefore, in 1051
the childless Edward the Confessor
promised to make William his heir in England,
it offered the Norman duke the prospect of a quantum leap in power.
'As a cousin of Edward's William had a genuine family c! laim
'to the Anglo-Saxon succession.
'But then, in 1066, the dying King Edward apparently changed his mind
'and offered the crown to Harold
'who, although the senior Anglo-Saxon earl,
'had no direct blood ties to the throne.'
William found the idea intolerable and illegal.
There was only one thing to do -
he would invade England and seize the throne by force.
(Men yelling)
'The Battle of Hastings was hard fought
'and several times the Normans came close to losing.
'The English held the upper hand,
'but all that changed when Harold and his closest followers
'the elite of Anglo-Saxon England, were killed.
'But in England, power was not just held by an aristocratic elite.
'William had disposed of his rival king
'but could he win over the kingdom?
'To do it, he had no more than 7,OOO Norman soldiers
'against two million Anglo-Saxons.
'His chosen method was typical of the man.
'He would terrorise the population into submission.
'William advanced towards London
'taking a circular route to the south and west of the city.
'His men burnt destroyed and slaug!htered
'everyything and everyone in their path.
'The Norman army sliced through southern England
'and left a devastated ring of fire in its wake.
'William's message to the English could hardly have been clearer -
'submit or die.'
Within weeks, William's victory was complete.
The Witan, the council of Anglo-Saxon nobles, accepted him as king,
and on Christmas Day 1066,
William was crowned king
here in Westminster Abbey.
William's choice of Westminster
and the rituals of the coronation service were highly significant.
William was determined to demonstrate both the legality of his kingship
and that he was the true heir of the Anglo-Saxon royal line.
So his coronation took place here,
in the church rebuilt by Edward the Confessor,
the Anglo-Saxon royal saint.
And he was crowned with Edward's own crown
and he used the Anglo-Saxon coronation ritual.
But there was one, final culminating symbol.
For William insisted that he should be crowned
in front of the very tomb of Edward the Confessor.
'William was now more than just another duke.
'As the anointed king of England,
'he had entered an entirely different league.
'lnternationally, he was one of the three most powerful rulers in Europe,
'whilst in England, this was the starrt of a new Norman dynasty
'that would rule for the next 88 years.
'Three more Norman kings would be crowned
'and each, like William, would lay claim to the Anglo-Saxon inheritance.
'But could William build on
'the achievements of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors
'to make the English monarchy
'once more the most effective in the Christian world?'
The signs are that William began by making a serious attempt
at winning over the surviving Anglo-Saxon earls.
They were not killed or mutilated in the wake of the Battle of Hastings
as had regularly happened during the Anglo-Saxons' succession struggles.
lnstead, providing they were prepared to submit and to swear allegiance,
William was happy to pardon them and to use them.
'But, once the initial shock of Hastings was over,
'most of the Saxon earls weren't interested in collaborating.
'lnstead, they fled, rebelled or went underground.
'Their lands were confiscated and given to William's Norman followers.
'The barons spoke French
'and brought French attitudes to their regional power,
'which they saw as theirs by right, rather than held at the king's gift.
'They also had new, French ways
'of controlling the English population - the castle.
'Hundreds of castles were thrown up across the country,
'using the local population as forced labour.
'The English had seen nothing like them,
'for the English burhs, or forrtified towns,
'were designed to protect the people,
'but the Norman castles were there to intimidate.
'The early castles were made of wood, not stone
'and could be built in days.
'The Normans would choose a site
'often in the middle of a town.
'They raised a huge mound of earrth - this one at Thetford is 80 feet high -
'and then built the castle on top.'
With their rough, uncut wood
and raw earrth hacked out of a devastated landscape,
each was the symbol of a profoundly alien, military occupation.
'But, despite the castles
'and the presence of Norman soldiers in almost every town,
'Anglo-Saxon resistance was growing.
'William was to find that England would not be defeated so easily.
'William the Conqueror had captured the country
'but he had not yet subdued its people.
'lnstead, in 1069 the townspeople of Durha'm rose up
'and slaughtered a Norman garrison of 700 men.
'The revolt spread swiftly across the norrth of England,
'encouraged by Danish forces, who had landed in the east.
'William's response was typically ruthless.
'He marched his army to York,
'drove off the Danes
'and then perpetrated the most infamous event of his reign -
'the Harrying of the Norrth.
'Over a huge area, from York up to Durham and across to Chester,
'his men destroyed villages, burnt crops and food stores
'and killed every person and animal they could find.
'Foreign enemies had behaved like this, but never an English king.
'The scale and savagery of the Harrying of the Norrth
'shocked an often unshockable age.
'Contemporary estimates of the number of victims -
'those who were murdered, starved or subsequently died of the plague -
'total 100,OOO.'
Such figures aren't necessarily reliable,
but here, in the Domesday Book - William's own meticulous tax survey -
there's incontroverrtible evidence of the extent of the disaster.
For, from York to Durham it notes, 18 years after the eve! nt,
dozens upon dozens of villages
where the land is largely waste - wasta -
and which are worrth only a fraction of their pre-Conquest value.
As well as the human suffering,
the Harrying put back the economy of the Norrth by decades.
(#music# Man singing lament in Latin)
'The commentators of the time were appalled.
'Even the 11th-century c,hronicler, Orderic Vitalis
'an Anglo-Norman, and usually a parrtisan of the king, wrote,
'''Never did William commit so much cruelty.
'''To his lasting disgrace, he yielded to his worst impulse
'''and set no bounds to his fury,
'''condemning the innocent and the guilty to a common fate.
'''l asserrt that such barbarous homicide should not pass unpunished.''
'The Harrying of the Norrth was not mere revenge or ethnic cleansing,
'but a deliberate policy of terror.'
The Anglo-Saxons of other regions might be tempted to rebel -
they would share the same terrible fate as the Norrth.
But despite the threat, there were still some Anglo-Saxons
who would not submit to the Norman yoke.
Resistance was not yet over.
'And from this struggle came leaders
'whose exploits are still remembered today.
'Hereward the Wake, lionised by the Victorians as an Anglo-Saxon hero,
'was an English landowner who ran a guerilla campaign against the Normans
'in the fenlands of East Anglia.'
'lt took William two years to put down this rebellion
'and he never caught Hereward, thus a legend was born.'
(Bell chiming)
'ln 1075, William was faced with yet another revolt,
'as a formidable coalition
'of Danes and Anglo-Saxon and disaffected Norman nobles
'plotted to overrthrow the king.
'Among the conspirators was a trusted Anglo-Saxon earl,
'Waltheof of Bamburgh.
'Waltheof had been one of the very few Saxon nobles
'who'd tried to work with William.
'William was so incensed at his betrayal
that Waltheof became the only Anglo-Saxon nobleman
'to be executed by the Normans.
'William had him beheaded for treason
'outside the walls of Winchester castle.
(Birds cawing)
Waltheof became an instant folk hero.
He was even revered unofficially, as a saint!.
For Waltheof was a highly symbolic figure.
With his death, the last of the great Anglo-Saxon earls had gone.
But from William's point of view, his execution had done its work.
After 1075
there was no furrther, serious Anglo-Saxon resistance in England.
'William could now turn his attention to governing the country
'rather than to subduing it.
'The Domesday Book tells us much about the scale of his ambitions.
'Using the sophisticated system of local government
'created by the Anglo-Saxons,
'William carried out the first-ever audit of land ownership in England,
'right down to the last cow and pig.
'Here was an English king whose aim was not simply to list
'but to exploit the entire wealth of his nation.
'As a devout Christian William was aware
'of the power of the Church over a population of simple believers.
'So he made sure that the Church was run by Normans for Normans
'and ordered a huge programme of church-building,
'including spectacular new cathedrals.'
This is Ely, one of the most splendid of the Norman cathedrals.
We think of it as a noble monume, nt to God and the Christian faith
but there's much more to it than that.
For Ely, then an island in the middle of the marshy fens,
was one of the last centres of resistance to the Normans
under Hereward the Wake.
But within ten years of Hereward's final defeat
and disappearance into legend,
there was a Norman abbot in Ely
and the building of this vast cathedral had begun,
whose massive walls seem to crush out even the memory of revolt.
So Norman cathedrals are like Norman castles -
at once, centres of Norman administration
adverrtisements for a new, Norman way of life
and monuments to the permanence of Norman power.
And above all they were visible p!roof
that God was on King William's side.
(Metal clinking)
'Of course, control of the Church meant control of its vast wealth.
'The fact that England was so rich
'had always been a factor in William's decision to invade.
'But what had attracted the Normans also drew other eyes.
'ln 1085, William learned
'that the Danes and their allies were once again scheming invasion.
'So, next year, he brought over a great force of French mercenaries.
'But he also had to take political steps to head off trouble at home.'
He summoned a meeting of the great council
here, to Old Sarum, the original site of the city of Salisbury.
Every substantial landowner in the kingdom - William's own barons -
was required to attend and swear an oath of allegiance to King William.
No Anglo-Saxon king had ever needed to do such a thing
and the fact that William had
showed that though he was a strong king,
he had created a form of kingship that was inherently weak
and depended to a dangerous extent on his own force of character.
Neverrtheless, the oath of Salisbury worked.
The planned invasion was called off
and William's regime was secured once more.
'Less than a year later, William was dead -
'fatally injured in a riding accident.
'He may have been born a chancer, but he died a king.
'As a king, he'd preserved the unity of England
'and the strength of the English monarchy
'but at a terrible cost
'to his people and, finally, to his own conscience.'
William was buried here at Caen Abbey in Normand!y.
For though becoming king of England was William's greatest achievement,
he'd remained a Norman to the last.
He's the first king of England to be buried abroad.
There was a final macabre postscript to Will'iam's life.
ln his later years, he'd become very fat.
But his sarcophagus had been made too small
so when the body was lowered into it,
some force was necessary to fit it in.
The result was described by the monk Orderic.
William's swollen bowels burst
and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the bystanders.
Despite the clouds of fragrant incense,
the funeral service had to be rushed to a conclusion.
'For all his achievements William's violent rule
'also left a stench in the nostrils of his people.
'What kind of legacy was this for his successor?
'And who would his successor be?
'For the Normans had no strict rules of royal inheritance.
'lnstead, it was left to the dying king to make his wishes known.
'Normandy, William decided, should go to his eldest son
'and England to his second born.
'So, at the age of 29,
'William Rufus became the second Norman king of England.
'Like his father, the Conqueror, William Rufus was a skilled soldier
'and a natural leader of men.
'He was determined to enforce his authority on the whole country.
'He was, if anyything, even more avaricious.
He'd need to be because in everyything'he did,
his ambitions were on the grandest scale.
Hence the fact that he built this the Great Hall at Westminster.
lt's as big as a cathedral.
When it was built, it was the largest secular space norrth of the Alps.
lt was the setting for feasts and enterrtainments
and, above all, for the crown-wearings,
which took place in Westminster every Whitsuntide.
The king sat here...
in the middle of the dais
crowned, robed and enthroned
whilst the choir sang his praises in Latin,
hailing him like a Roman emperor
and wishing him ''vita et victoria'' -
long life and victory.
(#music# Choir singing laudatory song)
(Jangling)
King William Rufus was always Iooking for new ways
to extract money from England.
When he couldn't get it from the Norman barons
or Anglo-Saxon townsfolk,
he wrung it from the Church instead.
He taxed the monasteries hard.
When bishops or archbishops died, he often refused to appoint a successor,
keeping instead the revenues for himself.
But William didn't on,ly plunder the Church
he was actively irreligious.
He never married or fathered children.
lnstead, he had male favourites and was almost cerrtainly homosexual.
This unchristian life, in turn Ied churchmen to loathe him!.
All this meant that William Rufus was a very different kind of ruler
from his famously pious Norman ancestors.
And he was even more remote
from the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Christian monarchy
of Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor.
'England, it seemed, had exchanged the iron rule of the Conqueror
'for the dangerous whims of a capricious and degenerate tyrant.
'William the Conqueror had been the most resolute of men
'and his son William Rufus inherited his father's steely resolve.
'But too often, it expressed itself merely as a whim of iron.
'Take the Forest Law.
'The Conqueror had ridden roughshod over English custom
'by inventing this law which gave him hunting rights
'over huge areas of countryside.
'William Rufus took over this arbitrary law
'and made it even harsher.
This is the New Forest.
Or rather, it's a tiny porrtion of the vast forest
that once covered most of Hampshire.
To make it, William the Conqueror expelled over 500 families
and seized 90,OOO acres.
And William Rufus added 20,OOO more.
The New Forest was only one of many.
At their maximum extent towards the end of the 13th ce'ntury,
the forest covered one third of the area of England,
all of which was subject to the special, oppressive system of law
known as Forest Law.
'William Rufus increased the penalties for breaking Forest Law
'to barbarous levels.
'Killing a deer was punishable by death.
'lf you were caught shooting at one, your hands were cut off
'and the punishment for simply disturbing a deer was blinding.'
The laws were hated
parrtly because they were savage and punished poaching with mutilation,
but above all because they were perceived as arbitrary
and as being the product merely of the king's will
and only serving his pleasure.
ln other words, they were un-English
and they were the most vivid reminder
of the fact that England was a conquered country
with an alien ruler with alien values.
lf the Normans were serious about trying to win English hearrts and minds,
as they sometimes claimed to be,
then the Forest Laws were the wrong way to go about it.
'After only 13 years, Rufus's end was ironic.
'For the hunter became the hunted.
'ln the August of 1100, he was out hunting in the New Forest
'with a parrty that included his younger brother, Henry.
'A huntsman fired an arrow
'that hit William in the chest. He died on the spot.
'No one knows whether it was an accident or murder.
'Henry and the other nobles fled
'and it was left to the king's servants
'to bundle his body unceremoniously out of the forest.'
William Rufus always got a bad press from contemporary writers,
especially after he was safely dead.
The Anglo-Saxon Ch, ronicle, for instance
delivered the damning verdict -
he was hateful to almost all his people and odious to God.
But its authors would say that,
because they were monks who detested his irreligion, his homosexuality
and his plundering of the wealth of the Church.
'ln fact, William Rufus was a highly competent king,
'who maintained the unity and the stability
'of the kingdom that he'd inherited.'
But he added nothing more,
with the result that even after three decades of Norman rule
the English felt no ownership in their king
and had no investment in him.
'But this would begin to change.
'Within hours of Rufus's death his brother Henry rushed to Winche!ster,
'seized the royal crown from the treasury and rode off to London.
'There's no proof that Henry was implicated in his brother's death,
'but he cerrtainly wasted no time in mourning him
'before declaring himself the next king of England.
'Henry's claim to the crown was dubious.
'Rufus had not named him as his heir
'and their elder brother Roberrt
'was still alive and ruling as Duke of Normandy.
'ln the circumstances, Henry needed all the supporrt he could get
'and he turned, dramatically,
'to the hitherrto despised English people.'
Kings traditionally swore an oath at their coronation
in which they promised to rule justly and well.
But Henry's coronation charrter,
of which this is the slightly later official government copy, was different.
lt was written down, it was widely circulated throughout the kingdom
and the promises were more far-reaching.
Above all, it announced Henry's determination
to carry out a legal counter-revolution
and bring back the laws of Edward the Confessor.
ln other words, he would rule in the traditional way,
with consent like an Anglo-Saxon' king,
and not with force and extorrtion like a Norman.
'Henry openly acknowledged the tyranny of his brother and father
'by vowing to, ''take away all the bad customs
'''by which the kingdom of England was unjustly oppressed.''
'The imporrtance of the charrter wasn't lost on later generations.
'lt was copied almost eKactly in Magna Carrta
'and it was used by all the kings in-between.'
But the charrter was only one of Henry's attempts
at reconnecting his rule with the Anglo-Saxon past.
He married a Scottish princess
who was descended directly from King Alfred the Great
and he gave his only son and heir a double name.
The boy was christened William, after the Norman conqueror,
and Aetheling, an Anglo-Saxon name meaning ''kingworrthy''.
There could have been no clearer demonstration
of Henry's determination to found a new, genuinely Anglo-Norman dynasty.
'And an Anglo-Norman England was slowly beginning to emerge.
'The ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
'of Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia and Norrthumbria were gone,
'as were the earls who'd ruled them.
'ln their place were the Norman barons.
'The barons spoke French,
'but they increasingly claimed the rights of their English predecessors.
'Many Normans took Saxon wives
'and their children and grandchildren
'began to think of themselves as as much English as Norman.
'Alongside this fusion of cultures, a new social class was emerging,
'a class that would dominate our history for the next 1,OOO years.'
(Whinnying)
'By the time of King Henry, England was a heavily militarised society
'in which all landowners were expected to provide troops
'either to their superior lord or directly to the king himself.
'The most imporrtant troops were called knights -
'that is, heavily armed soldiers on horseback.'
These too were a Norman innovation
as the Anglo-Saxons had ridden to battle but fought on foot.
But the imporrtance of knights went beyond the purely military
because knights were a social as well as a military elite
and they gave their name
to a new code of values and behaviour called chivalry.
'The key idea of chivalry
'was that, instead of killing your defeated enemies,
'you captured them and treated them honourably -
'if they were of the right social class -
'for chivalry was a purely class code.
'This, too, was a new idea
'because the Anglo-Saxons
'had usually killed their defeated enemies, whatever their rank.
'Chivalry was the apex of this new, Anglo-Norman culture.
'But its foundation was the bedrock
'of the old, Anglo-Saxon state, the coinage.
'England's stable currency had been the envy of Europe for three centuries
'but it was now under insidious attack.
'ln 1124, Henry's soldiers began complaining
'that their wages were being paid
'in coins which were Iess silver than cheap tin.
'The result was what we're all familiar with - galloping inflation.
'As the Anglo-Saxon, Chronicle recorded
'the man who had got a pound
'could not get the value of a penny for it in the market.
'Henry took decisive action, which the modern Treasury could only envy.
'There were 150 men who made all the money in England.
'Henry had every one arrested and sent for trial at Winchester.
'94 of them were found guilty of debasement of the coinage.'
(Clinking)
'The punishment for what we would regard as a white-collar crime
'was barbaric.
'First, each one of the guilty men
'had his right hand cut off.
'Then he was castrated.'
The vast majority of the moneyers weren't Norman.
They were Englishmen of high rank.
Even so, there was no popular protest.
'Here at last was something which united everybody.'
From the Norman king to the lowliest Anglo-Saxon peasant,
everybody was agreed that the value of the coinage,
that great achievement of Anglo-Saxon England,
must be protected at any cost.
'But the king was about to lose
'something more precious even than his coinage.
This is the harbour at Barfleur in Normandy.
Here, William the Conqueror's own ships were built
and here, on 25th November 112O
King Henry and his courrt were about to return to England
after one of the king's many visits to Normandy.
Then as now, members of the royal family travelled separately
and Henry's heir, William Aethe, ling, with his suite of over 30O
including many of the cream of the young Norman nobility,
were to sail in the White Ship.
There was a parrty atmosphere.
William had bought several casks of wine
and everybody, including members of the crew, had drunk heavily.
They set sail in the evenin, g but, within half an hour
disaster struck when the drunken pilot steered the ship
onto a jagged rock that layjust beneath the surface at high tide.
'A great gash was torn in the side of the ship
'and it sank within minutes.'
'William's bodyguard managed to get his young master onto the only boat
'and began to row him to safety.
'But the young prince insisted on going back to rescue his sister.
'The little boat was overrwhelmed as men scrambled to get on board
'and William and everybody else, bar a single survivor, was drowned.
lt was, as they say, a moment that changed history.
'For weeks afterrwards, bodies were washed up along the Normandy shore,
'but the majority, including William Aetheling's, were never found.
'Henry was devastated.
'lt was said he never smiled again.
'This was a personal tragedy
'that would, in time tear the Norman dynasty!aparrt.'
'For the rest of his reign,
'Henry wrestled with the problem of the succession.'
At first sight, there seemed no shorrtage of possible heirs.
Henry had been an inveterate womaniser
and had fathered a score of bastards.
But none of the bastards carried the Anglo-Saxon royal blood
of the dead prince, William Aetheling.
Nor did another possible candidate, Henry's nephew, Stephen.
Stephen was a tried and tested warrior
and he was popular with the Church and much of the baronage.
'But Henry rejected Stephen as well.
'lnstead, he decided that his heir should be his daughter, Matilda,
'named after her mo,ther Queen Matilda
'and carrying also her mother's Anglo-Saxon royal blood.
'ln 1127, Henry summoned a meeting of the baronage, including Stephen,
'and required them all to swear an oath of allegiance to Matilda
'and to recognise her as the future monarch of England.
'For Henry, this settled the matter.'
For everybody else, it raised the fundamental question
of female succession
and whether or not a woman should or could rule in a warrior age.
'lf any woman could pull off that challenge, it was Matilda.
'She was an indomitable character a woman who rode astride like a ma!n
'and who led her army into battle.
'She also had powerful allies, as her husband was the count of Anjou.
'But the Angevins were the traditional rivals of the Normans
'so, if Matilda became queen,
'the English crown would pass, many Anglo-Norman barons feared,
'out of Norman control and into the hands of their archenemies
'and that they were determined to stop.'
Matters came to a head in the autumn of 1135.
Henry was a on a visit to Normandy here, when he suddenly fell ill.
Within a week, he was dead.
At his request, his embalmed body was taken for burial
at Reading Abbey in the England that he'd made his own.
But already, everybody had forgotten the oath of 1127.
lnstead, Stephen moved decisively
to seize the throne and get himself crowned and acclaimed by the English.
'Stephen was popular at first,
'although he lacked the ruthless touch of his predecessors.
'But within a year or two he had lost control over the barons.
'They began ignoring his commands
'and some of them tried to carve out petty kingdoms for themselves,
'just like their cousins in Normandy.
'lf they succeeded, it would be the death of England.
'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described the situation.
'''ln the days of this king,
'''there was nothing but strife, evil and robbery.
'''For quickly, the great men who were traitors rose against him.
'''When the traitors saw that Stephen was a good-humoured, kindly man
'''who inflicted no punishment,
'''then they committed all manner of horrible crimes.'''
lt's a sign of Stephen's Iack of control over the barons
that some of them starrt to mint their own coins
in the centres of their regional power, just as in Normandy.
This, for instance, is a penny
minted by Henry, Earl of Norrthumberland, at York.
This is another, minted by Roberrt of Gloucester, at Bristol.
lt's the first and the last time
aparrt from the Civil War of the 17th century,
that an English king Ioses control of the coinage.
But meanwhile, in Normandy,
a more direct threat to Stephen's authority was brewing.
Matilda maintained her claim to the throne
and she was gathering allies.
And on 30th September 1139,
she landed on the Sussex coast with a large army,
supporrted by Roberrt of Gloucester
and demanding to be recognised as queen.
Norman England's first civil war was about to begin.
(Men yelling)
'ln petty skirmishes and long sieges,
'the armies of Stephen and Matilda
'fought it out across the length and breadth of England.
'The rules of chivalry only prolonged the conflict.
'When Stephen captured Matilda
'he dutifully released her, even granting her safe conduct.
'Matilda then took control of most of the west of England,
'with Stephen holding the eastern parrt of the country.
'The fate of England now lay in the hands of two French cousins
'fighting each other for the Crown.'
On 2nd February 1141,
the most dramatic incident of the civil wars
took place here, at Lincoln.
King Stephen and his army were here in the city, high on its hill.
Whilst below, on the plain, were Matilda's troops.
'lt was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Candlemas.
'King Stephen carried the customary candle to Mass,
'held in the cathedral.
'But, as the candle was being lit, it broke aparrt in his hands.
'Despite the ill omen, Stephen persisted with his determination
'to give battle to the enemy
'in the hope of striking a knockout blow.
'But his army was heavily outnumbered and most of his troops fled,
'leaving the king and his bodyguard,
'who dismounted to fend for themselves.
As usual, Stephen fought valiantly and killed several opponents,
but he was felled, igno,miniously, with a stone
and taken in triumph to Matilda's capital at Bristol.
And there, as a final indignity,
he was imprisoned in chains.
'With Stephen out of the way, Matilda declared herself queen.
'But when she went to London to be crowned
'there was an uprising against her
'and she was chased out of the city.
'For the first time since the Conquest,
'the people had some say in who would rule over England.
(Men shouting)
'The tide was turning against Matilda.
'She was forced to release Stephen
'when her greatest ally, Roberrt of Gloucester, was captured.
'Stephen was back on the throne.
'But even that didn't end the war.
'For the next seven years, Matilda refused to give up,
'urging her army on in a conflict that was exhausting the energy
'and the resources of both sides.
'Finally, in 1148,
'Matilda accepted that she would never be queen
'and returned to France.
'Stephen had won, but England had paid a high price.
'Stephen, the last of the Norman kings,
'died six years later, in 1154,
'having settled with Matilda's son, Henry,
'that Henry would inherit the throne.
'So the English crown went to Matilda's heirs after all
'beginning a new dynasty
'that was to rule in England for more than 300 years.'
This is Faversham in Kent.
l'm walking across what was once the site of Faversham Abbey.
Here Stephen's wife, Queen Matil,da, his eldest son, Count Eustace
and the king himself, were buried in the magnificent abbey church
which Stephen had constructed.
But 400 years later,
Faversham, like the rest of the abbeys, was dissolved.
The abbey was demolished and scarcely a trace of it remains.
And there's no sign either
of the royal tomb of the last Norman king of England.
The key to English politics has been
a combination of strong government with government by consent.
The latter was the great achievement of Anglo-Saxon England,
which the Normans were wise enough to keep.
But the Norman kings themselves,
with their castles, their knig,hts, their administrative flair
and above all, their indomitable wills
made the monarchy infinitely stronger.
Their cathedrals and abbeys made England more beautiful
and their language, their courrtesy and their chivalry
made it more civilised.
They also, on the debit side,
made it infinitely more class ridden.
But still, there are worse legacies
of conquest and colonisation.