At the end of September, 1066 CE, William, Duke of Normandy, took a boat across the English Channel to land on the coast of Sussex. A little more than a fortnight later, he had defeated the English king, and established himself sovereign in a Norman Conquest.
So complete was William’s victory that the very character of English society altered beyond recognition. Language, law and politics knelt to Norman rule. The English nobility fled the country in large numbers, or died during the invasion, and their daughters, sisters, and wives who inherited their estates, married William’s French nobility. Most of the high offices in the land—both the laity and the clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury—went to the French.
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