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Britain may be an insignificant
little rock in the North Atlantic,

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but for centuries,
the island we call home

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was coveted by foreign powers,

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making fear of invasion
a fact of life.

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From north to south,
east to west,

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2,000 years of threats
have left their mark.

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In this series, we'll seek out
these reminders,

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from weaponry and castles
to warships,

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as we tell the story
of a centuries-long obsession

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with attack from overseas.

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From my headquarters
here at Walmer Castle,

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I'll be exploring
how a thirst for power,

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both here and abroad, led to
some of the most turbulent periods

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in British history...

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Why did Henry VIII find himself

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at loggerheads
with the rest of Europe?

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..and getting my hands on
some truly extraordinary artefacts.

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And this is the original?

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Engineer Professor Danielle George
and historian Dr Onyeka Nubia

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will be travelling the UK
in search of the physical evidence

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that tells of
a centuries-long struggle...

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For me as an engineer,
it's functional.

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It looks like it's built to last.

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..and experiencing how those
foreign threats impacted the lives

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of ordinary people.

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There were people in Britain feeling
that this was going to happen.

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I'm Professor Alice Roberts,

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and this is the story
of Fortress Britain.

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CHURCHILL: To defend our island,
whatever the cost may be.

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1066.

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The date that everyone knows,
the year that William the Conqueror

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invades England, triumphs
at the Battle of Hastings,

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seizes the crown
and establishes the Norman dynasty.

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Simple.

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Popular history has a habit
of boiling things down

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to just a few headlines like this,

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and we lose so much of the story
along the way.

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In fact, securing Norman control

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was a bitter struggle
that lasted years

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and would exact
a heavy human toll.

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This is the real story
of the Norman takeover.

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It's a tale of how fierce invaders
became defenders,

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battling to secure
their new kingdom,

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where determined locals
offered brutal resistance,

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prompting an epic building programme
and a battle for hearts and minds.

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The Normans are saying to the local
people that we are here to stay.

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As with all great stories,
we must start at the beginning.

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Joining me at Walmer Castle
is English Heritage curator

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and medieval expert Roy Porter.

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Roy, it's 1066,
and William the Conqueror,

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who I'm going to say
is this person here, has invaded.

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Now, who were the Normans and why
does he want to invade England?

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OK, well, the Normans
are originally Vikings

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and they have settled in northern
France in the early 10th century.

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By 1066,
they're essentially French -

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they speak French,
they're Christianized,

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but they have a sense of being
set apart from people around them.

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They remember with relish
their legendary history,

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and they regard themselves

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as being people who are skilled
in the arts of war.

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Right. And William believes
he has a rightful claim

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to the Kingdom of England.

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And that's why he goes on
this great enterprise,

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this great gamble of 1066... Yeah.
..and brings

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an invading force across.

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Let's bring his invading force
over.

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Shall we stick them here in...
Is this Normandy?

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That's Normandy.
We need to bring them across.

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I'm struggling a bit
with this map, though,

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so tell me what's going on here.

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I can recognise Britain, I think,
and Ireland here.

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And this is just a small part
of the wider map.

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So tell me about this map.

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OK, so this is a mappa mundi.

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This is a map of
the early 11th century,

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probably based on Roman models.

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And it gives you an impression
of how the world was seen

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by the sort of people
we're talking about today in 1066.

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And you can see that Britain,
the British Isles,

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are on the extreme edge of the map.

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OK. So focusing back
on north-west Europe, then,

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William the Conqueror has decided
he's got a legitimate claim

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to the throne,
brings his army over.

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So let's bring them all over
like that.

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So here he is, then,
he's arrived.

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He's won the Battle of Hastings.

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He's waiting to be crowned
in London.

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But presumably this isn't job done.

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You're absolutely right, Alice.

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I mean, effectively,
he's in the south-east of England.

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He's subjugated that.

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He's won the support of the people
in London.

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But William will know already
that he could be facing threats

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both within England and beyond
the borders of England as well.

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In fact, one of the people
who has accepted William

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is Edgar Aetheling, who is a member
of the English royal family.

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Now, with the benefit of hindsight,
we know that he is going to travel

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to Scotland and cause all sorts
of problems in the north of England.

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We know that over the seas
in Norway and in Denmark

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there are jealous eyes
looking at England and thinking,

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"Well, if William can achieve this,
so can we."

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And not only that, also,
the sons of King Harold

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are travelling to Ireland,

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and just a year later they're going
to be coming back to England

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and causing problems
in the south-west of the country.

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So William has established himself
here,

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but the job is very much not done.

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He has an invading army of around
7,000 to 8,000 people, we think.

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But that's not enough to subjugate
a whole kingdom.

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And in fact, what William does
at the beginning of his reign

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is to promise that he's going to
rule like any other English king,

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that he will obey the laws

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which English kings had observed
in the past.

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It's a really curious
sleight of hand, isn't it,

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to come in as a Norman conqueror,

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put yourself on the throne
and then say,

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"And now I am English."

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That's right. And that is
what William tries to do.

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But of course, what is going
to emerge over the next few years

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is inevitably a great change
of policy, as he's confronted

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by various groups of English people
who don't want him.

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William needed to win over
his new subjects,

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and hoped he could do so
with his coronation.

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And just as significant
as the ceremony itself

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was where it would take place.

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Westminster Abbey.

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Dr Onyeka Nubia
has travelled to London

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to find out more about
this momentous occasion.

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It was here that William
was crowned King of England

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on Christmas Day, 1066.

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But what would happen
outside the Abbey

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would be just as important
as what was going on in there.

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I'm meeting medieval historian
Dr Charlie Rozier,

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who will set the scene
and help me understand

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what happened on that fateful day.

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So, Charlie, what would this area
have been like

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at the time of the Norman Conquest?

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So Westminster Abbey itself
is much smaller,

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not like the later medieval Gothic
building that you can see behind us.

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Outside of the Abbey,
there are monastic buildings.

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And then beyond
the monastic complex,

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you've got a town
feeding into the City of London.

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So you've got shops and houses

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where people are coming and going
and so on.

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It must have seemed strange for
many of the local English people,

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the fact that Harold had been
crowned here the same year, 1066.

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Yeah. And I think
from William's perspective,

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that's key as to why
he wants this coronation

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at Westminster Abbey.
And so Harold being crowned there

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means this is what
English kings now do,

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and William wants to be
the King of England,

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he wants to show his power,
so it's crucial to him -

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you've got to be crowned
in Westminster Abbey

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by a leading member
of the English Church

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if you want to be recognised
as King of England.

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And so who's inside?
Who's at the coronation?

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So we know from Chronicle accounts

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that all of the major abbots
from England are at the coronation.

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All the major bishops from England
are also at the coronation,

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and some bishops from Normandy

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have come over to play their part
as well.

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We're also told that
the Norman nobles are there

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and the Anglo-Saxon nobles
are there.

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And so you could infer that some
of the people who fought each other

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at the Battle of Hastings
a few weeks earlier

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are now being made to come together
and reconcile with each other

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at this act of coronation.

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So it looks like
it's a recipe for disaster.

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Put yourself in the shoes
of those people who are present.

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If you're an English nobleman

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who's likely to lose
some of your land and influence

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under this new Norman King,
the new incoming Norman aristocracy,

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there's possibly a bit of tension
there. Yeah.

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If you're a Norman who's risked
your life at the Battle of Hastings,

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you are very much a numerical
minority in this English kingdom.

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You're perhaps nervous as well.

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So these groups of people have
come together for the coronation.

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How would they communicate?

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Right. Well, that's a really good
question, because you might think

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the English speak English
and the French speak French

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and they can't communicate
with each other.

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Some of the leading
Anglo-Saxon nobles had been

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under heavy Norman influence
for a couple of generations,

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and so it's likely that some of them

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may have been able
to understand French.

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But we can probably infer
that the ceremony itself

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is largely taking place in English
because it's the King of England

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being crowned in England
by English bishops.

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So what happened at the coronation?

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William was crowned by a leading
member of the English Church.

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The English nobles are invited
to proudly acclaim William

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as the new King of England,

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and then the Normans do it
in their language as well.

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And William has placed a guard
outside of Westminster Abbey,

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probably his most loyal
and his hardiest troops.

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And when they hear
all the shouting inside,

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they think there's an argument,
they think there's a riot.

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And so the Chronicle sources tell us

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they set fire to houses
around the Abbey

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because they think they're
trying to beat down a riot.

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They think they're trying
to fend off the first argument

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against William's reign.

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And essentially everybody
inside the Abbey leaves,

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probably in quite a hurry.

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And Orderic Vitalis,
the chronicler, tells us William

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completes his coronation rites
trembling in fear.

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We know William is a hardy
and experienced campaigner.

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For him to be trembling,

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it must have been something
really, really serious. I mean,

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that's one chroniclist's account,
so we don't know

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it definitely happened, but if I was
there, I'd probably be trembling.

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The local people
who lived around the Abbey,

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many of their houses
would have been destroyed.

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And it would confirm
your suspicion... Yeah.

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..that the Normans
are brutal and savage

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and that William's rule
is going to be unpleasant and nasty.

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It's certainly an unpleasant
and nasty start for those people,

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definitely. I'm laughing.
We shouldn't be laughing.

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One of the chroniclers,
Orderic Vitalis, tells us

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that then the English never
trusted the Normans ever again

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after what happened at this event.

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And you can see how
that may come about.

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If you're living
in the local populace

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and you see these things happening,

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maybe if you're one of the English
nobles, you're thinking,

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"Well, this was a disaster.

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"How is the rest of this reign
going to go?

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If you're William,
you're probably thinking,

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"Maybe I've got a bit more
on my plate

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"than I thought
I was going to have."

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The violent debacle
surrounding William's coronation

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left him in no doubt
that securing his kingdom

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would be far from straightforward.

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William may have been crowned
King of England,

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but his hold on the country
was still precarious.

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To maintain control,
he had to have the military edge

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over his opponents.

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Just one look at the Bayeux Tapestry
will tell you that the two sides

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at the Battle of Hastings
were similarly equipped.

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And whilst William
might have dispensed with

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much of the Anglo-Saxon ruling elite
in 1066,

242
00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:09,720
that still left hordes
of ordinary Anglo-Saxons

243
00:12:09,760 --> 00:12:13,280
across the country ready to fight
to protect their lands.

244
00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:18,120
With just a small army
at his disposal,

245
00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:22,160
William had to assert his authority
as the rightful king of England.

246
00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:29,160
Deep in the Surrey countryside,

247
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:32,760
Professor Danielle George is keen
to find out what that actually meant

248
00:12:32,800 --> 00:12:35,400
for those on the front line.

249
00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:41,960
I'm trying to imagine
what would have been going through

250
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,160
William's mind in those early days.

251
00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,600
Outnumbered, with potential enemies
on all sides.

252
00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,640
If his army didn't perform,
he stood to lose everything.

253
00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:56,840
I'm here to meet Andy Deane
from the Royal Armouries

254
00:12:56,880 --> 00:12:58,960
to discover who was facing
the Norman forces

255
00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,640
as they fought their way
across the country

256
00:13:01,680 --> 00:13:05,000
and how they used the weapons
they had at their disposal.

257
00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:10,280
So pretty much it doesn't matter
if you're Norman, Saxon, Viking -

258
00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:12,360
this is what you're
going to be wearing, is it?

259
00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:14,160
If you're right at the top
of the tree

260
00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:16,360
and you're the one
with all the money, yeah.

261
00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:19,120
I mean, everything
that's on you at the moment

262
00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:21,520
was extraordinarily exclusive.

263
00:13:21,560 --> 00:13:27,040
We think probably 5%, 6%, 10% tops
would have all this kit.

264
00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:31,000
Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the
front line would look impressive.

265
00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:35,520
But then behind that, the masses
that are going to get stuck in

266
00:13:35,560 --> 00:13:38,200
would almost look like
a peasant army,

267
00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:41,320
but bristling with all sorts
of agricultural weapons.

268
00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:44,360
So assume I'm a rich Norman fighter.

269
00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:47,000
I've got all the gear,
I've got a good sword. Mm-hm.

270
00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:49,520
You're a farmer.
You've got an axe, let's say.

271
00:13:49,560 --> 00:13:51,520
It doesn't feel like a fair fight.

272
00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:53,880
It isn't.
You've got all the advantages

273
00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:56,280
because you've been training
your entire life.

274
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:59,600
But if I was to fight you
and I had less kit on,

275
00:13:59,640 --> 00:14:02,800
there's always a way,
because partly,

276
00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:05,680
farmers, agriculturalists
live with weapons.

277
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:06,960
They're called tools.

278
00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:09,640
So you have the kit and equipment
on a daily basis

279
00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:11,320
around you to survive.

280
00:14:13,680 --> 00:14:16,160
If I was to come cleaving down...
Good. Well done.

281
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:18,960
Now you've done that.
But now I do that... Oh, no!

282
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,200
Now the back edge of that
is serrated.

283
00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:23,520
And I just slice through there
and you're already dead.

284
00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,160
I forget about you. Forgotten
your name, forgot everything.

285
00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:29,480
That's how quick. Or again,
you pull down and you kick in,

286
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:31,880
or you come straight up
and then you move on.

287
00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:35,240
I get overexcited.
I feel like I want an axe!

288
00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:40,920
And it wasn't just axes
the Norman army had to worry about.

289
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:44,200
So for me, a little knife
like this is perfect.

290
00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:45,880
I know how to skin an animal.

291
00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:47,560
That means I know how to skin you.

292
00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:49,880
So I put this down,
and once we're this close,

293
00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:51,720
it's just that - you've gone down

294
00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:53,840
and the next person
finishes you off.

295
00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:57,880
I would be relentless,
if I could, as a warrior.

296
00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:00,760
But even as a farmer,
this is everything. This.,.

297
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:04,040
You do not leave this battlefield
unless you're victors.

298
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,360
And if you're not a victor,

299
00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:10,320
the next victim is your family,
is your village. Right.

300
00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:13,640
You often sort of see peasant armies
sort of downtrodden.

301
00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:15,880
They've been given the worst kit
in the wardrobe

302
00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:18,400
from the film department.
It's not that.

303
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:21,400
When they get there,
generally they're galvanised,

304
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:23,000
because it's a battlefield.

305
00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:25,600
You are either
going to be victorious,

306
00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:27,200
or if you're not victorious,

307
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:29,960
there's either slavery or death
waiting for you.

308
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:34,680
The Normans were clearly facing
a determined and well-organised

309
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:38,360
local population,
which begs a question.

310
00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:44,040
So Andy, if the Normans had the same
in terms of equipment

311
00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:49,320
as, you know, all the other armies,
what gave them the edge?

312
00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:51,080
I think it's the relentlessness.

313
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:53,480
And once it becomes
a disparate group of men

314
00:15:53,520 --> 00:15:57,720
fleeing in different directions, you
only need a small professional army

315
00:15:57,760 --> 00:15:59,960
to be relentless, to basically

316
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,440
keep the fight out of the locals
and the peasants.

317
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:07,200
For them, at a lower level,
it's just new management.

318
00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:11,440
Now, a lot of the Norman army,
after the initial victories,

319
00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:13,280
went back to France.

320
00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:17,120
So those that were left
had to deal with things quickly.

321
00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:21,480
Now, very easy to get a Saxon lord
who didn't like the people

322
00:16:21,520 --> 00:16:24,760
in East Anglia or the people
in Cumbria or Northumbria

323
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,120
to go and get them
to do the fighting for you.

324
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:30,960
Because I was brought up thinking
that, you know, the Anglo-Saxons

325
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,520
are the goodies and the Normans
are the baddies.

326
00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:36,320
But actually what you're saying is
this new management,

327
00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:38,640
the Anglo-Saxons are fighting
the Anglo-Saxons.

328
00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:41,240
Anglo-Saxons were always fighting
the Anglo-Saxons.

329
00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:43,200
I mean, it wasn't all
peace and harmony

330
00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:46,000
before the nasty Normans turned up.

331
00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:49,960
And that's how big nations
have always been able to take

332
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,680
vast tracts of land, because they...
Same with the Romans,

333
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:55,560
you get the locals
to do the work for you.

334
00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:59,880
And the Normans were quite clever
in the sense that they retain

335
00:16:59,920 --> 00:17:03,240
the names of towns,
they retain the names of shires.

336
00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:06,440
English is still spoken today.
We're not speaking French.

337
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:11,160
Great leaders understand their...

338
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:13,920
Not only their armies,
but they understand the populace,

339
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:16,120
and they also understand
the human condition.

340
00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:18,480
FLAMES CRACKLE

341
00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:23,880
Very, very occasionally

342
00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:27,720
we have the opportunity
to come within touching distance

343
00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:29,400
of those ancient warriors.

344
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:34,400
Roy, we've got these incredible
archaeological artefacts here,

345
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,040
including an 11th-century helmet.

346
00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:39,880
And these are rare objects.

347
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:41,880
We're looking at armour and weaponry

348
00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:43,880
that dates to
nearly 1,000 years ago.

349
00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:45,800
Yeah, I mean,
it's an absolute privilege

350
00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:47,720
to stand this close to it,
isn't it? Yeah.

351
00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:50,760
How many examples of this type
of object do we have?

352
00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:52,960
Well, this is the astonishing
thing, Alice.

353
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,360
There are literally just a handful
of these in museum collections

354
00:17:56,400 --> 00:18:00,160
across the globe. And it's lovely
to be so up close to it

355
00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:01,760
and to actually see how it's made,

356
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:05,440
because I can see that it's made
out of four pieces of sheet metal

357
00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:08,160
which have been joined together
to create

358
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:10,120
this almost cone-like shape.
Yeah, yeah.

359
00:18:10,160 --> 00:18:13,080
Which again is exactly
what you see in the Bayeux Tapestry.

360
00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:15,640
Yeah. And you can see how
the English women

361
00:18:15,680 --> 00:18:17,400
who embroidered the tapestry

362
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,280
were attempting to depict something
which people at the time

363
00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:23,080
would recognise as a helmet
just like this one. Yeah.

364
00:18:23,120 --> 00:18:26,440
And then what about this sword?
I mean, that's a very long sword.

365
00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:29,160
Is that something that would
have been used on horseback,

366
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:30,480
do you think? When you look

367
00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:32,440
at this sword,
look how short the tang is.

368
00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:35,000
So essentially this is where
the handle would have been. Yeah.

369
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:37,640
And that's a handle large enough
for one hand. Yeah.

370
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:41,240
So somebody on horseback could
have used that, a mounted knight.

371
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:43,640
It's entirely possible
an English soldier

372
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,200
in the shield wall at Hastings could
wield a sword like this as well.

373
00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:49,840
I always feel that
when I'm looking at weapons

374
00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:52,840
where you're admiring
the craftsmanship,

375
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:55,600
but at the same time,
these are all about

376
00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:58,680
creating injuries
and even killing people.

377
00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:01,280
They are. I mean,
something like this

378
00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:03,400
is a tool to injure and to kill,

379
00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:06,560
but it's an expensive tool
to injure and kill with,

380
00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:09,120
and therefore, it's also
a demonstration of status.

381
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:11,000
This is something
you have to spend money on.

382
00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:14,520
Well, I haven't been trained,
but I am allowed to pick this up,

383
00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:19,760
which is such an honour
because it's an incredible object.

384
00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:23,760
Lifting it up like that.

385
00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:25,720
There we are. That is...

386
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:28,880
And you can see it has
a double cutting edge,

387
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:31,520
on either side,
but also sharpened at this end

388
00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:34,880
so you can thrust with it
as well as cut with it. Yeah.

389
00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:37,200
I mean, it's quite a terrifyingly

390
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:39,200
formidable weapon, isn't it?

391
00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:41,320
I think what it brings home to us

392
00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:45,200
is just how brutal fighting
on the battlefield was.

393
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:54,520
As William moved on from invasion
to the consolidation and defence

394
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:58,240
of his new land, he needed a way
to ensure his small army

395
00:19:58,280 --> 00:20:00,080
could operate effectively.

396
00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:04,040
Danielle has travelled
to East Anglia

397
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:07,200
to discover exactly
how he achieved this aim.

398
00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:11,520
So you're the new French-speaking
ruler of England.

399
00:20:11,560 --> 00:20:14,960
You can imagine the locals here
aren't overjoyed at your presence.

400
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,280
You need a safe haven
for your knights,

401
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,000
a power base
from which to crush rebellion.

402
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:22,600
So what do you do?
Well, if you're William,

403
00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:25,480
you build lots and lots of castles.

404
00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:31,400
Mighty stone castles
sat atop steep-sided mounds,

405
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:32,760
or mottes, as they're known,

406
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:36,240
have become the ultimate symbols
of Norman rule.

407
00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:39,040
But in the early years
of William's reign,

408
00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:42,000
when his outnumbered forces
urgently needed protection,

409
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:43,520
they'd have looked very different

410
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:45,760
to the structures that remain
to this day.

411
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,840
This is Castle Acre in Norfolk,
where I've arranged to meet

412
00:20:50,880 --> 00:20:53,720
Dickon Whitewood
from English Heritage.

413
00:20:57,600 --> 00:20:59,800
OK, Dickon,
what are we looking at here?

414
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:05,080
Well, we're looking at
a completed motte-and-bailey castle

415
00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:07,920
that in its form as we see it today,
although ruinous,

416
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:09,760
dates to about 1140.

417
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,560
So about 80 years
after the Conquest.

418
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:15,240
The initial castle
dates from about 1070,

419
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:19,880
which rather than a raised mound,
it was simply an earth ditch.

420
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:22,200
And because when the Normans
first arrived,

421
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,560
they often needed to
erect castles quite quickly,

422
00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:27,280
it would have had wooden palisades.

423
00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:32,600
But these hastily erected fortresses
were clearly a stopgap measure,

424
00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:35,040
and the relentless process
of their evolution

425
00:21:35,080 --> 00:21:37,960
into fully fledged castles
is testimony to

426
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,000
the Normans' confidence
that they were here to stay.

427
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,720
This must be a logistical nightmare
for them.

428
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:48,080
Who's building it?
How fast are they building it?

429
00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:49,880
Where are they getting
the materials from?

430
00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:51,480
How are they getting them here?

431
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,920
Well, some of our early evidence
suggests that, for example,

432
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,680
at York and Dover, it only takes
the builders eight days

433
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:04,120
to build the castle, but we're not
really sure what form that took.

434
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:07,800
The larger mounds, however,
modern archaeologists

435
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:13,200
have actually estimated it would
take 240,000 man-hours to build...

436
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:18,080
Wow! ..which is equivalent to about
100 men working a ten-hour day

437
00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:19,960
for over nine months.

438
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,040
But it's probably unlikely
that 100 men

439
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:25,280
could ever actually work for that
long consistently. Yeah, yeah.

440
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:27,880
So a mound or a motte
might have actually taken

441
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,280
perhaps a couple of years
or more to build.

442
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:34,680
So it's a logistical nightmare
and obviously very expensive.

443
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:38,560
And probably they're using material
from the local area.

444
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,800
And there's some evidence
that at the Conquest,

445
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:44,320
the Conqueror actually
brought over some materials

446
00:22:44,360 --> 00:22:46,840
to build a castle as soon
as he landed. Really? Yeah.

447
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,480
What, like a flat-pack sort of...?
Almost, yes.

448
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:51,840
Because that would have obviously
provided him with

449
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,200
a beachhead to launch his invasion.
But most of the castles in England

450
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,320
obviously were built
over a much longer time

451
00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:00,320
and took far more resources to build

452
00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:02,400
because they were on
such a larger scale.

453
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:07,880
The man responsible for building
this castle was William de Warenne,

454
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:09,920
who became the first Earl of Surrey.

455
00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:13,600
He fought alongside William
at Hastings

456
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:16,840
and was most certainly reaping
the rewards for his loyalty,

457
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,760
amassing extensive lands
across 13 counties.

458
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:26,200
It's a lovely view from up here.

459
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,960
But I mean, was this sort of
strategically chosen? Why here?

460
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:31,800
There were strategic thoughts,

461
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,600
but there were probably
more important considerations, too.

462
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,720
So the castle lies
where the Peddars Way,

463
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:42,080
which is an ancient trackway
into East Anglia,

464
00:23:42,120 --> 00:23:44,720
meets the River Nar
in the valley.

465
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,400
But probably more important
than that,

466
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:49,840
it was already,
in the Norman Conquest,

467
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:51,080
the site of an Anglo-Saxon

468
00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:53,720
sort of what we think is probably
a fortified residence.

469
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,880
We even know the name of the owner -
he was called Toki.

470
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:01,160
And so it seems that when William
de Warenne takes over this land,

471
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:04,360
he deliberately builds over
the Anglo-Saxon buhr,

472
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,880
or fortified settlement,
so that his rule

473
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:08,880
is seen as a sort of progression

474
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:12,120
and it's legitimated
by the Anglo-Saxon site. Right.

475
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,000
Got you. OK, so paint the picture
for me.

476
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,560
What would we be looking at here?

477
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:20,200
Well, in the 1140s, at least,
right in front of us now

478
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:24,800
would have been a huge tower,
perhaps up to 19 metres tall,

479
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:28,160
that would have commanded
the landscape, as well as the mound.

480
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,640
Both of these things
were Norman imports.

481
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,880
And they want the wow factor,
don't they?

482
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,440
You can imagine if you're coming up
to this castle

483
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,440
and people being like,
"This looks amazing.

484
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,280
"This must be an impressive Lord."
Yeah, very much so.

485
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:41,640
And I think that was always

486
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,160
consciously in the mind
of the builders.

487
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:48,880
The idea was actually outward
display in order to show the wealth,

488
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,320
the status and the power of the man
who could build it or owned it.

489
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:01,080
The Normans would build a staggering
500 castles across the country

490
00:25:01,120 --> 00:25:04,000
in just three decades,
with the overwhelming majority

491
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,240
built in the years just after 1066.

492
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,040
It's a breathtaking
construction programme,

493
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:10,640
even by modern-day standards.

494
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,800
And these Norman Castles completely
transformed our landscape.

495
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,000
William may have had his army
and castles,

496
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:29,920
but it wasn't always enough.

497
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:34,240
Just three years into his reign,
rebels in the north

498
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:37,040
teamed up with a Danish
invasion force

499
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,760
to present the most dangerous
challenge to Norman rule so far.

500
00:25:43,120 --> 00:25:48,520
Being seen not as an invader
but as the rightful King of England

501
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,360
was never going to be easy.

502
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,040
After the invasion,
William had appointed

503
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:54,920
a couple of Anglo-Saxon lords

504
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:59,000
to oversee the North of England,
but the first one had been murdered

505
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,520
and the second one
had joined a small rebellion.

506
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,520
So William appointed a Norman lord,

507
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,080
but he was murdered as well.

508
00:26:07,120 --> 00:26:12,040
By September 1069,
the area was in full revolt

509
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:14,120
and the rebels had seized York

510
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,440
and slaughtered the entire
Norman garrison.

511
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,240
William's brutal reprisal

512
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,440
would become known as
the Harrying of the North.

513
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:31,800
Onyeka has travelled to County
Durham to meet an archaeologist

514
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,120
specialising in the Norman Conquest
of the North of England,

515
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:36,840
Dr Alexandra McLean.

516
00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:42,280
So he's coming north to try
and secure his kingdom.

517
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:45,800
And does he act with restraint
and calmness and patience?

518
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:47,160
Not really, yeah.

519
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,560
Is he...? Well, he tried. I think
the important part about that

520
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,360
is he tried. He tried three
times to give them earls.

521
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:54,880
He tried to give them native earls.

522
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,880
Like, "Maybe they'll get on a little
bit better with these guys." No.

523
00:26:57,920 --> 00:26:59,960
And so what does he do?

524
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,960
He's decided, "OK, I need to
make a statement of power here.

525
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,720
"I also need to secure my kingdom
in a functional way."

526
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:12,120
And he decides to lay waste
to much of the region.

527
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:13,680
Why would he do that?

528
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,640
If he wastes that land,
it means that any armies

529
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,000
that the rebels want to raise,
they can't provision them.

530
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:25,880
So do you feel that
the laying waste actually took place

531
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,040
in the way in which people
often say,

532
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,400
you know, no rock left upon
another rock,

533
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:32,280
you know, that kind of thing. Yeah.

534
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,720
Biblical kind of Armageddon.
Destruction.

535
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,160
Or do you think that some of that
was exaggerated?

536
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,360
Well, it's really interesting,
the different sources that we have,

537
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,520
and the ones that happen
contemporaneously,

538
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,400
so things like
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,

539
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:46,520
the writs of the Archbishop of York,

540
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,120
are in agreement
that the Harrying happened

541
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,720
and that it was definitely
a quite brutal attack.

542
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:57,000
The ones where we get
the really dramatic detail, so,

543
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:58,760
more than 100,000 dead,

544
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:03,080
people resorting to cannibalism
and eating the dogs and cats,

545
00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:06,720
or that there was no village
inhabited between York and Durham -

546
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,200
all of those are in the 1120s
and 1130s,

547
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:14,600
so it's a good 60 to 70 years
after the Conquest.

548
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:16,960
But I don't think, or at least
in my personal opinion,

549
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,000
that we can take
those as the gospel truth.

550
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,600
We do definitely have evidence
that the North of England

551
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,480
took the conquest harder
than a lot of other places.

552
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,840
But the archaeological evidence
shows a lot of continuity.

553
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,440
When you excavate, you don't see
layers of burning

554
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,280
or complete destruction of crops.

555
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:39,280
We know that some time in between
1069, when the harrying happens

556
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,960
and 1100, that the North
is back on its feet.

557
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:49,600
The debate continues as to whether
the harrying of the North

558
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:54,720
was an act of brutal oppression
or a military necessity to secure

559
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:56,800
control of England.

560
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:02,760
But it is certain that whilst Kings
start wars, it is ordinary people

561
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:04,440
who have to fight them.

562
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,920
As Onyeka's discovered, unpicking
the truth of events that happened

563
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,760
nearly 1,000 years ago
can be challenging.

564
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:20,920
And with so little evidence, vast
swathes of life can go unreported.

565
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,400
Roy, we seem to have almost
entirely focused on men so far.

566
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:30,360
We've got the most iconic image
here of the Norman conquest

567
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,240
in the form of the Bayeux tapestry,

568
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,560
and I can't see very many
women in it.

569
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,320
You're sadly right.

570
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,240
In fact, it's a rather
startling fact, I think,

571
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:41,760
that within the main frieze
of the tapestry,

572
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,480
there are 626 figures,
of which only three are women.

573
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:46,680
Three?

574
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:48,080
It's incredible, isn't it?

575
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:49,880
And in fact, to add insult to
injury,

576
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,960
those three women are heavily
outnumbered by the 190 horses

577
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,080
and 35 dogs.

578
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,280
Do you think that's accurate
or do you think there would

579
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,120
have been women
coming with those soldiers?

580
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,280
Well, the written information
suggests that it's accurate,

581
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,280
but we know that women came soon
afterwards, at least in some cases.

582
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,800
So some of those Normans
are bringing their wives over later.

583
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,440
Are others of them marrying
into existing English families?

584
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:15,680
Very much so.

585
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,720
One of the best ways in which
you can legitimise your position

586
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:24,840
as an alien, so to speak, is to
marry into local leading families.

587
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:29,520
What about when we get down to lower
socioeconomic levels of society?

588
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,520
How much do we know about
what women's daily lives

589
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,040
were like and what kind
of rights they had?

590
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:39,720
Well, our understanding of women's
daily lives is really based

591
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,800
primarily on archaeology,
more than the historical

592
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,360
documentation because
of the limitations

593
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,280
of the source material.

594
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:49,800
But I think it's fair to say
that generally speaking,

595
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,080
the lower down in society you go,

596
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,080
the less impactful

597
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:55,840
1066 appears.

598
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,320
And then we're seeing here a woman
whose face is less happy.

599
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,200
This is a scene of the tapestry
where William's troops are purposely

600
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,200
ravaging the countryside
around Hastings before the battle,

601
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,440
in order to draw Harold down.

602
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:14,880
And unfortunately, as ever, women
are victims of conflict in 1066.

603
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,040
We can be fairly certain
about that because we've got

604
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,240
a really interesting piece
of evidence which points to it.

605
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:23,160
There's a letter which is written
by Archbishop Lanfranc.

606
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:24,960
He's Archbishop of Canterbury.

607
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,240
He's writing in the
late 1070s, writing to

608
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:29,000
Gandalf, Bishop of Rochester.

609
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,360
And in his letter he actually says,
"As to those who, as you tell me,

610
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,720
"fled to a monastery,
not for love of religious life,

611
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,000
"but for fear of the French,

612
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,320
"if they can prove that this was
so by the unambiguous witness

613
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,320
"of nuns better than they,
let them be granted

614
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,080
"unrestricted leave to depart."

615
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,960
He actually says, "This is the
king's policy and our own."

616
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,560
So what he's saying there
is that there are women

617
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:02,120
who have fled to convents
and monasteries in order to escape

618
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:06,920
the Norman and French men
who have arrived in England.

619
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,840
And they may be women like
this one in the Bayeux tapestry

620
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:12,640
who are fleeing from
a ravaging army.

621
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,600
But they could also be women
who are trying to escape

622
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,160
from what you've just described.

623
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,800
These marriages
with Norman Lords and knights

624
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:22,760
who have come to England
and they're trying to establish

625
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:24,680
themselves within local society.

626
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,360
So we're seeing some of
that violence that women suffer

627
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,360
through conflicts that
we're still familiar with today.

628
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,280
Sadly so.

629
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,960
As William sought to stamp
his authority on England, violence

630
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:41,320
and warfare were a fact of life
for all sectors of society

631
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,520
and nowhere more so than
in the Cambridgeshire Fenlands

632
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,480
of the early 1070s, where a fierce
sense of independence

633
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,160
was still burning brightly
and had ignited what would become

634
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,360
the last great Anglo-Saxon
uprising of William's reign,

635
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:58,320
the Ely Rebellion.

636
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:02,440
Danielle has travelled there to meet
archaeologist Ben Robinson,

637
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:07,600
who as a local, grew up hearing
tales of Anglo-Saxon derring-do.

638
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,800
Let's take a walk along
the bank here.

639
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,000
So Ben, what was happening here
950 years ago?

640
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:21,280
This wasn't an obscure corner
of England that no-one cared about.

641
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:25,200
This was, in many ways, part
of the economic beating heart

642
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,760
of the new kingdom that William
was trying to conquer.

643
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:29,720
It was a productive landscape.

644
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,920
And you had places like Ely,
the abbey there.

645
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,200
That is one of the wealthiest
abbeys in the country.

646
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,640
And of course, we look to the
North Sea, we look to the Danes.

647
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,800
And William was terrified that the
Danes would come back over

648
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:44,920
to claim this country again.

649
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:46,840
So who's leading the rebellion?

650
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:50,600
It's really interesting,
because all the sort of disaffected,

651
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,840
dispossessed English earls
rally to this place.

652
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,160
They recognise it as a place
that could be defended.

653
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:02,000
But one man in particular
emerges as the military leader,

654
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:07,600
and he's a fairly minor fane,
so a Saxon lord.

655
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:09,960
And what's he called?
Hereward. Hereward?

656
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:11,440
He was a landowner.

657
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,280
His lands were taken.

658
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,520
He came down here and he'd already
got military experience.

659
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,200
He'd fought on the Continent.

660
00:34:18,240 --> 00:34:21,520
By all accounts, a very,
very capable military leader.

661
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,200
And he was a local,
he was a Fenman.

662
00:34:24,240 --> 00:34:27,560
And you've got to look at this
landscape with fen eyes.

663
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:32,280
To my untrained eye, the area looks
flat, difficult to defend,

664
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,600
and the last place you'd want
to start a rebellion.

665
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,960
But then again, I'm not a local.

666
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,680
It's not a flat landscape.

667
00:34:41,720 --> 00:34:44,200
It's a very subtle landscape,
it's true.

668
00:34:44,240 --> 00:34:47,600
But 1,000 years ago,
there were winding rivers,

669
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,840
meandering,
changing with the seasons.

670
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,560
There were swamps.

671
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,000
Very, very different place.

672
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,160
But you got clues to that landscape
all around us.

673
00:34:56,200 --> 00:35:00,400
The blackness of the soil there,
that's part of the old reed swamp,

674
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,240
part of the old marsh
and the lighter colour soils

675
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:04,520
on the high land.

676
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,320
That's where the stable ground was,
the islands. Right.

677
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,760
This is why it's called
the Isle of Ely.

678
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,800
And we're looking at the biggest
island in the Isle of Ely,

679
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:14,920
on which Ely sits.

680
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,080
To get his troops
onto that island,

681
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:22,800
William decided to build a causeway,
but he made a crucial mistake.

682
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,480
He starts sort of piling in
all the heavy materials, the wood,

683
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:29,240
the stone, the earth,
everything he can get hold of.

684
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,000
And he sends his army across.

685
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,360
But here you've got to build light.

686
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,280
It starts to subside and sink
into the bog.

687
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,480
It collapses and an apparently
knights lost their lives

688
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:42,800
just struggling in the water
and drowning

689
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:44,920
because of all their heavy armour.

690
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,320
In true Norman fashion, William
and his men didn't give up.

691
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,760
They repeatedly tried to build
ever lighter causeways,

692
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,000
none of which were successful.

693
00:35:55,240 --> 00:35:58,720
Problem is, while you're building
all this, Hereward and his army

694
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,280
isn't just standing there
admiring the construction.

695
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,600
They're lobbing projectiles,
firing arrows.

696
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:08,840
You only have to stop the first few
people and you've stopped the whole

697
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:10,480
army for miles back.

698
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,320
But eventually
he settled on pontoons.

699
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:16,040
Ah, right.

700
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:18,920
This was corralling all the local
boatmen and saying,

701
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:20,200
"We need your boats."

702
00:36:20,240 --> 00:36:22,440
It's basically creating
floating bridges.

703
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:24,360
So, very, very clever.

704
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:26,800
But how long does it take them
to get to that point, though?

705
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:28,280
Accounts vary.

706
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,400
I mean, some sources say
that the isle held out here

707
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:31,920
for seven years.

708
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:33,880
That's a bit of an exaggeration,

709
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:38,280
but it was certainly months,
possibly years as well.

710
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:42,040
So that's the turning point
for William then, that pontoon,

711
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:43,560
that engineering feat?

712
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,320
But there's other accounts
that say it was just treachery.

713
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,120
It wasn't the Normans'
engineering prowess,

714
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:53,120
it was the fact that the abbot
up there finally decided

715
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,200
this is not going to end well,
so I'd better make peace.

716
00:36:56,240 --> 00:37:00,400
Sent someone to help William's army
get through the marshes.

717
00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:05,200
Hearing Ben's accounts reinforces
the notion that what gave

718
00:37:05,240 --> 00:37:09,280
the Normans the edge
was their relentlessness.

719
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,080
And whether it was the pontoon
bridge or an abbot switching sides,

720
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:17,040
I can see how that quality
would have been vital in overcoming

721
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,000
the fierce resistance
of Hereward's forces.

722
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,320
But whatever the real truth, we do
know that a large army of up to

723
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:31,240
1,000 men did make it onto the Isle
of Ely, and with their arrival,

724
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,360
the Ely Rebellion
came to a brutal end.

725
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:37,600
Many of the leaders are blinded.

726
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:39,600
Hands and feet cut off.

727
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,000
Those that could run away
and escape did.

728
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:44,360
What happens to Hereward?

729
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:45,600
Hereward?

730
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,840
We don't really know
what happened to him.

731
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,320
He sort of disappears from history.

732
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,440
This heroic figure is just gone.

733
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,520
But round here,
he's still remembered.

734
00:37:56,560 --> 00:38:00,760
You know, he's a local boy
that fought off this invading army.

735
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,000
So you'll see Hereward this
and Hereward that around here.

736
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:05,800
We remember him.

737
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:10,280
This was to be the last great
rebellion that William would face.

738
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:14,400
And although there are no physical
remains of this extraordinary event,

739
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,720
perhaps a more important
mark has been left here.

740
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:20,160
An idea.

741
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,720
A romantic notion of a freedom
fighter who refused to accept

742
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:26,680
the rule of a foreign invader.

743
00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:29,680
And if history teaches us anything,
it's that an idea

744
00:38:29,720 --> 00:38:31,960
can be a mighty powerful thing.

745
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:44,080
William had seen off a whole series
of threats that potentially

746
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,200
endangered Norman England.

747
00:38:46,240 --> 00:38:50,840
But now, in order to discourage
rebellion and consolidate his power,

748
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,600
he would appeal
to a higher authority.

749
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,480
This is Durham, a city
that was at the heart

750
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:02,040
of the Northern Rebellion
of 1069.

751
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:06,600
In its aftermath, the Normans
had built a castle here.

752
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,040
Onyeka has come to the city
to explore the next phase

753
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,080
of the Norman Conquest plan.

754
00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:20,120
Here, the Normans would construct
a new kind of building,

755
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,200
one that would stand alongside
their castle, assert their power,

756
00:39:24,240 --> 00:39:28,520
and crucially, influence
and shape hearts and minds.

757
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,920
This is the imposing
Durham Cathedral.

758
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:42,480
Although work didn't start here
until after William's death,

759
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:48,480
it embodies his ambition to dominate
England with Norman cathedrals.

760
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:58,400
Emma Wells is an expert on
medieval religious architecture

761
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:00,600
and can help me understand more

762
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,040
about the significance of
this building.

763
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,320
So as we're looking at
the cathedral,

764
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:08,840
how much of it is Norman

765
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,120
and how much of it's from
a later period?

766
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:15,160
The sort of bare bones of it,
the footprint of it as it stands

767
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:18,360
is as it would have looked to
the everyday man and woman

768
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:20,240
in 11th century England.

769
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,840
It must have been awe-inspiring.

770
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,480
It is such a vast and imposing,

771
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:27,400
dominating structure
in the landscape.

772
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:31,360
Because Durham was unique,
it had prince-bishops.

773
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,840
Not just bishops,
but prince-bishops.

774
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,560
And prince-bishops, what are they?

775
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:40,640
Prince bishops essentially had
both spiritual and temporal powers,

776
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,520
so they were both churchmen
and statesmen.

777
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,800
The reason for this is
because we're so close

778
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,800
to the borders with Scotland. Ah!

779
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,360
William the Conqueror wanted Durham
to be a bit of a buffer state

780
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:56,560
between England and Scotland,
so his solution was to create

781
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,160
the bishops of Durham as
prince-bishops. Right.

782
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,040
They could raise an army,
they could have taxes,

783
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,720
they could... they had
their own mint as well. Ah, I see.

784
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:07,200
So these are expected
to be military men...

785
00:41:07,240 --> 00:41:09,240
Yes.
..as well as religious leaders?

786
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,640
Yes, absolutely.
We're seeing warrior churchmen.

787
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,800
It was no accident that
the Normans chose this location,

788
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,200
as it was home to
the remains of St Cuthbert,

789
00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:26,240
who had long been revered

790
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,760
by worshippers
throughout England and abroad.

791
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:36,640
The politically astute Normans
constructed a new shrine

792
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,520
so that his remains would now
be within their cathedral.

793
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:46,680
He became the number one saint
in the country, in the nation,

794
00:41:46,720 --> 00:41:50,960
and therefore pilgrims came,
and with pilgrims, offerings came,

795
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,520
which meant money, and it was that
which really could drive

796
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,560
the construction of
this great structure. Right.

797
00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:59,920
If you were walking in here
in the Norman era,

798
00:41:59,960 --> 00:42:01,440
it would be awe-inspiring. Yeah.

799
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:03,880
But it would also be
perhaps quite oppressive.

800
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:07,400
100%! Dominating.
That's the feeling that I would get.

801
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,120
I was trying to put myself
into the shoes and the mind

802
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,800
of an ordinary labouring person.

803
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,240
Walking in here, I think
I would be overawed. Yeah.

804
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:22,920
I'm not sure that I would
find it entirely enjoyable.

805
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:27,040
The Normans are saying
to the local people

806
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,440
that they are the protectors
of Christendom,

807
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:31,560
that they are the protectors
of Christianity.

808
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:35,360
And I think the other thing is
that this seems permanent.

809
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,160
Yes. There was a real sense
of permanency.

810
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,480
Yeah. This building shows
that we are here to stay.

811
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:48,560
These new Norman cathedrals changed
the English skyline forever,

812
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,960
becoming an integral part of
this country's history.

813
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:05,800
Roy, how did things change
for people

814
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,960
after the Normans were in power?

815
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,000
The top of society, things changed
very dramatically. Mmm.

816
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:16,280
All the political leaders of
English society before 1066

817
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:17,880
are effectively dispossessed

818
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:21,520
and they're replaced by
a new Norman class

819
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:23,040
of knights and aristocracy,

820
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:25,200
so for them, the changes
are really profound.

821
00:43:25,240 --> 00:43:26,920
Lower down the social scale...

822
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,320
Well, arguably the changes
are less dramatic,

823
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,640
and for some people,

824
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,360
we ought to say that some things
actually got better as well.

825
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,120
So if you were a slave,

826
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,520
and around 10 to 15%
of the population before 1066

827
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:41,640
was formerly of slave status,

828
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,520
well, one of the things which will
happen over the next 50 years

829
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:48,000
after the Norman conquest is that
slavery will be reduced

830
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:49,240
and will disappear.

831
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,520
And so the status of those people
actually rises.

832
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,240
Not by very much, but it rises.

833
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:56,320
Language changes as well.

834
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,240
The written language of English
sort of finishes,

835
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,000
because English isn't
written down any more.

836
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,480
French is written down,
Latin is written down...

837
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:06,040
Yeah. But English doesn't go away.

838
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,320
It remains the language
of the majority of people.

839
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:09,880
What about people's names?

840
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:11,480
Oh, well, that's really interesting.

841
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:13,480
That's one of the things
which does change,

842
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,320
and it changes really quite early on
after the conquest

843
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:20,000
of the English choosing
to adopt Norman names.

844
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,480
And in fact, some of
the most popular names

845
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,600
are those which are associated
with the Norman ducal house,

846
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:30,280
so William, Robert and Richard
suddenly become very popular.

847
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:34,120
What you see falling away
are the traditional English names,

848
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,360
and there is a slight
gender difference in this,

849
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,160
inasmuch that boys are
given Norman names

850
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:40,720
before girls are given them.

851
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:43,680
But by the 12th century,
generally speaking,

852
00:44:43,720 --> 00:44:47,400
it's Norman names,
French names which predominate,

853
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,560
and the old English names die away.

854
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:55,760
And how does this invasion
change Britain's role in Europe?

855
00:44:55,800 --> 00:45:00,120
Because now you've got
a king of England

856
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,320
who's also a duke of Normandy.

857
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:05,880
So this is really important
for the future of England

858
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:07,760
and English affairs.

859
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:11,600
And previous to 1066,
there would have been...

860
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:14,640
Well, we know that there was
a lot of cultural links

861
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,000
and political links
across the North Sea

862
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:19,520
to the Scandinavian realms.
That changes

863
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,120
So now, because the king
of England owns a lot of land

864
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:24,240
on the other side of
the English Channel,

865
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:27,360
the focus is north-south
across the English Channel,

866
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:29,840
and William's descendants
will be the rulers,

867
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:34,000
not just of Normandy, but of
extremely large areas of France.

868
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:37,480
They will be rulers, but also
vassals of the kings of France.

869
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,320
So there's that tension between
being a king of England

870
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:41,920
and the vassal of
the king of France,

871
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,280
which is ripe to explode
in the years following.

872
00:45:47,240 --> 00:45:51,200
William's rise to power had been
no easy ride -

873
00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:54,960
not for him, nor for those
who fought against him.

874
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,960
But for better or worse,
his tactics had worked.

875
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,800
The invader had become a defender
of his new kingdom.

876
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:10,160
The Norman conquest was
a seminal moment in British history,

877
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,800
and its repercussions would be felt
for centuries to come.

878
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,120
From the turmoil a new nation
would emerge,

879
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:20,920
one that would share
its culture across the world

880
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,720
on a scale that would have
been unimaginable

881
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:26,560
to William and his Norman knights.

882
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:40,680
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