ONE IN THE EYE FOR 1066 AND ALL THAT

Conquered: The Last Children Of Anglo-Saxon England Eleanor Parker Bloomsbury Academic £18

★★★★★

In 1066, following the Battle of Hastings, the anonymous author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle famously wrote that the Normans ‘stayed behind… and distressed the wretched folk, and always after that it grew much worse. May the end be good when God wills’.

In the tradition of 1066 And All That, our understanding of the Norman Conquest is often quite light-hearted, a Bayeux Tapestry comic strip of rival claimants and arrows in eyes. But, as our unnamed chronicler shows, it was a time of conflict and displacement, sending members of the Anglo-Saxon nobility into exile and creating a new Anglo-Norman cultural collision.

Conquered is a deep exploration of this socio-cultural trauma. Examining chronicles from the era, generally written by clergymen, Eleanor Parker follows figures such as Edgar Atheling, the rightful heir to the throne.

Edgar initially organised resistance against William the Conqueror (below, in a 16th Century portrait), but eventually gave up his claims and spent the rest of his life as a travelling exile in the royal courts of Europe.

Meanwhile, Edgar’s sister Margaret fled from England and married the King of Scotland. Margaret gained an international reputation as a pious and noble influence on her husband and helped fellow English exiles to leave the country. She would be canonised by the Pope in 1250.

However, despite its fascinating cast of characters and the rich scholarship of its author, this book is unfortunately dense and uneven. For instance, an obvious opening chapter, exploring the lives of the defeated King Harold’s family after 1066, comes halfway through, after two chapters about obscure figures. Furthermore, Parker’s chief interest is textual, and she spends much of the book analysing the competing Anglo and Norman literary influences on the chronicles she uses. This focus leaves little room for narrative.

With such a gripping tale at her disposal, Parker could have struck a greater balance deconstructing these chronicles at an academic level, and simply letting their stories flow.