The Normans

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Description

To William, the Duke of Normandy, England was "Angleterre" or the Old French equivalent-and in 1066 the country became as French as William could make it. This program describes the Norman invasion that ended Anglo-Saxon rule, summarizes William the Conqueror's transformative reign, and profiles the six rulers who followed him. How Henry I wrested the crown from his brothers and solidified royal authority, how Stephen of Blois succeeded instead of Henry's own son, how Richard Coeur de Lion fulfilled chivalric ideals but as a king fared no better than his hapless brother John-these and other accounts compose a lively proto-history of England's "foreign" royalty.