William I

On Christmas Day, 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned at Westminster, the first Norman king of England. It was a disaster: soldiers outside, mistaking shouts of acclamation for treachery, torched the surrounding buildings. To later chroniclers, it was an omen of the catastrophes to come. During the reign of William the Conqueror, England experienced greater and more seismic change than at any point before or since. Marc Morris's concise and gripping biography sifts through the sources of the time to give a fresh view of the man who changed England more than any other, as old ruling…