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wife. The elder of the two sons, Richard, succeeded his father as duke, but only one year elapsed before he also dropped dead – murdered, some would later claim, by his younger brother and successor, Robert. Whether or not Robert was indeed guilty of his brother’s death, his rule was an unsuccessful one, which saw the leading nobles of Normandy appropriating local offices and powers that properly belonged to the duke himself. In 1035, things went from bad to worse when Robert set off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and never returned. When news reached Normandy that he had died on the way back home, many must have despaired – their new duke was Robert’s only son, a boy of eight years old, and a bastard. His name was William.
    Little William, as we all know well, would grow up to become the most famous of all Norman dukes. In 1035, however, few would have put money on him living past his ninth birthday. Normandy was soon plunged into a state of civil war, and all the evidence suggests that it was in this period, and during the rule of William’s father, that the number of motte-and-bailey castles in the duchy began to shoot up. Until this time, castles had only been built by the duke and his most powerful supporters. Now they were being built by anyone who could lay their hands on enough materials and manpower to do so.
    Tackling these new castles was the principal challenge for Duke William. His career as a young man reads as the story of one siege after another. Controlling the duchy became a matter of destroying the castles of his enemies, and building new ones of his own. After a successful battle against his greatest opponents in 1047, a Norman chronicler observed that the balance of power had been tipped in William’s favour.
    ‘All those magnates who had renounced their fealty to the duke,’ wrote the chronicler, ‘now bent their stiff necks to him as their lord. And so, with castles everywhere destroyed, none afterwards dared to show a rebellious heart against him.’
    From that point on, William went from strength to strength. By the time he was in his late thirties, he could reflect with a great deal of satisfaction on his success. The dark days of his boyhood were far behind him; he was now respected and feared not just in Normandy, but throughout all of northern France. At the same time, however, he had not taken his eyes off a far bigger prize – the one that had been held out to him in 1051, only to be immediately snatched away. In 1065, the throne of England was once again uppermost in William’s thoughts.
    On the other side of the Channel, things had been reasonably quiet since the dramatic events of 1051–52. After their triumphant return to England, the Godwin family had manoeuvred themselves into positions of power. Old Earl Godwin himself had died in 1053, but he left several healthy sons to succeed him. The eldest, Harold, had inherited his father’s position as Earl of Wessex, and his younger brothers had become Earls of Northumbria, East Anglia and Kent. By 1065, the Godwin boys were easily the most powerful force in English politics.
    However, the sad contrast between the Godwin clan and the royal family was plain for all to see. King Edward the Confessor, now in his sixties, was clearly not going to produce a son to succeed him, and his brothers, of course, had died decades ago. Attempts to find a suitable candidate for the English throne were becoming increasingly desperate. A few years beforehand, the great men of England had sent messengers to find the king’s long-lost nephew, Edward the Exile, who for half a century had lived in Hungary. They managed to find him and ship him home; but he died the moment he set foot on English soil, leaving only a young son, Edgar, in his place.
    With a lack of obvious strong candidates, the wolves were beginning to growl and snarl around England, sensing easy prey. The King of Denmark was known to be interested. So, too, was the King of Norway.