Born in 1028, William was the elder of two illegitimate sons born to Arlette of Falaise and Duke Robert I of Normandy (d. 1035). He grew up in a murderous atmosphere, protected by his determined mother, but by the age of 15 was strong enough to begin his own rule. William soon proved a vigorous soldier, defeating rebels to enforce his rule on Normandy; his methods were simple, often brutal, always effective.

William I had won a huge gamble, and England was his prize. His followers scooped the rewards, taking over lands from defeated and dispossessed English nobles. William prescribed a government on England that in some ways went further than anything to be found in Normandy. The common people were still able to invoke customary laws, but in great matters such as landholding, taxation and military organization, the Normans imposed their own system.

Edward’s Norman allies had urged him to make Duke William of Normandy his heir, and William was quick to claim the English Crown, with the backing of the Pope in Rome. In England, both the witan (king’s noble council) and Church supported Harold of Wessex.

Harold 1 (1035-40) Cnut died at Shaftesbury, and was buried at Winchester. ‘The illustrious king’ of The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle had intended his son Harthacnut (whose mother was Queen Emma) to succeed him. But with Harthacnut away in Denmark, his half-brother Harold Harefoot (born in 1017) made himself king at Oxford. Harold I’s reign has been described as ‘a jackal-time in which packs of scavengers tore at the carcass of Cnut’s empire and savaged each other’.

Edward the Elder (899-925) Edward the Elder (born c. 870) consoli¬dated Alfred’s kingdom, with the help of his elder sister, Aethelflaed. She married the king of Mercia and seems to have ruled that Midlands kingdom from 910 until her death in 917. Together, Edward and Aethelflaed inflicted a series of defeats on the Vikings. A renowned soldier, Edward was also keen to govern well; he ‘used books frequently’ and improved the coinage. On his death in 925, his son Athelstan (born c. 895) succeeded him.

Alfred of Wessex, the only English ruler to hold the title ‘Great’, played a unique role in British history. Outstanding among Anglo-Saxon monarchs, he laid the foundations for the English kingdom as it existed into the Middle Ages.

The British Monarchy Began in an historical landscape very différent from our experience. Although the land’s geography and some of its place names may be the same, they belonged to a country that we would find unfamiliar. What we think of as the United Kingdom is a recent création, in historical terms.

The power and functions of the monarch have never ceased to evolve, and rules of succession have been flexed to suit the needs of the time or the demands of the ruler. The area, people and customs of the kingdom have also changed. So we cannot picture William the Conqueror wrangling with Parliament any more than we can imagine George IV leading his troops into battle.

FROM ALFRED THE GREAT in the 9th century to Elizabeth II in the 21st, the throne of England has been occupied by 56 very varied men and women as kings or queens. The separate reigns of princes of Wales ended in 1284 when Wales was annexed to the English Crown, and from 1603 the royal line of Scotland merged with that of England. Since then one monarch has reigned over all the United Kingdom.