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Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England
"Outstanding." - The Sunday Times
"Beautifully written." The Times
"Superbly adroit." The Spectator
"Excellent." BBC History Magazine
The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England – so what happened to the children this conflict left behind?
Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere. Then there were the last remaining heirs of the Anglo-Saxon royal line – Edgar Ætheling, Margaret, and Christina – who sought refuge in Scotland, where Margaret became a beloved queen and saint. Other survivors, such as Waltheof of Northumbria and Fenland hero Hereward, became legendary for rebelling against the Norman conquerors. And then there were some, like Eadmer of Canterbury, who chose to influence history by recording their own memories of the pre-conquest world.
From sagas and saints' lives to chronicles and romances, Parker draws on a wide range of medieval sources to tell the stories of these young men and women and highlight the role they played in developing a new Anglo-Norman society. These tales – some reinterpreted and retold over the centuries, others carelessly forgotten over time – are ones of endurance, adaptation and vulnerability, and they all reveal a generation of young people who bravely navigated a changing world and shaped the country England was to become.
"Beautifully written." The Times
"Superbly adroit." The Spectator
"Excellent." BBC History Magazine
The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England – so what happened to the children this conflict left behind?
Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere. Then there were the last remaining heirs of the Anglo-Saxon royal line – Edgar Ætheling, Margaret, and Christina – who sought refuge in Scotland, where Margaret became a beloved queen and saint. Other survivors, such as Waltheof of Northumbria and Fenland hero Hereward, became legendary for rebelling against the Norman conquerors. And then there were some, like Eadmer of Canterbury, who chose to influence history by recording their own memories of the pre-conquest world.
From sagas and saints' lives to chronicles and romances, Parker draws on a wide range of medieval sources to tell the stories of these young men and women and highlight the role they played in developing a new Anglo-Norman society. These tales – some reinterpreted and retold over the centuries, others carelessly forgotten over time – are ones of endurance, adaptation and vulnerability, and they all reveal a generation of young people who bravely navigated a changing world and shaped the country England was to become.
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 24, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 12, 2023
Disappointing.
This was not what I was expecting. Nothing in here was new to me. All the information can be obtained in freely available textbooks, no need to trawl through medieval texts for anything you'll find in here. The book concerns itself with just a very few of the Anglo-Saxon children caught up in the Norman Conquest, so it's a handy one stop shop if you want to know what happened to a few high profile Anglo Saxons after 1066.
This was not what I was expecting. Nothing in here was new to me. All the information can be obtained in freely available textbooks, no need to trawl through medieval texts for anything you'll find in here. The book concerns itself with just a very few of the Anglo-Saxon children caught up in the Norman Conquest, so it's a handy one stop shop if you want to know what happened to a few high profile Anglo Saxons after 1066.
May 11, 2022
This excellent book examines the fates of some those we know after the Norman conquest and many we don’t . In doing so it asks what the sources show about how people processed this disaster. Why had it happened ? How did old Saxon and Norse royal lines adapt and work within the new regime ? How did the new culture both respect and obliterate the old? How did it try to legitimise itself by using records such as the Anglos Saxon Chronicle?
Along with Hereward there is the fascinating study of Margaret of Scotland .
Scandinavian born, married into the English royalty, after the conquest a refugee in Scotland , finally married to the Scottish king. She provided a haven for many refugee English until Scotland finally yielded but at the cost of the religious life she had wanted which would have saved her from being a marriage pawn and given her intellectual expression. She was a well read woman and nuns were scholars . Her sister Christina would try in vain to protect her niece from dynastic marriage to England . Her family would continue to be significant in the hew regimes relations with Europe .
After other stories the book ends poignantly with the story of the monk Eadmer, dealing with the loss by fire of his church in 1067, clinging to relics of Dunstan as he sought to preserve Saxon Christian culture from Norman stamping . This is a terrific insight into a nation sharply set on a different course .
Along with Hereward there is the fascinating study of Margaret of Scotland .
Scandinavian born, married into the English royalty, after the conquest a refugee in Scotland , finally married to the Scottish king. She provided a haven for many refugee English until Scotland finally yielded but at the cost of the religious life she had wanted which would have saved her from being a marriage pawn and given her intellectual expression. She was a well read woman and nuns were scholars . Her sister Christina would try in vain to protect her niece from dynastic marriage to England . Her family would continue to be significant in the hew regimes relations with Europe .
After other stories the book ends poignantly with the story of the monk Eadmer, dealing with the loss by fire of his church in 1067, clinging to relics of Dunstan as he sought to preserve Saxon Christian culture from Norman stamping . This is a terrific insight into a nation sharply set on a different course .
September 6, 2022
A dive as deep as possible (there aren't many sources) into the lives of people reacting to the Norman Conquest. There's some nice really personal details, such as a bromance between two monks, that bring the period alive and let you try to stand in the subjects' shoes.
January 1, 2026
Eleanor Parker’s Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England is not a conventional military history of 1066, nor does it attempt to retell the Battle of Hastings blow by blow. Instead, it turns deliberately away from the battlefield and toward its human aftermath, tracing what happened to the sons, daughters, widows, and exiles who inherited the consequences of defeat. In doing so, Parker reframes the Norman Conquest as an apocalyptic rupture—not only a change of rulers, but a transformation of culture, language, landholding, and memory that reshaped the English world forever.
That focus resonates strongly with my own long-standing fascination with the Anglo-Saxon world and with the clash between what had been and what was coming into being. Late Anglo-Saxon England was already a cultural melting pot: Danish and English dynasties intertwined after the Viking Age, Celtic kingdoms pressed at the borders, and Christian monastic culture preserved learning while adapting older traditions. The Norman Conquest did not replace a static society; it overwhelmed a dynamic one, redirecting its evolution with astonishing speed. Parker’s book excels at showing how that redirection was experienced by individuals who lived through it, especially those too young or too powerless to shape events, yet forced to live with their consequences.
Much of what we know about this period comes from monastic sources—chronicles, saints’ lives, charters—and from the Domesday Book, completed in 1086. Domesday remains our most comprehensive snapshot of landholding in post-Conquest England, documenting who owned what, where power was concentrated, and how radically ownership shifted from English to Norman hands. Parker makes effective use of these sources, reading them against the grain to recover lives that are often only glimpsed in fragments. One particularly striking reminder from Domesday, which Parker highlights, is the presence of women landowners before the Conquest. Anglo-Saxon women such as widows and noblewomen could and did hold land in their own right—an autonomy that was significantly curtailed under Norman legal customs.
At the heart of Conquered is the family of King Harold Godwineson, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England. Harold’s death at Hastings in October 1066—traditionally depicted with an arrow to the eye—has become emblematic of the end of an era. Similar, to how English Historians have linked the death of Richard III with the end of the middle-ages and the beginning of the Renaissance (Tudor propaganda, really). Parker, however, is less interested in Harold’s final moments than in the lives left behind. Harold had children by two women: Edith Swannesha, often described as his Danish wife or long-term partner, and Edith of Wessex (also known as Edith the Fair), whom later tradition framed as his Christian wife. Their children were scattered across the North Sea world in the aftermath of defeat, finding refuge in Ireland, Denmark, and possibly Byzantium. Parker traces these dispersals carefully, showing how the Godwine family’s influence lingered long after their political power in England was broken.
Harold’s formidable mother, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, emerges as one of the most compelling figures in the book. Of Danish noble origin, Gytha had already lived through upheaval before 1066, including the reign of Cnut and the shifting fortunes of her family. After Hastings, she led resistance in the southwest, holding out at Exeter before eventually going into exile. Parker persuasively argues that Gytha deserves far more attention than she has received: she represents continuity with the Scandinavian-influenced elite of pre-Conquest England and embodies the resilience of a generation unwilling to accept Norman rule quietly.
The book also follows the children and relatives of Harold’s brothers and sisters, emphasizing how conquest was a family catastrophe as much as a national one. These younger Godwinesons inherited neither crown nor lands, only dangerous names and memories that made them targets in a new political order. Their stories underscore how the Norman Conquest was not merely a change of kings, but a systematic dismantling of an English aristocracy.
Beyond the Godwine family, Parker devotes substantial attention to the remaining heirs of the royal house of Wessex. Edgar Ætheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, was the last male claimant of the ancient royal line. Briefly proclaimed king after Hastings, Edgar never ruled in practice. His life became one of perpetual displacement—moving between the English court, Norman captivity, and exile in Scotland. His sisters, Margaret and Christina, fared differently. Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland and became Queen of Scots, later canonized as Saint Margaret for her piety and reforming zeal. Through her, Anglo-Saxon royal blood survived and flourished in Scotland, shaping Scottish kingship for generations. Christina, by contrast, chose—or was forced into—a religious life, becoming a nun and abbess. Parker treats these divergent paths with sensitivity, showing how gender, marriage, and religion shaped the limited options available to royal women after conquest.
Resistance also plays a key role in Conquered, particularly through figures such as Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria, and Hereward the Wake. Waltheof, of mixed English and Danish heritage, initially submitted to Norman rule but later joined a rebellion, for which he was executed in 1076—the only English earl to suffer that fate under William I. His death shocked contemporaries and later earned him a reputation as a martyr. Hereward, the so-called “hero of the Fens,” became a near-legendary figure, leading guerrilla resistance from the marshlands of East Anglia. Parker presents both men with care, acknowledging the layers of myth that surround them while grounding their stories in historical context. Like Robin Hood figures avant la lettre, they represent defiance in a world where open resistance was increasingly futile.
In concluding, it is worth addressing a point raised by other reviewers, with which I agree: Conquered does not necessarily present vast amounts of new information for readers already familiar with the period. Much of the material has been available in specialist studies, chronicles, and prosopographical research. Parker’s achievement lies elsewhere. This book functions as a single, coherent space in which these scattered stories are gathered, contextualized, and given narrative unity. It is concise without being superficial, scholarly without being inaccessible.
Ultimately, Conquered succeeds because it captures the human scale of an apocalyptic change. The Norman Conquest was not only the replacement of Anglo-Saxon kings with Norman ones; it was the erasure and transformation of an entire elite culture, absorbed into a new Anglo-Norman world. By following the children of that catastrophe—those who remembered the old England but had to live in the new—Parker gives voice to a generation suspended between what was and what would become. For anyone fascinated by the Anglo-Saxon world and its aftermath, this book offers a deeply resonant and quietly powerful lens on one of the most transformative moments in English history.
That focus resonates strongly with my own long-standing fascination with the Anglo-Saxon world and with the clash between what had been and what was coming into being. Late Anglo-Saxon England was already a cultural melting pot: Danish and English dynasties intertwined after the Viking Age, Celtic kingdoms pressed at the borders, and Christian monastic culture preserved learning while adapting older traditions. The Norman Conquest did not replace a static society; it overwhelmed a dynamic one, redirecting its evolution with astonishing speed. Parker’s book excels at showing how that redirection was experienced by individuals who lived through it, especially those too young or too powerless to shape events, yet forced to live with their consequences.
Much of what we know about this period comes from monastic sources—chronicles, saints’ lives, charters—and from the Domesday Book, completed in 1086. Domesday remains our most comprehensive snapshot of landholding in post-Conquest England, documenting who owned what, where power was concentrated, and how radically ownership shifted from English to Norman hands. Parker makes effective use of these sources, reading them against the grain to recover lives that are often only glimpsed in fragments. One particularly striking reminder from Domesday, which Parker highlights, is the presence of women landowners before the Conquest. Anglo-Saxon women such as widows and noblewomen could and did hold land in their own right—an autonomy that was significantly curtailed under Norman legal customs.
At the heart of Conquered is the family of King Harold Godwineson, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England. Harold’s death at Hastings in October 1066—traditionally depicted with an arrow to the eye—has become emblematic of the end of an era. Similar, to how English Historians have linked the death of Richard III with the end of the middle-ages and the beginning of the Renaissance (Tudor propaganda, really). Parker, however, is less interested in Harold’s final moments than in the lives left behind. Harold had children by two women: Edith Swannesha, often described as his Danish wife or long-term partner, and Edith of Wessex (also known as Edith the Fair), whom later tradition framed as his Christian wife. Their children were scattered across the North Sea world in the aftermath of defeat, finding refuge in Ireland, Denmark, and possibly Byzantium. Parker traces these dispersals carefully, showing how the Godwine family’s influence lingered long after their political power in England was broken.
Harold’s formidable mother, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, emerges as one of the most compelling figures in the book. Of Danish noble origin, Gytha had already lived through upheaval before 1066, including the reign of Cnut and the shifting fortunes of her family. After Hastings, she led resistance in the southwest, holding out at Exeter before eventually going into exile. Parker persuasively argues that Gytha deserves far more attention than she has received: she represents continuity with the Scandinavian-influenced elite of pre-Conquest England and embodies the resilience of a generation unwilling to accept Norman rule quietly.
The book also follows the children and relatives of Harold’s brothers and sisters, emphasizing how conquest was a family catastrophe as much as a national one. These younger Godwinesons inherited neither crown nor lands, only dangerous names and memories that made them targets in a new political order. Their stories underscore how the Norman Conquest was not merely a change of kings, but a systematic dismantling of an English aristocracy.
Beyond the Godwine family, Parker devotes substantial attention to the remaining heirs of the royal house of Wessex. Edgar Ætheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, was the last male claimant of the ancient royal line. Briefly proclaimed king after Hastings, Edgar never ruled in practice. His life became one of perpetual displacement—moving between the English court, Norman captivity, and exile in Scotland. His sisters, Margaret and Christina, fared differently. Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland and became Queen of Scots, later canonized as Saint Margaret for her piety and reforming zeal. Through her, Anglo-Saxon royal blood survived and flourished in Scotland, shaping Scottish kingship for generations. Christina, by contrast, chose—or was forced into—a religious life, becoming a nun and abbess. Parker treats these divergent paths with sensitivity, showing how gender, marriage, and religion shaped the limited options available to royal women after conquest.
Resistance also plays a key role in Conquered, particularly through figures such as Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria, and Hereward the Wake. Waltheof, of mixed English and Danish heritage, initially submitted to Norman rule but later joined a rebellion, for which he was executed in 1076—the only English earl to suffer that fate under William I. His death shocked contemporaries and later earned him a reputation as a martyr. Hereward, the so-called “hero of the Fens,” became a near-legendary figure, leading guerrilla resistance from the marshlands of East Anglia. Parker presents both men with care, acknowledging the layers of myth that surround them while grounding their stories in historical context. Like Robin Hood figures avant la lettre, they represent defiance in a world where open resistance was increasingly futile.
In concluding, it is worth addressing a point raised by other reviewers, with which I agree: Conquered does not necessarily present vast amounts of new information for readers already familiar with the period. Much of the material has been available in specialist studies, chronicles, and prosopographical research. Parker’s achievement lies elsewhere. This book functions as a single, coherent space in which these scattered stories are gathered, contextualized, and given narrative unity. It is concise without being superficial, scholarly without being inaccessible.
Ultimately, Conquered succeeds because it captures the human scale of an apocalyptic change. The Norman Conquest was not only the replacement of Anglo-Saxon kings with Norman ones; it was the erasure and transformation of an entire elite culture, absorbed into a new Anglo-Norman world. By following the children of that catastrophe—those who remembered the old England but had to live in the new—Parker gives voice to a generation suspended between what was and what would become. For anyone fascinated by the Anglo-Saxon world and its aftermath, this book offers a deeply resonant and quietly powerful lens on one of the most transformative moments in English history.
November 10, 2023
ROYALTY READS PROJECT 2023
I am definitely going to listen to this book again. It was nicely written and strengthened my interest in the ruling classes before Edward the Confessor, which is the main reason I bought it. All of the history books I’ve read in the last several years I had no idea how names and such were pronounced correctly or how exactly Hastings was fought. So this book actually discusses the children of “the time before”. Very satisfying
I am definitely going to listen to this book again. It was nicely written and strengthened my interest in the ruling classes before Edward the Confessor, which is the main reason I bought it. All of the history books I’ve read in the last several years I had no idea how names and such were pronounced correctly or how exactly Hastings was fought. So this book actually discusses the children of “the time before”. Very satisfying
March 15, 2022
An original take
Though I studied Medieval English history at school and university, I have never come across a study along these lines. It is a tour de force of historical research - balanced and humane. In our post-colonial world, it is good for England’s own subaltern story to be told.
Though I studied Medieval English history at school and university, I have never come across a study along these lines. It is a tour de force of historical research - balanced and humane. In our post-colonial world, it is good for England’s own subaltern story to be told.
December 6, 2024
An insightful read though not quite the book that I expected. I thought that Conquered would be focused completely on the last generation of royal/noble children in Anglo-Saxon England at the time of the Norman Conquest, discussing elite Anglo-Saxon and Norman ideas of childhood and coming of age. Instead, Conquered is a study of how Anglo-Saxon chroniclers examined ideas of dislocation, exile and cultural change in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest with a focus on sources that discuss this last generation of royal/noble Anglo-Saxon young people. There's an extended section about Hereward the Wake that seems out of place with the theme of "The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England" but is in keeping with the author's efforts to analyze Anglo-Saxon and Norman responses to the Norman Conquest through the surviving sources.
Read
December 29, 2025I'm always interested in — and find moving — the dark or neglected corners of history, the "dead ends" that didn't (according to our linear, progressive understanding of history) "go anywhere." Anything that sheds light on those dark corners is a welcome thing indeed; and any book that does so in such an eloquent, accessible, and fundamentally humane manner is doubly-welcome. Parker almost never loses sight of the complexity and humanity of her subjects — almost never; one of the flaws of the book comes from the occasional lapses into desultory and superficial appeals to vague banalities like "status" and "identity." Happily these lapses are rare!
December 6, 2025
Interesting.
June 10, 2022
An interesting book following the Saxon children of the then Royal line. It shows the impact of the Norman conquest on them and also looks how an Anglo Norman culture began to develop.
I wonder how much if the Saxon line is still present in our current Royal Family?
I wonder how much if the Saxon line is still present in our current Royal Family?
October 27, 2023
It was... fine I guess? 2.5 starts but I'm rounding down.
It mostly felt like the names of the last gasps of Anglo-Saxon royalty were put in a randomizer and then the wikipedia articles were cued up and read one right after the other. Which isn't terrible but I guess I was looking for more context and just... an overall wider look at everything or anything. For example, I didn't get much sense of the cultural difference between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. In The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream, there's this aside about how the Norman Henry I and his Scottish/Saxon queen Matilda and how Norman aristocracy snidely called them ''Godric and Godiva' implying they were a little too Saxon (or in Henry's case Norman but so rustic/unsophisticated that he might as well be *gasp* a Saxon!) This told me more about the lingering tensions down through the generations than most of anything in Conquered.
Mostly you hear about how the Saxon princes were hunted down/exiled, while Saxon princess were highly prized as brides for the Normals to signal continuity to the peoples they conquered. But this kind of thing is common across all of history when one culture supplants another. I wanted to learn the things that made this particular cross-cultural collision unique and different. Specificity was just... overall lacking from this book in my opinion. I would say it served well as at least an introduction to some of the royalty from the era but again... once it got into stuff having to do with the William -> William Rufus -> Henry I's relationships with Saxon nobility I was having to mentally fill in the blanks with stuff I'd learned from other sources. So it just made me wonder what I wasn't hearing about for other historical figures I knew nothing about going in. It reminded me of She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth in that way.
It mostly felt like the names of the last gasps of Anglo-Saxon royalty were put in a randomizer and then the wikipedia articles were cued up and read one right after the other. Which isn't terrible but I guess I was looking for more context and just... an overall wider look at everything or anything. For example, I didn't get much sense of the cultural difference between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. In The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream, there's this aside about how the Norman Henry I and his Scottish/Saxon queen Matilda and how Norman aristocracy snidely called them ''Godric and Godiva' implying they were a little too Saxon (or in Henry's case Norman but so rustic/unsophisticated that he might as well be *gasp* a Saxon!) This told me more about the lingering tensions down through the generations than most of anything in Conquered.
Mostly you hear about how the Saxon princes were hunted down/exiled, while Saxon princess were highly prized as brides for the Normals to signal continuity to the peoples they conquered. But this kind of thing is common across all of history when one culture supplants another. I wanted to learn the things that made this particular cross-cultural collision unique and different. Specificity was just... overall lacking from this book in my opinion. I would say it served well as at least an introduction to some of the royalty from the era but again... once it got into stuff having to do with the William -> William Rufus -> Henry I's relationships with Saxon nobility I was having to mentally fill in the blanks with stuff I'd learned from other sources. So it just made me wonder what I wasn't hearing about for other historical figures I knew nothing about going in. It reminded me of She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth in that way.
June 5, 2025
While I was on the Anglo-Saxon thread, I thought I would continue with this book by Eleanor Parker. I have followed her blog posts she has written on the various Anglo-Saxon Saints and Viking raids on churches in South East England for some years and really enjoyed that. This book is more of that, but with a more thorough historical foundation. She is after all a historian, so what was I expecting... That meant it was slightly a harder read than expected, but I still enjoyed it, and may actually have learned some things. The book covers some of the better documented Anglo-Saxon people growing up right around and after the Norman Conquest. Documented in books and stories written about them, sometimes a long time after they actually lived. Hereward, hero of the Fens, of who we have very little concrete evidence; Margaret of Scotland, sister of Edgar Aetheling, last daughter of the Anglo-Saxon royal line, who married Malcolm of Scotland; Waltheof, the only noble to lose his head in the uprising against William, mostly because he was tried by the old English laws and therefore didn't get the chivalrous treatment, even though his role in the uprising was probably minor. And the grandchildren of Godwine and Gytha, of many of which not that much is known actually, because quite frankly they didn't matter to anybody anymore, except Harold's daughter Gytha who married into the Kiev royal line and Skulli, son of Tostig that gets a mention in Norse tales. And finally Eadmer, the monk who wrote a lot of these stories, and in writing these reveals much about his own life and opinions as well.
All in all interesting, but not that easy to read. Only for people with a keen interest in the subject I would say.
All in all interesting, but not that easy to read. Only for people with a keen interest in the subject I would say.
March 17, 2025
I think the title of this book is a little bit misleading. I went into it thinking it would be look at the consequences of the conquest on the general Anglo-Saxon population and how people such as Hereward led the resistance (I am aware that historical sources are limited, rare, or non-existent when it comes to the general population). However, it was more about the royal children and how they survived to be a bit of a thorn in the Norman side. What I have learned from this, is how the Normans looked to squash the status and political potency of Harold, Hereward, Edward Atheling, Edmund Ironside, Waltheof and other Saxon nobility so that any thoughts of regaining their kingdom and accepting their suppression. In some ways its information that I already know i.e. Norman marriages to Saxon nobility to legitimise their Conquest, stripping of land, etc., but Parker has helped add some more perspective to this situation pre- and post-Conquest. You get a sense that younger people would have heard these stories and grew up with a nostalgia for a past they weren't part of. It's an interesting one. Even so, this was an interesting listen, these revolts are so easily glossed over under the wait of the impact of the Conquest but people forget that the English of the Anglo-Saxon era were warriors and wouldn't have sat idly and let it happen.
April 28, 2025
I felt like this was a dissertation expanded into a book, which doesn't always completely work.
I am interested in how people in the past thought of themselves and experienced their world, with identity and ethnicity being part of that. But, though seeming to address these topics, this book never really has any conclusions nor anything especially incisive to say. It does appear that at the time of the Norman Conquest there was some sort of concept of "Englishness", but the book doesn't go very far in analyzing that.
As far as what literally happened to people, what was people's real experience, it's not really here.
I am interested in how people in the past thought of themselves and experienced their world, with identity and ethnicity being part of that. But, though seeming to address these topics, this book never really has any conclusions nor anything especially incisive to say. It does appear that at the time of the Norman Conquest there was some sort of concept of "Englishness", but the book doesn't go very far in analyzing that.
As far as what literally happened to people, what was people's real experience, it's not really here.
October 3, 2025
I enjoyed this, it felt cohesive and fairly accessible - I liked how the different individuals discussed overlapped in places and the author took care to draw attention to this to help illustrate/appreciate the wider points being made. I do think though that Hereward the Wake could have done with being a later chapter - I get why he was placed first, but because there was much more ‘legend’ than ‘fact’ to trawl through there had to be much more ephemeral discussion of source provenance and societal commentary, which made it harder to situate as the reader into the time period and to get some momentum.
April 18, 2025
Purchased after enjoying Winters in the World, by the same author. This book really suffers from the author’s need for completeness. She choses a variety of subjects across social class, but loses steam by discussing not only the well attested subject, but their less well attested relations and other fragmentary supporting tales. This makes each chapter overly long, with a noticeable drop in energy and clarity as it proceeds.
July 15, 2025
Parker’s history reads how I like them: with texts from the period, rather than being filtered by a historian. Such is the nature of philology, and while the top reviewer complains that the book doesn’t inject in someone else’s opinions straight into their shallow brain, this is very accessible and worthwhile look at sources for a modern reader. Great perspective.
August 31, 2025
I enjoyed this read. It's about the children of Anglo-Saxon England who live through 1066 and the regime changes that happen and what happens as the children grow up. Recommend this for people who want to know more about Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Invasion.
November 11, 2025
An easy read but a little superficial. There's not a lot of depth given to any of the people discussed. That said, it's probably a good introduction to the topic for anyone who hasn't read too much about the Norman Conquest and its effects.
March 4, 2023
First two chapters are disjointed and not on topic, but the other chapters are on the actual children and it is interesting how their lives dramatically changed after the Norman conquest.
May 21, 2024
So I was fascinated by the topic but found the writing style pretty dense. Still it’s impressively researched and a cool concept.
June 18, 2024
This was very interesting and a subject that I'd never considered before, but really should have because it seems like such an obvious thing in hindsight.
April 5, 2025
1.5*
an unbelievably dry treatment of what should be a momentous historical transition.
an unbelievably dry treatment of what should be a momentous historical transition.
Read
February 12, 2026Did Not Finish - got to page 104.
I thought I was really going to enjoy this book, because I find the period interesting, and because I liked its premise of examining how the aftermath of 1066 affected the children of the English elite and their families. I also liked the book's layout, which made it look as though Conquered would be a smooth, easy to read account that would be less like a traditional history book and more like a narrative story.
Well, how wrong - and stupid - was I? I made it through the chapters on Hereward the Wake, Queen Margaret of Scotland (known in Scotland at one time as "Queen of the White Settlers", & probably still is), and partway through the chapter on the family of Godwine, former earl of Wessex, and his wife Gytha: but I finally had to admit defeat. The more I read, the more I realised I didn't know, and, feeling very much out of my depth, knew it was time to quit. There was no point in continuing with a book which assumes that the reader already has a good grounding in the history of the late 11th century, when I was faced with names and Histories that swam before my eyes, but meant nothing to me.
What I did learn is that the post-Conquest world was *far* more complex than I'd ever imagined, and that attempts were made to create links between the different communities in England via how English figures were written about. Chroniclers framed the story of - say - Hereward the Wake in terms that would be familiar to Danish/Scandinavian readers/listeners, for example. The facts might not be *strictly* true, but the narrative would be couched in terms and utilise tropes that would speak to Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Norman audiences and their understanding of what made a hero. In this way, chroniclers strove - and hoped - to show that English culture was worth preserving and celebrating by the conquerors.
A good read, I'm sure, but way over my head and level of understanding of the topic.
I thought I was really going to enjoy this book, because I find the period interesting, and because I liked its premise of examining how the aftermath of 1066 affected the children of the English elite and their families. I also liked the book's layout, which made it look as though Conquered would be a smooth, easy to read account that would be less like a traditional history book and more like a narrative story.
Well, how wrong - and stupid - was I? I made it through the chapters on Hereward the Wake, Queen Margaret of Scotland (known in Scotland at one time as "Queen of the White Settlers", & probably still is), and partway through the chapter on the family of Godwine, former earl of Wessex, and his wife Gytha: but I finally had to admit defeat. The more I read, the more I realised I didn't know, and, feeling very much out of my depth, knew it was time to quit. There was no point in continuing with a book which assumes that the reader already has a good grounding in the history of the late 11th century, when I was faced with names and Histories that swam before my eyes, but meant nothing to me.
What I did learn is that the post-Conquest world was *far* more complex than I'd ever imagined, and that attempts were made to create links between the different communities in England via how English figures were written about. Chroniclers framed the story of - say - Hereward the Wake in terms that would be familiar to Danish/Scandinavian readers/listeners, for example. The facts might not be *strictly* true, but the narrative would be couched in terms and utilise tropes that would speak to Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Norman audiences and their understanding of what made a hero. In this way, chroniclers strove - and hoped - to show that English culture was worth preserving and celebrating by the conquerors.
A good read, I'm sure, but way over my head and level of understanding of the topic.
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