The year 1066 is the most famous date in English history when William of Normandy defeated

Harold II of England and won himself a crown and the epithet, The Conqueror. But there is a lot more to

it than just one bloody battle at Hastings. You'll find half a century of invasion and political

manoeuvring before it and decades of brutal subjugation afterwards. Medieval historian Mark Morris

is an expert in the subject. His books include The Norman Conquest and the Anglo-Saxons,

and in this four-part podcast series he talks to me, David Musgrove, about the full story

of the Norman Conquest. So welcome to 1066, the Battle for England.

This is episode two, the Godwins, the power behind the Anglo-Saxon throne.

We left things in the last episode with Edward the Confessor, the King of England,

struggling to maintain control and struggling to find an heir to succeed him.

This episode, we're going to take on the story through the 1050s and the 1060s up to 1066.

So welcome back to the early 1050s. Mark, remind us what's going on.

Well, Edward the Confessor had banished the Godwin family, the most powerful family by a very long

chalk in England in 1051. But in 1052, they came roaring back and put him in his place

and reinstated his queen, Edith to the

royal bedchamber. I think, as we said in the previous episode, there is an acceptance by this

point generally among the political elite that this marriage, this royal marriage, is never

going to produce any children. So they try and come up with a plan B.

And what they do in the first instance in the early and mid-1050s

is they go right back to the start of episode one.

And they start looking for long-lost relatives of Edward the Confessor.

And you'll remember that there was a son of Ethelred

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