Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is episode 68, Rebels with a Cause.

In this episode, we're going to look at the early reign of William the Conqueror as King

of England.

Now after the Battle of Hastings, everything seemed to be going William's way for a while.

He even tried to maintain and work with the native Anglo-Saxon nobles and officials.

But soon, the country exploded into Rebellion.

So this time we'll look at those events, and we'll start to see how William's attitude towards

his English subjects changed.

In the wake of those rebellions, William decided to impose his will on the English people.

And the English language, which he initially embraced, was soon abandoned.

The Anglo-Saxons were soon replaced by William's French allies at just about every position

of power.

And a new divide was created.

It was a political, social, and linguistic divide.

At the top were French speakers, and at the bottom were English speakers, and that divide

has influenced the English language ever since.

But before we begin, I wanted to let you know that I posted the transcripts for the first

20 episodes of the podcast at the website.

Just go to the transcripts tab at historyofenglishpodcast.com.

I'll continue to update that list, and I hope to have all of the transcripts up shortly.

Now this time, we're going to begin our look at the Norman settlement of England.

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