The Second Norman Conquest

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. William of Normandy famously invaded England in 1066, but he didn't quite conquer all of it. In fact, the duty of leading a second invasion was left to his son William Rufus almost 30 years later. Speaking to David Musgrove, Sophie Ambler and Fiona Edmonds reveal how this story played out in the little studied kingdom of Cumbria and explain how the second Norman conquest came about in the 1090s. Today we are talking about the Second Norman Conquest, which might surprise some listeners to think that there was a second Norman conquest.

So I'm joined by Professor Fiona Edmonds and Dr. Sophie Ambler, both from Lancaster University, who are experts in this area. Sophie, I'm going to go to you first. The first Norman conquest famously happened in 1066. Most people know about that.

Was there really a second one? There very much was. I mean, we think of 1066 and the Norman Conquest as the quintessential event, I think, in the making of England in English history. We think of William Duke of Normandy, Harold I, Harold Godminson, King of England, the Battle of Hastings, the Bay of Tapestry, and Doomsday Book as this great record of the making of the English state. But that's only part of the story because when William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066, he was conquering the Anglo-Saxon state.

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