Around Britain in 40 monarchs

From William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II: John Goodall presents a tour of Britain, through the murder and mayhem of the Middle Ages, the madness of George III and the stability of Victoria, highlighting places and objects associated with each of them over the past millennium

- John Goodall

1 William the Conqueror (1066–87)

Domesday This exhaustive survey of more than 13,000 places, recorded in two massive volumes on the skins of some 1,000 sheep, was commissioned at Gloucester in December 1085 by William I. According to the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, he ‘sent his men over all England into every shire and had them discover… what land and cattle the King himself had… or what dues he ought to have… and how much each man who was a landholder in England had in land or livestock’. The survey, preserved at the National Archives, Kew, presents the most detailed account of an 11th-century society anywhere in the world—it was widely resented at the time— and charts the impact of the Norman Conquest on England. Legacy William’s victory over Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 ultimately brought about the single largest transfer of land in British history. He and his followers founded castles, monasteries and towns that physically transformed England and became the focus of its future political, religious and economic life. His Anglo-Norman interests inextricably linked the affairs of England with those of the Continent. English monarchs are conventionally numbered from his reign.

2 William II (1087–1100)