Overripe Battle of Hastings drama gets lost in the dark

Those looking for a history lesson from ‘King & Conqueror’ will have to peer through the murk, writes Nick Hilton

- By Nick Hilton

If you've been a schoolchild in Britain over the past half-century, you'd be forgiven for believing our nation's history exists only in four key moments: the Second World War, the industrial revolution, Henry VIII, and the Battle of Hastings. Of these canonical events, the clash between Saxon and Norman forces in 1066, which brought the High Medieval Period to our sceptred isle, is perhaps most ripe for small screen translation, which it achieves this week, through BBC One's (overripe) King & Conqueror.

After years of civil war, three rival English nations - Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria – come together to anoint a single king: Edward the Confessor (Eddie Marsan). But Edward's ascension rapidly alienates the Wessex clan, led by the Earl of Wessex, Godwin (Geoff Bell), and his earnest second son Harold (James Norton). In exile across the Channel, Harold bonds with a Norman noble, William (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who has dynastic struggles of his own. Despite their burgeoning friendship – and the sense of destiny driving both men to their thrones - we know that they will end up, in 1066, head-to-head on the battlefield at Hastings. One king, one conqueror.

“Harold fears the worst,” his father confides. “That's a good quality for a leader, but not while we're at peace.” But peace, in late-Saxon Britain, proves fleeting.