Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, French, Flemish and Breton troops led by William, Duke of Normandy, who claimed the English throne through his family ties to Edward the Confessor. After Edward's death in January 1066 and the accession of Harold Godwinson, William's forces landed at Pevensey on 28 September 1066 and defeated and killed Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. Although William was crowned king that Christmas, he faced years of English rebellions and was not fully secure on the throne until after 1072; the conquest brought large-scale confiscation of English land, the construction of castles across the kingdom, the compilation of the Domesday Book by 1086, and the replacement of the English elite and their language at court with Norman French, even as much of the machinery of government itself continued largely unchanged.