III.

Conquest of England

In 1066, William II, the 6th duke of Normandy and a descendent of Rollo, led the Norman Conquest of England. The Normans defeated the English at the famous Battle of Hastings, and William became England’s first Norman king as William I, or William the Conqueror. His economic and administrative reforms enabled England to become a major power. Here, as elsewhere, the Normans demonstrated their powers of assimilation and adaptation. Anglo-Norman culture soon dominated the social structure, language, literature, and architecture of England. Later, the Anglo-Normans made conquests in Wales and Ireland, and many settled in the Lowlands of Scotland.