As the Bayeux Tapestry comes to London, the year 1066 and the Norman Conquest are in the spotlight. The tapestry – an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long, created soon after the events it depicts – tells the story of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and William of Normandy’s triumphant defeat of Harold Godwinson, King of England.
The tapestry depicts William of Normandy as the victor, and Harold as a slippery oath-breaker who promises the English throne to William then goes back on his word. But it shows little of the wider impact of the battle on English people – except for one glimpse, just after William’s ships land at Pevensey on England’s south-east coast, when we see a woman and child fleeing a burning building, torched by Norman soldiers.
