Tomorrow is the anniversary of the battle of Hastings, a battle which took place in a year once imprinted on the brain of every English child with even the bare smattering of an education. Nowadays I’d be surprised if even a quarter of English people under the age of 20 could correctly name the year of the battle that shaped the future of their country for the next one thousand years or so.

It was always a big ask of King Harold’s English army to defeat the highly trained and fresh army of Guillame (William) of Normandy , just recently landed from across the Channel, when his own soldiers were exhausted just days after gaining a victory over William’s Viking allies at Stamford Bridge near York. The English had made a forced march over a distance of some 300 miles to meet the Norman threat and were hardly in the best of conditions to confront the second prong of the invasion of their country on that fateful morning of October 14th, 1066.

William the Conqueror’s victory spelt the end of Anglo-Saxon rule and ushered in a reign of terror with all subsequent resistance and rebellion crushed with ruthless brutality. Let nobody be in any doubt that the English suffered terribly under the cruel reign of the Normans and their harsh feudal system, aspects of which are still recognisable to this day in our anachronistic class system. Vast swathes of land were laid waste by the conquerors who wiped out whole communities all over England, particularly in the north. Such action is now referred to as ethnic cleansing or genocide.

We hear much of how badly the Irish, Welsh and Scots were treated by the “English”, meaning the ruling class of the England and a class that for nearly 300 years, until the late 14th century, spoke only French and treated English speakers as inferior serfs. By contrast we hear little of the sufferings of the English common folk. That could well be because the English have accepted it and moved on or maybe because it is just not in the English nature to wallow in sentiment and self pity.

October 14th, 1066 marked the beginning of the end of a largely peace-loving and inward-looking England concerned more by its own culture than by foreign adventure. The Norman conquest changed that forever and the country’s ruthless new rulers set out to subjugate the whole of the British Isles followed by conquest in France and beyond.

Maybe now, with the very real prospect of the dissolution of the United Kingdom, the wheel will turn full circle and England can revert once more to her pre-1066 position, a nation apart from her Celtic neighbours with an emphasis on England and all things English. Mere romance perhaps but a pleasant thought for many of us nevertheless.