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Hereward - The Last Englishman
book_Hereward
Hereward - The Last Englishman
'Peter Rex's scholarship on Hereward is remarkable... he rescues Hereward, a genuine folk hero, from the oblivion into which he has' FRANK MCLYNN, author of 1066: The Year of Three Battles
After the Norman victory at Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror's oppression of the English led to widespread famine and destruction, culminating in the brutal Harrying of the North and the deaths f 100,000 people. Did the English submit to the tyranny of their oppressors? Or was this to be the beginning of an English fight for liberty?
Returning from Flanders to find his country taken over by the Normans, Hereward known traditionally (and erroneously) as 'the Wake', led the remnants from the troubles in the North on a path of resistance that started with the violent plundering of the monastery at Peterborough. On the death of Abbot Brand, Hereward's uncle, King William had appointed the ferociously warlike Norman, Turold, as Brand's successor. He was on his way to his new appointment with a force of Norman soldiers when Hereward and his supporters decided on pre-emptive action to prevent the treasures of Peterborough from falling into Norman hands. Barricading himself on the Isle Ely, Hereward held out until reinforced by the arrival of Earls Edwin and Morcar from the North. The outlawed Hereward then found himself the object of William's personal hatred - and the focus of his desire to stamp out the last of the English resistance.
Peter Rex details Hereward's campaign from his refuge on the forbidding Isle to dramatic storming of his sanctuary by the bloodthirsty Normans. Rex rescues Hereward not only from historical obscurity, but from the myths associated with his life and career, and finally reveals the mystery of his parentage and baffling disappearance into the mists of the Fens.....
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