The 1066 Norman Bruisers: How European Thugs Became English Gentry

The 1066 Norman Bruisers conjures up the vanished world of England in the late Middle Ages and casts light on one of the strangest quirks in the nation’s history: how a bunch of European thugs became the quintessentially English gentry. In 1066 go-getting young immigrant Osbern Fitz Tezzo crossed the Channel in William the Conqueror’s army.Little did he know that it would take five years to vanquish the English, years in which the Normans suffered almost as much as the people they had set out to subdue.For the English, the Norman Conquest was an unmitigated disaster, killing thousands by the sword or starvation.But for Osbern and his compatriots, it brought territory and treasure - and a generational evolution they could never have imagined. Osbern’s descendants settled in Cheshire, which played a pivotal role in medieval England as the launch pad for Edward I’s Welsh wars, the chief recruiting ground for royal armies and Richard II’s regional powerhouse.Successive members of the Boyde