Started listening to this book after the failure that was “King and Conqueror”.
The way Morris managed to capture the ambiguity of history is quite fascinating. He often compares multiple chroniclers, as some were writing literally a hundred years after the events, and most of them were partisan one way or the other (or in other words, some were Anglo Saxon monks, and some were Norman monks).
He also has a lot of humorous observations: like how Henry the 2nd was considered to be “return to Anglo Saxon roots”, while he was born in France, died in France, spend most of his life fighting in France, and was 1/8 or even 1/16 Anglo Saxon at best.
Or how William the Conqueror at his death was so fat he didn’t fit into his own sarcophagus.
But I digress. Great book, very glad I got to read it.
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