1066

Nearly everyone encounters the Bayeux Tapestry at school. Stitched roughly nine centuries ago, it records William of Normandy's conquest of England, building toward the clash at Hastings and the fall of King Harold. Its connected panels would stretch close to the length of a football field, and the fine detail makes it one of the most significant historical documents ever produced. Its best-known scene shows Harold dying with an arrow in his eye, an image that stands for William's triumph and the last successful invasion of England by a foreign army.

Was the tapestry simply a piece of Norman propaganda? Andrew Bridgeford examines its narrative closely and uncovers much that earlier readers missed. He argues that the Anglo-Saxon perspective was woven into the cloth in ways the Normans failed to notice, and that it preserves a hidden account of England's final years before the conquest, one that differs sharply from the official Norman version. At the centre of this alternative story stands a mysterious French count whose own claim to the English throne rivalled William's.

The figures Bridgeford brings to life include ambitious warrior bishops, dwarfs kept at court, ruthless knights and powerful women. The book leads toward several surprising conclusions, challenges long-held assumptions about the tapestry, and sheds fresh light on a crucial chapter of English history.