For a certain kind of amateur historian there is a moment, fixed in the imagination, endlessly revisited: it is still not yet late on that bright October afternoon in 1066, the shield-wall locked and braced, the hill still theirs, the horses floundering on the slope below, Harold upright, the sun sinking but not yet gone, the field not yet lost. You can stop it there if you wish: it is all still possible, still unspoiled, the arrow not yet loosed, the shadow not yet crossing the light. England unbroken, the language uncorrupted. All of it, still possible. And then – a shadow descends from the blue sky.

Nearly a millennium later, the Normans are back in the spotlight. The BBC’s King & Conqueror , airing today, promises a Game of Thrones -style Hastings, with James Norton as Harold and

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