King and Conqueror

escaped

MayBee70

One of my favourite history series from a few years back was The Normans. William was descended from Rollo wasn’t he?

I think so, yes.

Thanks Maybee - I'm going to test DH!!

Every day's a school day etc

I'm excited, I found King Rollo, Maybee! I knew he sounded familiar 😀

Love james Norton but this was truly dreadful!

I quite like James Norton...saw him in a wonderful film sometime ago called Nowhere Special, I'd highly recommend that however, I am finding him badly cast here.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau though!

Didn't like it . Dark and gloomy so turned over to SAS and that was dark and gloomy too!

I watched it again last night. A few interesting scenes from the strong women in the cast, but otherwise pretty dire.

I was looking forward to watching this but after 10 minutes gave up , the gloomy scenes made it difficult to watch and see what was happening

I noticed a "clinker" boat, they were not built until the 1800s.

Yawn 🥱🥱

mabon2

I noticed a "clinker" boat, they were not built until the 1800s.

😁

Well, I'm going to watch King Rollo instead.

I watched the first episode and was a little confused too, I decided I would try the second episode and to be honest I did enjoy it, especially as some of my school history lessons started to flood back. From what I remember Edward the Confessor was basically controlled by his mother, he apparently promised William of Normandy, a cousin, that the throne of England would come to him upon edward's death. When he died in 1066, there were 4 claimants to the thone, Harald Hadrada, King of Norway decided he wanted England, William thought it should he his and our Harold Godwinson, son of Godwin of Wessex, was in line too as a means of uniting Mercia and Wessex and finally completing King Alfred's dream of a united England. Finally Harold G was pronounced King early in 1066, William invaded Britain some months later and a battle ensued, Harold got the arrow in the eye, and William the Conqueror was finally King of England as promised by Edward.

I can't remember who the 4th Claimant was. Edward's mother died long before the battle and Edward was left floundering, trying to run a kingdom he was unfit to reign over. His religion took priority.

It reminded me of what an adult version of Horrible Histories would be like.

Utter drivel! Peurile dialogue, changed names and dates to make it more 'entertaining'. Even changed the name of Harold's wife to that of her sister. The timeline was all wrong. Edward the Confessor was not 3 bricks short of a full load. He reigned for approx 23 years ( happy to corrected on this)

Eddiethecat78

Our Sunday Afternoon matinee for a few weeks has been the original Joan Hickson 'Miss Maple' films. Beautiful cinematography, great acting and everything from the picture to the sound is absolutely perfect.
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For anyone interested this weekend's offering is 'The 4:50 from Paddington'. BBC4. I think 9:00pm on Saturday. We record to watch the next day.
Others episodes are on iplayer.
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missdeke

I watched the first episode and was a little confused too, I decided I would try the second episode and to be honest I did enjoy it, especially as some of my school history lessons started to flood back. From what I remember Edward the Confessor was basically controlled by his mother, he apparently promised William of Normandy, a cousin, that the throne of England would come to him upon edward's death. When he died in 1066, there were 4 claimants to the thone, Harald Hadrada, King of Norway decided he wanted England, William thought it should he his and our Harold Godwinson, son of Godwin of Wessex, was in line too as a means of uniting Mercia and Wessex and finally completing King Alfred's dream of a united England. Finally Harold G was pronounced King early in 1066, William invaded Britain some months later and a battle ensued, Harold got the arrow in the eye, and William the Conqueror was finally King of England as promised by Edward.

I can't remember who the 4th Claimant was. Edward's mother died long before the battle and Edward was left floundering, trying to run a kingdom he was unfit to reign over. His religion took priority.

That sounds like my DH!
Except yours was more of a précis 😁

Annma

It reminded me of what an adult version of Horrible Histories would be like.

I thought Horrible Histories was adult 😁
It is certainly more historically accurate by the sounds of it.

I couldn’t hear a word they were saying, had volume up full. They all looked stupid, trotting around on little Icelandic ponies instead of giant chargers!

According to the Anglo Saxon Chronicles, Edward died on Twelfth Night 1065, “committing his Kingdom to one high in rank, Harold himself, noble Earl, who at all times faithfully obeyed his lord in words and deeds, holding back nothing at the need of the King of the people”. Whether that means he meant Harold to be King or a caretaker, is not clear, but it goes on to say that “Earl Harold was also hallowed king - and he had little peace during the time he ruled the Kingdom.” So both he and Edward gave back word to William. No wonder he was hopping mad.

Mind you, there’s nothing to say that the Chroniclers weren’t just as capable of a bit of embroidery as the women who made the tapestry.

We switched it on, on Sunday. I couldn't help thinking about Monty Python. The longer it went on with the banal script and huge historical inaccuracies, the more I kept thinking Holy Grail. Needless to say I switched off. It's been panned by the critics too.

I was looking forward to this but after two episodes have ditched it. With such a great cast this could have been so much better but it was confusing and wooden.

Bring back “Last Kingdom”! Far more entertaining and more than a passing nod to historical accuracy in Bernard Cornwell’s hands.

Dempie55

I couldn’t hear a word they were saying, had volume up full. They all looked stupid, trotting around on little Icelandic ponies instead of giant chargers!

I was quite impressed with the ponies as I thought that at that time people would have been using smaller, more native breeds than the ones usually depicted. Having said that, I must look it up. They didn’t film in Iceland did they? I know when they filmed part of Game of Thrones in Iceland whenever they showed horses they tended to film them in the distance as the Icelandic ponies were much smaller than the ones they used in Ireland.

So it was filmed in Iceland; I hadn’t realised that.

I wonder what the budget was?

The BBC refuses to divulge it, but it was a significant portion of its budget ie a lot of licence-payers' money.