Death comes for everybody in time. Every nation. Every person. None of us will live forever, despite our greatest wishes or plans. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still seeking that whole immortality thing, but humanity is shooting at darn near 100% on missing the mark so far. And as in all things, death came for the descendents of the Saxons who conquered the former Roman province of Britannia. Or at least their ruler at the time.

And whenever there is a death of a crown, there are claimants for the crown if there is no set line of succession. Sometimes even if there IS a set line of succession. Some people will do anything not to lose out on a game of thrones after all. This is the way it was when the king of Saxon England died. Prospective crowns came out of the woodwork, as well as invaders who sought an opportunity for new wealth and new lands. The Saxons got it all, good and hard. And they fought, good and hard.

The most successful of the claimants were the Normans. They were married into basically every royal family of Europe by this time, and William the Conqueror thought his claim was solid gold. So he assembled the largest fleet ever put to sea to cross what history calls the English Channel to bring an army capable of defeating every Saxon army he met. He plopped his butt on the throne of England and decided that he liked it there. He was going to stay. And he brought all of his favorite and best Norman nobles with him to become the new ruling class of England. This was a mass migration of the nobility, and it would forever change the destiny of the British Isles.