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To: matginzac
Supposedly Edward the Confessor promised to make William his heir (under coercion) but the whole story could be a Norman invention.

Thomas Paine deals with it pretty well in Common Sense:

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.--It certainly hath no divinity in it.

40 posted on 12/03/2014 7:56:58 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: Verginius Rufus

Well, Paine’s opinion not withstanding, “possession is nine tenths of the rule”, “to the victor goes the spoils”, and “the winner gets to write the history”...
William the Bastard won so it all starts with him, like it or not...


41 posted on 12/03/2014 8:15:17 AM PST by matginzac
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