The Betrayal of Albion Part 2

The Betrayal of Albion Part 2
1066 and all that Bollocks

The Norman Conquest is probably one of the most researched and published subjects in all of English history and yet 99% of it is all nonsense, in my considered opinion. Historians dote upon William the Conqueror, or William the Bastard to give him his correct title pre-1066, they worship the very ground he supposedly walked upon and consider his reign and its revolutionary reforms to have been one of the most significant episodes in English history. Upon the latter I would agree, but not for the same reasons. William the Bastard really was an utter one, in my opinion.

To clear away the centuries of veneer that have been applied to the Norman Conquest, some background information is necessary. For example, just who were ‘The Normans’? Did they have any involvement with allegedly Anglo-Saxon England before 1066? Was William really capable of invading England with all those men and all those horses in all those ships? Did the Battle of Hastings even take place? What was the role of the City of London in all of this? Was it an ‘inside job’?

● Introduction ○ Who were The Normans? ○ Did The Normans have any involvement with Anglo‑Saxon England before 1066? ○ Was William The Bastard technically capable of invading England with all those men and all those horses in all those ships? ○ Did the Battle of Hastings even take place? ○ The “Arrow in the Eye” Myth

● What was the role of the City of London in all of this? ○ Was it an ‘inside job’? ○ William’s Coronation ○ The Mob takes control ○ Revolutionary Reforms ○ The Peasants are Revolting

● Why is the myth of William the Conqueror still upheld and encouraged today? ○ The Great Partnership ○ The Great Eviction ○ The Middle Period ○ Meanwhile, back in the City...

Who were The Normans?

French people from Normandy right? Well, no not really, but yes, sort of. When I was researching the Norman Conquest some 30 years ago, it was generally agreed in the books I read that the Normans were not a race of people from Normandy in France, but an elite group of wealthy 'aristocrats' from northern Europe.

Now that has all changed. These days they tell us that some huge great Viking called Rollo was invading northern France during the ninth and tenth centuries and settling his people in the area of Normandy – which they claim literally means ‘Land of the North Men’. (‘Nor’ is ‘North’ in French, but ‘man’ is ‘homme’ and only means ‘man’ in English. ‘Mand’ in French relates to good food as in ‘gourmande’.) The land occupied by this Scandinavian colony was supposedly ‘officially’ granted to Rollo by the Franks in 911 (what a number) and then absorbed into the Frankish Kingdom. Coincidentally, one of the meanings of the word ‘rollo' in Spanish is a ‘cock-and-bull story', or BS. Rollo became a duke and the Vikings became French and then one day, a chap called William the Bastard and his gang decided on a trip across the English Channel for a bit of duty-free shopping in Hastings. They liked it so much they stayed. All of this in just 150 or so years.

A more scholarly version of this story goes as follows:

“The Norman duchy had been a parallel development [to that of the increased Scandinavian influences in England] following immigration of Danes into western Neustria (the western part of the kingdom of the Franks) see map below, from about 800 CE when the area around the River Seine and Rouen was colonised. There were not huge numbers of immigrants in relative terms, but they married local Frankish women and this was followed by a surprisingly rapid spread across Normandy with assimilation and some submergence of their language, with the western Franks, with the institutions and customs of the duchy remaining essentially Frankish, with some input from Scandinavian justice systems.” Source

However, the Bill the Conk story (Bill, short for William, Conk short for Conqueror and a slang word for 'nose') states that after the Battle of Hastings in October 1066 he just had four months to fight his way to London, confront the City and issue the Charter as he was back home in France for a year from March 1067 sorting out a few problems. London never gets a mention in the story because rebellions in the North kept him very busy when he got back. In his absence his half-brother and some other guy were in charge and apparently had been on a whirlwind tour of the country building castles all over the place… inside a year. Castles were a Norman invention, of course.

So, it wasn’t a colonisation by a race of foreign people, it was an intrusion by a few thugs, a takeover by ‘The Mob’. From out of this emerged ‘The Feudal System’.

“Indeed, as suggested by Georges Duby (1953): its creation occurred in France, at around the year 1000, when as a result of increasing de-centralisation, the institutions of ‘public order’ gave way to a new feudal system, in which aristocratic lords wielded power over smaller territories through the use of strong-arm tactics and threats of violence. In addition, this change also led to the rapid multiplication of new lordships, knights and castles; and was thus, a product – as Duby argued – of ‘a social revolution’ that took place in Europe from about 990 to 1060. However, the introduction of new lordships did create problems for established rulers – such as the dukes of Normandy – since their power had to be restrained both by force and by acts, such as the Truce of God (proclaimed by the Church to curb unlicensed warfare).

“Furthermore, each count was given possession of a castle and was also responsible for the defence of a sensitive border region. By empowering his relatives Richard II was able to extend his authority beyond the reaches of Rouen, thereby obtaining a far greater control over the landscape than previously achieved… Additionally, the counts also formed a military-élite, which assisted the duke by helping him to maintain both internal and external peace.

“Nevertheless once established, these new lords soon became dissatisfied with the land they had been granted, and as a result, they began to acquire more by conducting in private warfare.

“The problem (for Richard), here, as noted by Orderic Vitalis, was that unlike other Norman lords, the family of Bellême held most of their land outside of Normandy as much of their estates resided within the counties of Perche and Maine. Avesgaud of Bellême for example, held the bishopric of Le Mans ‘until his death’ in c.1035. By owning estates within multiple regions, the Bellêmes’ were, thus, able to establish (in the eleventh-century) a quasi-independent territory that was located partly within the south-western perimeter of Normandy in an area where William I of Bellême ‘held Alençon as a fief’ of Richard II from 1025.

“Indeed, in military terms, it is even doubtable whether Richard II actually possessed the resources necessary to deploy a large army; as when engaged against the powerful Count Odo (his only major war), he decided ‘to ask for help from… overseas’ by hiring a huge number of Viking mercenaries; an indication perhaps, of Norman military weakness during this period.” Source: ‘Early rebellion and its links to later success and conquest: Why was it that some Norman rulers profited from rebellions early in their reigns, whilst others did not?’ Matthew Paul Burke.

So then, you had to get a license from the Church to make war. The elite Norman gang was clearly not restricted to Normandy. Does any of this sound familiar? What if I were to say ‘Cosa Nostra’ which is Italian for ‘This thing of ours’ or ‘our cause,’ ‘our interest’.

Update Nov. 2022: This is all very reminiscent of the Roman Client or Foederati system which was in force right up until the 10th century cataclysm that occurred just 132 years before the supposed Norman Conquest. See the newer article The Dark Earth Chronicles

“It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure and code of conduct, and present themselves to the public under a common brand [F: like for example ‘The Normans’.] The basic group is known as a "family", "clan", or cosca. Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves "men of honour" [F: like Knights do], although the public often refers to them as mafiosi. The Mafia's core activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. By the 20th century, following wide-scale emigration from Sicily, mafiosi established gangs in North and South America which replicate the traditions and methods of their Sicilian ancestors.” Source

Guess who also invaded Sicily and introduced ‘feudalism’ there – why it was The Normans, of course.

“Normandy’s wealth increased during the late tenth and early eleventh century, as a result of Viking plunder being sold at Norman ports, such as Rouen. In fact, it was even recorded in 1003 that Richard II signed a treaty with the Danish king, Sven Forkbeard, which allowed the Danes to use Norman ports – when attacking the English shoreline – in return for a share of the loot.” (Ibid.)

I decline to bore myself and everyone else to death with all the rivalries, deceptions and squabblings over succession following the deaths of the various dukes. Suffice it to say, there was much and it was probably all fake. Anyway, eventually William the Bastard ended up as the Godfather - sorry the Duke - of Normandy. He was the illigitimate son of Richard II, hence his title of ‘Bastard’.

He extended his mafiosi even further afield by aligning himself with thugs who had risen to prominence during the period of anarchy in the 1030s and 1040s, such as William fitz Osbern (I know an inappropriate joke about that), Roger of Montgomery, Roger of Beaumont and William of Warenne. They was a general shortage of first names in medieval France - Richard, Roger and William was the complete list.

These Rogerers and Williamses would play vital roles in the Godfather’s takeover of both England and Maine (now divided into the departments of Sarthe and Mayenne in France.) William, the Bastard, also pioneered the technique of terrorism in its true sense...

“For example, the use of ‘fear’ to force an enemy’s submission was first used, by the duke, during the siege of Alençon in 1051; where according to Wace: after taking an outlying fort, he brutalised those he captured by having the ‘hands and feet’ of ‘thirty-two’ men cut off. His cruelty, thus, persuaded the people of Alençon to surrender. This tactic was later repeated during the conquest of Maine, as here William ‘destroyed vineyards, fields and estates’, in order to terrify the local populace into accepting his authority. And likewise, the Bayeux Tapestry also depicts the duke’s men torching houses in Wessex, most likely, so as to goad Harold into a speedy confrontation.” (ibid.)

There is no record of him nailing people’s heads to coffee tables though, but now we know that The Normans weren’t simply people from Normandy.

Did The Normans have any involvement with Anglo-Saxon England before 1066?

Yes. Around 1002 Richard II of Normandy and King Æthelred of England sought a mutually beneficial alliance. Æthelred had attempted to kidnap Richard, but was unsuccessful and he wanted to put an end to the Viking raids facilitated by The Norman mobsters. Richard didn’t fancy further kidnap attempts and wanted to improve relations with England. This called for a marriage. Æthelred married Emma, Richard’s sister.

This Emma is made quite a fuss of these days being portrayed as a ‘strong independent woman.’ Her new union produced Edward the Confessor, Alfred Ætheling, and a daughter, Goda of England (or Godgifu… which sounds like the early English response to a sneeze.)

Æthelred had been married before, or not, or continued to be married to both women, depending on who is telling the story. Anyway, there was another son by this previous relationship – Edmund Ironside.

She, her husband the English king and family were exiled to Normandy after the invasion of England by Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark in 1013. He didn’t last long and they all came home again in 1014. But, wouldn’t you just know it, Forkbeard’s dad, Cnut (good job I’m not dyslexic), invaded England in 1015. Emma would marry him in 1017, but that’s another story. It seems the poor girl just couldn’t resist a king.

There is a lot that could be said about The Norman Emma, but it isn’t all relevant to this article and may not even be true given its proximity to the 10th century cataclysm. She became Queen of England and later of Denmark and Norway, not to mention the richest woman in England.

In 1051 there was even an armed incursion by one of The Bastard’s mobsters at Dover in Kent:

“Count Eustace of Boulogne, the Confessor's brother-in-law, [used armed force] against the citizens of Dover when the latter, taking offense at the highhanded conduct of the Frenchmen, resisted them.” Source

The history wallahs can’t agree on what this incident was all about. There are suggestions that It was all tied up with Edward the Confessor’s alleged bequeathal of the English throne to The Bastard and that Edward had granted him Dover as a sign of good faith, therefore Eustace was there to take control on the Godfather’s behalf. It’s all just speculation though. However…

“This writer has sought to show that it is possible that there was, in fact, an attempt to establish a number of Norman garrisons in England in the years 1051–1052; ‘A Pre-Conquest Norman Occupation of England,’ Speculum 46 (1971) 21–31.” (ibid.)

In that regard I came across the fragment of a book from 1905 by T. Davies Price, with no title, just a chapter heading which is ‘The Alleged Norman Origin of Castles in England.’ Mr Davies Price does a marvelous job of annihilating the preconception that the Normans were the first to build ‘motte and motte and bailey’ castles in Britain. He shows that they weren’t big castle builders at all, whenever possible they simply occupied what was already there, burning down any adjacent houses in the process. He also states:

“The assurance of Ordericus Vitalis that there were few fortifications in the English provinces which the French called castles implies that such structures already existed. The statement is a qualified one and carries with it the implication that in some other part of Britain these structures were more numerous. This qualification may be interpreted as applying to the castles of Edward the Confessor's Norman favourites on the Welsh borders.” (ibid.)

Ergo, Edward the Confessor had “Norman favourites” who were established in their own castles. He had been brought up in Normandy having been exiled there with his brother, Alfred Aetheling, for a total of some 30 years, the last occasion following their mother’s marriage to Cnut. When it became his turn to wear the English crown, he brought a significant number his Norman friends with him and placed them in positions of influence, causing tensions, particularly with Earl Godwin of Wessex.

So there was definitely considerable Norman involvement with and influence within England prior to 1066.

Was William The Bastard technically capable of invading England with all those men and all those horses in all those ships?

“The Norman invasion of England in 1066 has engaged medievalists in vigorous controversy for centuries. At the heart of the matter is this question: How did Duke William obtain the massive ﬂeet and trained personnel needed to carry out the largest amphibious operation in western Europe since the early days of the Roman Empire?” Source: ‘On the Origins of William the Conqueror’s Horse Transports’ by Bernard S. Bachrach:

The Bastard’s invasion of England required that he possessed the technology and infrastructure to be able to transport a very large number of men and horses in battle-ready condition across the English Channel during the night in late September under very unfavourable conditions.

“The sources are in general agreement that, when William decided to invade England, the Normans lacked both ships and experienced naval personnel. Nevertheless, within a period of less than nine months William was able to obtain, largely through new construction, we are told, somewhere between 696 (this being the often accepted number provided by the often maligned Wace) and 3,000 ships (the number given by the putatively reliable William of Poitiers). Whatever may have been the size of this ﬂeet, modern scholars regard it as having been of adequate size to transport some 10,000 men and a herd of from 2,000 to 3,000 horses, plus supplies to sustain the invasion army. The logistic problems involved in building, outﬁtting, and manning a ﬂeet of somewhere between about 700 and about 3,000 ships during a period of less than nine months under conditions dictated by mid-” (ibid.)

At this point the above source dried up due to the sheer greed of the jstor website who want $199 for an annual subscription in order to read beyond the first page. Anyway, I think it’s blindingly obvious that this proposition is ludicrous. On this basis, my personal opinion on this question is no – he did not have the capability of transporting his army as described and therefore it is a lie and it never happened.

Update Nov. 2022: This situation would be further complicated by the fact that the world was still recovering from the 10th century cataclysm.

Did the Battle of Hastings even take place?

I don’t really want to get into the ins and outs of the claims to the English throne following the deaths of Edward the Confessor and then of Harold Godwineson – supposedly at Hastings. It’s all very complicated and obviously contrived, not to mention irrelevant to this article.

To set the scene: “The local Norman lords were constantly waging private wars, whereas the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom across the Channel was relatively stable. The Domestic turbulence forced Duke William to confront and subdue his nobility.” Source: ‘A Revolutionary Reform: How William the Conqueror Conquered the Church’ by William Shirley.

So could this be a reason for the invasion of England? Did the Norman Godfather seek to distract his henchmen from their internal power struggles by redirecting their self-interest towards England and thus satisfying their greed and blood-lust in a new land?

Furthermore, “The falling out between the English Church and Rome would give William a platform to seek approval from Rome for his invasion.” (ibid.) Which he got and then...

“On September 25, 1066, Harold defeated his first contender, Harald Hardrada, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. He was not so lucky with the other. On September 28 or 29, William, Duke of Normandy landed his army in the south of England, at Pevensey. Harold subsequently rushed south to meet him, thus setting the stage on October 14 for one of the most epic battles in British history.” Source: ‘Was the Battle of Hastings Really Fought on Battle Hill? A GIS Assessment’ by Christopher Macdonald Hewitt.

The dates above are worth further consideration. What a coincidence that The Bastard (as he was still known at that point) landed his army just 3 or 4 days after the other battle 350 kms away in Yorkshire. It begs the question of whether it was pre-arranged between Harald Hardrada and the Norman mob.

Harold “rushed” south and the Battle of Hastings began on October the 14th when The Bastard took Harold by surprise. Presumably it took a while for Harold to learn of The Bastard’s invasion, but even so it took about 14 or 15 days for Harold to get to Hastings and then he was the one taken by surprise not The Bastard, who had been hanging around waiting, burning the odd village here and there, for two weeks. During that period all his thousands of men and horses had to be fed and watered, along with all of the sailors in the thousands of ships.

“William certainly had thousands of men with him at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, but the names of less than 20 were recorded.” Source

The details of the battle itself are perplexing in three major aspects.

It went on for nine hours. “From 'the third hour of the day until dusk,' at least nine hours.” (Source: ‘Hastings: An Unusual Battle’ by Stephen Morillo in the Haskins Society Journal.) It has to be one of the longest battles ever as most lasted for an hour or two at the most.
Even though the Normans had cavalry (supposedly), the fighting was very evenly matched.
The battle resulted in a total capitulation by the English. The Bastard became The Conqueror after just one battle. “There were, of course, many battles in which one side beat the living daylights out of the other. But few of these transferred rule of a major kingdom from one people to another, with little subsequent opposition after the battle, and few transfers have had such fundamental consequences for the kingdom involved. On a level of analysis specific to Hastings, such a view seems in conflict with the unusual length and difficulty of the battle noted above. One would not expect inevitable victories to take so long, or be so hard, or to be almost lost.” (ibid.)

Not only did the king die, but also “Earls Gyrth and Leofuine, Harold's brothers and main subordinates. No conclusive moment in the battle has been found for their deaths, for the sources are not specific on this point.

“So the theory of cavalry dominance does not account convincingly for the details of the action at Hastings.

“Indeed not just Harold, but a large proportion of the entire Saxon leadership class perished, including any possible effective heirs to Harold's position.” (ibid.)

The “Arrow in the Eye” Myth

“Despite the popularity of the ‘arrow in the eye’ story, historians have not reached a consensus on how Harold was killed at Hastings. In fact, some of the greatest historians of the Norman Conquest, such as Sir Frank Stenton and David Douglas, were less than convinced by the ‘arrow in the eye’ tale, and others, such as Henry Loyn and Frank Barlow, rejected it entirely.” Source: ‘The strange death of King Harold II’ by Chris Dennis.

The two earliest Norman sources are both totally vague regarding Harolds death almost to the point of ignoring it completely. They also disagree as to the timing of his death, one claiming it was at the beginning of the battle and the other saying at or near the end.

By the early 1100’s an alternative story emerged, suggesting that the early accounts had been officially censored. In this version he was not only blinded by an arrow, but he was then visciously hacked to death immediately after by The Norman knights. However, this story can also be traced back to 1067 and the (unofficial) ‘Song of the Battle of Hastings’, a poem written by the French bishop Guy of Amiens. This song omits the arrow incident completely and claims that “Instead, Duke William himself gathers together three other knights and they cut Harold to pieces.” (ibid.)

“They succeeded in killing the king and then the manuscript [‘Song of the Battle of Hastings’] goes on to give the gory details of the injuries inflicted: pierced with a lance, beheaded with a sword and disemboweled with a spear. It goes on to say that his ‘thigh’ was hacked off and carried away some distance (Note – for thigh, read manhood, dick etc.)” Source

This subject would not be complete without mentioning the Bayeux Tapestry - commissioned by Bishop Odo, boss of the Cathedral of Bayeux. Coincidenally he was also William's half-brother. In the 19th century the tapestry underwent major restoration work. However: “Around 1729, Antoine Benoît made a drawing of it for the French historian Bernard de Montfaucon; Benoît’s drawings formed the basis of two different engravings of the Tapestry published by Montfaucon in 1730 and Antoine Lancelot, in 1733.” (ibid.)

It’s clear from this pre-restoration evidence that the supposed Harold figure was holding something that looks exactly like a spear, identical to the one being held by another figure to the left of the standard-bearer in the same scene.

“In his excellent survey of the engravings, M. K. Lawson pointed out that neither Montfaucon nor Lancelot, who were both well aware of the ‘arrow in the eye’ tradition, identified this figure as Harold. It took nearly one hundred years for an antiquarian to recognise [F:!!!?*] the arrow. In Charles Stothard’s drawing, published in 1819, the figure is unambiguously clutching an arrow, but Lawson has suggested that Stothard himself may have decided to manipulate the scene to fit the ‘arrow in the eye’ story.” (ibid.)

Upon examining the Tapestry now it’s clear that the figure supposed to represent King Harold with the arrow in his eye looks all wrong. His grip on the arrow is identical to the spear wielder to his left. For the arrow to have entered Harold’s eye at the angle portrayed it would need to have been fired from below ground level and at a close range rather than randomly falling from the sky by the providence of God.

The inscription is also suspect. “‘Hic Harold rex interfectus est’ [here King Harold is killed] is not original and that instead it may have read ‘Hic Harold rex in terra iactus est’ (‘Here King Harold has been thrown to the ground’), which would clearly relate to the falling figure.” (ibid.)

One final curiosity regarding the phantom battle comes from “A monk writing at Christ Church, Canterbury, [who] recorded just two events for that year [1066] in a chronicle kept at the cathedral: ‘Here King Edward died. In this year, Christ Church burned.’ Another scribe then added the words, ‘Here came William’.” Source

No mention of what is claimed to be one of the greatest battles of all time. William just turned up… precisely.

What fascinates me in all of this is “why?” Why go to so much trouble to falsify the records concerning the method of King Harold’s death? Why carry on with the falsification and deception into the nineteenth century and even reinforce it?

A particular problem for the Normans was that King Harold had actually been ‘anointed’ at his coronation back in January of 1066. That made Harold the legitimate King of England in the eyes of the Church. Almost immediately afterwards The Normans began a massive propaganda campaign against Harold in order to win papal approval for an invasion. Not only was Harold accused of breaking his oath to The Bastard regarding a promise he is alleged to have made giving him the throne upon the death of Edward The Confessor, but they also did a hatchet job on the reputation of the Archbishop of Canterbury who performed the anointing ceremony. Whatever, they were successful in gaining papal approval for an invasion. Nevertheless, even after The Conqueror’s victory, thanks to the anointing ceremony he remained simply that – a conqueror who had taken the throne by force of invasion.

The 'anointing' also has another meaning which is nothing to do with Christianity other than through having been co-opted and corrupted. It relates to the pre-Christian 'Hieros Gamos' concept as described in The Nature of the Beast article.

It took four years for the Church to officially recognise The Conqueror as King of England when a papal legate visited the country. He also announced a lengthy series of penances for all those who had taken part in the Battle of Hastings for which no archaeological evidence has ever been found.

On that subject it should be noted that, in spite of it being on record that William The Conqueror personally insisted that Battle Abbey should be erected with it’s altar on the exact spot where Harold fell, there have been many new theories regarding the location of the battle. None of these proposed new sites have been based upon archaeological evidence either, instead some ‘Clever-Dick’ has simply claimed that they would be better suited strategically. Using fancy technology it has even been revealed that the ground at the original Battle site would have been too boggy for horses and this is also confirmed by the monks who had similar problems where ordered to build the abbey.

So, what are we to make of all this? Personally I don’t believe there was any Battle of Hastings at Hastings or anywhere else. Neither was William’s invasion force anywhere near the vastly exaggerated numbers that were claimed. It’s clear that The Normans used terrorist tactics and also propaganda. The accounts of the fake battle are over exaggerated in the extreme, just as if someone was trying much too hard to convince posterity that this was a great and noble battle fought honourably, but an inevitable victory for the glorious Normans.

The obvious conspiracies over the circumstances of Harold’s death – which are ongoing – convince me that there was something major that needed to be covered up. Exactly what that is can only be a matter of speculation, but then most so-called history is pure speculation anyway.

There’s a lot of fuel here to get the speculative fires burning brightly. The Danish invasion in Yorkshire was pre-arranged to get Harold out of the way while William landed on the south coast with a few ships. William then set about making it known that he had arrived with a truly massive army by burning villages. Obviously news reached Harold of William’s massive army and its campaign of terror in the Wessex countryside, so he headed south to deal with it.

I don’t think he ever got there. Maybe William requested a ‘parley’ or he ambushed Harold en-route to Hastings. I believe this is the true origin of the ‘Duke William himself gathers together three other knights and they cut Harold to pieces’ episode in the ‘Song of the Battle of Hastings’, not to mention the massacre of all the Anglo-Saxon nobles, including Harold’s two brothers. It also explains the hesitation of the Church to recognise William and the severe penances that were imposed. End of speculation… I’m sure there’ll be more later though.

Update Nov. 2022: Indeed there is. The description of the 1066 invasion force is a very close match to that of Julius Caesar's 2nd invasion of Britain. One event may be a projection of the other, or both may be fabrications. See The Dark Earth Chronicles for details.

What was the role of the City of London in all of this?

They were ‘up-to-their-necks’ in it (there you are – more speculation already.)

Let’s rewind a bit. Back in 1015 Cnut invaded, if you remember all that Emma stuff. Well, Emma, along with her husband King Æthelred, was besieged by Cnut’s army inside the City of London. Unfortunately Æthelred died during the siege in April 1016 – no how or why that I can find. The Witan (the Anglo-Saxon council of royal advisors) declared Cnut king. Edmund Ironside ( Æthelred’s first son by his previous… companion) was also besieged in the City of London where he was declared king and even crowned in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

There then followed a bewildering sequence of skirmishes, battles, betrayals and sieges involving Edmund and Cnut. At the end of September, 1016, Edmund and Cnut were persuaded to split the country between them, BUT (a big but) the City of London came under the control of Cnut. Upon hearing this news the City quickly ‘bought’ peace with their new king and the latest siege was lifted. Edmund died in November 1016 just weeks after the treaty. Some claim he was murdered in London… or maybe Oxford ...or maybe it's all just more bollocks.

There’s another version of these events which states that Emma kept the Danes out of London until she could arrange her marriage to the invading Cnut, which took place in July 1017. If Cnut became King in November of the previous year that means she kept him out of London for eight months! Source (sorry lost.)

Cnut was crowned in January 1017 at St.Paul’s Cathedral, London, (Source) therefore the claim in the previous paragraph is clearly nonsense… which is typical of the Norman saga. However, it does say something about Emma and the City of London, implying a hand-in-glove type relationship.

After the fake Battle of Hastings, William marched to London, but was greeted by the sight of The City behind its walls, with the bridge and gates firmly closed. It is claimed that he agreed to recognise the traditional rights and privileges of The City as long as they acknowledged him as the new King. He wasn’t crowned until December 25th 1066, some three months after the invasion. Personally I regard this as more City propaganda to justify their ‘traditional rights and privileges’ malarky. What really took place I suppose we’ll never know.

The usual Norman tactic when confronted with a walled city was to starve it out. Apart from just surrounding the place to prevent anything going in or coming out, war-parties stripped the surrounding land of supplies to hinder any relief troops and to help guarantee that no assistance would be forthcoming, so something else about this story is wrong.

Was it an ‘inside job’?

It’s abundantly clear that the pre-conquest Norman infiltration of England has been entirely overlooked, never mind underestimated.

“When Aethelred II ‘the Unraed’ (which actually means ‘the ill-advised rather than ‘the unready') married Emma of Normandy in 1002. She had arrived in England with an attendant train of Normans.” Source: ‘The changing British interpretations of the effects of the Norman Conquest since 1066’.

We know that when William the Bastard became William the Conqueror he brought ‘his Jews’ with him:

William of Malmesbury states that William the Conqueror brought Jews from Rouen to England. “William the Conqueror's object may be inferred: his policy was to get feudal dues paid to the royal treasury in coin rather than in kind, and for this purpose it was necessary to have a body of [Jewish] men scattered through the country who would supply quantities of coin.” Source

Many more emigrated from Rouen afterwards. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that Emma’s “train of Normans” included ‘her Jews’ who would be responsible for making her into the “richest woman in England.”

The City of London was the obvious place to be for Emma and her Jews. Clearly she had a powerful influence over The City and a special relationship with it as testified by the siege goings-on.

I propose that there was no Battle of Hastings and that William assassinated Harold, his brothers and the entire Anglo-Saxon hierarchy at some other place and by some other method which involved ‘hacking to death’. His subsequent march to the City of London was greeted with open doors and open arms thanks to Emma and ‘her Jew’s’ legacy.

In fact the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells a different story of William’s entry into London and his subsequent coronation:

“A group of senior figures, including Earl Eadwine of Mercia, Earl Morcar of Northumbria, Edgar Etheling of Wessex, Ealdred, Archbishop of York and ‘all the best men from London, submitted from force of circumstances… They gave him hostages and swore oaths of fealty, and he promised to be a gracious lord to them.” Source

It was no conquest, no invasion. It was a hostile take-over as the result of insider-trading, dirty deals, blackmail and intimidation. [Update Nov. 2022: 'business as usual' in the pre-cataclysmic Roman Empire returned to Britain 132 years later...]

William’s Coronation

“William claimed to be the successor of Edward the Confessor, and insisted on being crowned near his tomb, so William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066.” (ibid.)

The archbishop of Canterbury, one Stigland by name, flatly refused “to crown one who was covered with the blood of men and the invader of others rights.” (He obviously knew the truth about the disposal of Harold and his heirarchy.) The ceremony was performed by Aldred, the archbishop of York in English with Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances translating the words into French.

Now you have to picture the scene. Imagine a Hollywood gangster movie from the 70’s .The ‘Don’ is standing there ready to be crowned, cheeks packed with cotton wool, pinstripe suit, spats etc…

Suddenly all the French-speaking Normans and English-speaking Saxons start shouting their affirmation and approval of William as King and it sounds like all hell has broken lose inside the Abbey. The Norman mobsters stationed outside, with their medieval equivalent of violin cases, hear the commotion inside and believe there’s a 'hit' going down against William. They react by immediately setting fire to houses around the Abbey (?!*), thus filling the building with smoke. Upon seeing this the congregation runs for their lives and riots break out in the street.

These Normans seem to love setting fire to things. Bear that in mind when we get to the Great Fire of London in a future part of this series.

Meanwhile, back at the coronation scene inside the Abbey, the camera focuses on William, surrounded by smoke and pandemonium. He turns to a terrified archbishop of York and says, “Hey you, priest. Finish it.” So he did, although in the haste and confusion William swore the coronation oath of the Anglo-Saxon kings.

William I’s wife, Matilda of Flanders, would later “be crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.” Source (ibid.)

The Mob takes control

“The Old English ruling class was swept away and its lands passed to William the Conqueror, to be kept or granted out much as he chose. William was thus given the opportunity, never to be repeated, of creating a new English landed aristocracy ex nihilo (from scratch). [F: You could almost call it a RESET.]

“The outlines of William's new design are disclosed in the Domesday Book (1086): he kept about seventeen percent of the lands as term regis (belonging to the king), permitted the churches to retain about twenty-seven percent, and granted ﬁfty percent to some 180 homage-bound lay tenants-inchief, almost all of whom were Normans or other Frenchmen’ [F: Henchmen]. Of these lands granted to laymen, well over a third was reserved for an elite group of ten powerful magnates, all of whom held lands with annual values in excess of £750. At the top of this list of ten stood three super-magnates: the Conqueror's half-brothers Odo bishop of Bayeux (about £3000 per year) and Robert count of Mortain (about £2100), and a more distant royal kinsman, Roger of Montgomery (about £2100).

“William's ten leading magnates together controlled nearly twenty percent of the land revenues of all England. These men were drawn largely from the new nobility [F: Mafia] that the Conqueror had earlier raised to positions of wealth and power in Nonnandy, but they also included two neighboring magnates who had fought for him at Hastings: Eustace count of Boulogne and Alan of Brittany.” Source: ‘Magnates and Curiales in Early Norman England’ by C. Warren Hollister.

“It was not only knights that William could demand (after 1070) from his English tenants, since he could obtain financial aid, inheritance tax and scutage (a fee for the non-payment of knights); which combined with ‘the Old English taxes’ that ‘made the Anglo-Saxon kingdom about the richest in Europe’, and England’s lucrative wool trade; meant that as king, he was extremely wealthy. And of course, it was not just the king who was affluent, but his new lords as well; since their English estates were worth considerably more than those in Normandy.

“French became the dialect of polite society, whilst ‘English was relegated to the language of the unprivileged.” Source: ‘Early rebellion and its links to later success and conquest’ by Matthew Paul Burke.

Let’s not forget this was also happening in Sicily at around the same time.

Revolutionary Reforms

“The conversion of the English church from a loose organization of churches into a strict controlled unit under William was a direct attempt to tie the English church to the continent.

...Papal supremacy had been in place for almost two centuries. Thus one of the reasons why William’s reform of the church was so revolutionary was due to his turning of the system of papal control completely on its head.

“William... wasted no time ousting the majority of the Saxon bishops and church officials, replacing them with Normans. Most notably was his installment of Lanfranc of Bec as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lanfranc’s rule was law in the church, and he and William worked closely in organizing it. William only wanted one church hierarchy, therefore the Archbishop of York was brought under the authority of Canterbury.

“Following the conquest, Penance was imposed on vassals who fought for William in 1066. Soldiers would have to perform some pious work for a set period of time. The penance would be assigned by a Bishop and approved by the Pope. The Penances were fairly serious. Bates points out that among other regulations, “anyone who had killed in the Battle of Hastings was required to do a year’s penance for each victim slain, and everyone who injured and killed, but did not know the number of victims, was to do penance for one day a week for the rest of his life or build a church.” This helps to explain why there was such growth in church development during this period. By 1075, there were thousands of Parish churches in England. William of Malmesbury stated that “everywhere you could see churches rising up in the villages and minsters in the towns and cities, built in a style of a new kind.” Source: ‘A Revolutionary Reform:How William the Conqueror Conquered the Church’ by William Shirley.

The idea of Penance for soldiers who kill in battle comes from the Christian doctrine of ‘Just War’ which is a method “which allows the church to distinguish justice from injustice in war and thus to distinguish soldiers deserving of praise and those deserving of shame and punishment.” Source: ‘Just War, Pennance and the Church’ by Darrell Cole.

Penance for a battle that was approved by the Church doesn’t make any sense. Penance for a fictitious battle that never took place makes even less. Penance for the butchery of an anointed King and the massacre of his retinue in ambush or maybe even under a flag of truce, now that sounds more like it.

Under the new reforms, William inserted himself between God and the clergy. Initially this was reluctantly complied with by the church officials in England, but it all fell apart with the revolts of 1068-69. This resulted in the replacement of the vast majority of bishops and abbots with Norman equivalents.

The Peasants are Revolting

According to the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ (which sounds like a newspaper, but isn’t,) the first uprisings occurred during the period 1067 – 68. These were in cities like Exeter, Lincoln, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Nottingham and York. Please note here – NOT London.) However, they were easily squashed due to their lack of co-ordination and leadership. William either built or more likely occupied existing castles in these cities and put one of his loyal mafioso in command with a garrison of knights (who were human taxes really.)

The following year, 1069, saw a serious rebellion in the north. The English rebels were supported by the Danish king, Sweyn Estrithson, with his army in 240 ships and by Malcolm III, king of Scotland. Whilst Sweyn Estrithson’s forces were successful in sacking York, William’s brutality and tactics of true terror were too much for the rebels. Much of northern England was devastated by the Mob in order to prevent its ability to live let alone rebel. Even the Norman, Orderic Vitalis wrote (in condemnation), in ‘so terrible a famine… that more than 100,000 Christian folk… perished from hunger’.

Update Nov. 2022: This episode could also be a cover story for the devastation and desolation caused by the recent 10th century cataclysm which was still very much apparent in 1069 and attested to in the even later Domesday Books.

He also disinherited any troublesome English lord whom he saw as a potential threat - and there were many. This included the last two great English earls, who were amongst the key rebel leaders, namely Morcar, earl of Northumbria and Edwin, earl of Mercia, both who had initially succumbed to William’s threats and hostage-taking blackmail.

By the time of the Domesday survey, which began in 1085, King Harold’s reign had been deleted from the historical record. “William’s reign had begun in principle immediately after the day King Edward was alive and dead. But this solution was arrived at gradually, and there is some charter evidence from the early years of William’s reign which suggests that William had initially recognised Harold’s legitimacy.” Source: ‘The strange death of King Harold II’ by Chris Dennis.

By the way, The Domesday Book isn’t what we’ve been told it is either. For a start there’s more than one. We have the “Great Domesday Book” in two volumes and “Little Domesday Book” in three volumes, plus others that deal with specific areas. They are claimed to be a kind of inventory of William’s new possessions and were meant to show taxes that were still owed from Edward the Confessor’s time. The most interesting thing about them is that The City of London is NOT included in any of the books. Apparently they are a total mess and could never have been compiled in just one year.

Why is the myth of William the Conqueror still upheld and encouraged today?

According to many sources of information on the internet, both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were both direct descendants of Will I Am The Bastard. Like Emma the Norman, who was the wealthiest woman in England, Elizabeth II was the wealthiest woman in the world.

Many, if not all the world’s royalty also seems to be similarly related to him and thus each other. I don’t put much faith in such claims as, if you go back far enough, everyone is related to everyone else anyway. However, what if this is indicative of a different kind of ‘family’ relationship in the sense of ‘clan’, or cosca – as in Cosa Nostra, ‘this thing of ours’ or ‘our cause’, ‘our interest’.

“It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure and code of conduct, and present themselves to the public under a common brand,” like for example King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Duke, Earl, Count, Countess etc. Monarchies or a whole bunch of Cnuts.

It doesn’t require a great stretch of the imagination to equate their code of conduct to that of the Mafiosi. It even helps to understand all the back-stabbing, internecine feuds and even their partiality for murdering their relatives. They still have their ‘men of honour’, their knights. They still work hand-in-glove with the financial infrastructure of their kingdoms, like the City of London, Vatican City or Washington DC in America. It’s curious to note that America has never had a monarchy, but they got their own specially exported Mafia from Sicily instead. It’s also curious to note that for decades Hollywood has been portraying the major figures within the Mafia as Italian, when in fact they were/are predominantly Jewish.

The ‘Cosa Nostra' concept also extends to the cultural and religious ideology of Judaism. Of all the races on the Earth, God chose them to be an elite clan. Their code of conduct has a tribal focus and is different towards outsiders. Their commercial dealings are pursued and effected by means of their tribal connections. They obviously had much in common with the Normans and saw that an alliance would be mutually beneficial.

I know there has also been speculation that The Normans were actually The Romans, but transcribed by a dyslexic scribe and pushed back in time. The area of the Roman Empire actually matches that of the Norman Empire or so I am led to believe. But… were the Normans The Romans or The Romans The Normans? Will the real Norman please stand up! Then there’s The Mormons of course.

Such a conundrum is really outside the remit of this series of articles, however interesting it may be. What's also outside the remit is the broader issue of all the supposed invasions and conquests of England. The documented evidence for them, pre-1066, is flimsy and the archaeological evidence even poorer.

I have exposed a very different version of events in the King Arthur In Hyperborea article, from which the following paragraph is borrowed:

“Arthur which was sometimes the most renowned king of the Britains, was a mightie, and valiant man, and a famous warriour. This kingdome was too litle for him, & his minde was not contented with it. He therefore valiantly subdued all Scantia, which is now called Norway, and all the Islands beyond Norway, to wit, Island [i.e., Iceland] and Greenland, which are apperteining vnto Norway, Sweueland, Ireland, Gotland, Denmarke, Semeland, Windland [Latin text, Winlandiam], Curland, Roe, Femeland [i.e., Finland], Wireland, Flanders, Cherilland, Lapland, and all the other lands & Islands of the East sea, euen vnto Russia* (in which Lapland he placed the Easterly bounds of his Brittish Empire) and many other Islands beyond Norway, euen vnder the North pole, which are appendances of Scantia, now called Norway.” (For a discussion of the sources for this please see here.)

It would appear then that all of the Scandinavian countries that King Arthur conquered and possibly colonised, came back ‘home' during what's now known as the Anglo-Saxon period. This paints a very different picture of what went on during that time. (The dubious account of Rollo who founded The Normans doesn't fit with this scenario.) To make this even more tantalising there's the 'Homer in the Baltic' material as presented by stolenhistory.net member, Silveryou, here.

What seems more likely is a gradual and peaceful integration, or indeed reintegration, into the established community rather than the violent subjugations portrayed in mainstream history. Why then is it one of the few surviving English traditions that the land of Albion has been lost to foreign conquest many times over? Perhaps it's revenge as we shall see - which is another significant trait of the Cosa Nostra.

Update Nov. 2022: Much of this speculation and more is addressed in The Dark Earth Chronicles

The Great Partnership

The concept of monarchs and Bishops referring to the Jews as ‘ours' is not one of ownership or slavery, but should be likened to other royal appointments, such as councilors, advisors etc. The Jews identified themselves as ‘his’ Jews because they were answerable only to the King and he gave them his protection in return for their ‘services.’ These, no doubt, involved usury or money lending which turned a handsome profit that could be taxed by the king and minting precious metals into coinage. They saw themselves as being in partnership with the king.

“When William the Conqueror arrived in England in 1066, he encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans from northern France [Rouen] to move to England. The Jews came mostly from France with some from Germany, Italy and Spain, seeking prosperity and a haven from anti-Semitism [F: was there really widespread anti-semitism before 1066 with no Nazis to blame for it?] Serving as special representatives of the king, these Jews worked as moneylenders and coin dealers. Over the course of a generation, Jews established communities in London, York, Bristol, Canterbury and other major cities. They generally lived in segregated areas by themselves. However, until 1177 only one Jewish cemetery was allowed to be established in London...

“The settlement of Jews in the city [Rouen] dates in all probability from the Roman period. The first document, however, concerning the community contains an account in Hebrew of a terrible persecution which the Jews of Rouen and of other localities experienced at the beginning of the eleventh century.” Source

So, there were Jews in Rouen from Roman times, although the oldest Jewish cemetery in northern Europe dates from the 11th century - which were Norman times, not Roman times. It's that bloody dyslexic scribe again. The Jews themselves claim that the ‘Shum Cities' of Mainz, Worms and Speyer in Germany are the birthplace of Judaism in Europe, or Ashkenaz as they called it and as we have seen in Part 1 of this series, the Jewish presence there dates from the 11th century. Also, why were they being ‘terribly persecuted', even by the Normans, at the beginning of the eleventh century? Perhaps the Jews were encroaching upon the ‘turf' of the Norman Mafia and the conflict was resolved by an alliance - one that would endure for centuries.

Update Nov. 2022: Perhaps the Normans eradicated the few Jews that had survived the 10th century cataclysm and then replaced them with their own Ashkenazi creation?

“[During the 12th Century] A number of London Jews owned houses in the Jewish quarter of Rouen, while some Jews of Rouen had debtors in England. Rouen's Jews were, however, engaged in moneylending to a lesser extent than the Jews of England.” Source

Richard I of England issued a charter “by Which Many Liberties are Granted and Confirmed to the Jews, 22 March, 1190” Source

“Richard, by the grace of God, King of England, duke of Normandy, &c., to his archbishops, bishops, &c., greeting:

“I.-Know ye that we have granted and, by the present charter, confirmed, to Ysaac, son of Rabbi Joe, and his sons and their men, all their customs and liberties just as the Lord King Henry, our father, granted and by his charter confirmed to the Jews of England and Normandy, namely: to reside in our land freely and honorably, and to hold all those things from us which the aforesaid Isaac and his sons held in the time of Henry the King, our father, in lands, and fiefs, and pledges, and gifts, and purchases, viz., Hame, [East Ham, London] which Henry, our father, gave them for their service, and Thurroc [Thurrock, Essex], which the said Isaac bought of the Count of Ferrars, and all the houses, and messuages, and pledges which the said Isaac and his sons had in our land in the time of King Henry, our father.

“III.-And... let the aforesaid Jews receive and buy at any time whatever is brought them except things of the church and bloodstained garments. [?!*]

“VII.-And we order that, the Jews through all England and Normandy be free of all customs and of tolls and modiation of wine just like our own chattels, and we command and order you to ward and defend and protect them, and we forbid any one against this charter about the aforesaid to put the said Jews into plea on our forfeit.”

It is obvious that the Jews of England and Normandy were one and the same entity and treated as such.

“During the Middle Ages, usury, or lending money for interest, was considered a sin by the Catholic Church. Therefore, Christians were forbidden to work as moneylenders and Jews were called to that occupation and were able to set high interest rates. They played a vital role in maintaining the British treasury and, for a time, the Crown watched over the Jewish financiers and their property, though they also taxed them onerously.” Source

“When successive Kings wanted to go off fighting, usually against the French, they needed money, so would come to the City to get a loan which, of course, they could never pay back. So instead he would offer various privileges, special powers and so on. This carried on for centuries…

“As one of the four pillars of the ancient constitution, it [The City] remains a partner to Parliament (as well as the monarchy and the Church), but not subordinate to it.” Source

Never was a more revealing mouthful spoken. Partners, not subordinate, but equal. This is what it’s always been about - a partnership between the Catholic Church and the Jews, between monarchs and ‘their’ Jews, between governments and the Jews.

The Jews represented a ‘cash-cow’ for the king as he could tax the Jews just as easily as they could rob the people. In that respect they were the financial ‘middlemen’ between the king and his people. They were also highly skilled and well-connected international merchants with royal exemption from taxes and tolls.

Traditionally the Jewish community in the City was centered on the area known as Old Jewry. However, by 1232, in spite of the ‘onerous taxation’, a magnificent new synagogue appeared in what is now Threadneedle Street, opposite the Royal Exchange. The King [Henry III] confiscated it and handed it to the brethren of St. Anthony.

(Here we have that word ‘Great.’ It will come up a lot.)

Wikipedia is not at all happy with this 'confiscation' idea as can be seen in this garbled entry which also unwittingly provides the answer as to why it was confiscated:

“However, it is unlikely a synagogue had ever occupied a site in the parish of St. Benet Fink, as such Jewish places of worship were confined to the Jewry district of the City, some distance away to the east. It is possible therefore that either the brothers changed their quarters afterwards or at one time the Jews had spread beyond the Jewry. Such an outlying synagogue may have been permitted by the 1252/3 decree of King Henry III (1216-1272) that there should be no synagogues except where they existed during the reign of his father King John (1199–1216).” Source

The Great Eviction

King Edward I’s expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 was the start of what Jewish historians call ‘The Great Eviction’… and there we have that epithet again, ‘The Great’.

There was a very delicate balance in the relationship between the people, the Jews and the king. The people blamed the Jews for high rents, interest rates and prices. The Jews blamed the king for over taxation and the king didn’t trust that the Jews were playing fair with him. This was a recipe for disaster and in Albion this falling out amongst thieves culminated in the 1290 expulsion.

“It was only in the late thirteenth century that some Christian kings tightened their control over Jewish life in Europe. The king of England expelled his Jews, perhaps 2,000 people, in 1290, and the king of France expelled his, possibly 80,000, in 1306. There probably were as many French Jews forced into exile in 1306 as there were Iberian Jews expelled from Castile and Aragon in 1492.” Source

[Please note: the use of the term “his Jews”.]

The Middle Period

Jewish historians refer to the period between their ‘Great Eviction’ from England and their ‘Resettlement’ as ‘The Middle Period’.

“The Domus Conversorum, established by Henry III in 1232, housed nearly 100 converts at the period of the expulsion, and never remained entirely empty in subsequent years. There was a constant, though slender, stream to London of poor foreign Jews who qualified for emoluments by the formal adoption of Christianity.

“In addition, a few isolated Jews visited London without being baptized: for example, the physicians Elias b. Sabbetai (Sabot) of Bologna, who came in 1410 with ten followers to attend Henry IV, and Master Samson de Mirabeau who attended the wife of Richard Whittington, mayor of London, in 1409.

“After the expulsions from Spain and Portugal [1492], a few Marrano [Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity] refugees settled in London. At the close of the reign of Henry VIII, the crypto-Jewish community comprised some 37 householders, and religious services were held in the house of one Alves Lopes to whom newly arrived fugitives would come for assistance and advice... It was largely dispersed as a result of the Catholic reaction in the reign of Mary. Under Elizabeth, however, it again attained significant proportions. One of its leading members was Roderigo Lopez, the queen’s physician… Toward the end of the century, the importance of the secret community diminished and, in 1609, the Portuguese merchants living in London, who were suspected of Judaizing, were again expelled.” Source

Roderigo Lopez (1517 – 1594) served as physician-in-chief to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 1581 until his death by execution, having been found guilty of plotting to poison her. A Portuguese converso or New Christian of Jewish ancestry, he is the only royal doctor in English history to have been executed and may have inspired the character of Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which was written within four years of his death.

This was all occurring against a backdrop of religious schisms within Christianity in the British Isles. In fact 1605 saw what must be one of the earliest ‘false-flag’ events on record, namely The Gunpowder Plot. It was also known as The Jesuit Conspiracy for very good reason, as they had been instrumental in inciting the ‘patsies’. Fear of the French sailing up the Thames and blowing up Parliament was very popular at the time, no doubt having been encouraged in the media and so the scene was set. The barrels of gunpowder that were discovered under the House of Lords were all filled with dirt, according to eye-witnesses. The perpetrators all died horrible deaths at the hands of the executioner, well all except the Jesuit Father John Gerard who, judging by his miraculous escape from the Tower of London in 1597, was an ancestor of Spiderman. Legislation against Catholics intensified, as might be expected and the ‘divide and rule’ stepped up a notch. The effigy of Guy Fawkes (patsy numero uno) has been burned on bonfires across Britain annually on the 5th November since the 19th century… although it may not be all that it seems as we shall see later.

“It may be noted that the most stalwart of those few Jews who penetrated into England in the 'Middle Period" - the mining-engineer Joachim Gaunse who was expelled for his outspoken religious views, and the Jacob Barnett who fled from Oxford rather than submit to baptism - both happened to be Ashkenazim.

“There is indeed evidence that they constituted a recognisable group (Ashkenazim) at a comparatively early date. The late Lucien Wolf used to speak of a contemporary account of the arrival in London in 1648 or 1649 of a whole shipload of Polish Jewish refugees from the recent massacres at the hands of the Cossacks.” Source

“In 1632 the Marrano community of Rouen [Normandy] was temporarily broken up, some fugitives, the most important being Antonio Fernandez Carvajal [aka. The Great Jew], found a home in London. Other Marrano settlers went directly from Spain and Portugal. (others, such as Ignatio Loyola, had already left Spain and founded The Jesuits 76 years earlier.) Thus, when Manasseh Ben Israel went to England in 1655, there was already established a secret community numbering several families.” Source ...not to mention the Jewsuits - sorry, Jesuits.

Manasseh Ben Israel arrived in November 1655. His arrival was extremely significant as we shall see. During his absence from the Netherlands, the Amsterdam rabbis excommunicated his student, Baruch Spinoza. Both of these characters warrant an article to themselves really.