King & Conqueror, the BBC’s new series telling “the epic story of 1066 and the brutal battle for a kingdom”, began on BBC One on Sunday, 24 August, 2025. The historian Annie Whitehead reviews the first episode and finds it “a wasted opportunity to tackle the subject”.
For years, Anglo-Saxon history languished in the film and TV doldrums, outshone by the Romans and the Tudors.
Then came the adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom, and suddenly the era was getting some attention.
It wasn’t always accurate. For example, Alfred the Great’s mother was still alive 20 years after the person on which the character was based had died. But here’s the thing: she was a character, because this was an adaptation of a series of novels.
The BBC’s new series, King & Conqueror, claims to tell a true history. So how accurate was this first episode? The short answer is ‘not’.
- There was no civil war, nor a peace agreement for the Mercians to break.
- William and Matilda were not married as early as 1043 (the year of Edward’s coronation).
- Emma (of Normandy) did not have a son called Æthel (I don’t know who this character was supposed to be).
- Emma was deprived of authority (and her treasure) when Edward gained power and was not the power behind his throne.
- The idea of prima nocta – deflowering a bride – was no more a thing in Anglo-Saxon England than it was in Braveheart’s Scotland. (If they’d wanted to show Sweyn as a ‘bad boy’ why not tell the true story of his kidnapping a nun?)
- You couldn’t identify a Mercian sword by looking at it. And you wouldn’t put an expensive bloodied sword immediately back in its scabbard.
- Edward’s wife was not called Gunnhild, she was Edith. (I understand that it avoids confusion with the other Edith. What will they do when Harold marries yet another Edith?)
- Morcar was never earl of Mercia. In 1043 his father was earl, and when he died, Morcar’s brother Edwin inherited the title. In 1066 Morcar was young, probably only a teenager, so most likely not even born in 1043. He became earl of Northumbria.
- There is no evidence that William attended the coronation.
- There was an incident in Dover which led the Godwine family into disgrace, but it happened in 1051 and was nothing to do with Emma or the Mercians.
And that’s just some of the mistakes with the English history, never mind the Norman stuff.
Leaving all that aside, how does it look? It would be nice to have a proper representation instead of perpetuating the myth that the Anglo-Saxon world was brown, dirty, and nothing to rival the sumptuousness of the Tudor Court. But looks-wise it’s very drab and dark.
Are we expected to believe that England’s rich nobility turned up to a coronation in their ‘work clothes’ and looking so grubby? We know that they had coloured textiles and that the rich liked to flaunt their expensive clothing and jewellery. Where were the vibrant wall hangings and brightly painted interiors? They left all this out but gave us anachronistic silver serving cloches.
It’s strangely non period-specific and has a general Game of Thrones fantasy medieval world look about it. If the producers wanted to liven it all up and make the period more popular, it would help if they got the visuals right, without the apparently now obligatory leather fighting gear.
Does it work as a drama? Did it entertain? Normally I can forgive some inaccuracies if the story is good and no historical films or TV shows are 100 per cent accurate. But we don’t know what Emma’s beef is with the Godwines, so it’s not clear why she’s so opposed to ‘Gunnhild’. We’ve no idea what happened to ‘Æthel’.
There was certainly a lot of scenery-chewing; Emma is portrayed as a pantomime villain, Edward as a religious nutter, but overall it was very static, with characters standing or sitting still and delivering their lines as if unsure what to do with them and how to get into character. I think they started in the wrong place and should have shown more of the Godwine family dynamic.
Does it matter that they got the history so wrong? In this case, I think it does, because so much is wrong, and especially as it shows the women in such bad light (Emma irredeemably evil, Matilda a torturer). There were powerful women at the heart of this story and they’ve been done a disservice
Not explaining that key names and/or titles have been changed will make anyone with a desire to learn more struggle to find the real history. In essence it seems to be a pale imitation of Game of Thrones/The Last Kingdom, and in that alone it was a wasted opportunity to tackle the subject differently.
Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge by Annie Whitehead, her latest book, was published on 15 February, 2025.
As well as this, Annie has written four novels set in Mercia and two other non-fiction books about Anglo-Saxon England: Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom and Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.
Annie is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She was a judge for the HWA Crown Non- fiction Award in 2024 and is chair of the judging panel in 2025.
King & Conqueror began transmission on BBC One on 24 August, 2025. All episodes are on BBC iPlayer.
You may find Annie’s other Historia features about the Anglo-Saxon period interesting:
Anglo-Saxon women with power and influence
Murder and the law in Anglo-Saxon England
In Search of Mercia
Annie was also the first winner of the HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition. Read her story, A Poppy Against the Sky.
More relevant features:
King Harold Godwinson’s death – did the Bayeux Tapestry embroider the truth? by Paul Bernardi
England’s Twice-Crowned Queen by Patricia Bracewell
The Norman Conquest in Numbers and After Hastings by James Aitcheson
Writing about 1066: a male club? by Ellen Alpsten
The royal women of 10th-century England and Adding the ‘little’ bits to enrich a story of Saxon historical fiction by MJ Porter
A life of war in Anglo-Saxon Britain by Edoardo Albert
The ways of war at the time of King Alfred by Chris Bishop
Images (all © CBS Studios, photographer: Lilja Jons):
- Title image showing Harold and William
- Tostig and Edith
