This is an historical novel, which includes graphic accounts of the three battles in 1066, the best known of which is of course the Battle of Hastings. It is a tribute to the courage of Harold's bodyguard.

The author has managed to conjure up the atmosphere of the occasion and the brutality of the invading forces.

In his notes he writes, 'The treatment of the English King by the Norman victors was nothing short of barbaric. His head was roughly hacked off and he was disembowelled. His genitalia were removed and stuffed into his mouth and then paraded around the victorious army on the point of a lance.'

'Ultimately his corpse was thrown over Dover cliffs in order that he could lie at the very frontier of the land he had tried so hard to defend.'

He thinks that Harold should have waited before going into battle. To fight when he did was a mistake, which changed the course of history.

Many of the characters in the story are fictitious, but Laurence J Brown has produced a novel which cleverly records a year in history when the land was awash with blood.