those usually summed up in the term "feudalism". It is not here
suggested that the effective unity of the English or of the Scottish
kingdoms could have been achieved only by applying feudal ideas.
The fact with which we are concerned is that that was how it was
achieved. The adoption and adaptation by the monarchy of the
principles and practice of feudalism set the course for the momentous
developments here described.

Our story properly commences with the most famous of all
ebullitions of Norman power-mania, the conquest of England in
1066 by the Duke of the Normans himself. But first it will be as
well for us to follow the Conqueror's example, and to find out
something of the nature of his new kingdom as it was (to use the
phrase of the compilers of Domesday Book) "in the time of King
Edward ", that is, at the death in 1066 of the last ruler of the ancient
House of Wessex, Edward the Confessor, whose heir Duke William
claimed to be.

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