William the Conqueror is a man who was able to do what no one else could - conquer England in 1066. A fierce king who subjugated the English lands with fire and sword and created the Anglo-Norman empire on both sides of the English Channel. The most authoritative and power-hungry monarch in the history of England, who forever changed the face of the country and the fate of its inhabitants, conducted the first census of the British in history, killed the rebellious nobility, and built a new state of an authoritarian type. The famous English historian Frank Barlow offers his biography of King William I and tries to explain how it happened that a modest young man, the illegitimate son of a Norman duke, became the greatest of the rulers of the Middle Ages, whose name rightfully ranks with the emperors Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa.