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If there is one name and one date that is forever etched on the English conscience it is that of William the Conqueror and 1066. Taught in every school to every child since who-knows-when the details of the Battle of Hastings are perhaps better known than any one other event in our rich history. But how much do we know about King William?

It's pretty easy these days to nip across the Channel to see whence he came — and also where he was buried. And his burial is a story all of its own.

William was born in 1027, the illegitimate son of Robert, Duke of Normandy and a young village girl, Arlette, from the town of Falaise — she already had one son by a rich Norman landowner and was to go on to marry one of the Duke's best friends. Interesting girl.

William became Duke in 1035 at the age of eight and during his youth faced many rebellions from his troublesome knights and landowners: yet he survived them all and in 1049 he met and fell in love with a distant cousin, Mathilde of Flanders, a grand-daughter of King Canute. At the time she was in love with the English Ambassador to Flanders, who was already married, yet she was also quite enamoured of this dashing, good-looking duke. Not so her parents who thought he was below their class and told him to get lost.

Angry at such treatment he dashed off to Bruges, kidnapped her whilst she was on her way to church and they eloped — almost like the plot for a new "Shrek" movie!

And yes, they did live happily ever after, producing ten children and staying pretty faithful to each other — no mean feat among royalty then (or now!).

In January 1066 Edward the Confessor (William's cousin) died. Harold assumed the throne though he was no more royal than you or I. William, who had been promised the throne by Edward, was incensed and cobbled together an invasion force of about 10,000. In October, after a couple of false starts, they crossed the Channel, floating into Pevensey Bay unopposed on the evening tide in late September.

King Harold had been subduing some northern invaders at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, but hearing about the Norman landing he dashed south and on Saturday October 14th (a misty morning by all accounts) the two sides met on that hill near Hastings.

The English were winning at one stage but then the Norman archers let loose their arrows and one hit Harold in the eye. But this did not kill him – he fell from his horse and was cut to pieces by four Norman knights, who were handsomely rewarded by Duke William.

William was crowned on Christmas Day, set about restoring peace, changed the way the country was governed, giving more power to the local communities, re-organised the Church and had the Domesday Book produced. His reign brought many lasting benefits to England.

In August 1087, in a battle with King Philip of France, (Normandy was not part of France then, but semi-independent) he was seriously injured, not by an enemy weapon but by the saddle of his horse. He had become a very big man, well over 20 stone and was thrown forward against the brass pommel of the saddle as the horse stumbled. He damaged some internal organs as well as some external ones, if you get my meaning, and died from peritonitis a few weeks later.

He was buried in Caen, at the Abbey he had built a few years earlier. But as the pall-bearers tried to put his body into the stone sarcophagus in which he was to be buried his bloated body (there were no hygienists in those days to embalm the dead) burst open. Nasty. On the procession through Caen a fire broke out and the pall-bearers ran off to douse the flames, leaving his coffin in the middle of the road. During the funeral a local man interrupted the service by claiming that he had not been paid for the land in which the erstwhile King was to be buried. The assembled Knights had a whip-round and he went on his way, grumbling but richer.

Eventually he was buried but a few hundred years later his grave was ransacked and his bones scattered. A priest found some of them and reburied them, but again during the French Revolution the same thing happened and we think that only a thigh bone remains today. Its resting place is under a simple granite flagstone inside the Abbey, visible today. It is a moving experience to stand before this tomb and gaze on the last resting place of William the Conqueror, King of England.

Caen is a pleasant enough little town with the Abbey aux Hommes housing William and, across town, the Abbaye des Dames, wherein lies the body of Mathilde, a petite woman by all accounts. Her tomb too is beautiful and the church extremely peaceful. Caen, bypassed by most motorists arriving from Portsmouth, is worth a stopover, with some good but unpretentious restaurants, some decent priced hotels and it's easy to walk round. But the best place to learn all about 1066 and all that is Bayeux, a dozen miles west, with its wonderful Tapestry.

Embroidered in Kent on the orders of Odo, William's half-brother, it is now housed in an ex-convent. The exhibition opens with a scene-by-scene representation of the Tapestry, with explanations of what is going on, next to a depiction of the part of the Tapestry concerned. Then you go downstairs to the real thing — and is this worth seeing! Take a (free) audio guide in any language and listen to the description and explanation of each scene as you move along, running the commentary to suit your pace. It is not something to be rushed and the entire visit will occupy the best part of two hours, but you'll emerge knowing so much more about these important events in our history.

Bayeux is a lovely little market town — we found this wonderful little 25-room hotel, Hôtel d'Argouges, just off the market square, reached through a decorated archway.

The house had obviously been, or probably still was, in the ownership of a well-to-do family, for Madame, so impeccably French, showed us to our room, with a view out over the market square. The bedroom was basic yet comfortable, but we had a bed that was the squeakiest you can imagine and every time one of us moved in the night it was as if we were making wild passionate love. At breakfast the next morning, served in a high-ceilinged salon with full length windows looking out over the garden and fountain, we got a look of disgust from some visiting Americans, yet the French smiled at us with a touch of respect and maybe envy. Vive la différence.

Bayeux is one of those Norman towns that closes for lunch — a wonderful idea. At midday all the shutters start going up on the stores lining the main road and silence descends on the town until just after 2pm. The restaurants of course, tiny and tucked away in little back streets, are full and the best food is "le menu" — the daily special.

But with good Norman food — and don't forget this is also cider country with so many varieties you'll never think of drinking the awful stuff they sell in the UK — you'll definitely want to be in the restaurants for lunch.

Close to Bayeux are the D-Day invasion beaches, with their poignant military cemeteries — English, Canadian and, the biggest and most impressive, the American. Endless rows of white stone crosses mark the last resting place of some of the thousands who gave their life to help bring peace, once again, to Normandy. It may seem odd basing a visit around the graves of a King and thousands of young soldiers, both invading foreign soil, but there is a link and I can't help but wonder whether our society would have the patience to produce another tapestry?

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