" The kingdom was not a private estate (as Normandy may have been) to be handed on by an owner's will to a chosen heir: it was the people of England, represented by the witan, who had constitutional right to choose a king" (p. 68). It was a strong Viking influence that is the most notable difference in the two countries culture. England was a land of peace and somewhat democratic rule where the people chose the ruler. Normandy was a militaristic state controlled by a king for whom lineage was the entitling factor to the crown. Another difference in the two countries was religion. The Church of England "was insular like the English themselves, and may have tended to go it's own way and show some independence of thought Perhaps its principle sin was merely to be different: much of its scholarship and all of its pastoral work were in English instead of Latin" as was the custom in Normandy and elsewhere in the Christian world. (p. 100).
William's success on October 14, 1066 can only be attributed to luck. The first stroke of luck was the wind. All summer it had blown in the invader's faces but in early September all that changed. "In the English Channel there was not a breath of southerly wind for a month: extraordinary weather that no sailor in those seas, either then or now, would believe could ever happen But on the morning of 12 September the flags and banners at last were blowing in the opposite direction." (p. 124). So the Duke frantically loaded his ships and set sail, hoping the favorable wind would prevail. Then there is another stroke of luck, the wind veered to the west and began to blow in earnest, right into England's shores. "Several historians in the past hundred years have believed that William made this voyage without intending to go to England, but only to move his fleet from the mouth of the Dives to the mouth of the Somme, and there by make the final crossing shorter" (p.
