The first major armed resistance to William the Conqueror after Hastings. Exeter, sheltering Harold's mother Gytha, defied William for eighteen days. Its fall demonstrated that Norman authority could not be evaded even in remote south-west England. William's relative clemency afterwards was deliberate — he needed the English to accept his rule, not die fighting it.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
Research a location near Devon