Welcome to Hysterical Figures, the lighter history podcast! Sit back and enjoy whilst author and podcaster Sam Bartram takes a light-hearted, comedic and accessible look at significant people from history, all for your delectation! This series we are going to be taking a deep dive, or at least an enthusiastic belly flop, into the life and times of one of history’s most iconic rulers, William the Conqueror (known to his friends as William I or William, Duke of Normandy and known to his enemies as William the Bastard). We’ve all heard of him, but what was William like? How did he come to be King of England? And why does he remain such a talked about historical figure, almost a thousand years after his birth? All of these questions and more will be answered! In this episode, William sets out to exert his authority over his neighbours, with varying degrees of success. There’s also more family drama than an episode of EastEnders when William says ‘get out of my kingdom’ to his eldest son Robert, and Queen Matilda is forced to pick sides. Finally, like many ex-sportsmen, William lets himself go, puts on some weight and finally meets a fairly unglamorous demise. Sam Bartram is a history graduate and author from Norfolk, England. His other works include the children’s adventure book series ‘Peter and Mille Adventures’ (available exclusively at Amazon). Sam loves to correspond with readers and listeners. You can contact him on Twitter – his handle is @sbartramauthor. If you really enjoy this podcast then please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. If you absolutely love hysterical figures and want to contribute financially to future content, then that’s great but this is very much a hobby for Sam and he doesn’t have a patreon of kofi page! However, he would love you to donate to his justgiving page to support the red cross’s efforts to help the people of Ukraine suffering the devastating effects of war. The link for this is: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hystericalfigures