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We trace one family, generation by generation, throughout the one thousand years of the second millennium. The trilogy sets the family within its social environment, describing its migration from the continent, and across England, Scotland, and Ireland to settle in the New World. From that we get a vivid picture of what affected, motivated, worried, and encouraged this Saxon family and how they coped. Since the migration of this family was typical for the time, this study is relevant to millions of people in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, whose ancestors followed the same general migratory path.
Book I specifically covers the feudal period in the Middle Ages (1000 - 1560), where a feudal autocrat and an avaricious pope, between them, owned and controlled everything. Throughout, the family became our witnesses to many of the historic events of the feudal period: the Battle of Hastings, Anglo-Saxon resistance, the plague, the Little Ice Age, the Great Starvation, Guilds, the building of great cathedrals and castles, and the gradual decline in the king's power and control.
In 1067 William the Conqueror appointed Honfroi de Insula de L'lle as the Dominus of the area around the feudal village of Combe, Wiltshire. He permitted Honfroi to live and build a motte and bailey castle there to assist in keeping the peace. The front image is Castle Combe as it appears today.
About the author
William Lilly, a former barrister and historian in Canada and England, is a member of the Inns of Court and Middle Temple, and has been a Queen's Counsel since 1976. Throughout, he has been a director of both private and public companies, one of which led him to participate in the development of surveillance and location technologies which his company represented in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Following World War II, William travelled throughout Europe with the support of the Minister for External Affairs of Canada to observe the reconstruction, formation of governments, and constitutional arrangements of several European, Asian, and African countries, and his information encouraged the government to provide peace-keeping forces at the request of the United Nations. William is a citizen of both Canada and the United Kingdom.
