He was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy and the daughter of a tanner called Ellave.

　　And in the cut-throat world of feudal Normandy, it was important that he learn, and quickly, how to survive.

　　He was only a child when his father died on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving William, just eight years old, as his heir.

　　A lamb thrown to the wolves.

　　Certainly Edward would have known the young William.

　　There were suggestions that he was one of the hand-picked companions entrusted by William's father, Duke Robert, with keeping an eye on the vulnerable young boy.

　　He would have seen how William survived the traumas of his childhood, narrowly escaping assassination attempts; how William was forced, aged ten, to witness the brutal murder of his beloved steward in his bedchamber, before his very eyes.