This is the history of the powerful Godwin dynasty, from the mystery of their ancestral origins and background, to their rise to power under King Cnut, and their opportunism and accumulation of wealth under his successors. It was a period of  violent upheaval in English history, with Viking attacks and the conquest of England by Danish kings. Writing with clarity and panache, Frank Barlow places the Godwins at the centre of this unstable world, charting the family's fortunes through to Harold - the last Anglo-Saxon kings - his accession and downfall, at the hand of William the Conquerer and the Norman Conquest.