BBC Adds 12 to Cast of 'King & Conqueror' as Filming Begins

Filming is officially underway on King & Conqueror the BBC's sprawling historical epic that digs into the lives of several of the medieval period's most fascinating and influential figures.

The eight part series will follow the lives of two men who will ultimately face off in a battle that will shape the identity of England --- and the future of Europe --- for hundreds of years to come: Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, King Harold II, and the last crowned Anglo Saxon ruler of England, and William, Duke of Normandy, otherwise known as William the Conqueror, whose defeat of Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 ushered in profound changes that shifted the Church, the aristocracy, the government, and even the language in England forever afterward.

When Edward the Confessor died, a succession crisis followed, as Harold Hardrada, the King of Norway and William of Normandy both attempted to take the throne. But the man who emerged victorious was Godwinson, brother in law of Edward, who managed to get himself crowned just a day after the king's death. Unfortunately, this didn't do him a lot of good, as he would go only to rule for just nine months before his death at Hastings. (Popular myth says he was slain via an arrow through the eye, but this is a subject of some debate among historians.) However if the characters and descriptions are anything to go by, King & Conqueror isn't all that concerned with Hastings and its aftermath, but who the two men who would share that fateful meeting on the battlefield were before hand.