How would England (and later,Britain) been different if the Norman Conquest had been beaten?
The English language might not be very different. Norman French has been overcome by the native tongue (who speaks it now?), and English would have anyway gone on adopting foreign words, from French among other languages. In the Middle Ages Europe was a fluid, cosmopolitan area and language, like trade, was subject to international influence. Politically there might be a difference, but I am sceptical. Here too the native tradition of a national council under the monarch has (eventually) prevailed over the authoritarian system introduced by the Normans (and still the preferred model in France and hence in the EU). We might, however, have been living under Gunhilde II rather than Elizabeth II. Personal names certainly changed in the centuries after the Conquest, Saxon/Norse ones becoming distinctly less popular. We have Gordon (not Ethelred) and David (not Knut) at the head of our leading political parties. The difference would have been felt more on the Continent. If William the Bastar
