Hereward was a thorn in William the Conqueror's side, the man who led the last stand against the king and engaged his personal hatred. In this book Peter Rex brings the historical figure of Hereward out of the realms of fiction and folklore. This well-rounded account outlines the historical details of Hereward's parentage, his Danish background, his time spent in exile before the Conquest and his return to England to lead an Anglo-Danish stand of resistance to the king. Piecing together a wide range of source material, Rex looks in detail at the events of Hereward's attack on Peterborough Abbey, his refuge on the Isle of Ely and his attempts to hold off Norman soldiers while awaiting reinforcements. His fate sealed, the story ends with the question of Hereward's descendants and the legitimacy of their claims, as well as a discussion of the cards Hereward has been dealt by generations of historians, novelists and others.