The English class system is anchored in this event - the ruling/upper class was replaced in its entirety by the Norman invaders, leaving two very distinct identities.
A reporter for the Financial Times once asked Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster, what advice he would give to a young entrepreneur wanting to succeed. He joked: "Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror."
Didn't an existing class hierarchy (at least in part) enable the Normans to do this? When the aristocratic army was defeated, the entire country was defenceless and they could replace the existing aristocracy.
Indeed, and having replaced the aristocracy they let the 'lower classes' carry on much as they had before, continuing with their existing customs and (lower level) forms of governance - just with new 'top bosses' if you will.
So in comparison to other places that did not have such a wholesale aristocracy replacement, this really cemented the class divide. No longer was the aristocracy 'like you but richer/more powerful', but quite different - different language, customs etc.
1066 was the last successful invasion of the British mainland, so, aside from the odd civil war, no sweeping 'cataclysm' occurred to shake things up. We didn't even have a revolution like the French, instead a gradual (over centuries!) transition to our current democratic system, with a constitutional monarchy (itself a remnant of the old ruling system).
That odd civil war was more than a tiny bit like revolutions elsewhere though (violent beheadings, paranoid totalitarianism, bourgeois ascendancy) - it just happened a little earlier than others. British history is all gradual and continuous, except for the big abrupt cataclysm in the middle of it.
Right, but after about 11 years of Puritan government, people wanted Christmas back, so the monarchy was restored (but with a tacit understanding that sovereignty now laid with Parliament).
