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William, the Conqueror

HUSBAND:
[F1578570756]. William, the Conqueror. (Guillaume le Conquérant). [PC W2-9-9-1-1-3-4].
Born 1025 or 1027 in Falaise, France; the illegitimate son of Robert II, The Devil, Duke of Normandy [F3157141512] and Herleve [F3157141512]. Most contemporary writers referred to him as William the Bastard.

In 1034 his father went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but before he left he persuaded the Norman barons to recognize William as his heir. When his father died on his way home from his pilgrimage, William became the Duke of Normandy. Since he was so young, Normandy was practically without a ruler for the next ten years, and there was a great deal of disorder. William was lucky to survive those years, as he had several cousins who would have preferred to see him out of the way. During his youth he was witness to violence and intrigue. The great nobles who were his guardians came one by one to violent ends, and rival ambitions stirred throughout Normandy. William had some narrow escapes, but survived largely due to the support of his mother=s kinsmen. The French King Henry also defended his title and declared it his policy to recognize and preserve the minor upon his throne. Besides the court intrigues, the taint of being illegitimate “sank deep into William’s nature.” It embittered and hardened him. As a result of the bitterness and the court intrigues he learned that not many men could be trusted, and those few in whom he did place his trust were mostly the friends he made in his childhood.

In the mid 1040's, William began to govern for himself. He was almost continuously at war, either against Norman rebels or neighboring princes, or both. Many of the Normans rebelled because they felt it was beneath themselves to be ruled by an illegitimate son. He became a hard and ruthless campaigner. His friends said he was the best knight in the world. His enemies were not quite so kind.

In 1047, when he was twenty, a formidable conspiracy was organized against him, and at the outset of the revolt he narrowly missed destruction. The rebels proposed to divide the duchy among themselves, conferring on one of their number, to whom they took an oath, the nominal title of Duke. William was hunting in the heart of the disaffected country. His seizure was planned, but his court fool broke in upon him with a timely warning to fly for his life. By daybreak he had ridden forty miles, and was for the moment safe in loyal Falaise. Knowing that his own strength could not suffice, he rode ceaselessly to appeal for help to his overlord, the King of France. This was granted and King Henry took the field with him. William gathered together his loyal barons and retainers. At the Battle of Val-es-Dunes, fought entirely on both sides by cavalry, the rebels were routed, and for the first time William’s position as Duke of Normandy was secure.

His most powerful neighbors were King Henry of France, count Geoffrey of Anjou, and Count Baldwin of Flanders. Between 1052 and 1060 France and Anjou were hostile to Normandy. William was fortunate during this time to be able to count on the friendship of Flanders. He had asked Count Baldwin for the hand of his daughter Matilda, but in 1049 the Pope forbade the marriage, presumably on the grounds that William and Matilda were too closely related. Despite this William went ahead and married Matilda of Flanders [885539329]. The Flemish alliance was more important then papal disapproval. William and Matilda must have been an odd-looking couple. The evidence of the bones found in their graves suggest that he was about five foot ten inches tall, but she was about four foot two inches tall. But by all accounts it was a successful marriage. She bore at least nine children, and most contemporaries believed that William was never unfaithful to her.

In 1060, both King Henry and Count Geoffrey died. The heir to France was a small boy, and in Anjou there was a troubled succession. The consequent weakness of his neighbors left the way clear for William to conquer the county of Maine in 1063, and then he turned his eyes on England.

In 1051 Edward the Confessor, perhaps to win Norman support in a quarrel with his powerful father-in-law Earl Godwin, had dangled before William the prospect of succeeding to the English throne, even though William was only a distant cousin. Edward himself was childless, and there were several candidates for the succession. The strict order of heredity was not yet so rigidly set. Among the hopefuls were Harold, son of Earl Godwin and a brother of Edward’s wife Edith. By 1066 Edward was reconciled with the Godwin family, and on his deathbed he nominated Harold as his heir.

William felt cheated and prepared at once for an invasion of England. He insisted that Edward had promised him the throne, and that on a visit to Normandy in 1064, even Harold had sworn an oath to support his accession. William claimed that Harold was thus both an usurper and a perjurer, and so William won papal approval for his invasion. In the careful preparations, William showed himself at his best, “with all the thoroughness of a military genius.” It was an enterprise far beyond the resources of his duchy, so he recruited soldiers from all over northern France and Flanders. The prospect of laying hands on the wealth of England, its land and silver, attracted thousands to his banner.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1066, ships were built and military supplies assembled. By August his expeditionary force was ready. An extraordinary series of lucky chances brought things to a swift and dramatic conclusion. If William had sailed when he wanted to, he would have found Harold and an English fleet waiting to receive him. Even if he had managed to defeat the English then, he would have had to face another contender for the throne. Harold Hardrada, the King of Norway, a famous viking warrior also laid claim to it. As it happened, throughout August and most of September the wind was against William. Merely to hold his waiting army together was a great achievement, yet while he waited impatiently, some of his greatest problems were being solved for him. In September Harold Hardrada, accompanied by one of his wives and several of his children, reached the Tyne and then defeated the northern levies in a pitched battle near York. As soon as Harold Godwinsson heard of the viking landings, he marched north and routed Hardrada’s troops at Stamford Bridge on 25 September 1066.

Two days later the wind in the Channel changed direction. William set sail and was able to make an unopposed landing at Pevensey. During the next two weeks his soldiers fortified their beachhead and pillaged the area. Harold came rushing back from the north and was defeated. If Harold had held back, it is hard to say what William would have been able to do. If he had marched inland, he may have lost contact with his fleet and communication with Normandy. But Harold was confident of his military power, and as a new king with an uncertain title, he wished to see the matter settled once and for all. Therefore, on 14 October 1066, the two armies met at Hastings.

After a long and desperately hard struggle William=s skillful handling of a combined force of archers and cavalry enabled him to break down the English shield wall.

The fact that Harold and his brothers died fighting meant that there was no leader capable of organizing further resistance. The English earls and bishops hesitated, took a few indecisive steps and then decided to submit. On Christmas Day 1066 William was crowned in Westminister Abbey. He became the King of England with the conquest of 1066.

He married Matilda [F1578570757].

In February 1067 he returned to Normandy, leaving his half-brother Odo of Bayeux, now Earl of Kent, in charge.

Apart from the destruction of the Godwinsson dynasty, he left the English scene much as he had found it. All this was to change, however, as a result of the next four years. All over England revolts broke out. They were unplanned and uncoordinated. Some of the leaders, like Hereward the Wake passed into legend, but none of them was capable of more that local action. Thus William was able to deal with one minor uprising after another and by 1071 he had subdued the whole country. The turbulent north had been devastated. Several hundred castles had been built and the outnumbered Normans could sleep safely within their walls.

William punished rebels by confiscating their estates and giving them to Normans. The native English aristocracy was wiped out. The Domesday Book, which was compiled in 1086 under William=s instructions to assess the wealth of the kingdom, records that within the area which it covered, only two English landowners of any note survived the Normans.

The English church suffered the same fate as the English nobility. At William’s request, papal legates deposed five English bishops in 1070. They were replaced by men from the continent. Outstanding among them was Lanfranc, the new Archbishop of Canterbury. From then on, whenever a bishop or an abbot died the same policy was pursued. By 1096 there was not a single bishopric or important abbey in English hands. The traditional learning and liturgy of the English church was treated with contempt by men educated in the schools of Europe. Probably no other conquest in European history ever had such disastrous consequences for the defeated ruling class. William had certainly not intended this, for he was conservative by nature, but he was also ruthless and when events pushed him to destroy, he did so thoroughly.

William’s own power and prestige were tremendously enhanced. He was able to bestow huge gifts of land upon his followers without impoverishing himself. After 1071 William=s hold on England was fairly secure. The extensive royal estates and the sophisticated English financial machinery brought in huge sums. The Welch and the Scots gave him little trouble. Scandinavian rulers continued to look greedily towards England, but the ever present threat of another viking invasion never quite materialized. From 1071 to 1084 most of William=s attention was taken up by war and diplomacy on the continent. Normandy was his homeland, and was far more vulnerable to sudden attack than was England. Furthermore, the King of France and the Counts of Anjou and Flanders were alarmed by William=s newly acquired power, and took every opportunity to diminish it.

Their best opportunities were provided by William’s eldest son Robert (born in 1054). Recognized as long ago as 1066 as the heir to Normandy, he had never been permitted to enjoy either money or power. From 1078 onwards he became involved in a series of intrigues and was a tool in the hands of William's enemies. In one skirmish William was actually wounded by his won son.

In 1085 William returned to England with a huge army of mercenaries ready to counter the invasion planned by King Swein of Denmark. The administrative effort involved in providing for this army seems to have persuaded William that he ought to have more precise information about the distribution of wealth among his barons. So in 1086 he commissioned men to be sent from shire to shire and the results were compiled in to the Domesday Book. It listed the major landholders in each county, and provided William with a remarkably full description of their sources of revenue. But although the book has been of great value to historians, it seems doubtful that William was able to make much use of it.

Before the end of the year, he had been recalled to Normandy. Once again he found himself campaigning against the King of France and, as usual, the war was concentrated in the Vexin, a disputed territory lying between Rouen and Paris. In July 1087 William launched a surprise attack on Mantes and took it, but during the sack of the town he received an injury. As a result of this injury he died on 9 SEP 1087. His body was carried to the church of St. Stephen at Caen for burial. During his last few years he had grown very fat. King Philip of France used to say that he looked like a pregnant woman. When the attendants tried to force his body into the stone sarcophagus, it burst and filled the church with a foul smell. It was an unpleasant ending, but few kings have enjoyed so much luck as William. And few took such full advantage of their good fortune as William.

WIFE:
Matilda (Maud). [PC W2-9-9-1-1-3-4]
She was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders [F1771078658], and Adela Capet (1000-1078/9) [F1771078659], daughter of Robert II of France. A spoiled young lady used to speaking her mind and getting her way, the 4'2"-tall (Britain's smallest queen) Matilda (or "Maud") told the representative of William, Duke of Normandy (later king of England as William the Conqueror), who had come asking for her hand, that she was far too high-born (being descended from King Alfred the Great of England) to consider marrying a bastard. When that was repeated to him, William, all 5'10" of him, rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse (some said by her long braids), threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and then rode off. After that, she decided to marry him, and even a papal ban (on the grounds of consanguinity) did not dissuade her.

There were rumors that Matilda had been in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon so pale he was nearly an albino, named Brihtric (but nicknamed "Snow"), who was already married. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as regent for William in England, she used her authority to confiscate Brihtric's lands (without even any formal charges, much less a trial) and throw him into prison, where he died under suspicious circumstances consistent with poisoning. When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own money and gave it to him. For many years it was thought that she had something to do with creating the Bayeux Tapestry, but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by Saxons in Kent.

Matilda bore William ten children, and he was believed to have been faithful to her, at least up until the time their son Robert rebelled against his father and Matilda sided with Robert against William. After she died, in 1083 at the age of 51, William became tyrannical, and people blamed it on his having lost her. She was buried at St. Stephen's in Caen, Normandy (then, France now), and William was eventually buried there, too. Years later their graves were opened and their bones measured, which is how we know how tall they were.

She died in 1083.

CHILDREN of William., the Conqueror [F1578570756] and Matilda [F1578570757]:


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