William the Conqueror
Relationship to William I
William I, byname William the Conqueror or William the Bastard or William of Normandy, French Guillaume le Conquérant or Guillaume le Bâtard or Guillaume de Normandie, (born c.1028, Falaise, Normandy [France]—died September 9, 1087, Rouen), duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England (as William I) from 1066, one of the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. He made himself the mightiest noble in France and then changed the course of England’s history by his conquest of that country.
Early years
William was the elder of the two children of Robert Iof Normandy and his concubine Herleva (also called Arlette, the daughter of a tanner or undertaker from the town of Falaise). Sometime after William’s birth, Herleva was married to Viscount Herluin, by whom she bore two sons—including Odo, the future bishop of Bayeux—and a daughter. In 1035 Robert died while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and William, his only son, whom he had nominated as his heir before his departure, was accepted as duke by the Norman magnates and by his overlord, King Henry Iof France.
William and his friends had to overcome enormous obstacles, including William’s illegitimacy (he was generally known as the Bastard) and the fact that he had acceded as a child. His weakness led to a breakdown of authority throughout the duchy: private castles were erected, public power was usurped by lesser nobles, and private warfare broke out. Three of William’s guardians died violent deaths before he grew up, and his tutor was murdered. His father’s kin were of little help, since most of them thought that they stood to gain by the boy’s death. His mother, however, managed to protect him through the most dangerous period. These early difficulties probably contributed to William’s strength of purpose and his dislike of lawlessness and misrule.
Ruler of Normandy
By 1042, when William reached his 15th year, was knighted, and began to play a personal part in the affairs of his duchy, the worst was over. But his attempts to recover rights lost during the anarchy and to bring disobedient vassals and servants to heel inevitably led to trouble. From 1046 until 1055 he dealt with a series of baronial rebellions, mostly led by his kinsmen. Occasionally he was in great danger and had to rely on Henry of France for help, but it was during these years that William learned to fight and rule. A decisive moment came in 1047, when Henry and William defeated a coalition of Norman rebels at Val-ès-Dunes, southeast of Caen, a battle in which William first demonstrated his prowess as a warrior.
William soon learned to control his youthful recklessness. He was always ready to take calculated risks on campaign and to fight a battle, but he was not a flamboyant commander. His plans were simple, his methods direct, and he ruthlessly exploited any opportunity. If he found himself at a disadvantage, he withdrew immediately. He showed the same qualities in his government. He never lost sight of his aim to recover lost ducal rights and revenues, and, although he developed no theory of government or great interest in administrative techniques, he was always prepared to improvise and experiment.
He was moral and pious by the standards of the time, and he acquired an interest in the welfare of the Norman church. He made his half brother Odo bishop of Bayeux in 1049 at the age of about 16; as bishop, Odo combined the roles of nobleman and prelate in a way that did not greatly shock contemporaries. Although Odo and the other bishops appointed by William were not recognized for their spirituality, they strengthened the church in Normandy by their pious donations and administrative skill. Presiding over numerous church councils, William and his bishops passed important legislation against simony(the selling of church offices) and clerical marriage. He also welcomed foreign monks and scholars to Normandy, including Lanfrancof Pavia, a famous master of the liberal arts, who entered the monastery of Bec about 1042 and was made abbot of Caen in 1063. William endowed several monasteries in his duchy, significantly increasing their number, and introduced the latest currents in reform to Norman monasticism.
According to a brief description by an anonymous author—who borrowed extensively from Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne(Vita Karoli Magni; “Life of Charles the Great”)—William was just above average height and had a robust, thickset body. Although he was always sparing of food and drink, he became fat in later life. He had a rough bass voice and was a good and ready speaker. Writers of the next generation agree that he was exceptionally strong and vigorous. He was a hunter and soldier, fierce and despotic, and generally feared; uneducated, he had few graces but was intelligent and shrewd and soon obtained the respect of his rivals.
New alliances
After 1047 William began to participate in events outside his duchy. In support of King Henry and in an attempt to strengthen his southern frontier and expand into the western county of Maine, he fought a series of campaigns against Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou. But from 1052, when Henry and Geoffrey made peace and a serious rebellion began in eastern Normandy, until 1054 William was again in grave danger. During this period he conducted important negotiations with his cousin Edwardthe Confessor, king of England, in which he was named heir to the English throne, and took a wife.
Norman interest in Anglo-Saxon England derived from an alliance made in 1002, when King Ethelred IIof England married Emma, the sister of Count Richard II, William’s grandfather. Two of her sons, William’s cousins once removed, had reigned in turn in England: Hardecanute(1040–42) and Edward the Confessor (1042–66). William had met Edward during that prince’s exile on the Continent and may well have given him some support when he returned to England in 1041. In that year Edward was about 36 and William 13 years old. It is clear that William expected some sort of reward from Edward; thus, when Edward’s marriage proved unfruitful, William began to develop an ambition to become his kinsman’s heir. Edward, whose childlessness was a diplomatic asset, probably at times encouraged William’s hopes.
In 1049 William negotiated with Baldwin V of Flanders for the hand of his daughter, Matilda. Baldwin, an imperial vassal with a distinguished lineage, was in rebellion against the emperor, Henry III, and was in desperate need of allies. At the Council of Reims in October 1049, the emperor’s cousin, Pope Leo IX, condemned the proposed marriage as incestuous (William and Matilda were evidently related in some way), but William and Baldwin were so eager for the alliance that the wedding took place before the end of 1053, possibly in 1052. In 1059 William was reconciled to the papacy, and as penance he and Matilda built two monasteries at Caen. Four sons were born to the couple: Robert(the future duke of Normandy), Richard (who died young), William Rufus(his father’s successor in England), and Henry(Rufus’s successor). Among the daughters was Adela, who became the mother of Stephen, king of England from 1135 to 1154.
It is possible that William used his new alliance with Flanders to extort an acknowledgment from Edward that William was the English king’s rightful heir. At all events, Edward seems to have made some sort of promise to William in 1051, the year in which Tostig, son of the greatest nobleman in England, Godwine, married Baldwin’s half sister. The immediate purpose of this tripartite alliance was to improve the security of each of the parties. If William obtained a declaration that he was Edward’s heir, he was also looking very far ahead.
Between 1054 and 1060 William was threatened by the combined menace of internal revolt and the new alliance against him between King Henry and Geoffrey Martel. Had the Norman rebels coordinated their attacks with king and count, it would have meant the end for William, but his own skill and some luck allowed him to prevail. After suppressing the rebels, William decisively defeated the invading forces of Henry and Geoffrey at the Battle of Mortemer in 1054. After a second victory, at Varaville in 1057, the duke was in firm control of Normandy. His position was secured even further when both Henry and Geoffrey died in 1060 and were succeeded by weaker rulers. Finally conquering Maine in 1063, William became the most powerful ruler in northern France.
In 1064 or 1065 Edward sent his brother-in-law—Harold, earl of Wessex, Godwine’s son and Edward’s eventual successor as king—on an embassy to Normandy to confirm Edward’s recognition of William as his heir, according to Norman sources. While en route, Harold was captured by one of the duke’s vassals. He was ransomed by William, who then took him on a campaign into Brittany. It was at this time, according to the Norman account, that Harold swore an oath in which he renewed Edward’s bequest of the throne to William and promised to support it. This oath, and Harold’s violation of it, would become the central elements of William’s justification of his eventual invasion of England.
When Edward died childless on January 5, 1066, Harold was accepted as king by the English magnates, and William decided on war. He proceeded carefully, however, first taking steps to secure his duchy and to obtain international support for his venture. He took council with his leading nobles, bestowed special authority on his wife, Matilda, and his son Robert, and appointed key supporters to important positions in the ducal administration. He petitioned the pope in Rome and received the blessing of Alexander II, who was encouraged by Archdeacon Hildebrand (the future Pope Gregory VII) to support the invasion. He also appealed to volunteers to join his army of invasion and won numerous recruits from outside Normandy.
Events outpaced William, however, as others moved more quickly. Tostig, Harold’s exiled brother, raided England in May but suffered defeat at the hands of one of Harold’s allies. In September Tostig joined Harald III Hardraade, king of Norway, in an invasion of the Northumbrian coast. Although ultimately unsuccessful, Tostig and Harald’s attack had significant implications for the success of William’s invasion in the south.
The Battle of Hastings
By August William had gathered his army and his fleet at the mouth of the Dives River. At this point he probably intended to sail due north and invade England by way of the Isle of Wight and Southampton Water. But adverse winds held up his fleet, and in September a westerly gale drove his ships up-Channel. William regrouped his forces at Saint-Valéry on the Somme. He had suffered a costly delay, some naval losses, and a drop in the morale of his troops. The delay, however, yielded a very important benefit for William: on September 8 Harold was forced to release the peasant army he had summoned to defend the southern and eastern coastlines, leaving them without adequate protection. On September 27, after cold and rainy weather, the wind turned in William’s favour. William embarked his army and set sail for the southeastern coast of England. The trip was not without incident: William’s ship lost touch with the rest of the fleet, but he calmed his crew by supping as if he were at home, and contact with the other ships was made not long after. The following morning he landed, took the unresisting towns of Pevensey and Hastings, and began to organize a bridgehead with 4,000 to 7,000 cavalry and infantry.
William’s forces were in a narrow coastal strip, hemmed in by the great forest of Andred, and, although this corridor was easily defensible, it was not much of a base for the conquest of England. The campaigning season was almost past, and, when William received news of his opponent, it was not reassuring. On September 25 Harold had defeated and slain Tostig and Harald at Stamford Bridge, near York, in a bloody battle with great losses on both sides, and he was retracing his steps to meet the new invader at Hastings. On October 13, Harold emerged from the forest, but the hour was too late to push on to Hastings, and he took up a defensive position instead. Early the next day, before Harold had prepared his exhausted troops for battle, William attacked. The English phalanx, however, held firm against William’s archers and cavalry. The failure to break the English lines caused disarray in the Norman army. As William’s cavalry fled in confusion, Harold’s soldiers abandoned their positions to pursue the enemy. William rallied the fleeing horsemen, however, and they turned and slaughtered the foot soldiers chasing them. On two subsequent occasions, William’s horsemen feigned retreat, which fooled Harold’s soldiers, who were then killed by their opponents. Harold’s brothers were also killed early in the battle. Toward nightfall the king himself fell, struck in the eye by an arrow according to Norman accounts, and the English gave up. William’s coolness and tenacity secured him victory in this fateful battle. He then moved quickly against possible centres of resistance to prevent a new leader from emerging. On Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned king in Westminster Abbey. In a formal sense, the Norman Conquest of England had taken place.
King of England
William was already an experienced ruler. In Normandy he had replaced disloyal nobles and ducal servants with his friends, limited private warfare, and recovered usurped ducal rights, defining the duties of his vassals. The Norman church flourished under his reign, as he adapted its structures to English traditions. Like many contemporary rulers, he wanted the church in England to be free of corruption but also subordinate to him. Thus, he condemned simony and disapproved of clerical marriage. He would not tolerate opposition from bishops or abbots or interference from the papacy, but he remained on good terms with Popes Alexander II and Gregory VII—though tensions arose on occasion. During his reign, church synods were held much more frequently, and he also presided over several episcopal councils. He was ably supported in this by his close adviser Lanfranc, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury, replacing Stigand; William replaced all other Anglo-Saxon bishops of England—except Wulfstanof Dorchester—with Normans. He also promoted monastic reform by importing Norman monks and abbots, thus quickening the pace of monastic life in England and bringing it into line with Continental developments.
William left England early in 1067 but had to return in December to deal with unrest. The rebellions that began that year reached their peak in 1069, when William resorted to such violent measures that even contemporaries were shocked. To secure his hold on the country, he introduced the Norman practice of building castles, including the Tower of London. The rebellions, which were crushed by 1071, completed the ruin of the English higher aristocracy and secured its replacement by an aristocracy of Norman lords, who introduced patterns of landholding and military service that had been developed in Normandy. To secure England’s frontiers, he invaded Scotland in 1072 and Wales in 1081, creating special defensive “marcher” counties along the Scottish and Welsh borders.
During the last 15 years of his life, William was more often in Normandy than in England, and there were five years, possibly seven, in which he did not visit the kingdom at all. He retained most of the greatest Anglo-Norman barons with him in Normandy and confided the government of England to bishops, trusting especially his old friend Lanfranc. He returned to England only when it was absolutely necessary: in 1075 to deal with the aftermath of a rebellion by Roger, earl of Hereford, and Ralf, earl of Norfolk, which was made more dangerous by the intervention of a Danish fleet; and in 1082 to arrest and imprison his half brother Odo, who was planning to take an army to Italy, perhaps to make himself pope. In the spring of 1082 William had his son Henry knighted, and in August at Salisbury he took oaths of fealty from all the important landowners in England. In 1085 he returned with a large army to meet the threat of an invasion by Canute IV(Canute the Holy) of Denmark. When this came to nothing, owing to Canute’s death in 1086, William ordered an economic and tenurial survey to be made of the kingdom, the results of which are summarized in the two volumes of Domesday Book, one of the greatest administrative accomplishments of the Middle Ages.
Despite his duties as king, William remained preoccupied with the frontiers of Normandy even after the conquest. The danger spots were in Maine and the Vexin on the Seine, where Normandy bordered on the French royal demesne. After 1066, William’s Continental neighbours became more powerful and even more hostile. Fulk the Surly succeeded to Anjou in 1068 and Robert the Frisian to Flanders in 1071. King Philip Iof France allied with Robert, and Robert allied with the Danish king, Canute IV. There was also the problem of William’s heir apparent, Robert Curthose (the future Robert II), who, given no appanage(grant of land from the royal domain) and seemingly kept short of money, left Normandy in 1077 and intrigued with his father’s enemies. In 1081 William reached agreement with Fulk in the treaty of Blancheland: Robert Curthose was to be count of Maine but only as a vassal of Fulk. The eastern part of the Vexin, the county of Mantes, had fallen completely into King Philip’s hands in 1077, when William had been busy with Maine. In 1087 William demanded from Philip the return of the towns of Chaumont, Mantes, and Pontoise. In July he entered Mantes by surprise, but, while the town burned, he suffered an injury from which he never recovered. He was thwarted at the very moment when he seemed about to enforce his last outstanding territorial claim.
Death
William was taken to a suburb of Rouen, where he lay dying for five weeks. He had the assistance of some of his bishops and doctors, and in attendance were his half brother Robert, count of Mortain, and his younger sons, William Rufus and Henry. Robert Curthose was with the king of France. It had probably been William’s intention that Robert, as was the custom, should succeed to the whole inheritance. Although William was tempted to make the loyal Rufus his sole heir, in the end he compromised: Normandy and Maine went to Robert and England to Rufus. Henry was given great treasure with which to purchase an appanage. William died at daybreak on September 9, in his 60th year.
His burial in St. Stephen’s Church, which he had built at Caen, was as eventful as his life. The funeral procession was disrupted by a fire in the town, a local noble complained that he had been dispossessed of the land in which William was to be buried, and William’s body was broken as it was being forced into the stone coffin. The tomb itself was desecrated by Calvinists in the 16th century and by revolutionaries in the 18th.
Legacy
William left a profound mark on both Normandy and England and is one of the most important figures of medieval English history. His personal resolve and good fortune allowed him to survive the anarchy of Normandy in his youth, and he gradually transformed the duchy into the leading political and military power of northern France. His support for monastic reform and improved episcopal organization earned him respect from church leaders and further strengthened his hand in the duchy. His conquest of England in 1066 altered the course of English history, even though he adopted a number of Anglo-Saxon institutions and continued various social and economic trends that had begun before 1066. The English church was Normanized by William and brought more fully into line with developments on the Continent. William also imposed a new aristocracy on England that was French in language and culture; English language and literature and art and architecture were transformed because of William’s conquest. The new king and his nobility were also very much involved with affairs in Normandy and France, and, therefore, the orientation of English royal policy shifted toward Continental affairs. New forms of land tenure and military service were established after the conquest, and castles dotted the landscape as a symbol of the new regime. As conqueror and king, William significantly shaped the history of England.
Matilda ( Maud ) of Flanders
Matilda of Flanders was born circa 1031, the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and Adele of France, who was the daughter of Robert II of France and Constance of Arles. She was also a descendant of King Alfred the Great and the old Saxon House of Wessex, through Alfred’s daughter Aelfthryth who married Baldwin II of Flanders.
Her mother, Adele of France, had previously been married for a short time to William’s uncle, Richard III, Duke of Normandy. Adele was an exceptionally religious woman, later referred to as “Adele the Holy”, she had a great interest in Baldwin V’s church-reform politics and was behind her husband’s founding of several collegiate churches, she passed this reverance of Christianity to her daughter, Matilda, who received an excellent education, overseen by her mother.
Described by contemporaries as having delicate features and a graceful figure, Matilda spent her early years in Lille in Northern France. Rumours at the time stated that Matilda had fallen in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. Many years later while she was acting as Regent for William I in England, she confiscated Brihtric’s lands and had him thrown into prison in revenge for this insult, where he is said to have died.
Tradition states that when Duke William of Normandysent representatives to her father’s court to request Matilda’s hand in marriage, she retorted by proudly informing the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard. (William was the illegitimate son of ‘Robert the Devil’, Duke of Normandy and Arlette, daughter of Fulbert, a tanner of Falaise).
Furious on receiving this response, William rode to Bruges, where he confronted Matilda on her way to church, he pulled her off her horse and threw her down in the street in front of her attendants and rode off. An alternative version of the legend states that he rode to her father’s court in Lille, marched defiantly into her room and threw her to the ground in her room and hit her. Whereupon it is said Matilda refused to marry anyone but William.
The couple were married circa 1051-2 at Notre Dame d’Eu. The marriage was condemned as incestuous by Pope Pope Leo IX in 1049, and the couple were excommunicated. But in 1059 William was reconciled to the papacy, William and Matilda agreed to found two churches as penance for defiance of a papal ban on their marriage on the grounds of consanguinity. They were an ill-assorted pair, he strongly built and five feet ten inches tall and she (as it emerged when her skeleton was exhumed) extremely short. In 1819 and 1959, Matilda’s skeleton was examined in France, and her bones were measured to determine her height. The 1819 estimate was under five feet, while the 1959 estimate was 5′ (152 cm) tall.
It proved however, to be a highly successful union and produced a large family of ten children. Two sonsRobert (b.1051-1054, died 10 February 1134) and Richard (c.1054, died c. 1075) were born within three years of the marriage. These were followed by the couple’s first two daughters, Cecilia and Adeliza (d. before 1113), and a third son, the future William II(born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100), Matilda (born around 1061) and Constance (died 1090), named in honour of Matilda’s grandmother, the late Queen of France, she later married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany. They were followed by a sixth daughter Adela (died 1137) named for Matilda’s mother, Adele of France, she was to become the mother of King Stephen. A fourth son, the future Henry I was born between May, 1068 and May, 1069, probably at Selby in Yorkshire. He was named Henry after his mother’s maternal uncle, King Henry I of France.
All of Matilda’s daughters were educated by the nuns at Holy Trinity Abbey. Cecilia took the veil and became Abbess of Holy Trinity, while Agatha, was married to Alfonso VI, King of Galicia-y-León, however, she died before she could join her husband in Spain. Shortly after Agatha’s death, the couple’s second son, Richard, was killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest, when he was gored to death by a stag. In a twist of fate, his younger brother, King William II Rufus, was himself killed in the New Forest thirty years later.
When William launched his fateful invasion of England in 1066, Matilda commissioned a magnificent flagship, The Mora, for her husband to cross the Channel, every detail of the ship had been planned with meticulous care. Matilda was left as regent in Normandy for her fourteen year old son Robert Curthose. William presented her with some of the crown jewels of England when they were re-united at Fécamp. Matilda was later crowned Queen of England on 11 May , 1068 at Westminster Abbey.
Matilda spent most of her time in Normandy, looking after affairs there and raising her children. She often exerted a moderating influence on her husband. The Anglo-Norman Chronicler Orderic Vitalis relates:-
“She was even more distinguished for the purity of her mind and manners than for her illustrious lineage. She united beauty with gentle breeding and all the graces of Christian holiness.”
The couple’s eldest son, Robert was Matilda’s favourite child, but grew to be a source of dissension between his parents. Robert rebelled against his father, but proved no match for him and William successfully suppressed the rebellion. Although he pardoned Robert, William refused to completely forgive his son. Relations were not helped when King William discovered that Matilda was secretly sending her son large sums of money.
At a battle in January 1079, Robert unhorsed King William in combat and wounded him, ceasing his attack only when he recognized his father’s voice. Humiliated, King William cursed his son then raised the siege and returned to Rouen. At Easter 1080, a reconciliation between father and son was engineered by Matilda. The family were re-united in Breteuil, in northern France, for celebrations to mark the betrothal of William and Matilda’s 14 year-old daughter, Adela, to Stephen, Count of Blois. Matilda then encouraged William to make peace with his estranged half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.
When Matilda fell seriously ill, William rushed to Normandy to be at her bedside. He wrote to Robert at Gerberol Castle, asking him to immediately come to Rouen. Matilda died at Caen, in November 1083 in her early fifties, after a lingering illness, her husband was at her bedside for her final confession. In her will she left large amounts of money to the poor and her royal sceptre and crown to Holy Trinity Abbey. She was buried in the choir of Holy Trinity, l’Abbaye aux Dames, her own foundation, in Caen, Normandy.
Following her death William, much effected by her loss, was said to have became more short-tempered, gloomy and severe.
