General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> King Of England
William I (of England)
I  INTRODUCTION
William I (of England), called The Conqueror (1027-1087), f
irst Norman king of England (1066-1087), who has been calle
d one of the first modern kings and is generally regarded a
s one of the outstanding figures in western European histor
y.
Born in Falaise, France, William was the illegitimate son o
f Robert I, duke of Normandy, and Arletta, a tanners daught
er, and is therefore sometimes called William the Bastard
. Upon the death of his father, the Norman nobles, honorin
g their promise to Robert, accepted William as his successo
r. Rebellion against the young duke broke out almost immedi
ately, however, and his position did not become secure unti
l 1047 when, with the aid of Henry I, king of France, he wo
n a decisive victory over a rebel force near Caen.
During a visit in 1051 to his childless cousin, Edward th
e Confessor, king of England, William is said to have obtai
ned Edwards agreement that he should succeed to the Englis
h throne. In 1053, defying a papal ban, William married Mat
ilda of Flanders, daughter of Baldwin V, count of Flander
s and a descendant of King Alfred the Great, thereby streng
thening his claim to the crown of England. Henry I, fearin
g the strong bond between Normandy (Normandie) and Flander
s resulting from the marriage, attempted in 1054 and agai
n in 1058 to crush the powerful duke, but on both occasion
s William defeated the French kings forces.
II  CONQUEST OF ENGLAND
About 1064, the powerful English noble, Harold, earl of Wes
sex, was shipwrecked on the Norman coast and taken prisone
r by William. He secured his release by swearing to suppor
t Williams claim to the English throne. When King Edward di
ed, however, the witenagemot (royal council) elected Harol
d king. Determined to make good his claim, William secure
d the sanction of Pope Alexander II for a Norman invasion o
f England. The duke and his army landed at Pevensey on Sept
ember 28, 1066. On October 14, the Normans defeated the Eng
lish forces at the celebrated Battle of Hastings, in whic
h Harold was slain. William then proceeded to London, crush
ing the resistance he encountered on the way. On Christma
s Day he was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey.
The English did not accept foreign rule without a struggle
. William met the opposition, which was particularly violen
t in the north and west, with strong measures; he was respo
nsible for the devastation of great areas of the country, p
articularly in Yorkshire, where Danish forces had arrived t
o aid the Saxon rebels. By 1070 the Norman conquest of Engl
and was complete.
William invaded Scotland in 1072 and forced the Scottish ki
ng Malcolm III MacDuncan to pay him homage. During the succ
eeding years the Conqueror crushed insurrections among hi
s Norman followers, including that incited in 1075 by Ralp
h de Guader, 1st earl of Norfolk, and Roger Fitzwilliam, ea
rl of Hereford, and a series of uprisings in Normandy led b
y his eldest son Robert, who later became Robert II, duke o
f Normandy.
III  HIS ACHIEVEMENTS
One feature of Williams reign as king was his reorganizatio
n of the English feudal and administrative systems. He diss
olved the great earldoms, which had enjoyed virtual indepen
dence under his Anglo-Saxon predecessors, and distributed t
he lands confiscated from the English to his trusted Norma
n followers. He introduced the Continental system of feudal
ism; by the Oath of Salisbury of 1086 all landlords swore a
llegiance to William, thus establishing the precedent tha
t a vassals loyalty to the king overrode his fealty to hi
s immediate lord. The feudal lords were compelled to acknow
ledge the jurisdiction of the local courts, which William r
etained along with many other Anglo-Saxon institutions. Th
e ecclesiastical and secular courts were separated, and th
e power of the papacy in English affairs was greatly