General Notes

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Contemporaries: Edward the Confessor (King of England, 1047-1066); Harold Godwinson (King of England, 1066); Henry I (King of France, 1031-1060); Philip I (King of France, 1060-1108); Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085); Lanfranc (Archbishop of Canterbury)
William, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy, spent his first six years with his mother in Falaise and received the duchy of Normandy upon his father's death in 1035. A council consisting of noblemen and William's appointed guardians ruled Normandy but ducal authority waned under the Normans' violent nature and the province was wracked with assassination and revolt for twelve years. In 1047, William reasserted himself in the eastern Norman regions and, with the aid of France's King Henry I, crushed the rebelling barons. He spent the next several years consolidating his strength on the continent through marriage, diplomacy, war and savage intimidation. By 1066, Normandy was in a position of virtual independence from William's feudal lord, Henry I of France and the disputed succession in England offered William an opportunity for invasion.

Edward the Confessor attempted to gain Norman support while fighting with his father-in-law, Earl Godwin, by purportedly promising the throne to William in 1051. (This was either a false claim by William or a hollow promise from Edward; at that time, the kingship was not necessarily hereditary but was appointed by the witan, a council of clergy and barons.) Before his death in 1066, however, Edward reconciled with Godwin, and the witan agreed to Godwin's son, Harold, as heir to the crown - after the recent Danish kings, the members of the council were anxious to keep the monarchy in Anglo-Saxon hands. William was enraged and immediately prepared to invade, insisting that Harold had sworn allegiance to him in 1064. Prepared for battle in August 1066, ill winds throughout August and most of September prohibited him crossing the English Channel. This turned out to be advantageous for William, however, as Harold Godwinson awaited William's pending arrival on England's south shores, Harold Hardrada, the King of Norway, invaded England from the north. Harold Godwinson's forces marched north to defeat the Norse at Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066. Two days after the battle, William landed unopposed at Pevensey and spent the next two weeks pillaging the area and strengthening his position on the beachhead. The victorious Harold, in an attempt to solidify his kingship, took the fight south to William and the Normans on October 14, 1066 at Hastings. After hours of holding firm against the Normans, the tired English forces finally succumbed to the onslaught. Harold and his brothers died fighting in the Hastings battle, removing any further organized Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Normans. The earls and bishops of the witan hesitated in supporting William, but soon submitted and crowned him William I on Christmas Day 1066. The kingdom was immediately besieged by minor uprisings, each one individually and ruthlessly crushed by the Normans, until the whole of England was conquered and united in 1072. William punished rebels by confiscating their lands and allocating them to the Normans. Uprisings in the northern counties near York were quelled by an artificial famine brought about by Norman destruction of food caches and farming implements.

The arrival and conquest of William and the Normans radically altered the course of English history. Rather than attempt a wholesale replacement of Anglo-Saxon law, William fused continental practices with native custom. By disenfranchising Anglo-Saxon landowners, he instituted a brand of feudalism in England that strengthened the monarchy. Villages and manors were given a large degree of autonomy in local affairs in return for military service and monetary payments. The Anglo-Saxon office of sheriff was greatly enhanced: sheriffs arbitrated legal cases in the shire courts on behalf of the king, extracted tax payments and were generally responsible for keeping the peace. "The Domesday Book" was commissioned in 1085 as a survey of land ownership to assess property and establish a tax base. Within the regions covered by the Domesday survey, the dominance of the Norman king and his nobility are revealed: only two Anglo-Saxon barons that held lands before 1066 retained those lands twenty years later. All landowners were summoned to pay homage to William in 1086. William imported an Italian, Lanfranc, to take the position of Archbishop of Canterbury; Lanfranc reorganized the English Church, establishing separate Church courts to deal with infractions of Canon law. Although he began the invasion with papal support, William refused to let the church dictate policy within English and Norman borders.

He died as he had lived: an inveterate warrior. He died September 9, 1087 from complications of a wound he received in a siege on the town of Mantes.

"The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" gave a favorable review of William's twenty-one year reign, but added, "His anxiety for money is the only thing on which he can deservedly be blamed; . . .he would say and do some things and indeed almost anything . . .where the hope of money allured him." He was certainly cruel by modern standards, and exacted a high toll from his subjects, but he laid the foundation for the economic and political success of England.
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Duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England from1066, one of the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. Hemade himself the mightiest feudal lord in France and then changed thecourse of England's history by his conquest of that country.

Early years

William was the elder of two children of Robert I of Normandy and hisconcubine Herleva, or Arlette, the daughter of a burgher from the townof Falaise. In 1035 Robert died when returning from a pilgrimage toJerusalem, and William, his only son, whom he had nominated as hisheir before his departure, was accepted as duke by the Norman magnatesand his feudal overlord, King Henry I of France. William and hisfriends had to overcome enormous obstacles. His illegitimacy (he wasgenerally known as the Bastard) was a handicap, and he had to survivethe collapse of law and order that accompanied his accession as achild.

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; mostof them thought that they stood to gain by the boy's death. But hismother managed to protect William through the most dangerous period.These early difficulties probably contributed to his strength ofpurpose and his dislike of lawlessness and misrule.

Ruler of Normandy.

By 1042, when William reached his 15th year, was knighted, and beganto play a personal part in the affairs of his duchy, the worst wasover. But his attempts to recover rights lost during the anarchy andto bring disobedient vassals and servants to heel inevitably led totrouble. From 1046 until 1055 he dealt with a series of baronialrebellions, mostly led by kinsmen. Occasionally he was in great dangerand had to rely on Henry of France for help. In 1047 Henry and Williamdefeated a coalition of Norman rebels at Val-Es-Dunes, southeast ofCaen. It was in these years that William learned to fight and rule.

William soon learned to control his youthful recklessness. He wasalways ready to take calculated risks on campaign and, most important,to fight a battle. But he was not a chivalrous or flamboyantcommander. His plans were simple, his methods direct, and he exploitedruthlessly any advantage gained. If he found himself at adisadvantage, he withdrew immediately. He showed the same qualities inhis government. He never lost sight of his aim to recover lost ducalrights and revenues, and, although he developed no theory ofgovernment or great interest in administrative techniques, he wasalways prepared to improvise and experiment. He seems to have lived amoral life by the standards of the time, and he acquired an interestin the welfare of the Norman church. He made his half brother, Odo,bishop of Bayeux in 1049 at the age of about 16, and Odo managed tocombine the roles of nobleman and prelate in a way that did notgreatly shock contemporaries. But William also welcomed foreign monksand scholars to Normandy. Lanfranc of Pavia, a famous master of theliberal arts, who entered the monastery of Bec about 1042, was madeabbot of Caen in 1063.

According to a brief description of William's person by an anonymousauthor, who borrowed extensively from Einhard's Life of Charlemagne,he was just above average height and had a robust, thick-set body.Though he was always sparing of food and drink, he became fat in laterlife. He had a rough bass voice and was a good and ready speaker.Writers of the next generation agree that he was exceptionally strongand vigorous. William was an out-of-doors man, a hunter and soldier,fierce and despotic, generally feared; uneducated, he had few gracesbut was intelligent and shrewd and soon obtained the respect of hisrivals.

New alliances.

After 1047 William began to take part in events outside his duchy. Insupport of his lord, King Henry, and in pursuit of an ambition tostrengthen his southern frontier and expand into Maine, he fought aseries of campaigns against Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou. But in1052 Henry and Geoffrey made peace, there was a serious rebellion ineastern Normandy, and, until 1054 William was again in serious danger.During this period he conducted important negotiations with his cousinEdward the Confessor, king of England, and took a wife.

Norman interest in Anglo-Saxon England derived from an alliance madein 1002, when King Ethelred II of England married Emma, the sister ofCount Richard II, William's grandfather. Two of her sons, William'scousins once removed, had reigned in turn in England, Hardecanute(1040-42) and Edward the Confessor (1042-66). William had met Edwardduring that prince's exile on the Continent and may well have givenhim some support when he returned to England in 1041. In that yearEdward was about 36 and William 14. It is clear that William expectedsome sort of reward from Edward and, when Edward's marriage provedunfruitful, began to develop an ambition to become his kinsman's heir.Edward probably at times encouraged William's hopes. His childlessnesswas a diplomatic asset.

In 1049 William negotiated with Baldwin V of Flanders for the hand ofhis daughter, Matilda. Baldwin, an imperial vassal with adistinguished lineage, was in rebellion against the Western emperor,Henry III, and in desperate need of allies. The proposed marriage wascondemned as incestuous (William and Matilda were evidently related insome way) by the Emperor's friend, Pope Leo IX, at the Council ofReims in October 1049; but so anxious were the parties for thealliance that before the end of 1053, possibly in 1052, the weddingtook place. In 1059 William was reconciled to the papacy, and aspenance the disobedient pair built two monasteries at Caen. Four sonswere born to William and Matilda: Robert (the future duke ofNormandy), Richard (who died young), William Rufus (the Conqueror'ssuccessor in England), and Henry (Rufus' successor). Among thedaughters was Adela, who was the mother of Stephen, king of England.

Edward the Confessor was supporting the Emperor, and it is possiblethat William used his new alliance with Flanders to put pressure onEdward and extort an acknowledgment that he was the English king'sheir. At all events, Edward seems to have made some sort of promise toWilliam in 1051, while Tostig, son of the greatest nobleman inEngland, Earl Godwine, married Baldwin's half sister. The immediatepurpose of this tripartite alliance was to improve the security ofeach of the parties. If William secured a declaration that he wasEdward's heir, he was also looking very far ahead.

Between 1054 and 1060 William held his own against an alliance betweenKing Henry I and Geoffrey Martel of Anjou. Both men died in 1060 andwere succeeded by weaker rulers. As a result, in 1063 William was ableto conquer Maine. In 1064 or 1065 Edward sent his brother-in-law,Harold, earl of Wessex, Godwine's son and successor, on an embassy toNormandy. William took him on a campaign into Brittany, and inconnection with this Harold swore an oath in which, according toNorman writers, he renewed Edward's bequest of the throne to Williamand promised to support it.

When Edward died childless on Jan. 5, 1066, Harold was accepted asking by the English magnates, and William decided on war. Others,however, moved more quickly. In May Tostig, Harold's exiled brother,raided England, and in September he joined the invasion forces ofHarald III Hardraade, king of Norway, off the Northumbrian coast.William assembled a fleet, recruited an army, and gathered his forcesin August at the mouth of the Dives River. It is likely that heoriginally intended to sail due north and invade England by way of theIsle of Wight and Southampton Water. Such a plan would give him anoffshore base and interior lines. But adverse winds detained his fleetin harbour for a month, and in September a westerly gale drove hisships up-Channel.

The Battle of Hastings.

William regrouped his forces at Saint-ValEry on the Somme. He hadsuffered a costly delay, some naval losses, and a drop in the moraleof his troops. On September 27, after cold and rainy weather, the windbacked south. William embarked his army and set sail for the southeastcoast of England. The following morning he landed, took theunresisting towns of Pevensey and Hastings, and began to organize abridgehead with between 4,000 and 7,000 cavalry and infantry.

William's forces were in a narrow coastal strip, hemmed in by thegreat forest of Andred, and, although this corridor was easilydefensible, it was not much of a base for the conquest of England. Thecampaigning season was almost past, and when William received news ofhis opponent it was not reassuring. On September 25 Harold haddefeated and slain Tostig and Harald Hardraade at Stamford Bridge,near York, and was retracing his steps to meet the new invader. OnOctober 13, when Harold emerged from the forest, William was taken bysurprise. But the hour was too late for Harold to push on to Hastings,and he took up a defensive position. Early the next day William wentout to give battle. He attacked the English phalanx with archers andcavalry but saw his army almost driven from the field. He rallied thefugitives, however, and brought them back into the fight and in theend wore down his opponents. Harold's brothers were killed early inthe battle. Toward nightfall the King himself fell and the Englishgave up. William's coolness and tenacity secured him victory in thisfateful battle, and he then moved against possible centres ofresistance so quickly that he prevented a new leader from emerging. OnChristmas Day 1066 he was crowned king in Westminster Abbey. In aformal sense the Norman Conquest of England had taken place.

King of England

William was already an experienced ruler. In Normandy he had replaceddisloyal nobles and ducal servants with his own friends, limitedprivate warfare, and recovered usurped ducal rights, defining thefeudal duties of his vassals. The Norman church flourished under hisrule. He wanted a church free of corruption but subordinate to him. Hewould not tolerate opposition from bishops and abbots or interferencefrom the papacy. He presided over church synods and reinforcedecclesiastical discipline with his own. In supporting Lanfranc, priorof Bec, against Berengar of Tours in their dispute over the doctrineof the Eucharist, he found himself on the side of orthodoxy. He wasnever guilty of the selling of church office (simony). He disapprovedof clerical marriage. At the same time he was a stern and sometimesrough master, swayed by political necessities, and he was not generousto the church with his own property. The reformer Lanfranc was one ofhis advisers; but perhaps even more to his taste were the worldly andsoldierly bishops Odo of Bayeux and Geoffrey of Coutances.

William left England early in 1067 but had to return in Decemberbecause of English unrest. The English rebellions that began in 1067reached their peak in 1069 and were finally quelled in 1071. Theycompleted the ruin of the highest English aristocracy and gave Williama distaste for his newly conquered kingdom. Since his position on theContinent was deteriorating, he wanted to solve English problems ascheaply as possible. To secure England's frontiers, he invadedScotland in 1072 and Wales in 1081 and created special defensive"marcher" counties along the Scottish and Welsh borders.

In the last 15 years of his life he was more often in Normandy than inEngland, and there were five years, possibly seven, in which he didnot visit the kingdom at all. He retained most of the greatestAnglo-Norman barons with him in Normandy and confided the governmentof England to bishops, trusting especially his old friend Lanfranc,whom he made archbishop of Canterbury. Much concerned that the nativesshould not be unnecessarily disturbed, he allowed them to retain theirown laws and courts.

William returned to England only when it was absolutely necessary: in1075 to deal with the aftermath of a rebellion by Roger, earl ofHereford, and Ralf, earl of Norfolk, which was made more dangerous bythe intervention of a Danish fleet; and in 1082 to arrest and imprisonhis half brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, who wasplanning to take an army to Italy, perhaps to make himself pope. Inthe spring of 1082 William had his son Henry knighted, and in Augustat Salisbury he took oaths of fealty from all the important landownersin England, whosoever's vassals they might be. In 1085 he returnedwith a large army to meet the threat of an invasion by Canute IV(Canute the Holy) of Denmark. When this came to nothing owing toCanute's death in 1086, William ordered an economic and tenurialsurvey to be made of the kingdom, the results of which are summarizedin the two volumes of Domesday Book.

William was preoccupied with the frontiers of Normandy. The dangerspots were in Maine and the Vexin on the Seine, where Normandybordered on the French royal demesne. After 1066 William's continentalneighbours became more powerful and even more hostile. In 1068 Fulkthe Surly succeeded to Anjou and in 1071 Robert the Frisian toFlanders. Philip I of France allied with Robert and Robert with theDanish king, Canute IV. There was also the problem of William's heirapparent, Robert Curthose, who, given no appanage and seemingly keptshort of money, left Normandy in 1077 and intrigued with his father'senemies. In 1081 William made a compromise with Fulk in the treaty ofBlancheland: Robert Curthose was to be count of Maine but as a vassalof the count of Anjou. The eastern part of the Vexin, the county ofMantes, had fallen completely into King Philip's hands in 1077 whenWilliam had been busy with Maine. In 1087 William demanded from Philipthe return of the towns of Chaumont, Mantes, and Pontoise. In July heentered Mantes by surprise, but while the town burned he suffered someinjury from which he never recovered. He was thwarted at the verymoment when he seemed about to enforce his last outstandingterritorial claim.

Death

William was taken to a suburb of Rouen, where he lay dying for fiveweeks. He had the assistance of some of his bishops and doctors, andin attendance were his half brother Robert, count of Mortain, and hisyounger sons, William Rufus and Henry. Robert Curthose was with theKing of France. It had probably been his intention that Robert, as wasthe custom, should succeed to the whole inheritance. In thecircumstances he was tempted to make the loyal Rufus his sole heir. Inthe end he compromised: Normandy and Maine went to Robert and Englandto Rufus. Henry was given great treasure with which he could purchasean appanage. William died at daybreak on September 9, in his 60thyear, and was buried in rather unseemly fashion in St. Stephen'sChurch, which he had built at Caen. (F.Ba.)


1 2 3
Birth: 1028 in Falaise, Normandy, France
Death: 9 SEP 1087 in Hermentrube, Rouen, France

Father: Robert II the Devil of Normandy b: ABT 1008 in Normandy, France
Mother: Herleva (Arlette) b: ABT 1012

Marriage 1 Matilda of Flanders b: ABT 1031 in Flanders, France
Married: 1053 in Cathedral of Notre Dame d'Eu, Normandy
Children
Robert II Curthose b: 1054 in Normandy, France
Richard, Duke of Bernay b: ABT 1055 in Normandy, France
Adeliza b: 1055
Cecilia of Holy Trinity b: 1056
William II Rufus b: ABT 1056 in Normandy, France
Agatha b: ABT 1064
Constance b: ABT 1066 in Normandy, France
Adela b: ABT 1067 in Normandy, France
Matilda
Henry I Beauclerc b: ABT SEP 1068 in Selby, Yorkshire, England

Sources:
Abbrev: Directory of Royal Genealogical Data
Title: Directory of Royal Genealogical Data on the Internet

http://www.dcs.hull.ac.uk/public/genealogy/GEDCOM.HTML
Author: Brian Tompsett
Publication: University of Hull, UK
Abbrev: Ancestral Roots of Americans
Title: Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to AmericaBefore 1700
Seventh Edition
Author: Frederick Lewis Weis/Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr.
Publication: Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995
Page: pp. 108, 111, 145
Abbrev: Encyclopedia Britannica
Title: Encyclopedia Britannica on the Internet

http://www.britannica.com
Publication: Chicago, Illinois: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.[roberts.GED]

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William I The Conqueror, King of England from 1066 to 1087, was a man of remarkable political and military skill and a dominant force in Western Europe. The Domesday Survey of 1086 was a striking illustration of his administrative capabilities. William was the illegitimate son of Robert I of Normandy and Herleve, a Tanner's daughter from Falaise, and became Duke of Normandy as a child in 1035. William the Conqueror died while campaigning to maintain his hold on Maine and was buried in his own monastic foundation of Saint-Etienne at Caen. "The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages" Norman F. Cantor, General Editor.

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William I The Conqueror, King of England from 1066 to 1087, was a man of remarkable political and military skill and a dominant force in Western Europe. The Domesday Survey of 1086 was a striking illustration of his administrative capabilities. William was the illegitimate son of Robert I of Normandy and Herleve, a Tanner's daughter from Falaise, and became Duke of Normandy as a child in 1035. William the Conqueror died while campaigning to maintain his hold on Maine and was buried in his own monastic foundation of Saint-Etienne at Caen. "The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages" Norman F. Cantor, General Editor.
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William I (of England), called The Conqueror (1027-87), first Norman king of England (1066-87), who has been called one of the first modern kings and is generally regarded as one of the outstanding figures in western European history.
Born in Falaise, France, William was the illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, and Arletta, a tanner's daughter, and is therefore sometimes called William the Bastard. Upon the death of his father, the Norman nobles, honoring their promise to Robert, accepted William as his successor. Rebellion against the young duke broke out almost immediately, however, and his position did not become secure until 1047 when, with the aid of Henry I, king of France, he won a decisive victory over a rebel force near Caen.
During a visit in 1051 to his childless cousin, Edward the Confessor, king of England, William is said to have obtained Edward's agreement that he should succeed to the English throne. In 1053, defying a papal ban, William married Matilda of Flanders, daughter of Baldwin V, count of Flanders and a descendant of King Alfred the Great, thereby strengthening his claim to the crown of England. Henry I, fearing the strong bond between Normandy and Flanders resulting from the marriage, attempted in 1054 and again in 1058 to crush the powerful duke, but on both occasions William defeated the French king's forces.

Conquest of England
About 1064, the powerful English noble, Harold, earl of Wessex, was shipwrecked on the Norman coast and taken prisoner by William. He secured his release by swearing to support William's claim to the English throne. When King Edward died, however, the witenagemot (royal council) elected Harold king. Determined to make good his claim, William secured the sanction of Pope Alexander II for a Norman invasion of England. The duke and his army landed at Pevensey on September 28, 1066. On October 14, the Normans defeated the English forces at the celebrated Battle of Hastings, in which Harold was slain. William then proceeded to London, crushing the resistance he encountered on the way. On Christmas 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 violent in the north and west, with strong measures; he was responsible for the devastation of great areas of the country, particularly in Yorkshire, where Danish forces had arrived to aid the Saxon rebels. By 1070 the Norman conquest of England was complete.
William invaded Scotland in 1072 and forced the Scottish king Malcolm III MacDuncan to pay him homage. During the succeeding years the Conqueror crushed insurrections among his Norman followers, including that incited in 1075 by Ralph de Guader, 1st earl of Norfolk, and Roger Fitzwilliam, earl of Hereford, and a series of uprisings in Normandy led by his eldest son Robert, who later became Robert II, duke of Normandy.

His Achievements
One feature of William's reign as king was his reorganization of the English feudal and administrative systems. He dissolved the great earldoms, which had enjoyed virtual independence under his Anglo-Saxon predecessors, and distributed the lands confiscated from the English to his trusted Norman followers. He introduced the Continental system of feudalism; by the Oath of Salisbury of 1086 all landlords swore allegiance to William, thus establishing the precedent that a vassal's loyalty to the king overrode his fealty to his immediate lord. The feudal lords were compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the local courts, which William retained along with many other Anglo-Saxon institutions. The ecclesiastical and secular courts were separated, and the power of the papacy in English affairs was greatly curtailed. Another outstanding accomplishment was the economic survey undertaken and incorporated in the Domesday Book in 1086.
In 1087, during a campaign against King Philip I of France, William burned the town of Mantes (now Mantes-la-Jolie). William's horse fell in the vicinity of Mantes, fatally injuring him. He died in Rouen on September 7 and was buried at Caen in Saint Stephen's, one of the abbeys he and Matilda had founded at the time of their marriage as penance for their defiance of the pope. William was succeeded by his third-born son, William II.

Further Reading
"William I (of England)," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

Delderfield gives birth date of 1027