• General Notes

  William I or William the Conqueror
  
  1027?–1087, king of England (1066–87). Earnest and resourceful, William was not only one of the greatest of English monarchs but a pivotal figure in European history as well.
  
  Duke of Normandy
  The illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, and Arletta, daughter of a tanner, he is sometimes called William the Bastard. He succeeded to the dukedom on his father's death in 1035. William and his guardians were hard pressed to keep down recurrent rebellions during his minority, and at least once the young duke barely escaped death.
  In 1047, with the aid of Henry I of France, he solidly established his power. William is said to have visited England in 1051 or 1052, when his cousin Edward the Confessor probably promised that William would succeed him as king of England. Despite a papal prohibition, William married Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, count of Flanders, in 1053. The union, which greatly increased the duke's prestige, did not receive papal dispensation until 1059.
  William's growing power brought him into conflict with King Henry of France, whose invading armies he defeated in 1054 and 1058. The accession (1060) of the child Philip I of France, whose guardian was William's father-in-law, improved his position, and in 1063 William conquered the county of Maine. Soon afterward Harold, then earl of Wessex, was shipwrecked on the French coast and was turned over to William, who apparently extracted Harold's oath to support the duke's interests in England.
  
  King of England
  The Norman Conquest
  Upon hearing that Harold had been crowned (1066) king of England, William secured the sanction of the pope, raised an army and transport fleet, sailed for England, and defeated and slew Harold at the battle of Hastings (1066). Overcoming what little resistance remained in SE England, he led his army to London, received the city's submission, and was crowned king on Christmas Day.
  Although William immediately began to build and garrison castles around the country, he apparently hoped to maintain continuity of rule; many of the English nobility had fallen at Hastings, but most of those who survived were permitted to keep their lands for the time being. The English, however, did not so readily accept him as their king.
  A series of rebellions broke out, and William suppressed them harshly, ravaging great sections of the country. Titles to the lands of the now decimated native nobility were called in and redistributed on a strictly feudal basis (see feudalism), to the king's Norman followers. By 1072 the adherents of Edgar Atheling and their Scottish and Danish allies had been defeated and the military part of the Norman Conquest virtually completed. In the only major rebellion that came thereafter (1075), the chief rebels were Normans.
  
  Later Reign
  William undertook church reform, appointed Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury, substituted foreign prelates for many of the English bishops, took command over the administration of church affairs, and established (1076) separate ecclesiastical courts. In 1085–86 at his orders a survey of England was taken, the results of which were embodied in the Domesday Book. By the Oath of Salisbury in 1086, William established the important precedent that loyalty to the king is superior to loyalty to any subordinate feudal lord of the kingdom. William fought with his factious son Robert II, duke of Normandy, in 1079 and quarreled intermittently with France from 1080 until his death. He invaded the French Vexin in 1087, was fatally injured in a riding accident, and died at Rouen, directing that his son Robert should succeed him in Normandy and his son William (William II) in England.
  
  Bibliography
  See biographies by F. M. Stenton (1908, repr. 1967), D. C. Douglas (1964), and David Walker (1968); F. M. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897, repr. 1966); Frank Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest (1965); F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3d ed. 1971); Robin May, William and Conquerer and the Normans (1985).
  
  William the Conqueror was the illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, and Herleva, daughter of a wealthy Falasian; many contemporary writers referred to him as "William the Bastard". Robert died in 1035 while traveling through Asia Minor, and the young William was named Duke of Normandy. He married Mathilda, daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, who bore him at least nine children, four of which were boys.
  Edward the Confessor, in an effort to gain Norman support while fighting with his father-in-law, Earl Godwin, had promised the throne to William the Confessor in 1051. By 1066, however, Edward had reconciled with Godwin, and on his deathbed and named the Earl's son Harold as successor to the crown. William felt cheated and immediately prepared to invade, insisting that Harold had sworn allegiance to his accession in 1064. He was prepared for battle in August of 1066, but the winds were against him throughout August and most of September, prohibiting he and his troops from crossing the English Channel. This turned out to be an advantage, however, as Harold Hardrada, the King of Norway, invaded England and met Harold Godwinson's forces at Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066. Godwinson emerged victorious, but two days after the battle, William was able to land 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 to William and the Normans on October 14, 1066 at Hastings. Harold and his brothers died fighting in the Hastings battle, removing any further organized 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 crushed by the Normans, until the whole of England was conquered and united in 1071. William punished rebels by confiscating their land and giving it to Normans. 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, only two native English landowners still held their land. 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.
  William was a feudal vassal of the king of France (a situation destined to cause great consternation between England and France), and constantly found himself at odds with King Philip. In a siege on the town of Mantes in 1087 he was injured, and he died from complications of the wound on September 9. 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 building of English history.

Details of William I "The Conqueror" King of's family with Matilda (Maud) of Flanders Queen of England