, William I

Born around 1028, William was the illegitimate son of Duke Robert I ofNormandy, and Herleve (also known as Arlette), daughter of a tanner inFalaise. Known as ''William the Bastard'' to his contemporaries, hisillegitimacy shaped his career when he was young. On his father''s deathin 1035, William was recognised by his family as the heir - an exceptionto the general rule that illegitimacy barred succession. His great unclelooked after the Duchy during William''s minority, and his overlord, KingHenry I of France, knighted him at the age of 15.
From 1047 onwards, William successfully dealt with rebellion insideNormandy involving his kinsmen and threats from neighbouring nobles,including attempted invasions by his former ally King Henry I of Francein 1054 (the French forces were defeated at the Battle of Mortemer) and1057. William''s military successes and reputation helped him tonegotiate his marriage to Mathilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V ofFlanders. At the time of his invasion of England, William was a veryexperienced and ruthless military commander, ruler and administrator whohad unified Normandy and inspired fear and respect outside his duchy.
William''s claim to the English throne was based on his assertion that, in1051, Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne (he was a distantcousin) and that Harold II - having sworn in 1064 to uphold William''sright to succeed to that throne - was therefore a usurper. Furthermore,William had the support of Emperor Henry IV and papal approval. Williamtook seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transportships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) acrossthe Channel. On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, Williamlanded unopposed at Pevensey and, within a few days, raisedfortifications at Hastings. Having defeated an earlier invasion by theKing of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York in lateSeptember, Harold undertook a forced march south, covering 250 miles insome nine days to meet the new threat, gathering inexperiencedreinforcements to replenish his exhausted veterans as he marched.
At the Battle of Senlac (near Hastings) on 14 October, Harold''s weary andunder-strength army faced William''s cavalry (part of the forces broughtacross the Channel) supported by archers. Despite their exhaustion,Harold''s troops were equal in number (they included the best infantry inEurope equipped with their terrible two-handled battle axes) and they hadthe battlefield advantage of being based on a ridge above the Normanpositions.
The first uphill assaults by the Normans failed and a rumour spread thatWilliam had been killed; William rode among the ranks raising his helmetto show he was still alive. The battle was close-fought: a chroniclerdescribed the Norman counter-attacks and the Saxon defence as ''one sideattacking with all mobility, the other withstanding as though rooted tothe soil''. Three of William''s horses were killed under him.
William skilfully co-ordinated his archers and cavalry, both of which theEnglish forces lacked. During a Norman assault, Harold was killed - hitby an arrow and then mowed down by the sword of a mounted knight. Two ofhis brothers were also killed. The demoralised English forces fled. (In1070, as penance, William had an abbey built on the site of the battle,with the high altar occupying the spot where Harold fell. The ruins ofBattle Abbey, and the town of Battle, which grew up around it, remain.)
William was crowned on Christmas Day 1066 in Westminster Abbey. Threemonths later, he was confident enough to return to Normandy leaving twojoint regents (one of whom was his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux,who was later to commission the Bayeux Tapestry) behind to administer thekingdom. However, it took William six years to consolidate his conquest,and even then he had to face constant plotting and fighting on both sidesof the Channel. In 1068, Harold''s sons raided the south-west coast ofEngland (dealt with by William''s local commanders), and there wereuprisings in the Welsh Marches, Devon and Cornwall. William appointedearls who, in Wales and in all parts of the kingdom, undertook to guardthe threatened frontiers and maintain internal security in return forland.
In 1069, the Danes, in alliance with Prince Edgar the Aetheling(Ethelred''s great-grandson) and other English nobles, invaded the northand took York. Taking personal charge, and pausing only to deal with therising at Stafford, William drove the Danes back to their ships on theHumber. In a harsh campaign lasting into 1070, William systematicallydevastated Mercia and Northumbria to deprive the Danes of their suppliesand prevent recovery of English resistance. Churches and monasteries wereburnt, and agricultural land was laid to waste, creating a famine for theunarmed and mostly peasant population which lasted at least nine years.Although the Danes were bribed to leave the north, King Sweyn ofDenmark and his ships threatened the east coast (in alliance with variousEnglish, including Hereward the Wake) until a treaty of peace wasconcluded in June 1070.
Further north, where the boundary with Scotland was unclear, King MalcolmIII was encroaching into England. Yet again, William moved swiftly andmoved land and sea forces north to invade Scotland. The Treaty ofAbernethy in 1072 marked a truce, which was reinforced by Malcolm''seldest son being accepted as a hostage. William consolidated hisconquest by starting a castle-building campaign in strategic areas.Originally these castles were wooden towers on earthen ''mottes'' (mounds)with a bailey (defensive area) surrounded by earth ramparts, but manywere later rebuilt in stone. By the end of William''s reign over 80castles had been built throughout his kingdom, as a permanent reminder ofthe new Norman feudal order.
William''s wholesale confiscation of land from English nobles and theirheirs (many nobles had died at the battles of Stamford Bridge and Senlac)enabled him to recruit and retain an army, by demanding military dutiesin exchange for land tenancy granted to Norman, French and Flemishallies. He created up to 180 ''honours'' (lands scattered through shires,with a castle as the governing centre), and in return had some 5,000knights at his disposal to repress rebellions and pursue campaigns; theknights were augmented by mercenaries and English infantry from theAnglo-Saxon militia, raised from local levies. William also used thefyrd, the royal army - a military arrangement which had survived theConquest. The King''s tenants-in-chief in turn created knights underobligation to them and for royal duties (this was called subinfeudation),with the result that private armies centred around private castles werecreated - these were to cause future problems of anarchy for unfortunateor weak kings. By the end of William''s reign, a small group of the King''stenants had acquired about half of England''s landed wealth. Only twoEnglishmen still held large estates directly from the King. A foreignaristocracy had been imposed as the new governing class.
The expenses of numerous campaigns, together with an economic slump(caused by the shifts in landed wealth, and the devastation of northernEngland for military and political reasons), prompted William to order afull-scale investigation into the actual and potential wealth of thekingdom to maximise tax revenues. The Domesday survey was prompted byignorance of the state of land holding in England, as well as the resultof the costs of defence measures in England and renewed war in France.The scope, speed, efficiency and completion of this survey was remarkablefor its time and resulted in the two-volume Domesday Book of 1086, whichstill exists today. William needed to ensure the direct loyalty of hisfeudal tenants. The 1086 Oath of Salisbury was a gathering of William''s170 tenants-in-chief and other important landowners who took an oath offealty to William.
William''s reach extended elsewhere into the Church and the legal system.French superseded the vernacular (Anglo-Saxon). Personally devout,William used his bishops to carry out administrative duties. Lanfranc,Archbishop of Canterbury from 1070, was a first-class administrator whoassisted in government when William was absent in France, and whoreorganised the Church in England. Having established the primacy ofhis archbishopric over that of York, and with William''s approval,Lanfranc excommunicated rebels, and set up Church or spiritual courts todeal with ecclesiastical matters. Lanfranc also replaced English bishopsand abbots (some of whom had already been removed by the Council ofWinchester under papal authority) with Norman or French clergy to reducepotential political resistance. In addition, Canterbury and DurhamCathedrals were rebuilt and some of the bishops'' sees were moved to urbancentres.
At his coronation, William promised to uphold existing laws and customs.The Anglo-Saxon shire courts and ''hundred'' courts (which administereddefence and tax, as well as justice matters) remained intact, as didregional variations and private Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. Tostrengthen royal justice, William relied on sheriffs (previously smallerlandowners, but replaced by influential nobles) to supervise theadministration of justice in existing county courts, and sent members ofhis own court to conduct important trials. However, the introduction ofChurch courts, the mix of Norman/Roman law and the differing customs ledto a continuing complex legal framework. More severe forest lawsreinforced William''s conversion of the New Forest into a vast Royal deerreserve. These laws caused great resentment, and to English chroniclersthe New Forest became a symbol of William''s greed. Nevertheless the Kingmaintained peace and order. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1087 declared''he was a very stern and violent man, so no one dared do anythingcontrary to his will ... Amongst other things the good security he madein this country is not to be forgotten.''
William spent the last months of his reign in Normandy, fighting acounter-offensive in the French Vexin territory against King Philip''sannexation of outlying Normandy territory. Before his death on 9September 1087, William divided his ''Anglo-Norman'' state between hissons. The scene was set for centuries of expensive commitments bysuccessive English monarchs to defend their inherited territories inFrance. William bequeathed Normandy as he had promised to his eldestson Robert, despite their bitter differences (Robert had sided with hisfather''s enemies in Normandy, and even wounded and defeated his father ina battle there in 1079). His son, William Rufus, was to succeed Williamas King of England, and the third remaining son, Henry, was left 5,000pounds in silver. William was buried in his abbey foundation of StStephen at Caen. Desecrated by Huguenots (1562) and Revolutionaries(1793), the burial place of the first Norman king of England is marked bya simple stone slab. [Royal]