Robert I "the Magnificent" Duke of NORMANDY

                   William I, byname WILLIAM The CONQUEROR, or The BASTARD, or WILLIAM ofNORMANDY, French GUILLAUME le CONQUÉRANT, or le BÂTARD, or GUILLAUME deNORMANDIE (b. c. 1028, Falaise, Normandy--d. Sept. 9, 1087, Rouen), dukeof Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England from 1066, oneof the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. He made himselfthe mightiest feudal lord in France and then changed the course ofEngland'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 town ofFalaise. In 1035 Robert died when returning from a pilgrimage toJerusalem, and William, his only son, whom he had nominated as his heirbefore his departure, was accepted as duke by the Norman magnates and hisfeudal overlord, King Henry I of France. William and his friends had toovercome enormous obstacles. His illegitimacy (he was generally known asthe Bastard) was a handicap, and he had to survive the collapse of lawand order that accompanied his accession as a child.

Three of William's guardians died violent deaths before he grew up, andhis tutor was murdered. His father's kin were of little help; most ofthem thought that they stood to gain by the boy's death. But his mothermanaged to protect William through the most dangerous period. These earlydifficulties probably contributed to his strength of purpose and hisdislike of lawlessness and misrule.

Ruler of Normandy.

By 1042, when William reached his 15th year, was knighted, and began toplay a personal part in the affairs of his duchy, the worst was over. Buthis attempts to recover rights lost during the anarchy and to bringdisobedient vassals and servants to heel inevitably led to trouble. From1046 until 1055 he dealt with a series of baronial rebellions, mostly ledby kinsmen. Occasionally he was in great danger and had to rely on Henryof France for help. In 1047 Henry and William defeated a coalition ofNorman rebels at Val-ès-Dunes, southeast of Caen. It was in these yearsthat William learned to fight and rule.

William soon learned to control his youthful recklessness. He was alwaysready to take calculated risks on campaign and, most important, to fighta battle. But he was not a chivalrous or flamboyant commander. His planswere simple, his methods direct, and he exploited ruthlessly anyadvantage gained. If he found himself at a disadvantage, he withdrewimmediately. He showed the same
qualities in his government. He never lost sight of his aim to recoverlost ducal rights and revenues, and, although he developed no theory ofgovernment or great interest in administrative techniques, he was alwaysprepared to improvise and experiment. He seems to have lived a moral lifeby the standards of the time, and he acquired an interest in the welfareof the Norman church. He made his half brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux in1049 at the age of about 16, and Odo managed to combine the roles ofnobleman and prelate in a way that did not greatly shock contemporaries.But William also welcomed foreign monks and scholars to Normandy.Lanfranc of Pavia, a famous master of the liberal arts, who entered themonastery of Bec about 1042, was made abbot 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, hewas just above average height and had a robust, thick-set body. Though hewas always sparing of food and drink, he became fat in later life. He hada rough bass voice and was a good and ready speaker. Writers of the nextgeneration agree that he was exceptionally strong and vigorous. Williamwas an out-of-doors man, a hunter and soldier, fierce and despotic,generally feared; uneducated, he had few graces but was intelligent andshrewd and soon obtained the respect of his rivals.

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 in 1052Henry and Geoffrey made peace, there was a serious rebellion in easternNormandy, and, until 1054 William was again in serious danger. Duringthis period he conducted important negotiations with his cousin Edwardthe Confessor, king of England, and took a wife.

Norman interest in Anglo-Saxon England derived from an alliance made in1002, when King Ethelred II of England married Emma, the sister of CountRichard II, William's grandfather. Two of her sons, William's cousinsonce removed, had reigned in turn in England, Hardecanute (1040-42) andEdward the Confessor (1042-66). William had met Edward during thatprince's exile on the Continent and may well have given him some supportwhen he returned to England in 1041. In that year Edward was about 36 andWilliam 14. It is clear that William expected some sort of reward fromEdward and, when Edward's marriage proved unfruitful, began to develop anambition to become his kinsman's heir. Edward probably at timesencouraged William's hopes. His childlessness was a diplomatic asset.

In 1049 William negotiated with Baldwin V of Flanders for the hand of hisdaughter, Matilda. Baldwin, an imperial vassal with a distinguishedlineage, was in rebellion against the Western emperor, Henry III, and indesperate need of allies. The proposed marriage was condemned asincestuous (William and Matilda were evidently related in some way) bythe Emperor's friend, Pope Leo IX, at the Council of Reims in October1049; but so anxious were the parties for the alliance that before theend of 1053, possibly in 1052, the wedding took place. In 1059 Williamwas reconciled to the papacy, and as penance the disobedient pair builttwo monasteries at Caen. Four sons were born to William and Matilda:Robert (the future duke of Normandy), Richard (who died young), WilliamRufus (the Conqueror's successor in England), and Henry (Rufus'successor). Among the daughters was Adela, who was the mother of Stephen,king of England.

Edward the Confessor was supporting the Emperor, and it is possible thatWilliam used his new alliance with Flanders to put pressure on Edward andextort an acknowledgment that he was the English king's heir. At allevents, Edward seems to have made some sort of promise to William in1051, while Tostig, son of the greatest nobleman in England, EarlGodwine, married Baldwin's half sister. The immediate purpose of thistripartite alliance was to improve the security of each of the parties.If William secured a declaration that he was Edward's heir, he was alsolooking 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 and weresucceeded by weaker rulers. As a result, in 1063 William was able toconquer Maine. In 1064 or 1065 Edward sent his brother-in-law, Harold,earl of Wessex, Godwine's son and successor, on an embassy to Normandy.William took him on a campaign into Brittany, and in connection with thisHarold swore an oath in which, according to Norman writers, he renewedEdward's bequest of the throne to William and promised to support it.

When Edward died childless on Jan. 5, 1066, Harold was accepted as kingby the English magnates, and William decided on war. Others, however,moved more quickly. In May Tostig, Harold's exiled brother, raidedEngland, and in September he joined the invasion forces of Harald IIIHardraade, king of Norway, off the Northumbrian coast. William assembleda fleet, recruited an army, and gathered his forces in August at themouth of the Dives River. It is likely that he originally intended tosail due north and invade England by way of the Isle of Wight andSouthampton Water. Such a plan would give him an offshore base andinterior lines. But adverse winds detained his fleet in harbour for amonth, and in September a westerly gale drove his ships up-Channel.

The Battle of Hastings.

William regrouped his forces at Saint-Valéry on the Somme. He hadsuffered a costly delay, some naval losses, and a drop in the morale ofhis 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 the unresistingtowns of Pevensey and Hastings, and began to organize a bridgehead withbetween 4,000 and 7,000 cavalry and infantry.

William's forces were in a narrow coastal strip, hemmed in by the greatforest of Andred, and, although this corridor was easily defensible, itwas not much of a base for the conquest of England. The campaigningseason was almost past, and when William received news of his opponent itwas not reassuring. On September 25 Harold had defeated and slain Tostigand Harald Hardraade at Stamford Bridge, near York, and was retracing hissteps to meet the new invader. On October 13, when Harold emerged fromthe forest, William was taken by surprise. But the hour was too late forHarold to push on to Hastings, and he took up a defensive position. Earlythe next day William went out to give battle. He attacked the Englishphalanx with archers and cavalry but saw his army almost driven from thefield. He rallied the fugitives, however, and brought them back into thefight and in the end wore down his opponents. Harold's brothers werekilled early in the battle. Toward nightfall the King himself fell andthe English gave up. William's coolness and tenacity secured him victoryin this fateful 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 a formalsense 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, limited privatewarfare, and recovered usurped ducal rights, defining the feudal dutiesof his vassals. The Norman church flourished under his rule. He wanted achurch free of corruption but subordinate to him. He would not tolerateopposition from bishops and abbots or interference from the papacy. Hepresided over church synods and reinforced ecclesiastical discipline withhis own. In supporting Lanfranc, prior of Bec, against Berengar of Toursin their dispute over the doctrine of the Eucharist, he found himself onthe side of orthodoxy. He was never guilty of the selling of churchoffice (simony). He disapproved of clerical marriage. At the same time hewas a stern and sometimes rough master, swayed by political necessities,and he was not generous to the church with his own property. The reformerLanfranc was one of his advisers; but perhaps even more to his taste werethe worldly and soldierly bishops Odo of Bayeux and Geoffrey ofCoutances.

William left England early in 1067 but had to return in December becauseof English unrest. The English rebellions that began in 1067 reachedtheir peak in 1069 and were finally quelled in 1071. They completed theruin of the highest English aristocracy and gave William a distaste forhis newly conquered kingdom. Since his position on the Continent wasdeteriorating, he wanted to solve English problems as cheaply aspossible. To secure England's frontiers, he invaded Scotland in 1072 andWales in 1081 and created special defensive "marcher" counties along theScottish 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 did notvisit the kingdom at all. He retained most of the greatest Anglo-Normanbarons with him in Normandy and confided the government of England tobishops, trusting especially his old friend Lanfranc, whom he madearchbishop of Canterbury. Much concerned that the natives should not beunnecessarily disturbed, he allowed them to retain their own laws andcourts.

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 by theintervention of a Danish fleet; and in 1082 to arrest and imprison hishalf brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, who was planning totake an army to Italy, perhaps to make himself pope. In the spring of1082 William had his son Henry knighted, and in August at Salisbury hetook oaths of fealty from all the important landowners in England,whosoever's vassals they might be. In 1085 he returned with a large armyto meet the threat of an invasion by Canute IV (Canute the Holy) ofDenmark. When this came to nothing owing to Canute's death in 1086,William ordered an economic and tenurial survey to be made of thekingdom, the results of which are summarized in the two volumes ofDomesday Book.

William was preoccupied with the frontiers of Normandy. The danger spotswere in Maine and the Vexin on the Seine, where Normandy bordered on theFrench royal demesne. After 1066 William's continental neighbours becamemore powerful and even more hostile. In 1068 Fulk the Surly succeeded toAnjou and in 1071 Robert the Frisian to Flanders. Philip I of Franceallied with Robert and Robert with the Danish king, Canute IV. There wasalso the problem of William's heir apparent, Robert Curthose, who, givenno appanage and seemingly kept short of money, left Normandy in 1077 andintrigued with his father's enemies. In 1081 William made a compromisewith Fulk in the treaty of Blancheland: Robert Curthose was to be countof Maine but as a vassal of the count of Anjou. The eastern part of theVexin, the county of Mantes, had fallen completely into King Philip'shands in 1077 when William had been busy with Maine. In 1087 Williamdemanded from Philip the return of the towns of Chaumont, Mantes, andPontoise. In July he entered Mantes by surprise, but while the townburned he suffered some injury from which he never recovered. He wasthwarted at the very moment when he seemed about to enforce his lastoutstanding territorial 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, and inattendance were his half brother Robert, count of Mortain, and hisyounger sons, William Rufus and Henry. Robert Curthose was with the Kingof France. It had probably been his intention that Robert, as was thecustom, should succeed to the whole inheritance. In the circumstances hewas tempted to make the loyal Rufus his sole heir. In the end hecompromised: Normandy and Maine went to Robert and England to Rufus.Henry was given great treasure with which he could purchase an appanage.William died at daybreak on September 9, in his 60th year, and was buriedin rather unseemly fashion in St. Stephen's Church, which he had built atCaen. [Encyclopaedia Britannica CD, 1996, WILLIAM I]