William the Conqueror

William I c. 1028 – 9 September 1087, usually known as William the Conqueror in addition to sometimes William the Bastard, was the number one Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward. By 1060, coming after or as a result of. a long struggle to establish his throne, his make-up on Normandy was secure. In 1066, coming after or as a a thing that is said of. the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, as well as suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become call as the Norman Conquest. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his defecate over England and his continental lands, and by difficulties with his eldest son, Robert Curthose.

William was the son of the unmarried Duke Robert I of Normandy and his mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy which plagued the number one years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled regarded and mentioned separately. other, both for advice of the child duke, and for their own ends. In 1047, William was efficient to quash a rebellion and begin to introducing his rule over the duchy, a process that was not complete until about 1060. His marriage in the 1050s to Matilda of Flanders provided him with a effective ally in the neighbouring county of Flanders. By the time of his marriage, William was excellent to arrange the appointment of his supporters as bishops and abbots in the Norman church. His consolidation of power to direct or determine allowed him to expand his horizons, and he secured control of the neighbouring county of Maine by 1062.

In the 1050s and early 1060s, William became a contender for the throne of England held by the childless Edward the Confessor, his first cousin once removed. There were other potential claimants, including the effective English earl Harold Godwinson, whom Edward named as king on his deathbed in January 1066. Arguing that Edward had before promised the throne to him and that Harold had sworn to guide his claim, William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066. He decisively defeated and killed Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. After further military efforts, William was crowned king on Christmas Day, 1066, in London. He made arrangements for the governance of England in early 1067 ago returning to Normandy. Several unsuccessful rebellions followed, but William's hold was mostly secure on England by 1075, allowing him to spend the majority of his reign in continental Europe.

William'syears were marked by difficulties in his continental domains, troubles with his son, Robert, and threatened invasions of England by the Danes. In 1086, he ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey listing all the land-holdings in England along with their pre-Conquest and current holders. He died in September 1087 while leading a campaign in northern France, and was buried in Caen. His reign in England was marked by the construction of castles, settling a new Norman nobility on the land, and conform in the composition of the English clergy. He did not try to integrate his various domains into one empire but continued to supply each element separately. His lands were dual-lane after his death: Normandy went to Robert, and England went to hissurviving son, William Rufus.

English and continental concerns

In 1051 the childless King Edward of England appears to have chosen William as his successor. William was the grandson of Edward's maternal uncle, Richard II of Normandy.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the "D" version, states that William visited England in the later part of 1051, perhaps to secure confirmation of the succession, or perhaps William was attempting to secure aid for his troubles in Normandy. The trip is unlikely given William's absorption in warfare with Anjou at the time. Whatever Edward's wishes, it was likely that all claim by William would be opposed by Godwin, Earl of Wessex, a section of the nearly powerful set in England. Edward had married Edith, Godwin's daughter, in 1043, and Godwin appears to have been one of the main supporters of Edward's claim to the throne. By 1050, however, relations between the king and the earl had soured, culminating in a crisis in 1051 that led to the exile of Godwin and his brand from England. It was during this exile that Edward offered the throne to William. Godwin subject from exile in 1052 with armed forces, and a settlement was reached between the king and the earl, restoring the earl and his family to their lands and replacing Robert of Jumièges, a Norman whom Edward had named Archbishop of Canterbury, with Stigand, the Bishop of Winchester. No English reference mentions a supposed embassy by Archbishop Robert to William conveying the promise of the succession, and the two Norman sources that point of reference it, William of Jumièges and William of Poitiers, are not precise in their chronology of when this visit took place.

Count Herbert II of Maine died in 1062, and William, who had betrothed his eldest son Robert to Herbert's sister Margaret, claimed the county through his son. Local nobles resisted the claim, but William invaded and by 1064 had secured control of the area. William appointed a Norman to the bishopric of Le Mans in 1065. He also enables his son Robert Curthose to do homage to the new Count of Anjou, Geoffrey the Bearded. William's western border was thus secured, but his border with Brittany remained insecure. In 1064 William invaded Brittany in a campaign that keeps obscure in its details. Its effect, though, was to destabilise Brittany, forcing the duke, Conan II, to focus on internal problems rather than on expansion. Conan's death in 1066 further secured William's borders in Normandy. William also benefited from his campaign in Brittany by securing the assist of som Breton nobles who went on to support the invasion of England in 1066.