William The Conquerer Essay Research Paper William

William The Conquerer Essay, Research Paper

William the ConquererWilliam 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 EnglandAbout 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 an advisory body to the Anglo-Norman kings elected Harold king. was superseded by the Great Council, the Witenagemot (”meeting of the wise men”), assembly of councillors in Anglo-Saxon England that met to advise the king of judicial and administrative matters. Originally a gathering of all the freemen of a tribe, it eventually became an assembly composed of the ealdormen (Old English, “aldermen”), or local chieftains, the bishops, other high civil and ecclesiastical officials, and sometimes friends and relatives of the king. The witenagemot may have had the power to elect a king, especially if succession was disputed, and it deliberated on all new laws, made treaties, served as a supreme court of justice, authorized the levying of extraordinary taxation and the granting of land, and raised military forces. Each of the several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had its own witenagemot until the subjugation of them all by Egbert, king of Wessex, between 825 and 829. Thereafter the witenagemot of Wessex gradually developed into a single assembly for the whole country. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the witenagemot was superseded by the Great Council, 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, one of the most fateful military engagements in English history, fought on October 14, 1066, between a national army led by Harold II, Saxon king of England, and an invasion force led by William, duke of Normandy, afterward William I (the Conqueror). William was a claimant of the English throne, which he maintained had been promised to him previously by his cousin, King Edward the Confessor. William challenged the election of Harold as king on Edward’s death and, with the blessing of Pope Alexander II (reigned 1061-73), prepared to invade England. His seaborne forces, which included infantry armed with crossbows and contingents of heavily armed cavalry, landed on the English coast near Hastings on September 28, 1066. After a forced march from Yorkshire, where Harold had just defeated and slain his rebellious brother, Tostig, earl of Northumbria, in the Battle of Stamford Bridge, the English army, numbering about 7000 men, occupied a height (later called Senlac Hill) on the Hastings-London highway about 10.5 km (about 6.5 mi) northwest of Hastings. The royal force was composed exclusively of infantry, armed with spears, swords, and battle-axes. The initial Norman attack, launched at 9:00 AM on October 14, failed to dislodge the English, who met the barrage of enemy arrows with interlocked shields. The English axmen turned back a Norman cavalry charge, whereupon a section of the Norman infantry turned and fled. At this juncture, several units of the English army broke ranks, contrary to Harold’s orders, and pursued the retreating Normans. Other Norman troops quickly surrounded and annihilated these units. Taking advantage of the lack of discipline among the English soldiers, William ordered a feigned retreat. The stratagem led to the entrapment of another large body of English troops. Severely weakened by these reverses and demoralized by the mortal wounding of Harold by an arrow, the English were forced to abandon their strategic position on the crest of Senlac Hill. Only small remnants of the defending army survived the subsequent onslaughts of the Norman cavalry. William’s victory at Hastings paved the way for Norman subjugation of all England. On Christmas Day he was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey. The English did not accept foreign rule without a struggle. William met