William the Conqueror, also called William the Bastard 1027-87
King of England as William I from 1066

William was born in Falaise, the bastard son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, and a tanner's daughter called Arlette. On his father's death in 1035 he was accepted as duke by the nobles, but his youth was passed in difficulty and danger. In 1047 the lords of the western part of the duchy rebelled; Henri I of France came to his help, and the rebels were defeated at Val-�s-dunes.

In 1051 he visited his cousin, Edward the Confessor, King of England, and may well have received the promise of the English succession. He married Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, in 1053. In the next 10 years William repulsed two French invasions, and in 1063 conquered Maine. It is probable that in 1064 Harold Godwinsson (later Harold II) was at his court, and swore to help him to gain the English crown on Edward's death. When, however, Edward died in 1066, Harold himself became king.

William laid his claim to the English throne before the pope and western Christendom. The pope approved his claim, and William invaded England on 28 September, immediately taking the towns of Pevensey and Hastings. At the Battle of Hastings (or Senlac) on 14 October 1066, Harold was defeated and killed, and William was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day. The west and north of England were subdued in 1068; the following year the north rebelled, and William devastated the country between York and Durham. English government under William assumed a more feudal aspect, the old national assembly becoming a council of the king's tenants-in-chief, and all title to land was derived from his grant.

In 1086 he ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, which contains details of the land settlement. The church was also reformed and feudalized. William's rule was successful despite several revolts which occurred even after 1069. In 1070 there was a rebellion in the Fen Country, and under the leadership of Hereward the Wake, the rebels for some time held out in the Isle of Ely. English exiles were sheltered by the Scottish king, Malcolm III Canmore, who occasionally plundered the northern shires; but William in 1072 compelled Malcolm to do him homage at Abernethy. In 1073 he was forced to reconquer Maine.

William made a successful expedition into South Wales. In 1079 his eldest son, Robert, rebelled against him in Normandy, but they were reconciled. Having entered on a war with Philip I of France in 1087, William burned Mantes. As he rode through the burning town his horse stumbled, and he received an injury, of which he died at Rouen on 9 September; he was buried in the abbey he had founded at Caen. He left Normandy to his son Robert, and England to his other surviving son, William II.

Bibliography: E A Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest (1974); Frank Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest (1965); David C Douglas, William The Conqueror (1964).