Notes:

She died, died young.

Other Events:

• Name:

Notes:

Henry I 1068-1135, king, fourth son of William the Conqueror and Matilda, was born, it is said, at Selby in Yorkshire (Monasticon, iii. 485; Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv. 231, 791), in the latter half of 1068, his mother having been crowned queen on the previous Whitsunday (Orderic, p. 510). As the son of a crowned king and queen of England he was regarded by the English as naturally qualified to become their king; he was an English ætheling, and is spoken of as clito, which was used as an equivalent title (ib. p. 689; Brevis Relatio, p. 9; comp. Gesta Regum, v. 390). He was brought up in England (Cont. William of Jumièges, viii. 10), and received an unusually good education, of which he took advantage, for he was studious and did not in after life forget what he had learnt (Orderic, p. 665; Gesta Regum, u. s.). The idea that he understood Greek and translated Æsop's Fables into English is founded solely on a line in the Ysopet of Marie de France, who lived in England in the reign of Henry III, but it is extremely unlikely, and there is so much uncertainty as to what Marie really wrote or meant in the passage in question that it is useless to build any theory upon it (Poésies de Marie de France, par B. de Roquefort, i. 33-44, ii. 401; Professor Freeman seems to think that the idea is fairly tenable, Norman Conquest, iv. 229, 792-4). It is certain that he understood Latin (Orderic, p. 812), and could speak English easily (William Rufus, i. pref. viii). At least as early as the thirteenth century he was called clerk, the origin of the name Beauclerc (Wykes, iv. 11; Norman Conquest, iv. 792). While he was with his father at Laigle in Normandy, in 1077, when the Conqueror was on bad terms with his eldest son Robert, he and his brother, William Rufus, went across to Robert's lodgings in the castle, played dice with their followers in an upper room, made a great noise, and threw water on Robert and his men who were below. Robert ran up with Alberic and Ivo of Grantmesnil to avenge the insult, a disturbance followed, and the Conqueror had to interfere to make peace (Orderic, p. 545). His mother at her death in 1083 left Henry heir of all her possessions in England, but it is evident that he did not receive anything until his father's death (ib. p. 510). The next year, when his father and brothers were in Normandy, he spent Easter by his father's order at the monastery of Abingdon, the expenses of the festival being borne by Robert of Oily (Chron. de Abingdon, ii. 12). At the Whitsuntide assembly of 1086 his father dubbed him knight at Westminster, and he was armed by Archbishop Lanfranc. He was with his father when the Conqueror lay dying the next year at Rouen, and, on hearing his father's commands and wishes about his dominions and possessions, asked what there was for him. I give thee 5,000l., was the answer. But what, he said, can I do with the money if I have no place to live in? The Conqueror bade him be patient and wait his turn, for the time would come when he should be richer and greater than his brothers. The money thus left had been his mother's, and he went off at once to secure the treasure. He returned for his father's funeral at Caen.

Robert of Normandy, who was in want of money, asked Henry for some of his treasure; Henry refused, and the duke then offered to sell or pledge him some part of his dominions. He accordingly bought the Avranchin and the Côtentin, along with Mont St. Michel, for 3,000l., and ruled his new territory well and vigorously (Orderic, p. 665). In 1088 he went over to England, and requested Rufus to hand over to him his mother's lands. Rufus received him graciously, and granted him seisin of the lands, but when he left the country granted them to another. Henry returned to Normandy in the autumn in the company of Robert of Bellême, and the duke, acting on the advice of his uncle, Bishop Odo, seized him and shut him up in prison at Bayeux, where he remained for six months, for Odo made the duke believe that Henry was plotting with Rufus to injure him (ib. p. 673). In the spring of the following year the duke released him at the request of the Norman nobles, and he went back to his county, which Robert seems to have occupied during his imprisonment, at enmity with both his brothers. He employed himself in strengthening the defences of his towns, and attached a number of his nobles to himself, among whom were Hugh of Chester, the lord of Avranches, Richard of Redvers, and the lords of the Côtentin generally. When the citizens of Rouen revolted against their duke in favour of Rufus in November 1090, Henry came to Robert's help, not so much probably for Robert's sake, as because he was indignant at seeing a city rise against its lord (William Rufus, i. 248). He joined Robert in the castle, and headed the nobles who gathered to suppress the movement. The rebellious party among the citizens was routed, and Conan, its leader, was taken prisoner. Henry made him come with him to the top of the tower, and in bitter mockery bade him look out and see how fair a land it was which he had striven to subject to himself. Conan confessed his disloyalty and prayed for mercy; all his treasure should be given for his life. Henry bade him prepare for speedy death. Conan pleaded for a confessor. Henry's anger was roused, and with both hands he pushed Conan through the window, so he fell from the tower and perished (Orderic, p. 690; Gesta Regum, v. 392). In the early part of the next year Robert and William made peace, and agreed that Cherbourg and Mont St. Michel, which both belonged to Henry, should pass to the English king, and the rest of his dominions to the Norman duke. Up to this time Henry had been enabled to keep his position mainly by the mutual animosity of William and Robert. Now both his brothers attacked him at once. He no longer held the balance between them in Normandy, and the lords of his party fell away from him. He shut himself up in Mont St. Michel, and held it against his brothers, who laid siege to it about the middle of Lent, each occupying a position on either side of the bay. The besieged garrison engaged in several skirmishes on the mainland (Flor. Worc.). Their water was exhausted, and Henry sent to the duke representing his necessity, and bidding him decide their quarrel by arms and not by keeping him from water. Robert allowed the besieged to have water. After fifteen days Henry offered to surrender if he and his men might march out freely. He was accordingly allowed to evacuate the place honourably (Orderic, p. 697)

The surrender of Mont St. Michel left Henry landless and friendless, and for some months he wandered about, taking shelter first in Brittany and then in the Vexin. In August he accompanied his two brothers to England, and apparently joined in the expedition against Malcolm of Scotland (Gesta Regum, iv. 310; Historiæ Dunelm. Scriptores Tres, p. xxii; William Rufus, ii. 535-8). Then he probably resumed his wandering life, travelling about attended only by a clerk, a knight, and three armed followers. Apparently at the end of 1092 he received a message from the men of Domfront inviting him to become their lord. He was received at Domfront by Archard, the chief man of the town, who had instigated his fellow-townsmen to revolt against Robert of Bellême, their former lord. Henry promised that he would never give up the town to any other lord, and would never change its laws and customs (Orderic, pp. 698, 788). Domfront, situated on the Varenne, dominated part of the border of Normandy towards Maine; lies not far to the east of Henry's old county, and was a place of great strength (for geographical description see William Rufus, i. 319). The interests of Henry and Rufus were now one; both alike desired to win all the parts of Normandy they could from the duke. Henry from his new fortress carried on constant war against the duke and Robert of Bellême; before long he regained a large part of his old territory in the west (ib. p. 321), and in doing so certainly acted with the goodwill of Rufus, though there appear to have been some hostilities between them (Orderic, p. 706; too much weight must not be given to this passage; in the first place it is rather vague and may apply to an earlier period, and in the second a war such as that which Henry was carrying on, consisting of attacks on single towns and castles, was certain to lead to quarrels with others besides those immediately concerned). Some places in his old county yielded to him out of affection, for, as the people of Domfront had discerned, he was a good lord, others he took by force of arms, and his old friends and followers again joined him. In 1094 he received an invitation from Rufus, who was then carrying on open war against Robert in Normandy, to meet him with Hugh of Chester at Eu, and because the duchy was in too disturbed a state for them to pass through it safely, Rufus sent ships to bring them (A.-S. Chron. sub an.). They sailed, however, to Southampton, and waited at London for the king, who met them there shortly after Christmas. Henry stayed with Rufus until Lent, and then returned to Normandy with a large supply of money, and carried on war against Robert with constant success (ib. an. 1095). When Normandy passed into the possession of Rufus in 1096, Henry joined him and remained with him, receiving from him the counties of Coutances and Bayeux, with the exception of the city of Bayeux and the town of Caen, and having further committed to his charge the castle of Gisors, which Rufus built on the frontier against France (Cont. William of Jumièges, viii. 7).

On 2 Aug. 1100 Henry was hunting in the New Forest, when men came hastening to him one after another telling him of the death of Rufus. According to popular belief he had shortly before gone into a hut to mend his bowstring, and an old woman had declared that she had learnt by augury that he would soon become king. When he heard of his brother's death, it is said that he grieved much, and went to where his body lay (Wace, ll. 10105-38). In reality he spurred at once to Winchester, where the royal treasure was kept, and demanded the keys of the treasury from the guards (Orderic, p. 782). William of Breteuil refused to deliver them, declaring that, as Robert was his father's first-born, he was the rightful heir. The dispute waxed hot, and men came running to the spot, and took the count's part (Professor Freeman's assumption that these men were Englishmen as opposed to Normans seems unwarranted). Henry clapped his hand on his sword, drew it, and declared that no one should stand between him and his father's sceptre. Friends and nobles gathered round him, and the treasury was delivered over to him. The next day such of the witan as were at hand met in council, and after some opposition chose Henry as king, chiefly owing to the influence of Henry Beaumont, earl of Warwick (Gesta Regum, v. 393). As king-elect he bestowed the see of Winchester, which Rufus had kept vacant since January 1098, on William Giffard [q.v.]; he then rode to London, and was crowned at Westminster on Sunday, 5 Aug., by Maurice, bishop of London, for Archbishop Anselm [q.v.] was then in exile. Thomas, archbishop of York, hastened from the north to perform the ceremony, but came too late. When he complained of this as an infringement of his right, the king and the bishops told him that it was necessary to hasten the coronation for the sake of the peace of the kingdom (Hugh the Chantor, ii. 107). At his coronation he swore to give peace to the church and people, to do justice, and to establish good law. On the same day he published a charter in which, after declaring that he had been made king by the ‘common concent of the barons,’ he forbade the evil customs introduced during the last reign. The church was to be free, its offices and revenues neither sold nor farmed, and the feudal incidents of relief, marriage, and wardship were no longer to be abused by the king as instruments of oppression. As he did by his tenants-in-chief so were they to do by their tenants, a provision which may be said to have been founded on the law of his father that all men, of what lord soever they held, owed the king allegiance, a provision wholly contrary to the feudal idea. The coinage was to be reformed, and justice done on those who made or kept bad money. Wills of personalty were permitted. Men who incurred forfeiture were no longer to be forced to be at the king's mercy. Knights who held by knight-service were to have their demesne lands free of tax, and were to be ready both with horses and arms to serve the king and defend his realm. Good peace was to be kept throughout the kingdom, and the ‘law of King Edward,’ with the amendments of the Conqueror, was restored. The forests were, with the common consent of the barons, to remain as they were in the days of the king's father (Select Charters, pp. 95-8). This charter was taken by the barons in the reign of John as the basis of their demands. Henry also wrote a letter to Anselm inviting him to return, and declaring that he committed himself to the counsel of the archbishop and of those others whose right it was to advise him (Epp. iii. 41). There was great joy among the people at his accession, and they shouted loudly at his coronation, for they believed that good times were at last come again, and saw in their new king the ‘Lion of Justice’ of Merlin's prophecy (Gesta Regum, v. 393; Orderic, pp. 783, 887).
Henry was thirty-two at his accession. He was of middle height, broad-chested, strong, stoutly built, and in his later years decidedly fat (Orderic, p. 901). His hair was black and lay thickly above his forehead, and his eyes had a calm and soft look. On fitting occasions his talk was mirthful, and no press of business robbed him of his cheerfulness. Caring little what he ate or drank, he was temperate, and blamed excess in others (Gesta Regum, v. 412). He was, however, exceedingly licentious, and was the father of a large number of natural children by many mistresses. At the same time he was free from the abominable vices which Rufus had practised, and, sensual as he was, his accession was at once followed by a reform in the habits of the court (ib. p. 393). In common with all his house he was devoted to hunting, and one of his lords who quarrelled with him gave him the nickname of ‘Pie-de-Cerf,’ because of his love of slaying deer (Wace, l. 10566). From the studies of his youth he acquired an abiding taste for books. He formed a collection of wild beasts at Woodstock, where he often resided (Gesta Regum, v. 409; Henry of Huntingdon, pp. 244, 300). He was an active, industrious king, and when in England constantly moved about, visiting different places in the southern and central parts of the kingdom, though he seems very seldom to have gone north of the Humber. In his progresses the arrangements of his court were orderly, for he was a man of method; there were no sudden changes of plan, and people brought their goods to the places on his route, certain that the court would arrive and stay as had been announced, and that they would find a market. The morning he gave to affairs of state and to hearing causes; the rest of his day to amusement (De Nugis Curialium, p. 210). He was not without religion. Reading Abbey he founded (ib. p. 209; Gesta Regum, v. 413; Monasticon, iv. 28); he completed the foundation of the abbey of Austin canons at Carlisle; he formed the see of Carlisle (Creighton, Carlisle, pp. 31-5; John of Hexham, col. 257; Waverley Annals, ap. Annales Monast. ii. 223); Cirencester Abbey, and Dunstable (Dunstable Annals, ib. iii. 15) and Southwyke priories, all for Austin canons, were founded by him (Monasticon, vi. 175, 238, 243), together with some other houses. He was a benefactor to some older English foundations, and rebuilt many churches in Normandy which suffered during his wars. He was liberal to pilgrims and to the military orders in Palestine (Cont. William of Jumièges, viii. 32), and seems to have treated clergy of holy life with respect. Contemporaries were much impressed by his wisdom; he did not love war, and preferred to gain his ends by craft. An unforgiving enemy, he was said to be an equally steadfast friend. He was, however, such a thorough dissembler that no one could be sure of his favour; and Robert Bloet [q.v.], bishop of Lincoln, declared that when he praised any one he was sure to be plotting that person's destruction (De Contemptu Mundi). He was cruel, and his cruelties proceeded from a cold-hearted disregard of human suffering. Policy rather than feeling guided his actions. Without being miserly, he was avaricious, and the people suffered much from his exactions, which, though apparently not exorbitant in amount, were levied with pitiless regularity alike in times of scarcity and plenty. His justice was stern. Unlike his father, he caused thieves, robbers, and other malefactors to be hanged, and sometimes inflicted such sweeping punishments that the innocent must have suffered along with the guilty. Criminals were constantly blinded and mutilated, though in his later years he often substituted heavy fines for these punishments. He strictly enforced the forest laws; no one was allowed, except as a special privilege, to hunt on his own land or to diminish the size of his woods; all dogs in the neighbourhood of a forest were maimed, and little difference was made between the slayer of a deer and of a man (Orderic, p. 813; William of Newburgh, i. c. 3). On the whole, however, Henry's harsh administration of justice was good for the country; while it brought suffering to the few, it gave peace and security to the many. His despotism was strong as well as stern; no offender was too powerful to be reached by the law. Private war he put down peremptorily, and peace and order were enforced everywhere. He exalted the royal authority, and kept the barons well under control, both by taking sharp measures against those who offended him, and by choosing his counsellors and chief officers from a lower rank, raising up a number of new men, whom he enriched and ennobled in order to make them a counterpoise to the power of the great houses of the Conquest (Orderic, p. 805). Although he kept a large number of stipendiary soldiers, to whom he was a liberal master (Cont. William of Jumièges, viii. 22), he was persuaded by Anselm to sharply restrain them from injuring the people, as they had done in his brother's time, and as they did in the earlier years of his own reign (Eadmer, Historia Novorum, iv. col. 470). Trade was benefited by his restoration of the coinage, and the severity with which he punished those who issued bad money or used false measures; he is said to have made the length of his own arm the standard of measure throughout the kingdom (Gesta Regum, v. 411). The peace and order which he established were highly valued by the people, and the native chronicler, though he makes many moans over his exactions, yet, writing after his death, and looking back in a time of disorder to the strong government of the late reign, says of him: ‘Good man he was, and great awe there was of him. No one durst misdo another in his time. Peace he made for man and deer. Whoso bare his burden of gold and silver no man durst say to him aught but good’ (Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub an. 1135; for Henry's character, both as a man and as a king, see more at large in Norman Conquest, v. 153-61, 839-45, where full references are given; also Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. i. secs. 110-12).
In the first days of his reign Henry imprisoned, in the Tower of London, Ranulf Flambard [q.v.], bishop of Durham, the evil minister of Rufus, and began to appoint abbots to the abbeys which his brother had kept vacant in order to enjoy their revenues. He met Anselm at Salisbury, on his return to England about Michaelmas, and required him to do homage as his predecessor had done, and receive back from him the temporalities of the see, which were then in the king's hands. Anselm refused, and Henry, who could not afford to quarrel with him, and would probably in any case have been unwilling to do so, agreed to delay the matter, in order that the pope might be consulted whether he could so far change his decrees as to bring them into accordance with the ancient custom of the kingdom. In this dispute as to the question of investiture [for which see under Anselm] Henry took his stand on the rights of his crown as handed down by his predecessors, and on the undoubted usages of his realm. He made no new demand; the innovation was introduced by Anselm, who, in obedience to papal instructions, refused to accept the temporalities from Henry, as he had accepted them from Rufus, and as former archbishops had accepted them from former kings. Nor did Henry make the quarrel a personal matter; he did not persecute the archbishop, or thwart him in the exercise of his office, as Rufus had done. He behaved throughout with a due regard to law, and on the whole acted fairly, though he naturally availed himself of every lawful means to gain his point. He was urged by his counsellors, and especially by the bishops, to marry and reform his life. He had for some time been in love with Eadygyth (Edith) or Matilda [q.v.], daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland, by Margaret, daughter of Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside [q.v.]. Matilda had been brought up in the convent at Romsey, and many people declared that she had taken the veil. Anselm, however, pronounced that she was not a nun, and married her to the king, and crowned her queen in Westminster Abbey on 11 Nov. 1100. The English were delighted to see their king take a wife of ‘England's right kingly kin’ (A.-S. Chronicle, a. 1100). Before long, his example was followed by others, and intermarriages between Normans and English became common. They were encouraged by Henry, who by this and other means did all he could to promote the amalgamation of the two races within his kingdom (De Nugis Curialium, p. 209). His efforts were so successful that he has been called the ‘refounder of the English nation’ (William Rufus, ii. 455). For a while he devoted himself to his queen, but before long returned to his old mode of life. His marriage was not pleasing to the Norman nobles, who knew his early misfortunes, and as yet held him in little respect; they sneered at the domestic life of the king and queen, calling them by the English names Godric and Godgifu (Godiva). Henry heard their sneers but said nothing (Gesta Regum, v. 394; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 236). Already they were plotting against him in favour of Robert, who had returned from the crusade, and had again resumed his government, such as it was, of Normandy, though Henry kept the castles which he held in virtue of his grant from Rufus. Some hostilities were carried on in Normandy between his men and the duke's. At Christmas the king held his court at Westminster, and there received Louis, who had lately been made joint king of France by his father, Philip. While Louis was with him a letter came from Bertrada, Philip's adulterous wife, purporting to have been sent by Philip, and requesting Henry to keep Louis in lifelong imprisonment. Henry, however, sent his guest home with many presents (Symeon of Durham, ii. 232; Orderic, p. 813, places this visit under 1103. Symeon's date seems better; comp. Recueil des Historiens, xii. 878, 956). At Christmastide Flambard escaped from the Tower and fled to Normandy, where he stirred up Robert against his brother. During the spring of 1101 the conspiracy of the Norman nobles against the king spread rapidly, and when the Whitsun assembly met it was known that Robert was about to make an invasion. A large number both of nobles and of the people generally came to the assembly to profess their loyalty. Henry and the nobles met with mutual suspicions. Among the nobles only Robert FitzHamon, Richard of Redvers, Roger Bigot, Robert of Meulan, and his brother Henry, earl of Warwick, were steadfast to him; all the rest were more or less on Robert's side. The English people and the bishops were loyal, and by the advice of Anselm Henry renewed his promises of good government (Gesta Regum, v. 394; Eadmer, Historia Novorum, iii. col. 430). He gathered a large army, and was joined by Anselm in person. With him he went to Pevensey, and sent a fleet to intercept the invaders. Some of the seamen were persuaded to join the duke, who landed near Portsmouth on 20 July. Henry advanced to meet him, and though some of his lords, and among them Robert of Bellême, now earl of Shrewsbury, deserted him, many were kept from following their example by the influence of Anselm. The king and the duke met at Alton in Hampshire (Wace, l. 10393). Henry's army was largely composed of Englishmen. He rode round their battalions, telling them how to meet the shock of a cavalry charge, and they called to him to let them engage the Normans. No battle took place; for the brothers had an interview, were reconciled, and came to terms. Henry agreed to give up all he held in Normandy except Domfront, which he kept according to his promise to the townsmen, to restore the lands in England which Robert's adherents had forfeited, and to pay the duke three thousand marks a year. Robert renounced his claim on England and on homage from Henry, and both agreed that if either should die without leaving an heir born in wedlock the other should succeed to his dominions (A.-S. Chronicle, sub an.; Orderic, p. 788). The duke went back to Normandy, and Henry bided his time to take vengeance on the lords who had risen against him. By degrees one after another at various times and by various means he brought them to judgment and punished them (ib. p. 804). One of them, Ivo of Grantmesnil, began to carry on war in England on his own account, was cited before the king's court, and was forced to part with his lands for the benefit of the king's counsellor, Robert of Meulan, and to go on a crusade.
Henry now prepared to deal with Robert of Bellême, the most powerful noble in his kingdom, and his enemy alike in England and in Normandy. He knew that while Robert remained lord of so many strong fortresses, and held an almost independent position in the Severn country, where he could easily find Welsh allies, it was hopeless to attempt to carry out his design of enforcing order and of humbling the great feudatories. His war with the earl [for particulars see Bellême, Robert of] was the principal crisis in his reign. Not only did Robert's wealth and dominions make him a dangerous foe, but the chief men in Henry's army also sympathised with him. Henry depended on the loyalty of men of lower degree. In fighting out his own quarrel he was also fighting against the foremost representative of a feudal nobility, which would, if triumphant, have trampled alike on the crown, the lesser landholders, and the nation generally. The shouts which were raised on the surrender of Shrewsbury, the earl's last stronghold in England, and the song which celebrated his banishment, show that the people knew that the king's victory insured safety for his subjects. During the early part of the war the earl received help from the Welsh under Jorwerth and his two brothers, who ruled as Robert's vassals in Powys and the present Cardigan. The king won Jorwerth over to his side by promising him large territories free of homage, and he persuaded his countrymen to desert the earl and uphold the king. When, however, he claimed the fulfilment of Henry's promise, it was refused, and in 1103 he was brought to trial at Shrewsbury and imprisoned.
It is characteristic of the spirit in which Henry carried on his dispute with Anselm that while in 1102 he allowed the archbishop to hold his synod at Westminster, he in 1103 banished William Giffard [q.v.], the bishop-elect of Winchester, for refusing to receive consecration from Gerard [q.v.] of York. He was anxious for a settlement of the question, and willingly gave Anselm license to go to Rome. Henry was relieved from some anxiety by the death of Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway, who was slain while invading Ireland, and he enriched himself by seizing on 20,000l. deposited by the Norwegian king with a citizen of Lincoln. Some interference in the affairs of Normandy was forced on the king by the attacks made on his son-in-law, Eustace of Pacy, lord of Breteuil, the husband of his natural daughter, Juliana. Robert of Meulan was sent to threaten the duke and his lords with the king's displeasure unless they helped Eustace, and his mission was successful (Orderic, p. 811). Duke Robert came over to England, and was persuaded by the queen to give up the pension of three thousand marks which the king had agreed to pay him (Flor. Wig. ii. 52; Gesta Regum, v. 395). Normandy was in a state of confusion. Henry's enemies, and above all Robert of Bellême, who was now in alliance with the duke, were active, and were joined by William of Mortain, one of the king's bitterest foes, who claimed the earldom of Kent as heir of Bishop Odo. Since the overthrow of Robert of Bellême the king had become too strong for the nobles. William was tried in 1104 and sentenced to banishment. He went over to Normandy and attacked some of the castles belonging to men of the king's party. Henry himself crossed with a considerable fleet, and visited Domfront and other towns, apparently those held by the lords who also had English estates. In an interview with Robert he complained of his alliance with Robert of Bellême and of his general misgovernment. Robert purchased peace by ceding to him the lordship of the county of Evreux. Henry's lords seem to have fought with some success. The king returned before Christmas. It was a time of trouble in England; for he was determined to invade Normandy, and accordingly taxed his subjects to raise funds for his expedition. He was collecting an army, and, as he had not yet made his decree against military wrongdoing, his soldiers oppressed the people, plundering, burning, and slaying (A.-S. Chron. sub an.). He held his Christmas court at Windsor, and in Lent 1105 left England with a large force. He landed at Barfleur, and spent Easter day at Carentan. Thither came Serlo, bishop of Seez, who had been driven out of his see by Robert of Bellême, and prepared to celebrate mass. The king and his lords were sitting at the bottom of the church, among the goods and utensils which the country-folk had placed there to preserve them from plunder. Serlo called on the king to look at these signs of the misery of the people, and exhorted him to deliver them and the church from those who oppressed them. He wound up by inveighing against the custom of wearing long hair which prevailed among the men of the English court, and spoke to such good effect that the king allowed him then and there to shear off his locks, and the courtiers followed the king's example (Orderic, p. 816). Geoffrey, count of Anjou, and Elias, count of Maine, came to his help; Bayeux, with its churches, was burnt, and Caen, where the treasure of the duchy was kept, was bribed to surrender. On 22 July Henry met Anselm at Laigle. There was some talk of a possible excommunication, which would have damaged his position. The interview was amicable, and terms were almost arranged. Although he won many of the Norman barons over by gifts, he failed to take Falaise, and found it impossible to complete the conquest of the duchy that year. He returned to England in August. (For this expedition see ib. pp. 816-18; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 235; Versus Serlonis, Recueil des Historiens, xix. præf. xcj; Norgate, Angevin Kings, i. 11.)
On his return he laid a tax on the clergy, who kept their wives in disobedience to Anselm's canon, and, finding that it brought in little, extended it to all the secular clergy alike. A large number appeared before him at London in vestments and with bare feet, but he drove them from his presence. Then they laid their griefs before the queen, who burst into tears and said she dared not interfere (Eadmer, iv. col. 457). Robert of Bellême came over to endeavour to obtain the king's pardon, and was sent back indignant at his failure. Duke Robert also came early in 1106 and found the king at Northampton; he failed to persuade the king to give up his conquests and make peace. Contrary to his usual custom, Henry held no court at Easter or Whitsuntide, and spent the one feast at Bath and the other at Salisbury. In July he again went over to Normandy. On 15 Aug. he had a satisfactory interview with Anselm at Bec, and the archbishop returned to England. At Caen he received a visit from Robert of Estouteville, one of the duke's party, who offered to surrender the town of Dives to him, proposing that he should go thither with only a few men. Henry did so, and found that a trap had been laid for him, for he was attacked by a large number. Nevertheless, his men routed their assailants and burnt both castle and monastery (Orderic, p. 819). He raised a fort outside Tinchebray, a town between Vire and Flers, belonging to the Count of Mortain, and stationed one of his lords there to blockade the place. As the count succeeded in introducing men and stores, and the siege made no progress, Henry appeared before the town in person. Robert and his army found him there on 2 Sept. Henry's army, which comprised allies from Anjou, Maine, and Brittany, had the larger number of knights, while Robert had more foot-soldiers. The clergy urged the king not to fight with his brother. Henry listened to their exhortations, and sent to Robert, representing that he was not actuated by greed or by a desire to deprive him of his dukedom, but by compassion for the people who were suffering from anarchy, and offering to be content with half the duchy, the strong places, and the government of the whole, while Robert should enjoy the revenues of the other half in idleness. Robert refused. Both armies fought on foot, with the exception of the duke's first line, and Henry's Breton and Cenomannian cavalry, which he placed at some little distance from his main body under the command of Count Elias. The Count of Mortain, who led the first line of the ducal army, charged the king's first line under Ranulf of Bayeux and shook without routing it. Then Elias with his cavalry fell on the flank of the duke's second line of foot, and cut down 225. Thereupon Robert of Bellême, who commanded the rear of the army, fled, and the whole of the duke's forces were scattered (ib. p. 821; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 235). The duke, the Count of Mortain, Robert of Estouteville, and other lords were made prisoners, and the battle completed the conquest of the duchy. It was regarded as an English victory, and a reversal of the battle of Hastings, fought almost on the same day forty years before, for it made Normandy a dependency of the English crown (Will. of Malm. v. 398; Norman Conquest, v. 176). The war in Normandy helped on Henry's work of consolidating the Norman and English races in England, and this process was still further forwarded by his later wars with France. His subjects in England of either race were counted Englishmen as opposed to Normans or Frenchmen (Angevin Kings, i. 23, 24). Duke Robert was kept a prisoner until his death in 1134; there is no ground for the story current in the thirteenth century (Ann. Monast. ii. 50, iv. 15, 378) that he was blinded (Orderic, p. 823). Henry caused William of Mortain to be blinded, and kept him in prison until he died. In the middle of October he held a council of the Norman lords at Lisieux, in which he resumed the grants made by his brother, and ordered the destruction of all ‘adulterine’ or unlicensed castles, and at the same time held a council of the Norman church. In order to accustom the Norman lords to his rule he held a court at Falaise the following January, and it was there probably that he caused Robert of Montfort sur Risle to be tried for disloyalty and banished by legal process. In March he again held a council at Lisieux, and settled the affairs of the duchy, where he pursued the same policy as in England, depressing the baronage and protecting the lower classes from tyranny and violence (ib.).
He returned to England in Lent, and according to his custom held courts at Easter and Whitsuntide, the first at Windsor, the second at Westminster. On 1 Aug. he held a council at Westminster, at which the terms of the compromise between the crown and the papacy were finally settled [see under Anselm]. The issue of the struggle was that the church was freed from the feudal character which had gradually, and especially in the reign of Rufus, been imposed upon it, and that the king tacitly recognised a limitation of secular authority. On the other hand, Henry surrendered a shadow and kept the substance of power; for the appointment of bishops remained as much as before in the king's hands. At this council five vacant sees were filled by the consecration of bishops, some of whom had been elected long before. One of the new bishops, Roger, consecrated to the see of Salisbury, formerly the king's chancellor, was now made justiciar. Henry used the revenues and offices of the church as a means of rewarding his ministers, whom he chose from the clergy rather than from the baronial class. He employed Bishop Roger to develope a system of judicial and fiscal administration. The curia regis, or king's court, became specially active in judicial matters, and while the three solemn courts were regularly held, at which the king came to decisions on more important judicial cases in the presence, and theoretically by the advice, of his counsellors, the permanent court of which he, or in his absence his justiciar, was the head, and which was composed of the great officers of the household and any others whom he might select, gained greater distinctness; the king further sent out justices to go on circuit to transact judicial business and to settle and enforce the rights of the crown. The court of exchequer was organised for the purpose of royal finance; it seems to have consisted of the justiciar and the other ordinary members of the curia regis, and to have been the body which received the royal revenue from the various officers appointed to collect it. Its business was recorded, and the earliest exchequer roll known to be in existence is that of the thirty-first year of Henry I. From this it appears that the royal revenue was then fully 66,000l. The ordinary direct taxes were the danegeld, the ferm, or composition paid by the shires, and certain fixed amounts paid by towns. Besides these sources of revenue there were, among others, the feudal incidents, the sale of offices, and the profits of the royal jurisdiction (see Constitutional History, i. 376-91; Angevin Kings, i. 25-7). In July 1108 Henry again crossed over to Normandy, where trouble was beginning. He had given Robert's son William, called ‘Clito,’ into the charge of Elias of Saint-Saen, and now, by the advice of his courtiers, wanted to get hold of the lad. An attempt to seize him in the absence of Elias failed, and his guardian refused to give him up, and when Henry took his castle from him, went from one lord to another asking help for his young charge. Many of the Norman nobles were ready to uphold their old duke's son, and his cause was favoured by several of the great French feudatories, and by Louis VI, who, after his father's death, was crowned king on 3 Aug. (Orderic, pp. 837, 838). During all the earlier part of 1109 Henry remained in Normandy, and in the course of the next year a quarrel broke out between him and Louis about the border fortress of Gisors. According to the French statement an agreement had been made between them, when Henry conquered the duchy, that Gisors should be a kind of neutral ground, and should belong to neither of them. Henry, however, turned out the castellan and made it his own. Louis gathered a large army and marched to meet him at the town of Neauffles; the Epte flowed between the two armies, and could only be crossed by a crazy bridge. Messengers came to Henry from Louis asserting his grievance and offering to decide the matter by combat. Henry would not hear of this. After some altercation Louis offered to fight the matter out if Henry would allow the French army to cross over the river, but Henry answered that if Louis came over to the Norman side he would find him ready to defend his land. The two armies retired each to its own quarters. This was the beginning of a long border warfare between the Normans and the French, during which Louis did much harm to the castles and lands on the Norman march (Suger, Vita Ludovici Grossi, ap. Recueil, xii. 27, 28). About 1111 Theobald, count of Blois, Henry's nephew, relying on his uncle's help, began to make war on Louis on his own account (ib. p. 35). Meanwhile Henry continued his work of repressing the baronage, and in 1110 banished from England Philip of Braiose, William Malet, and William Bainard, and confiscated their lands. While he was fighting in Normandy he kept England at peace. In 1111 Fulk V of Anjou joined Louis against him, for Fulk had married the daughter and heiress of Elias of Maine, and on the death of his father-in-law revived the old claim of his house on Maine; the war increased in importance, and Henry remained in Normandy for about two years. He seems to have acted warily, to have trusted much to good management and bribes, and to have avoided actual fighting as much as possible. He caught his old enemy, Robert of Bellême, sent him over to an English prison, and captured his town of Alençon. The Norman barons were not universally faithful, and Henry banished the Count of Evreux and William Crispin. By the beginning of 1113 the war seems to have died out. Henry spent the festival of the Purification (2 Feb.) at the monastery of Evroul, and early in Lent met Fulk at Pierre-Pécoulée, near Alençon, and there made peace with him, for, as he had by gifts won over to his side many of the nobles of Maine, the count was not unwilling to come to terms; he did homage to Henry for Maine, and promised to give his daughter in marriage to Henry's son William. Henry pardoned the Count of Evreux and some other banished lords. Shortly afterwards Henry and Louis made peace at Gisors. The amount of Henry's success may be gauged by the concessions of the French king, who acknowledged his right to Bellême, Maine, and all Brittany. He received the homage of the Count of Brittany, subdued the forces which held out in Bellême, and then returned to England.
During Henry's reign the English power in Wales was strengthened by colonisation and conquest. The English regarded with dislike the large number of Flemish which had settled in their country since the Conquest, and Henry in 1111 settled them in the southern part of Dyfed or Pembrokeshire, where they formed a vigorous Teutonic colony, held their ground against the Welsh, and converted a land originally Welsh into an outlying English district, ‘Little England beyond Wales’ (Gesta Regum, iv. 311, v. 401; Flor. Wig. ii. 64; Orderic, p. 900; Ann. Cambriæ, an. 1106; Freeman, English Towns and Districts, pp. 33-9). Barnard, an English bishop of Norman race, was appointed to the see of St. David's, and professed obedience to Canterbury (Councils and Eccl. Docs. i. 307); obedience was likewise professed by the Bishop of Llandaff, who was consecrated by Anselm in 1107. Owen, the prince of Powys, caused a good deal of trouble, and carried on constant wars against the Normans and Flemings until he was slain in 1116. After one of his raids Henry granted the present Cardiganshire to Gilbert of Clare, who subdued the district in 1111. After his return from Normandy, Henry, in the summer of 1114, led a large army into Wales against Gruffyd of North Wales and Owen. On his approach the Welsh made peace with him, and after ordering castles to be built he returned, and on 21 Sept. embarked at Portsmouth for Normandy, where he remained until the following July. His relations with Scotland, where three of his wife's brothers reigned in succession, were uniformly peaceful. David I [q.v.], the queen's youngest brother, passed his youth at the English court, and Henry gave him an English wife and an English earldom. At the same time he was careful to strengthen the borders against the Scots as well as against the Welsh. The eastern border he gave in charge to Ranulf Flambard, bishop of Durham, whom he reinstated in his see in 1107 (Orderic, p. 833); over the western border he first set an earl of Carlisle, and on his death divided the district of Carlisle into baronies, and gave it a county organisation. He also carried on the work begun by his brother of making Carlisle an English city by completing the monastery of Austin canons, and making it the cathedral church of a bishop of Carlisle. In 1114 he sent his daughter Matilda over to Germany to be the wife of the Emperor Henry V; at the time of her betrothal in 1110 he had levied an aid which the English chronicler says was specially burdensome because it came in a year of scarcity. When he was in Normandy in 1115 he made all the barons do homage and swear fealty to his son William as heir to the duchy, and on 19 March 1116 he caused the prelates, nobles, and barons throughout the whole of England to do the like at an assembly which he held at Salisbury (Anglo-Saxon Chron. a. 1115; Flor. Wig. ii. 69; Eadmer, Historia Novorum, v. col. 496; Dr. Stubbs considers this to have been a general muster of landowners, Constitutional History, i. 358; and William of Malmesbury says that the oath was taken by all freemen of every degree in England and Normandy, Gesta Regum, v. 419. In the face of the English chronicler and Florence this may perhaps be put down as merely rhetorical).
After Easter Henry again visited Normandy, and, taking up the quarrel of his nephew Theobald with Louis VI, sent forces into France, took the castle of St. Clair, and did much damage. Provoked by this invasion, Louis adopted the cause of Robert's son William, and attacked Normandy, and, as he knew that the dukes had thoroughly fortified the border, seized by a clever stratagem a little town called Gue Nichaise, where there was a bridge across the Epte. Henry tried to blockade him by building two forts against his quarters, but Louis called them ‘Malassis’ and ‘hare's-form’ (trulla leporis), stormed Malassis, and carried on a desultory warfare (Suger, p. 43; Orderic, p. 842). The French king was joined by Baldwin of Flanders and Fulk of Anjou, who combined with him to place William Clito in possession of Normandy. Many of the Norman barons revolted, and Amaury of Montfort, who claimed Evreux, the fief of his uncle William, was active in gaining fresh adherents to the league against Henry. During 1117 Henry remained in Normandy, and in the following year matters became serious. While Count Baldwin was mortally wounded at Eu, and the king did not suffer any important defeat, the defection of his lords still continued. On 1 May of this year his queen, Matilda, died, and he also lost his faithful counsellor, Robert of Meulan. To this time also is to be referred a conspiracy which was made by one of his chamberlains to assassinate him. The plot was discovered, and the traitor punished by mutilation. It is said to have had a considerable effect on the king; he increased his guards, often changed his sleeping-place, and would not sleep without having a shield and sword close at hand (Suger, p. 44; Gesta Regum, v. 411). Hearing that Richer of Laigle had admitted the French into his town, he marched against it, but was stopped by William of Tancarville, who brought him false news that Hugh of Gournay, Stephen of Albemarle, and others of his rebellious lords were at Rouen. When he found that they were not there, he attacked Hugh of Gournay's castle, la Ferté, but heavy rain forced him to abandon the siege. Having laid waste the country he attacked and burnt Neubourg. In September he seized Henry of Eu and Hugh of Gournay at Rouen, imprisoned them, and reduced their castles. He held a council at Rouen in October, and endeavoured to make peace with his lords. While he was there Amaury of Montfort made himself master of Evreux. About the middle of November he attacked Laigle, and was hit on the head by a stone sent from the castle by the French garrison; his helmet, however, protected him. In December Alençon rebelled against his nephews Theobald and Stephen, and was occupied by Fulk of Anjou. Henry had caused Eustace de Pacy, the husband of his natural daughter Juliana and lord of Breteuil, to send him his two little daughters as hostages for his good faith, and had put a castellan, Ralph Harenc, in charge of his tower of Ivry, making him send his son as a hostage to Eustace. By the advice of Amaury of Montfort, Eustace, who was on the rebels' side, put out the boy's eyes. On this Henry, in great wrath, sent his two grand-daughters to Harenc that he might serve them in the same way. Harenc tore out their eyes, and cut off the tips of their noses. Their parents then fortified all their castles against Henry, and Juliana gathered a force, and shut herself in the castle of Breteuil. The townsmen who were loyal sent to Henry, and he appeared before the castle in February 1119. Juliana tried to kill her father by a shot from an engine. She failed, and was forced to offer to surrender. Her father would not allow her to leave the castle except by letting herself down into the moat and wading through the icy water (Orderic, p. 848; De Contemptu Mundi, p. 311; Lingard, ii. 12). During the early months of the year the war went on much as in the year before; the Norman lords still remained disloyal, Louis took Andelys, which was held by the king's natural son Richard, by surprise, and the French became masters of all the neighbouring country. Henry was losing ground, and Amaury of Montfort scornfully rejected his offer of reconciliation.
In May 1120 Henry joyfully received his son William, who came over to him from England. The object of his coming was shown by the despatch of messengers to Count Fulk to propose that the marriage contract between William and Fulk's daughter Matilda should be fulfilled. Fulk agreed and made peace with Henry, offering to end the ancient dispute between the houses of Normandy and Anjou by settling Maine upon his daughter, and to give up Alençon provided that the king would restore it to William Talvas, son of Robert of Bellême, and heir of its ancient lords (Orderic, p. 851; Suger, p. 45; Gesta Regum, v. 419). This marriage, which was celebrated in June at Lisieux, changed the aspect of the war, for the alliance with Count Fulk enabled Henry to devote all his energies to repelling Louis and punishing his rebellious vassals. In the summer he made a terrible raid on the disloyal lords; he laid siege to Evreux, and finding it well defended called the Bishop Audoin to him, for Audoin, in common with the bishops and clergy of the duchy generally, was loyal to Henry, and asked him whether it would not be well for him to fire the town provided that if the churches were burnt he would rebuild them. As the bishop hesitated to give an answer, the king set fire to the town and burnt it, churches and all, he and his nobles giving the bishop ample pledges that he would rebuild the churches, which he afterwards did. When Amaury heard that his town was burnt, he sent to Louis for help. On 20 Aug. Henry, who had heard mass that morning at Noyon, was riding towards Andelys to make war, with five hundred of his best knights, when his scouts told him that the French king, who had ridden out from Andelys with four hundred knights, was close at hand. The two bands met on the plain of Brenneville. Besides William the Ætheling two of Henry's natural sons, Robert and Richard, fought in their father's company; Richard with a hundred knights remained mounted, the rest of Henry's knights fought on foot. Among the knights of Louis fought William of Normandy. Louis neglected to marshal his force; William Crispin, a rebel Norman, charged Henry's forces with eighty horse. He and his men were surrounded, but he made his way to the king and struck him a deadly blow on the head, but Henry's headpiece saved him, though it was broken by the blow, and wounded his head so that the blood flowed. All the eighty knights were taken. A body of knights from the Vexin for a moment shook the Norman lines, but was quickly repulsed. When Louis saw that William Crispin and the knights whom he led did not return from their charge, he and his men took flight, and the Normans pursued some of the fugitives as far as Andelys. Henry's men took 140 prisoners and the banner of the French king. Henry returned this banner to Louis together with his charger, and William the Ætheling sent back the charger of his cousin William of Normandy. Henry also sent back without ransom some knights who owed allegiance to Louis as well as to himself. Only three knights were slain out of the nine hundred engaged in the fight; for all were clad in complete armour, and on both sides there was a feeling of knightly comradeship which prevented any sanguinary conflict; indeed the aim of both sides was rather to make prisoners than to slay the enemy. The whole affair was more like a great tournament than a battle (Orderic, pp. 853-5; Suger, p. 45; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 241, where some details are probably untrustworthy). Louis raised a large force and overran part of Normandy and Chartres, gaining nothing by his raid, while Henry organised his army. In October Louis, who evidently felt himself overmatched, appeared before Calixtus II at the Council of Rheims, and made his complaints against the English king. Geoffrey, archbishop of Rouen, rose to reply to the charges brought against his lord, but the council would not hear him. The pope, however, was anxious to make peace with the emperor, and did not care to offend the father of the empress. Meanwhile Henry received the submission of several rebel lords, and was reconciled to Amaury of Montfort, Eustace, and Juliana, Hugh of Gournay, and others, who agreed, though against their wills, to let William Clito and Elias of St.-Saen remain in exile. In November he met the pope at Gisors, and replied in person to the charges brought against him by Louis of usurping the inheritance of his brother and nephew, declaring that he had offered to make William earl of three counties in England, and to bring him up with his own son. His answers on these and other points thoroughly satisfied the pope, by whose intercession a peace was arranged in 1120 between Henry and Louis and the Count of Flanders; all conquests were to be restored, captives liberated, and offences pardoned, and Louis accepted the homage of Henry's son, and thus gave a pledge that he should succeed to his father's fiefs (Orderic, p. 866; Norman Conquest, v. 193). Henry thus passed safely and honourably through the most dangerous crisis of his reign. After devoting some time to settling the affairs of the duchy, he embarked at Barfleur on 25 Nov. to return to England, from which he had been absent for four years. His only legitimate son, William, was to follow him, with his half-brother Richard, his half-sister the Countess of Perche, many young lords and ladies, and the king's treasure, in the White Ship. The ship foundered, and all were drowned except a butcher of Rouen. Although Henry's lords were mourning their own losses, they concealed the disaster from the king for a day after the news had come, for they feared to tell him. At last the young son of Count Theobald knelt before him and told him of his loss. Henry fell senseless to the ground, and though in a few days he restrained his grief, and applied himself to his kingly business, he was deeply affected by his son's death (Orderic, pp. 868 sq.; Gesta Regum, v. 419; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 242; Symeon, ii. 259; Wace, ll. 10203-10288; Benoit, ll. 41039-41152).
The disaster ruined his schemes at the very moment when their success appeared certain, and when it seemed as though nothing could prevent his son from inheriting both his kingdom and duchy. All his dominions would now naturally pass at his death to his enemy, William Clito. By the advice of his counsellors he married again, taking to wife, on 29 Jan. 1121, Adela, or Adelaide, daughter of Godfrey VII, count of Louvain, in the hope of having a son by her, and also, it is said, to keep himself from disgraceful conduct (Gesta Regum, v. 419; Eadmer, col. 517). Unfortunately the marriage proved barren. After Whitsuntide Henry led an army into Wales, where the natives had taken advantage of the death of the Earl of Chester to rise in revolt. He marched as far as Snowdon (Symeon, ii. 264), and received the submission of the Welsh nobles, who gave him their sons as hostages, and paid him tribute, so that he is said to have fully subdued the land (Giraldus Cambrensis, iii. 152). While on this expedition, and as the army was passing through English territory, he was hit by an arrow which was shot at him secretly. His armour saved him from harm. The man who made the attempt was not discovered, and Henry swore ‘by God's death,’ his favourite oath, that he was no Welshman, but one of his own subjects (Gesta Regum, v. 401). Shortly before this time Henry brought to a close a quarrel with Thurstan, archbishop of York. His rule was as despotic in ecclesiastical as in civil matters, and in both alike he maintained the principle of holding to the hereditary rights of the crown. After the death of Anselm in 1109, he broke the promise of his coronation charter by keeping the see of Canterbury vacant until 1114, when he summoned the suffragan bishops and the monks of Christ Church to Windsor, and allowed the election of Ralph, bishop of Rochester, to the archbishopric. This election led to a dispute with Pope Paschal II, who in 1115 wrote to Henry, complaining that his legates were shut out from the kingdom, and that he translated bishops without papal license. On the other hand, the king informed the bishops that the pope had infringed the privileges enjoyed by his father and brother. He commanded Thurstan, the archbishop-elect of York, to make profession to Archbishop Ralph. Thurstan refused, and was upheld in his refusal by Pope Paschal and his successors, Gelasius II and Calixtus II. A long quarrel ensued, in which Henry upheld the rights of Canterbury. He allowed Thurstan to attend the pope's council at Rheims in 1119, on his promising that he would not receive consecration from the pope, and so evade the profession, and allowed the English prelates to go thither also, warning them that, as he intended to abide by the ancient customs and privileges of his realm, they had better not bring back any idle innovations. Finding that Thurstan, in spite of his promise, was trying to obtain consecration from Calixtus, he charged the bishops to prevent it. They were too late, and the pope consecrated Thurstan, whereupon the king forbade him to enter England, and seized the estates of his see. Nor would Henry at Gisors assent to the pope's demand for his restoration. Thurstan, however, did Henry a service by forwarding the negotiations with Louis, and Henry allowed him to return, and gave him the temporalities (Eadmer, v. col. 499 sq.; Hugh the Chantor, pp. 129 sq.).
Although Henry sent the young widow of his son back to her father against his own will¾for, besides her importance as a kind of hostage for Count Fulk's conduct, he seems to have been fond of her (Orderic, p. 875)¾he did not return the money which formed part of her dower, nor would he satisfy the envoys from the count who came to his court, probably on this matter, at Christmas 1122. The settlement of the county of Maine, however, was broken by William's death, and Fulk was induced, partly by his anger at the retention of the dower, and partly by the persuasions of Louis of France and Amaury of Montfort, count of Evreux, to give the county to William Clito, to whom he betrothed his second daughter Sibyl. At the same time in 1123 a revolt was excited among the Norman lords, chiefly through the instrumentality of Amaury and of Waleran of Meulan, the son of Henry's late counsellor. Henry heard of the movement, and crossed over from Portsmouth immediately after Whitsuntide, leaving his kingdom under the care of his justiciar, Roger, bishop of Salisbury, who was at this period, after the king himself, all powerful both in church and state. In September the rebels met at Croix-St. Leuffroy, and arranged their plans. As soon as Henry knew of their meeting, he gathered his forces at Rouen, and took the field in October. His promptitude would have taken them by surprise had they not received timely warning from Hugh of Montfort, of whom the king required the surrender of his castle. Henry burnt Montfort, and forced the garrison to surrender the fortress, and then laid siege to Pont Audemer, the town of Waleran. The town was burnt, but the castle was held by a strong garrison, partly composed of men who had pretended to be on Henry's side, while some, the poet Luke de Barré among them, were fierce and valiant warriors. In spite of his age Henry was as active during this siege as the youngest soldier of his army, superintending everything himself, teaching the carpenters how to build a tower against the castle, scolding bad workmen, and praising the industrious, and urging them on to do more. At last, after a siege of six weeks, the castle was surrendered. On the other hand Gisors was taken by a treacherous stratagem. Henry at once hastened thither, and the rebels evacuated the town on his approach. In returning he seized Evreux. Heavy rains compelled him for a time to forbear further operations. While his rebellious lords seem to have been no match for him, their attempts gained importance from the fact that they were upheld by Louis, who was ready, if matters went ill with Henry, to take a prominent part in the war. In order to prevent this, Henry's son-in-law, the emperor, threatened France with an invasion, but did not advance further than Metz (Suger, pp. 49, 50; Otto of Freising, vii. 16). A decisive blow was struck on 25 March 1124, when Ranulf of Bayeux, who held Evreux for the king, defeated a large force led by Waleran, and took him and many others captive at Bourgthéroulde. This battle virtually ended the war, and after Easter Henry pronounced sentence on the rebel prisoners at Rouen. Many were imprisoned, Hugh of Montfort being confined miserably at Gloucester. Waleran, whose sister was one of the king's mistresses, was kept in prison in England until 1129, and then pardoned and received into favour. Two rebels who had forsworn themselves were condemned to lose their eyes. A like doom was pronounced against the warrior poet, Luke de Barré, for he had mortally offended the king by his satirical verses, as well as by his repeated attacks upon him. Charles, count of Flanders, who chanced to be at the court, and many nobles remonstrated at this, for, as they pleaded, Luke was not one of Henry's men, and was taken while fighting for his own lord. Henry acknowledged this, but would not remit his sentence, for he said that Luke had made his enemies laugh at him. Luke escaped his doom by dashing out his own brains (Orderic, pp. 880, 881). The king's success was crowned by the publication of a papal decree, obtained by his persuasion, annulling the marriage contract between William Clito and the daughter of the Count of Anjou, on account of consanguinity (ib. p. 838; D'Achery, Spicilegium, iii. 497). The war cost much money, and Englishmen moaned over the burdens which were laid upon them; ‘those who had goods,’ the chronicler writes, ‘were bereft of them by strong gelds and strong motes; he who had none starved with hunger.’ The law was enforced vigorously, and sometimes probably unjustly; at Huncote in Leicestershire the king's justices at one time hanged forty-four men as thieves, and mutilated six others, some of whom, it was generally believed, were innocent. At the end of the year Henry sent from Normandy, commanding that severe measures should be taken against debasers of the coin, which had deteriorated so much that it was said that a pound was not worth a penny in the market. The offenders were punished with mutilation.
On the death of his son-in-law the emperor in 1125, Henry sent for his daughter Matilda, who went back to him, and in September 1126 he returned to England with his queen, his daughter, and his prisoners. Finding that it was unlikely that his queen would have children, he determined to secure the succession for his daughter, and at the following Christmas assembly at Westminster caused the prelates and barons to swear that if he died without a male heir they would receive Matilda as Lady both of England and Normandy. Among those who took this oath were David, king of Scots, who had come to the English court at Michaelmas, and Stephen, count of Boulogne, the king's nephew, and the brother of Count Theobald (Angl

Henry married Editha of Scotland 11 Nov 1100, Westminster, London, England. Editha (daughter of Malcolm III 'Caennmor', King of Scotland and Saint Margaret of Scotland) was born Abt 1079, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland; died 01 May 1118, Westminster, London, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

From 11 November 1100, her married name became Queen Consort Matilda of England.

Notes:

William I 'the Conqueror', King of England was born between 1027 and 1028 at Falise Castle, Falaise, Normandy, France, illegitimately. He was the son of Robert I, 6th Duc de Normandie and Herleva de Falaise. He married Matilda de Flandre, daughter of Baldwin V de Lille, Comte de Flandre and Adela de France, Princesse de France, in 1053 at Cathedral of Notre Dame d'Eu, Normandy, France. He died on 9 September 1087 at Priory of St. Gervais, Rouen, Caux, France, from wounds received while fighting. He was buried at St. Stephen Abbey, Caen, Normandy, France.

William I 'the Conqueror', King of England also went by the nick-name of William 'the Conqueror'. William I 'the Conqueror', King of England also went by the nick-name of William 'le Batard' (or in English, the Bastard). In 1035 on his father's death, William was recognised by his family as the heir - an exception to the general rule that illegitimacy barred succession. His great uncle looked after the Duchy during William's minority, and his overlord, King Henry I of France, knighted him at the age of 15. He succeeded to the title of 7th Duc de Normandie on 22 June 1035. He gained the title of Comte de Maine in 1063. He fought in the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 at Hastings, Sussex, England. He was crowned King of England on 25 December 1066 at Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England, and styled 'Willielmus Rex Anglorum.' He gained the title of King William I of England on 25 December 1066.7 He fought in the Siege of Mantes in September 1087.

From 1047 onwards, William successfully dealt with rebellion inside Normandy involving his kinsmen and threats from neighbouring nobles, including attempted invasions by his former ally King Henry I of France in 1054 (the French forces were defeated at the Battle of Mortemer). William's military successes and reputation helped him to negotiate his marriage to Mathilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders. At the time of his invasion of England, William was a very experienced and ruthless military commander, ruler and administrator who had unified Normandy and inspired fear and respect outside his duchy. William's claim to the English throne was based on his assertion that, in 1051, Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne (he was a distant cousin) and that Harold II - having sworn in 1064 to uphold William's right to succeed to that throne - was therefore a usurper. Furthermore, William had the support of Emperor Henry IV and papal approval. William took seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel. On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at Pevensey and, within a few days, raised fortifications at Hastings. Having defeated an earlier invasion by the King of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York in late September, Harold undertook a forced march south, covering 250 miles in some nine days to meet the new threat, gathering inexperienced reinforcements to replenish his exhausted veterans as he marched.

At the Battle of Senlac (near Hastings) on 14 October, Harold's weary and under-strength army faced William's cavalry (part of the forces brought across the Channel) supported by archers. Despite their exhaustion, Harold's troops were equal in number (they included the best infantry in Europe equipped with their terrible two-handled battle axes) and they had the battlefield advantage of being based on a ridge above the Norman positions. The first uphill assaults by the Normans failed and a rumour spread that William had been killed; William rode among the ranks raising his helmet to show he was still alive. The battle was close-fought: a chronicler described the Norman counter-attacks and the Saxon defence as 'one side attacking with all mobility, the other withstanding as though rooted to the soil'. Three of William's horses were killed under him. William skilfully co-ordinated his archers and cavalry, both of which the English forces lacked. During a Norman assault, Harold was killed - hit by an arrow and then mowed down by the sword of a mounted knight. Two of his brothers were also killed. The demoralised English forces fled. In 1070, 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 of Battle Abbey, and the town of Battle, which grew up around it, remain.

Three months after his coronation, he was confident enough to return to Normandy leaving two joint regents (one of whom was his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who was later to commission the Bayeux Tapestry) behind to administer the kingdom. However, it took William six years to consolidate his conquest, and even then he had to face constant plotting and fighting on both sides of the Channel. In 1068, Harold's sons raided the south-west coast of England (dealt with by William's local commanders), and there were uprisings in the Welsh Marches, Devon and Cornwall. William appointed earls who, in Wales and in all parts of the kingdom, undertook to guard the threatened frontiers and maintain internal security in return for land.

In 1069, the Danes, in alliance with Prince Edgar the Aetheling (Ethelred's great-grandson) and other English nobles, invaded the north and took York. Taking personal charge, and pausing only to deal with the rising at Stafford, William drove the Danes back to their ships on the Humber. In a harsh campaign lasting into 1070, William systematically devastated Mercia and Northumbria to deprive the Danes of their supplies and prevent recovery of English resistance. Churches and monasteries were burnt, and agricultural land was laid to waste, creating a famine for the unarmed and mostly peasant population which lasted at least nine years. Although the Danes were bribed to leave the north, King Sweyn of Denmark and his ships threatened the east coast (in alliance with various English, including Hereward the Wake) until a treaty of peace was concluded in June 1070.

Further north, where the boundary with Scotland was unclear, King Malcolm III was encroaching into England. Yet again, William moved swiftly and moved land and sea forces north to invade Scotland. The Treaty of Abernethy in 1072 marked a truce, which was reinforced by Malcolm's eldest son being accepted as a hostage. William consolidated his conquest 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 many were later rebuilt in stone. By the end of William's reign over 80 castles had been built throughout his kingdom, as a permanent reminder of the new Norman feudal order.

William's wholesale confiscation of land from English nobles and their heirs (many nobles had died at the battles of Stamford Bridge and Senlac) enabled him to recruit and retain an army, by demanding military duties in exchange for land tenancy granted to Norman, French and Flemish allies. He created up to 180 'honours' (lands scattered through shires, with a castle as the governing centre), and in return had some 5,000 knights at his disposal to repress rebellions and pursue campaigns; the knights were augmented by mercenaries and English infantry from the Anglo-Saxon militia, raised from local levies. William also used the fyrd, the royal army - a military arrangement which had survived the Conquest. The King's tenants-in-chief in turn created knights under obligation to them and for royal duties (this was called subinfeudation), with the result that private armies centred around private castles were created - these were to cause future problems of anarchy for unfortunate or weak kings. By the end of William's reign, a small group of the King's tenants had acquired about half of England's landed wealth. Only two Englishmen still held large estates directly from the King. A foreign aristocracy 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 northern England for military and political reasons), prompted William to order a full-scale investigation into the actual and potential wealth of the kingdom to maximise tax revenues. The Domesday survey was prompted by ignorance of the state of land holding in England, as well as the result of the costs of defence measures in England and renewed war in France. The scope, speed, efficiency and completion of this survey was remarkable for its time and resulted in the two-volume Domesday Book of 1086, which still exists today. William needed to ensure the direct loyalty of his feudal tenants. The 1086 Oath of Salisbury was a gathering of William's 170 tenants-in-chief and other important landowners who took an oath of fealty 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 who assisted in government when William was absent in France, and who reorganised the Church in England. Having established the primacy of his archbishopric over that of York, and with William's approval, Lanfranc excommunicated rebels, and set up Church or spiritual courts to deal with ecclesiastical matters. Lanfranc also replaced English bishops and abbots (some of whom had already been removed by the Council of Winchester under papal authority) with Norman or French clergy to reduce potential political resistance. In addition, Canterbury and Durham Cathedrals were rebuilt and some of the bishops' sees were moved to urban centres.

At his coronation, William promised to uphold existing laws and customs. The Anglo-Saxon shire courts and 'hundred' courts (which administered defence and tax, as well as justice matters) remained intact, as did regional variations and private Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. To strengthen royal justice, William relied on sheriffs (previously smaller landowners, but replaced by influential nobles) to supervise the administration of justice in existing county courts, and sent members of his own court to conduct important trials. However, the introduction of Church courts, the mix of Norman/Roman law and the differing customs led to a continuing complex legal framework. More severe forest laws reinforced William's conversion of the New Forest into a vast Royal deer reserve. These laws caused great resentment, and to English chroniclers the New Forest became a symbol of William's greed. Nevertheless the King maintained peace and order. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1087 declared 'he was a very stern and violent man, so no one dared do anything contrary to his will ... Amongst other things the good security he made in this country is not to be forgotten.'

William spent the last months of his reign in Normandy, fighting a counter-offensive in the French Vexin territory against King Philip's annexation of outlying Normandy territory. Before his death on 9 September 1087, William divided his 'Anglo-Norman' state between his sons. (The scene was set for centuries of expensive commitments by successive English monarchs to defend their inherited territories in France.) William bequeathed Normandy as he had promised to his eldest son Robert, despite their bitter differences (Robert had sided with his father's enemies in Normandy, and even wounded and defeated his father in a battle there in 1079). His son, William Rufus, was to succeed William as King of England, and the third remaining son, Henry, was left 5,000 pounds in silver.8 He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Dictionary of National Biography

William the Conqueror 1027?-1087, king of England, natural son of Robert II, duke of Normandy, by Herleva or Arlette, daughter of Fulbert, a tanner of Falaise, whence he was called the Bastard, was born at Falaise in 1027 or 1028 (Will. of Jumièges, vi. 12, vii. 18, 44; Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii. 581-90). His mother also bore, probably to Robert, Adeliza, wife of Enguerrand of Ponthieu (ib.; Archæologia, xxvi. 349). After Robert's death she married Herlwin of Conteville, by whom she had Odo [qv.], bishop of Bayeux, Robert of Mortain [see Mortain], and a daughter Muriel. When Robert was setting out on his pilgrimage he caused his lords to elect William as his successor, and to swear fealty to him. Accordingly on the news of his death, in 1035, William became duke, having as guardians Alan, count of Brittany, Osbern the seneschal, and Gilbert of Eu, and being under the charge of one Turold. Disturbances broke out immediately. Many of his lords were disloyal, for they despised him for his birth, they built themselves fortresses and committed acts of violence. Alan was poisoned, and Gilbert and Turold were murdered. An attempt was made to seize William's person at Vaudreuil; Osbern, who slept in his room, was slain, but William was carried off by his mother's brother Walter, who concealed him in the dwellings of some poor people.

As William grew older he proved himself brave and wise. By the advice of his lords he appointed as his guardian Ralph de Wacy, who had slain Gilbert of Eu, and gave him command of his forces. While the number of those who were loyal to him increased, many were secretly disloyal and intrigued against him with Henry I, the French king. Henry complained that the border fortress of Tillières was an annoyance to him, and the duke's counsellors ordered its destruction. The castellan, William Crispin, only yielded the place at William's express command. The French burnt it and made a raid in the Hiemois. The governor of the country revolted and garrisoned Falaise against the duke, but the castle was taken and he was banished. William and his counsellors advocated the adoption of the truce of God which was accepted by the Normans at the council of Caen in 1042. In 1047 Guy, the lord of Brionne and Vernon, son of the count of Burgundy by Adeliza, daughter of Richard II of Normandy, and the duke's companion in boyhood, hoping to gain the whole, or a good part, of his cousin's duchy, conspired against him with the lords of the Cotentin and Bessin, inciting them not to obey a degenerate bastard. The eastern, or more French, portion of the duchy remained faithful to William; the western, or more Scandinavian, portion rebelled. An attempt was made to seize the duke at Valognes; he narrowly escaped, rode alone through the night to Rye, and thence reached Falaise. He went to Poissy to meet King Henry and obtained his help. The duke and the king joined forces and defeated the rebels at Val-ès-dunes, near Caen. William then took Brionne. He ordered Guy to remain in his court, and afterwards allowed him to go to Burgundy; the other rebel lords were punished by fines and by the destruction of the castles which they had built without license; the lord who had attempted to seize the duke was imprisoned at Rouen and died there. The duke's victory established his power throughout Normandy.

In return for Henry's help William in 1048 joined him in a war against Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou. The duke was resolved to take his place as pre-eminent among his barons in battle, and showed so much daring that the king warned him to be less adventurous. Though, so far as the French were concerned, the campaign was short, it led to a war between William and Geoffrey, in which the duke regained Domfront and Alençon, fortresses on the border of Maine, then virtually under the rule of Geoffrey. While besieging Domfront he challenged Geoffrey to a personal combat, but the count, though he accepted the challenge, retreated without meeting him. At Alençon the inhabitants jeered at William by beating hides on their walls, and calling him tanner. In revenge he cut off the hands and feet of thirty-two of them. At the end of the war he raised fortifications at Ambrières, in Maine itself. In 1051 William visited England, and must have found himself at home among the Normans and Frenchmen of the court of his cousin, Edward the Confessor [qv.], who probably during his visit promised that he should succeed him. Meanwhile he was with the advice of his lords seeking to marry Matilda, daughter of the Count of Flanders, an alliance of great political importance, both on account of the count's power and the situation of his dominions. The marriage was forbidden by Leo IX at the council of Reims in 1049 [see under Matilda d. 1083 and Lanfranc], and in consequence was not celebrated until 1053. Malger, archbishop of Rouen, the duke's uncle, threatened, and perhaps pronounced, excommunication against the duke; but William gained over Lanfranc to his side, and finally Nicolas II granted a dispensation for the marriage in 1059. In accordance with the pope's commands on this occasion William built the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen.

An unimportant revolt of the lord of Eu was followed in 1053 by the revolt of William of Arques, one of the duke's uncles and brother of Archbishop Malger. This William, who had constantly been disloyal to his nephew, was upheld by the French king, who marched to the relief of Arques when it was invested by the duke. To avoid fighting in person against his liege lord, the duke left the siege for a while to William Giffard. The French suffered in a skirmish at St. Aubin, and retired without relieving the place, which surrendered to the duke. The garrison made an abject submission, and William allowed his uncle to leave the duchy. Jealous of the almost kingly power of the duke, Henry of France formed a league against him with some of his great vassals and invaded the duchy on both sides of the Seine early in 1054. To meet this pressing danger, William also divided his force into two bodies, and himself led one of them to operate against the division commanded by the king on the left of the river, giving some of his lords the command of the force which was to oppose the army led by the king's brother Eudes and others on the right of the river. The army of Eudes was surprised and routed at Mortemer, and one of its leaders, Guy, count of Ponthieu, was taken prisoner. William, who was near the king's army when he heard of the victory of his lords, sent one of his followers to climb a tree or rock near the French camp by night and announce it to the king's army, and on hearing the news Henry hastily retreated into France.

Peace was made with France in 1055, and William, with the king's good-will, turned on the Count of Anjou. He ordered that the fortification of Ambrières should be pressed forward, and sent to tell Geoffrey that he would be there within forty days to meet him. Geoffrey of Mayenne, whose town lay near Ambrières, entreated the count's help against the Normans. The count promised that it should be given, but allowed the works to be completed. He then besieged the place in conjunction with the Count of Aquitaine and a force from Brittany. William at once prepared to go to its relief, and on hearing that he was coming Geoffrey raised the siege. Geoffrey of Mayenne, who had been taken prisoner by the Normans, renounced his fealty to the count and did homage to William. About this time also William received homage from Guy, count of Ponthieu, who, in return for his release from prison, bound himself to do the duke military service (Ord. Vit. p. 658)

William was highly displeased by the unseemly life and extravagance of Archbishop Malger, and often reproved him both publicly and in private. He was also angered by the line that his uncle had taken with reference to his marriage, and further suspected him of complicity in the revolt of his brother William of Arques. Accordingly he took advantage of the visit of a papal legate to Normandy to depose the archbishop, acting in this in unison with the legate at a synod held at Rouen. He banished Malger to Guernsey, and at an ecclesiastical council held in his presence in the same year (1055) caused the election of Maurilius, a French monk of Fécamp, a man of learning and holy life, to the see of Rouen. After about three years of peace, Henry for the third time invaded Normandy, in conjunction with Geoffrey of Anjou, in August 1058. The allies did much damage to the country, ravaging the Hiemois and the Bessin, and burning Caen before, as it seems, William could gather a sufficient force to meet them. While their army was crossing the Dive, and after the king and the vanguard had already crossed, William, at the head of a small company, suddenly fell on the remainder of the army at Varaville and cut it to pieces before the eyes of the king, who was prevented by the rising tide from sending any succour to his men. On this disaster the king and Geoffrey speedily returned home.

The deaths of Henry and Count Geoffrey in 1060 secured William from further attacks, for Henry's successor, Philip I, was young, and his guardian was the Count of Flanders, William's father-in-law, while the new Count of Anjou, Geoffrey the Bearded, was far less powerful than his uncle had been. William had made himself feared or respected by foreign powers, and was absolute master in his duchy both in things ecclesiastical and civil. He banished several lords whom he suspected of disaffection, not always justly, for he sometimes acted on false and malicious accusations. Among others, he deposed and banished Robert, abbot of St. Evroul, brother of Hugh (d. 1094) [q.v.] of Grantmesnil, though he had not been condemned by synodical authority. About two years later Robert, who had laid his case before Nicolas II, returned to Normandy in company with two cardinals, and went with them to Lillebonne, where the duke then was, to claim his abbey. William was greatly enraged, and declared that, though he would receive the legates, he would promptly hang on the highest oak of the nearest forest any monk of his duchy who dared to make a charge against him. On hearing this Robert left the duchy in haste (ib. p. 482). At a council held at Caen by the duke's authority in 1061, it was decreed that every evening a bell should be rung as an invitation to prayer, and a signal for all to shut their doors and not to go forth again. This was the origin of the curfew which was afterwards introduced into England. On the death of Geoffrey Martel, William, who had let no opportunity slip of gaining power in Maine, was enabled to prosecute the claim to that land which he derived from an alleged grant to his ancestor Hrolf or Rollo. Herbert, the young heir of the last count of Maine, in the hope of gaining possession of his inheritance, commended himself and his country to the duke in 1061; it was agreed that he should marry one of the duke's daughters, that if he died childless William should have Maine, and that the count's eldest sister Margaret should marry William's eldest son Robert. Herbert died unmarried in 1063, when Robert was still a child. The people of Maine were unwilling to submit to William, and were headed by Walter of Mantes, who claimed the country in right of his wife Biota, aunt of Herbert. William ravaged the land, and compelled Le Mans to surrender, while a Norman army ravaged Walter's own territories and forced him to submit to the duke. Both Walter and Biota died suddenly, and, it is said, while they were with the duke at Falaise. In after years William's enemies asserted that he had poisoned them (ib. pp. 487-8, 534). Geoffrey of Mayenne continued for a while to resist the duke in Maine, who punished him by taking Mayenne. Robert's intended wife Margaret was brought to Normandy, and died there before reaching marriageable age.

In 1064, when Conan, count of Brittany, was threatening to invade the duchy, William caused Guy of Ponthieu to deliver to him Harold (1022?-1066) [q.v.], then earl of Wessex, who had been shipwrecked on the coast of Ponthieu. Taking Harold with him, he frightened the Britons away from before Dol, and compelled Conan to surrender Dinan. Before Harold was allowed to leave Normandy William obtained an oath from him, sworn on some relics which, it is said, were concealed from him until after the oath was taken, that he would uphold the duke's claim to succeed to the English throne on the king's death [see under Harold, u.s.]. William, who was a kinsman of Edward the Confessor (both being descended from Duke Richard the Fearless), having thus obtained an oath from Harold as well as a promise of the succession from Edward (Will. of Poitiers, p. 108; Eadmer, col. 350; Will. of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, ii. c. 228), heard with anger that immediately on Edward's death Harold had, on 6 Jan. 1066, been crowned king. The tidings came to him when he was going forth to hunt near Rouen, and he determined, on the advice, it is said, of his seneschal, William Fitzosbern (d. 1071) [q.v.], to take immediate action. He sent a messenger to Harold, calling on him to fulfil his oath. On his refusal the duke, by the advice of his special counsellors, summoned an assembly of his barons to meet at Lillebonne.

Meanwhile he sent Gilbert, archdeacon of Lisieux, to obtain the sanction of the pope, Alexander II, for his proposed war. In addition to William's claim, founded on kinship and the bequest of Edward,
William's ambassador advanced the perjury of Harold, and the causes of offence given by the English, such as the expulsion of Archbishop Robert of Jumièges. The duke's ambassador doubtless promised that his master would improve the ecclesiastical condition of England, and bring it into close obedience to the Roman see (Will. of Poitiers, p. 124). Nevertheless he met with violent opposition from many of the cardinals, on the ground that the church should not sanction slaughter; but the duke's cause was espoused by Archdeacon Hildebrand (Gregory VII), and, acting on his advice, the pope sent William his blessing, a ring, with a relic of St. Peter, and a consecrated banner, so that his expedition had something of the character of a crusade (Monumenta Gregoriana, p. 414). The barons at Lillebonne objected to the proposals made to them by William Fitzosbern, and the duke obtained promises from them of ships and men by personally soliciting each baron singly. He received a visit from Earl Tostig [q.v.], and encouraged him to invade England in May. As he desired help from other lands, he sent embassies to the German king, Henry, and to Sweyn of Denmark, and is said himself to have met Philip of France,who was adverse to his project. Volunteers from many lands, and specially from France and Flanders, joined him, in the hope of plunder and of grants of land in England, and he and his lords set about preparing a fleet. During these preparations his old enemy, Conan of Brittany, died, poisoned, it was believed, by his chamberlain, though William was afterwards accused of having poisoned him, but that was probably mere abuse (Will. of Jumièges, vii. 33; Ord. Vit. p. 534). In a council that he held in June he appointed Lanfranc abbot of St. Stephen's at Caen, and shortly afterwards was present at the consecration of Matilda's church in that city and the dedication of his daughter Cicely.

The Norman fleet assembled at the mouth of the Dive in the middle of August, was delayed there for a month by contrary winds, and sailed, with some losses by shipwreck and desertion, to St. Valery about 12 Sept. There it waited for a south wind for fifteen days, during which William made constant prayers for the desired wind, and finally caused the relics of St. Valery to be borne in a solemn procession. On the 27th the south wind blew and the fleet sailed, William embarking in the Mora, the ship given him by his wife, whom he left in charge of the duchy. The passage was made by night, and a landing was effected without resistance at Pevensey on the 28th, the third day after the battle of Stamford Bridge. The story that the duke on landing fell to the ground, and that this was turned to a lucky omen either by William himself, or a sailor crying out that he took ‘seisin’ of the kingdom, is probably an adaptation of the story of Cæsar's landing in Africa (Freeman, iii. 407). His army perhaps consisted of from twenty-five to thirty thousand men, but no certain estimate is possible. He fortified his camp at Hastings and ravaged the country. Harold marched against him from London on 11 Oct., and took up his position on the hill afterwards called Battle, eight miles from Hastings, and messages passed between them. On the morning of the 14th the duke received the communion, arrayed his army in three divisions, himself taking command of the centre, which was composed of Normans, the soldiers of Brittany and Maine composing the left, and the French and Flemings the right wing; vowed that if he was victorious he would build a monastery on the place of battle in honour of St. Martin, and made an address to his army. He rode a horse given him by Alfonso VI, of Leon and Castille, and in the course of the battle showed great personal courage as well as good generalship. He was thought to be slain, and a panic ensued; he bared his head so as to be recognised and rallied his men; his horse was killed by Gyrth [q.v.]; he slew Gyrth and mounted another horse; three horses were slain under him, but he remained unwounded (for the details of the battle see Freeman, u.s. pp. 467-508, 756-73; attacked in Quarterly Review, July 1892; defended and further attacked in English Hist. Review, October 1893, January and April 1894; Oman, Art of War in the Middle Ages, pp. 149-63; Round, Feudal England, pp. 352 seq.). The Norman victory was complete and Harold was slain. After the battle William remained for five days at Hastings, when, finding that the English did not come to offer their submission, he marched to Romney, and avenged some of his men who had been slain there before the battle; thence he marched to Dover, where he remained about a week, then went northwards, being delayed a short time near Canterbury by illness, and thence went on to Southwark, the line of his march being marked by ravages. A skirmish took place at Southwark, to which he set fire, and, finding that London did not make submission, he turned away, marched through Surrey and Hampshire, and on to Wallingford in Berkshire, where he received the submission of Archbishop Stigand [q.v.], and crossed the Thames. After further ravages (see Engl. Hist. Review, January 1898, on ‘The Conqueror's Footprints,’ a suggestive paper, though perhaps seeking to prove too much), he finally came to Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire. The Londoners, finding themselves surrounded by devastated lands, submitted to him, and the great men who were in the city, Edgar Atheling [q.v.], Aldred (d. 1096) [q.v.], archbishop of York, and others, came to him, and invited him to assume the crown. He received them graciously. Refusing to allow Stigand, whose position was uncanonical, to consecrate him, he was crowned, after taking the coronation oath, by Aldred at Westminster on 25 Dec. The ceremony was disturbed by his Norman guards, who, mistaking the shouts of the people for an insurrection, set fire to buildings round the abbey. The people rushed from the church, leaving the king, the bishops, and the clergy in great fear.

In consequence of this affair William determined to curb the power of the citizens; he left London and stayed for some days at Barking in Essex, while fortifications were raised in the city. At Barking possibly he granted his charter to London. He received the submission of the great men of the north, of Earls Edwin [q.v.] and Morcar [q.v.], of Copsige [q.v.], Waltheof [q.v.], and others. Succeeding as king to the crown lands, he confiscated the lands of those who had fought against him, and, holding that all the laity had incurred forfeiture, allowed the landholders generally to redeem their lands in whole or in part, receiving them back as a grant from himself. During his whole reign he punished resistance by confiscation (Freeman, iv. 22-9). Early in 1067 he set out on a progress through various parts of the kingdom for the purpose, as it seems, of taking over confiscated estates, establishing order, and strengthening his power by setting on foot the building of castles. He met with no opposition, and showed indulgence to the poorer and weaker people. After appointing his brother Odo, whom he made earl of Kent, and William Fitzosbern, whom he made earl of Hereford, as regent, and giving posts to others, he visited Normandy in Lent, taking with him several leading Englishmen. He was received with great rejoicing at Rouen, held his court at Easter at Fécamp, where he displayed the spoils of England, enriched many Norman churches with them, attended dedications of churches, and sent Lanfranc on an embassy to Rome on the affairs of the duchy.

William returned to England on 7 Dec. During his absence disturbances had broken out in Kent, in Herefordshire, and in the north, where Copsige, whom William had made earl, was slain, and an invitation had been sent to Sweyn Estrithson of Denmark to invade England. The Kentish insurrection had been quelled, and William made many confiscations. In the hope of averting Danish invasion he sent an embassy to Sweyn and to the archbishop of Bremen. He appointed a new earl in Copsige's place and laid a heavy tax on the kingdom. An insurrection, headed by Harold's sons at Exeter, having broken out in the west in 1068, William marched thither with English troops, ravaging as he went. He compelled Exeter to surrender, had a castle built there, and subdued the west country. Rebels gathered at York, and the king, after occupying Warwick, where Edwin and Morcar, who were concerned in the revolt, made their peace with him, and receiving the submission of the central districts, advanced to York, which made no resistance to him. As he returned he visited other parts of the country, and caused castles to be built in various towns. About this time he dismissed his foreign mercenaries after rewarding them liberally. Early in 1069 Robert of Comines, to whom he had given an earldom north of the Tees, was slain with his men at Durham, and a revolt in favour of Edgar was made at York, where the castle was besieged. William marched to its relief, defeated the rebels, and caused a second castle to be built to curb the city. Harold's sons, who, sailing from Ireland, had made a raid on the west in the preceding year, again came over with Viking crews and plundered in Devonshire. They were promptly put to flight; but it was doubtless in connection with their expedition that the fleet of Sweyn of Denmark, after some plundering descents, sailed into the Humber in September, and being joined by Edgar, Waltheof, and other English leaders, burnt York. Other revolts broke out, in the west where the rebels were defeated by the bishop of Coutances, on the Welsh border, and in Staffordshire, the movements being without concert. William, who was surprised and enraged at the news from York, marched into Lindsey, where the Danish ships were laid up, destroyed some Danish holds, and, leaving a force there, crushed the revolt in Staffordshire, and entered York without opposition. He then laid waste all the country between York and Durham, burning crops, cattle, houses, and property of all kinds, so that the whole land was turned into a desert and the people perished with hunger. After keeping Christmas amid the ruins of York, he marched to the Tees in January 1070, received the submission of Waltheof and others, committed further ravages, returned to York, and thence set out for Chester. The winter weather made his march difficult; some of his men deserted and many perished. The fall of Chester ended the revolt in that district, and was followed by ravages in Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire. The Danish fleet having been bribed to leave the coast after the winter, all resistance was at an end and the conquest of England was complete (ib. pp. 320-22).

At Easter two legates came to England by William's request, and one remained with him for a year. Their coming enabled him to carry out part of his policy with respect to the church. Stigand was deposed and Lanfranc was made archbishop in his place. Three other English bishops, and in time many abbots, were also deposed, and vacancies were filled up by foreign prelates, only two sees being occupied by native bishops by the end of 1070 (Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 282). As he had done in Normandy, so also in England, William generally tried to appoint men of learning and good character; he avoided simony, and, though his appointments were not always successful and his abbots were not generally so worthy as his bishops, the prelates that he introduced were, taken together, men of a higher stamp than their predecessors. At the same time, his changes entailed much hardship on English churchmen, and his church appointments were often made as rewards for secular service. All disorder was abhorrent to him. He was masterful in his dealings with the church as in all else, and, though elections were often made in ecclesiastical assemblies, his will was evidently not less obeyed than in cases in which his personal action is more apparent. With Lanfranc he worked in full accord, and his general policy may be described as that of organising the church as a separate department of government under the direction of the archbishop as his vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, in opposition to the English system by which ecclesiastical and civil affairs were largely administered by the same machinery. This policy worked well in his time, but it was necessary to its success that the throne and the see of Canterbury should be filled by men of like mind and aims to those of William and Lanfranc. William upheld Lanfranc's claim to the obedience of the see of York because it was politically expedient to depress the power of the northern metropolitan. In accordance with his system church councils were held distinct from, though generally at the same time as, the secular councils of the realm. He also separated ecclesiastical from secular jurisdiction, ordering that no bishop or archdeacon should thenceforward hear ecclesiastical pleas in the hundred court, but in courts of their own, and should try them by canon law, obedience being enforced by excommunication, which, if necessary, would be backed up by the civil power (ib. pp. 283-4). Although he brought the church into closer relations with the papacy, from which he had obtained help both in his invasion and his ecclesiastical arrangements, he was far from being subservient to popes. About 1076 a legate came to him from Gregory demanding that he should do fealty to the pope and send Peter's pence. He replied that he would send the money as his predecessors had done, but would not do fealty, for he had never promised it and his predecessors had not done it (Lanfranc, Ep. 10). The pope blamed him for Lanfranc's neglect of his summons to Rome (Monumenta Gregoriana, p. 367). He laid down three rules as necessary to his kingly rights: he would allow no Roman pontiff to be acknowledged in his dominions as apostolic without his command, nor any papal letter to be received that had not been shown to him; no synod might make any enactment that he had not sanctioned and previously ordained; no ecclesiastical censure was to be pronounced against any of his barons or officers without his consent. All things, temporal and spiritual, depended on his will (Eadmer, Historia Novorum, col. 352).

Extending the license that they had received from William, the Danes had not sailed in May 1070; and their appearance at Ely encouraged a revolt of the fen country. They left England in June, but the revolt continued, and was headed by Hereward [q.v.]. In 1071 the rebels held the Isle of Ely, and the revolt, though isolated, became serious. William in person attacked the island with ships and a land force. He reduced it in the course of the year, punished the rebels with mutilation or lifelong imprisonment, fined the monastery of Ely, and caused a castle to be built in its precinct. Early in 1072 he was in Normandy where he held a parliament and addressed an ecclesiastical synod. Returning to England he invaded Scotland, for Malcolm had been ravaging the north, and made his court a refuge for William's enemies. He advanced to Abernethy, where Malcolm did him homage. On his return he founded a castle at Durham and committed it to the bishop to hold against the Scots.

The citizens of Le Mans having, after domestic conflicts, called in Fulk, count of Anjou, William in 1073 led an army largely composed of English into Maine, wasted it, received the submission of the city, defended his allies against Fulk, and, having made peace with him, returned to England in 1074. Then he again visited Normandy, apparently leaving Lanfranc as his chief representative in England. During his absence Ralph Guader [q.v.], earl of Norfolk, and Roger, earl of Hereford, conspired against him. Waltheof, who was concerned in the conspiracy, went to William in Normandy, confessed, and asked forgiveness. The rebels were overthrown in the absence of the king, who, returning to England in 1075, found the Danish fleet in the Humber; it had been invited over by the rebels, but after plundering York the Danes sailed off, for they dared not meet the king. William punished those of the rebels that he had in his power, blinding and mutilating the Briton followers of Earl Ralph, and in May 1076 caused Waltheof to be beheaded¾the only capital punishment that he inflicted during his reign. Possibly about this time (Freeman, u. s. p. 609) he laid waste a district in Hampshire extending for thirty miles or more to form the New Forest, in order to gratify his love of hunting, driving away the inhabitants and destroying churches and houses (Flor. Wig. an. 1100; Will. of Malm. iii. c. 275).

Hoping to seize Earl Ralph, who had escaped to Brittany, and also to enlarge his dominions, he crossed to Normandy and laid siege to Dol, swearing not to depart until it surrendered; but Philip of France came to the help of Count Alan, and William fled, leaving his camp and much treasure in the hands of the enemy. He made peace with the count, and in 1077 with Philip. About that time his eldest son, Robert (1054?-1134) [q.v.], demanded that Normandy and Maine should be made over to him, and, on William's refusal, rebelled and attempted to seize Rouen, for he had a party in the duchy. William ordered his arrest, but he fled from Normandy; his mother sent him supplies, and William was in consequence highly displeased with her (Ord. Vit. p. 571). With Philip's help Robert established himself at Gerberoi, near Beauvais, and William besieged him there early in 1080. In a skirmish beneath the walls William was unhorsed and wounded in the hand by his son. He raised the siege, and was persuaded by his queen, his lords, and the French king to be reconciled with Robert and his friends. On the murder of Walcher [q.v.], bishop of Durham, he sent Bishop Odo to punish the insurgents, and shortly afterwards sent Robert with an army into Scotland, for Malcolm had again been invading Northumberland. He was in England in 1081, and Robert again quarrelled with him, and finally left him. In that year he made an expedition into Wales, freed many hundred captives there, received the submission of the Welsh princes, and is said to have made a pilgrimage to St. David's (A.-S. Chron. an. 1081; Hen. of Hunt. p. 207; Ann. Cambr. an. 1079).

William was again in Normandy in 1082, when he heard that his brother Odo, to whom he had committed the regency in England during his late frequent visits to the duchy, was about to make an expedition into Italy. He crossed in haste, caught him in the Isle of Wight, and, having gathered his lords, laid before them his complaints against Odo, accusing him of oppression and misgovernment in his absence and of a design to lead abroad forces needed for the defence of the kingdom. He caused him to be arrested, and, when Odo objected that he was a clerk, replied that he was not arresting a bishop but one of his earls whom he had made his viceroy; he kept him in prison until his own death was near, in spite of the remonstrances of the pope (Ord. Vit. p. 647; Monumenta Gregoriana, pp. 518, 570). He returned to Normandy, where in 1083 died his queen Matilda, for whom he mourned deeply. An insurrection in Maine, headed by Hubert de Beaumont, caused him trouble. He personally led an army against Hubert's castle, but left the war to be prosecuted by his lords, who carried it on for three years without success.

Cnut, or Canute the Saint, king of Denmark, threatened to invade England in 1085. William gathered a force to meet him, crossed to England, and, quartering his soldiers on his vassals, wasted the coasts, that the Danes might find no sustenance on landing. The invasion was not made, and William dismissed part of his force, keeping some part with him during the winter. After much discussion with his lords at a court that he held at Gloucester at Christmas, he ordered a survey of his kingdom. This survey, the object of which seems to have been to ascertain and apportion every landholder's liability with respect to taxation and military service, caused much indignation among the English; its results are embodied in Domesday book. William remained in England, held his courts according to custom at Easter 1086 at Winchester, and at Whitsuntide at Westminster, apparently travelled about the kingdom, and on 1 Aug. at a great assembly at Salisbury required that all men, whether holding immediately of the crown or of a mesne lord, should do fealty to him. All present at the assembly, ‘whose men soever they were,’ did so. The doctrine thus established, that the fealty owed to the king could not be overridden by an obligation to any inferior lord, saved England from the worst evils of feudalism. William heavily fined all against whom he could bring any charge, true or false; stayed in the Isle of Wight while the money was being collected, and then sailed off with it to Normandy.

A long-standing dispute as to the right to the French Vexin came to a head in 1087, when the French garrison in Mantes committed some ravages in the duke's dominions. William, who had become unwieldy through fat, was at Rouen seeking to reduce his bulk by medicine. Hearing that Philip had compared him to a woman in childbed, he swore his special oath, ‘by the splendour and resurrection of God,’ that he would light a hundred thousand candles when he went to his churching mass. He invaded the Vexin in August, ravaged the land, entered Mantes on the 15th, and burnt it. As he rode through the town his horse threw him forward in the saddle, and he received an internal injury. He was carried to Rouen, and was taken from his palace to the priory of St. Gervase for the sake of quiet. There he was attended by his bishops, sent for Anselm [q.v.], who was unable to go to him, repented of his sins, and ordered that his treasure should be distributed between the poor and churches. He directed that Robert should succeed him in Normandy; expressed his wish that his son William, who was with him, might succeed him in England; left Henry, who was also with him, a sum of money; and ordered that his prisoners should be released. He died on 9 Sept. His lords forthwith rode off to defend their lands from plunder, and his servants, after seizing all they could find, left his body uncared for. A knight named Herlwin had it borne to Caen and buried in St. Stephen's, the Conqueror's own church. The ceremony was interrupted by a claim made to the land on which the church was built, and William's son Henry and the bishops present satisfied the claimant's demand. The monument raised by William Rufus to his father was destroyed by the Huguenots in 1562, and the king's bones were scattered. A later tomb was destroyed in 1793, when the last bone left was lost (Freeman, u. s. pp. 721-3).

William was of middle height and great muscular strength; in later life he became very fat; he had a stern countenance, and the front of his head was bald. His demeanour was stately and his court splendid. He was a man of iron will and remarkable genius; no consideration could divert him from the pursuit of his aims, and he was unscrupulous as to the means he employed to attain them. In a large degree his achievements were due to himself alone. Despised in his youth by the proud and restless barons of his duchy, he compelled their obedience and respect, became stronger than his neighbours, extended his dominions by policy and war, conquered a kingdom far richer and larger than his duchy, forced its people to live quietly and orderly under his rule, and, dying a powerful sovereign, left his dominions in peace to his sons. He was religious, was regular in devotion and liberal to monasteries; he fulfilled his vow by building Battle Abbey, which was not finished at his death; he made no gain out of the church, promoted many worthy ecclesiastics, and was blameless in his private life. Though not delighting in cruelty, he was callous to human suffering. In addition to his two signal acts of cruelty, the devastation of the north and the making of the New Forest, he oppressed his conquered people with heavy taxes and brought much misery upon them. While affable to those who gave him no offence, he was stern beyond bounds to those who withstood his will, was merciless in his punishments, and though, with one exception, he took no man's life by sentence of law, inflicted blinding and shameful mutilation with terrible frequency, especially on men of the lower class. Loving ‘the tall deer as though he had been their father,’ he decreed that all who slew deer should be blinded; his forest laws troubled rich as well as poor, ‘but he recked not of the hatred of them all, for they needs must obey his will, if they would have life, or land, or goods, or even his peace.’

His rule was strict, and he put down all disorder with a strong hand. That he had at one time some desire to govern the English justly may be inferred from an attempt he made to learn their language; but his conquest brought temptations, his character seems to have deteriorated as he met with resistance, and, though he was always ready to allow his own will to override justice, he became more tyrannical as he grew older. He amassed great riches by oppression and became avaricious (for his character generally, see A.-S. Chron. an. 1066). Like all his race, he was addicted to legal subtleties; his oppression generally wore the garb of legality, and was for that reason specially grinding. Adopting the character of the lawful successor of the Confessor, he maintained English laws and institutions, continuing, for example, the three annual courts of the earlier kings; but he gave these courts, and indeed all the higher machinery of government and administration, a feudal character, though he kept English feudalism in subordination to the power of the crown (for his use of legal fictions in dealing with English lands, see Freeman, iv. 8-9, v. 15-51). Nor does his surname, ‘the Conqueror,’ used by Orderic [see Ordericus Vitalis], prove that he laid stress on the fact that he gained and held England by the sword, for the term at that time signified ‘an acquirer’ or, in legal phraseology, ‘a purchaser.’ He is generally called ‘the Bastard’ by contemporary writers, and after the accession of William Rufus is often distinguished from him by being called ‘the Great’ (ib. u.s. ii. 531-3). His laws in their fuller form (Thorpe, Laws, p. 490) cannot be accepted as genuine, but the short version printed by Bishop Stubbs (Select Charters, p. 80), and given with some variations by Hoveden (ii. 216), apparently represents enactments made by him on different occasions, and his confirmation of Canute's law and his regulation of appeals (Thorpe, p. 489) are most probably genuine (see Stubbs's Pref. to Rog. Hov. p. ii, Rolls Ser.). Hoveden, apparently on the authority of Ranulf de Glanville [q.v.], says that in the fourth year of his reign William caused twelve men from each shire to declare on oath the customs of the kingdom. There seems no reason to reject this tradition, though the pretended results of the inquest cannot be accepted as genuine [for William's children, see under Matilda, d. 1083]. Assertions that he had any illegitimate children or was unfaithful to his wife lack historical basis.

Sources:

The life of William is exhaustively related in Freeman's Norman Conquest, vols. ii. iii. iv., with which should be read Bishop Stubbs's Const. Hist. i. cc. 9, 11, and reference may be made to Palgrave's brilliant, though not always trustworthy, Normandy and England, vol. iii.; Lappenberg's England under Norman Kings, transl. by Thorpe, and parts of M. de Crozal's Lanfranc. The principal original authorities are: Will. of Poitiers, the Conqueror's chaplain, ed. Giles, violently anti-English, ending about 1067; Will. of Jumièges, ed. Duchesne, though much of lib. vii. is the work of Robert of Torigni, after 1135; A.-S. Chron. ed. Plummer. For the battle of Hastings: the Bayeux tapestry; Guy of Amiens ap. Mon. Hist. Brit.; the poem of Bishop Baudri, ed. Delisle, ap. Mém. de la Société des Antiq. de Normandie, av. 1873, xxviii; a little later come Orderic, ed. Duchesne, and, better, ed. Prévost ap. Société de l'Histoire de France; Geoffrey Gaimar's French Poem (Chron. Anglo-Norm. vol. i.); Flor. Wig.; Eadmer's Hist. Nov., ed. Migne; Will. of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum (Rolls Ser.); Sym. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.); Wace's Roman de Rou (temp. Hen. II), ed. Andresen

Contributor: W. H. [William Hunt]

Published: 1900

William I (Old Norman: Williame I; circa 1028[1] - 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes as William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. Descended from Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035 under the title of William II. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands and by difficulties with his eldest son.

William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy by his mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy that plagued the first years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled each other, both for control of the child duke and for their own ends. In 1047 William was able to quash a rebellion and begin to establish his authority 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 powerful ally in the neighbouring county of Flanders. By the time of his marriage, William was able to arrange the appointments of his supporters as bishops and abbots in the Norman church. His consolidation of power allowed him to expand his horizons, and by 1062 William was able to secure control of the neighbouring county of Maine.

In the 1050s and early 1060s William became a contender for the throne of England, then held by his childless relative Edward the Confessor. There were other potential claimants, including the powerful English earl Harold Godwinson, who was named the next king by Edward on the latter's deathbed in January 1066. William argued that Edward had previously promised the throne to him, and that Harold had sworn to support William's claim. William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066, decisively defeating and killing 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 before returning to Normandy. Several unsuccessful rebellions followed, but by 1075 William's hold on England was mostly secure, allowing him to spend the majority of the rest of his reign on the Continent.

William's final years were marked by difficulties in his continental domains, troubles with his eldest son, and threatened invasions of England by the Danes. In 1086 William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey listing all the landholders in England along with their holdings. William 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, the settling of a new Norman nobility on the land, and change in the composition of the English clergy. He did not try to integrate his various domains into one empire, but instead continued to administer each part separately. William's lands were divided after his death: Normandy went to his eldest son, Robert, and his second surviving son, William, received England.

Background

Norsemen first began raiding in what became Normandy in the late 8th century. Permanent Scandinavian settlement occurred before 911, when an agreement was reached between Rollo, one of the Viking leaders, and King Charles the Simple of France, surrendering the county of Rouen to Rollo. The lands around Rouen became the core of the later duchy of Normandy. Normandy may have been used as a base when Scandinavian attacks on England were renewed at the end of the 10th century, which would have worsened relations between England and Normandy. In an effort to improve matters, King Æthelred the Unready took Emma of Normandy, sister of Duke Richard II, as his second wife in 1002.

Danish raids on England continued and Æthelred sought help from Richard, taking refuge in Normandy in 1013 when King Swein I of Denmark drove Æthelred and his family from England. Swein's death in 1014 allowed Æthelred to return home, but Swein's son Cnut contested Æthelred's return. Æthelred died unexpectedly in 1016 and Cnut became king of England. Æthelred and Emma's two sons, Edward and Alfred, went into exile in Normandy while their mother, Emma, became Cnut's second wife.

After Cnut's death in 1035 the English throne fell to Harold Harefoot, his son by his first wife, while Harthacnut, his son by Emma, became king in Denmark. England remained unstable. Alfred returned to England in 1036 to visit his mother and perhaps challenge Harold as king. One story implicates Earl Godwin of Wessex in Alfred's subsequent death, but others blame Harold. Emma went into exile in Flanders until Harthacnut became king following Harold's death in 1040, and his half-brother Edward followed Harthacnut to England; Edward was proclaimed king after Harthacnut's death in June 1042.

Early life

William was born in 1027 or 1028 at Falaise, Normandy, probably towards the end of the latter year. He was the only son of Robert I, Duke of Normandy, son of Duke Richard II. His mother, Herleva, was the daughter of Fulbert of Falaise; Fulbert may have been a tanner or embalmer. She was possibly a member of the ducal household, but did not marry Robert. Instead, she later married Herluin de Conteville, with whom she had two sons - Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain - and a daughter whose name is unknown.[e] One of Herleva's brothers, Walter, became a supporter and protector of William during his minority. Robert also had a daughter, Adelaide of Normandy, by another mistress.

Robert, William's father, became Duke of Normandy on 6 August 1027, in succession to his elder brother Richard III, who had only succeeded to the title the previous year. Robert and his brother had been at odds over the succession, and Richard's death was very sudden. Robert was accused by some writers of killing his brother, a plausible but now unprovable charge. Conditions in Normandy were unsettled, as noble families despoiled the Church and Alan III of Brittany waged war against the duchy, possibly in an attempt to take control. By 1031 Robert had gathered considerable support from noblemen, many of whom would become prominent during William's life. They included Robert's uncle, Robert the archbishop of Rouen, who had originally opposed the duke, Osbern, a nephew of Gunnor the wife of Duke Richard I, and Count Gilbert of Brionne, a grandson of Richard I. After his accession, Robert continued Norman support for the English princes Edward and Alfred, who were still in exile in northern France.

There are indications that Robert may have been briefly betrothed to a daughter of King Cnut, but no marriage took place. It is unclear if William would have been supplanted in the ducal succession if Robert had had a legitimate son. Earlier dukes had been illegitimate, and William's association with his father on ducal charters appears to indicate that William was considered Robert's most likely heir. In 1034 Duke Robert decided to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Although some of his supporters tried to dissuade him from undertaking the journey, Robert convened a council in January 1035 and had the assembled Norman magnates swear fealty to William as his heir before leaving for Jerusalem. He died in early July at Nicea, on his way back to Normandy.

Duke of Normandy

William faced several challenges on becoming duke, including his illegitimate birth and his youth: the evidence indicates that he was either seven or eight years old at the time. He enjoyed the support of his great-uncle, Archbishop Robert, as well as the king of France, Henry I, enabling him to succeed to his father's duchy. The support given to the exiled English princes in their attempt to return to England in 1036 shows that the new duke's guardians were attempting to continue his father's policies, but Archbishop Robert's death in March 1037 removed one of William's main supporters, and conditions in Normandy quickly descended into chaos.

The anarchy in the duchy lasted until 1047, and control of the young duke was one of the priorities of those contending for power. At first, Alan of Brittany had custody of the duke, but when Alan died in either late 1039 or October 1040, Gilbert of Brionne took charge of William. Gilbert was killed within months, and another guardian, Turchetil, was also killed around the time of Gilbert's death. Yet another guardian, Osbern, was slain in the early 1040s in William's chamber while the duke slept. It was said that Walter, William's maternal uncle, was occasionally forced to hide the young duke in the houses of peasants, although this story may be an embellishment by Orderic Vitalis. The historian Eleanor Searle speculates that William was raised with the three cousins who later became important in his career - William fitzOsbern, Roger de Beaumont, and Roger of Montgomery. Although many of the Norman nobles engaged in their own private wars and feuds during William's minority, the viscounts still acknowledged the ducal government, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy was supportive of William.

King Henry continued to support the young duke, but in late 1046 opponents of William came together in a rebellion centred in lower Normandy, led by Guy of Burgundy with support from Nigel, Viscount of the Cotentin, and Ranulf, Viscount of the Bessin. According to stories that may have legendary elements, an attempt was made to seize William at Valognes, but he escaped under cover of darkness, seeking refuge with King Henry. In early 1047 Henry and William returned to Normandy and were victorious at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes near Caen, although few details of the actual fighting are recorded. William of Poitiers claimed that the battle was won mainly through William's efforts, but earlier accounts claim that King Henry's men and leadership also played an important part. William assumed power in Normandy, and shortly after the battle promulgated the Truce of God throughout his duchy, in an effort to limit warfare and violence by restricting the days of the year on which fighting was permitted. Although the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes marked a turning point in William's control of the duchy, it was not the end of his struggle to gain the upper hand over the nobility. The period from 1047 to 1054 saw almost continuous warfare, with lesser crises continuing until 1060.

Consolidation of power

William's next efforts were against Guy of Burgundy, who retreated to his castle at Brionne, which William besieged. After a long effort, the duke succeeded in exiling Guy in 1050. To address the growing power of the Count of Anjou, Geoffrey Martel, William joined with King Henry in a campaign against him, the last known cooperation between the two. They succeeded in capturing an Angevin fortress, but accomplished little else. Geoffrey attempted to expand his authority into the county of Maine, especially after the death of Hugh IV of Maine in 1051. Central to the contr

William married Matilda of Flanders 1053, Normandy, France. Matilda (daughter of Baldwin, V Count of Flanders and Adela of France, Countess of Flanders) was born Abt 1031, Flanders, Belgium; died 02 Nov 1083, Caen, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France; was buried Caen, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France. [Group Sheet]

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Matilda de Flandre was born circa 1031 at Flanders, Belgium. She was the daughter of Baldwin V de Lille, Comte de Flandre and Adela de France, Princesse de France. She married William I 'the Conqueror', King of England, son of Robert I, 6th Duc de Normandie and Herleva de Falaise, in 1053 at Cathedral of Notre Dame d'Eu, Normandy, France. She died on 2 November 1083 at Caen, Normandy, France. She was buried at Abbey of the Holy Trinity, Caen, Normandy, France. As a result of her marriage, Matilda de Flandre was styled as Queen Consort Matilda of England on 11 May 1068.

From Wikipedia

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde de Flandre; Dutch: Mathilda van Vlaanderen) (c. 1031 - 2 November 1083) was the wife of William the Conqueror and, as such, Queen consort of the Kingdom of England. She bore William nine/ten children, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and Adèle of France, herself daughter of Robert II of France. According to legend, when Duke William II of Normandy (later known as William the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born, to consider marrying a bastard. After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, and dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and rode off. Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by the braids), and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offense at this but, before they drew swords, Matilda settled the matter by agreeing to marry him, and even a papal ban on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. They were married in 1053.

There were rumors that Matilda had been in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as Regent for William in England, she used her authority to confiscate Brihtric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own money and gave it to him. This indicated that she must have owned rich lands in Normandy to be able to do so. Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit her new kingdom. Even after she had been crowned queen, she would spend most of her time in Normandy and sponsor ecclestial houses there.

Queen

Matilda was crowned queen in 1068 in Westminster, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. During the ceremony she was said to be sharing in power with her husband and the people were said to be fortunate to be ruled by the ability and wisdom of the queen.

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.

Matilda bore William eleven children, and he was believed to have been faithful to her, at least up until the time their son Robert rebelled against his father and Matilda sided with Robert against William.

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.

After she died, in 1083 at the age of 51, William became tyrannical, and people blamed it on his having lost her.

Contrary to the belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is intombed at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the Sainte-Trinité church, also in Caen. Of particular interest is the 11th century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. It is of special note since the grave marker for William was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde de Flandre; Dutch: Mathilda van Vlaanderen) (c. 1031 - 2 November 1083) was the wife of William the Conqueror and, as such, Queen consort of the Kingdom of England. She bore William nine children, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and Adèle of France, herself daughter of Robert II of France. According to legend, when Duke William II of Normandy (later known as William the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard. After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants and rode off. Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by her braids), and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offense at this but, before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter by refusing to marry anyone but William; even a papal ban by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. William and Matilda were married after a delay in c. 1051-2. A papal dispensation was finally awarded in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II.

There were rumors that Matilda had been in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as Regent for William in England, she used her authority to confiscate Brihtric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own money and gave it to him. This indicated that she must have owned rich lands in Normandy to be able to do so. Additionally, William entrusted Normandy to his wife during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen year old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit her new kingdom. Even after she had been crowned queen, she would spend most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. She only had one of her children in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.

Queen

Matilda was crowned queen on May 11, 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.

Matilda bore William nine or ten children. William was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside of their marriage. Despite her royal duties, Matilda was deeply invested in her children's well-being. All were known for being remarkably educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at Sainte-Trinité in Caen founded by Matilda and William in response to the recognition of their marriage. For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury of whom she was an ardent supporter. Both she and William approved of the Archbishop's desire to revitalize the Church.

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and passed away in November 1083. Her husband was present for her final confession. Without her presence, a distraught William became increasingly tyrannical until his death four years later in 1087.

Contrary to the belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is entombed at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the Sainte-Trinité church, also in Caen. Of particular interest is the 11th century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. It is of special note since the grave marker for William was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Height

Reputed to be 4'2" (127 cm) tall, Matilda was England's smallest queen, according to the Guinness Book of Records. However, in 1819 and 1959, Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined in France, and her bones were measured to determine her height. The 1819 estimate was under five feet, while the 1959 estimate was 5' (152 cm) tall. A reputed height of 4' 2" (127 cm) appeared at some point after 1959 in the non-scientific literature, misrepresenting the 1959 measurement.

Family and children

Matilda and William had at least nine children. The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.

Robert Born between 1051-1054, died 10 February 1134. Duke of Normandy, married Sybil of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano.
Richard Born c.1054, died around 1075.
William Born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100. King of England, killed in the New Forest.
Henry Born late 1068, died 1 December 1135. King of England, married Edith of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain.
Adeliza (or Adelida, Adelaide) Died before 1113, reportedly betrothed to Harold II of England, probably a nun of St Léger at Préaux.
Cecilia (or Cecily) Born c.1056, died 1127. Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen.
Matilda Born around 1061, died perhaps about 1086. Mentioned in Domesday Book as a daughter of William.
Constance died 1090, married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany.
Adela died 1137, married Stephen, Count of Blois.

Another daughter, Agatha, who was reportedly betrothed to Alfonso VI of Castile, is often ascribed to William and Matilda, but her existence is doubtful, and may be a simple confusion with Adeliza. There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.

Matilda was a seventh generation direct descendent of Alfred the Great and was a descendant of Charlemagne through her maternal grandfather, Robert II of France

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He married, firstly, Ingibiorg Finnsdottir, daughter of Finn Arnasson, Jarl of Halland and Bergljot, between 1059 and 1066. He married, secondly, Saint Margaret 'the Exile', daughter of Edward 'Atheling' and Agatha Salian, in 1069 at Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. He died on 13 November 1093 at Alnwick Castle, Alnwick, Northumberland, England, killed by Arkil Morel in an ambush. He was buried at El Escorial Palace, Madrid, Spain. He was buried at Tynemouth, Northumberland, England. He was buried at Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

He gained the title of Prince Malcolm of Cumbria in 1034. He gained the title of King Malcolm of Strathclyde in 1034. He succeeded to the title of King Malcolm III of Scotland on 17 March 1058. He was crowned King of Scotland on 25 April 1058 at Scone Abbey, Scone, Perthshire, Scotland.

He succeeded Macbeth, but was exiled to England during the reign of Macbeth. With English military help he defeated (1054 - Battle of Dunsinane) and killed (1057) Macbeth, and became King of Scotland after the death of Macbeth's stepson and successor Lulach. Five times he unsuccessfully invaded northern England, and was killed on the fifth attempt. He was effectively ruler of Strathclyde and Lothian from 1054.

Máel Coluim mac Donnchada (Modern Gaelic: Maol Chaluim mac Dhonnchaidh, called in most Anglicised regnal lists Malcolm III, and in later centuries nicknamed Canmore, "Big Head", either literally or in reference to his leadership, "Long-neck"; died 13 November 1093), was King of Scots. It has also been argued recently that the real "Malcolm Canmore" was this Malcolm's great-grandson Malcolm IV, who is given this name in the contemporary notice of his death. He was the eldest son of King Duncan I (Donnchad mac Crínáin). Malcolm's long reign, lasting 35 years, preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age. He is the historical equivalent of the character of the same name in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Malcolm's Kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained in Scandinavian, Norse-Gael and Gaelic control, and the areas under the control of the Kings of Scots would not advance much beyond the limits set by Malcolm II (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda) until the 12th century. Malcolm III fought a succession of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as their goal the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. However, these wars did not result in any significant advances southwards. Malcolm's main achievement is to have continued a line which would rule Scotland for many years, although his role as "founder of a dynasty" has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David, and his descendants, than with any historical reality.

Malcolm's second wife, Saint Margaret of Scotland, was later beatified and is Scotland's only royal saint. However, Malcolm himself gained no reputation for piety. With the notable exception of Dunfermline Abbey he is not definitely associated with major religious establishments or ecclesiastical reforms.

Background

Malcolm's father Duncan I (Donnchad mac Crínáin) became king in late 1034, on the death of Malcolm II (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda), Duncan's maternal grandfather. According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part at least of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm's mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria, but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen. Other sources claim that either a daughter or niece would have been too young to fit the timeline, thus the likely relative would have been Siward's own sister Sybil, which may have translated into Gaelic as Suthen.

Duncan's reign was not successful and he was killed by Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlaích) on 15 August 1040. Although Shakespeare's Macbeth presents Malcolm as a grown man and his father as an old one, it appears that Duncan was still young in 1040, and Malcolm and his brother Donalbane (Domnall Bán) were children. Malcolm's family did attempt to overthrow Macbeth in 1045, but Malcolm's grandfather Crínán of Dunkeld was killed in the attempt.

Soon after the death of Duncan his two young sons were sent away for greater safety - exactly where is the subject of debate. According to one version, Malcolm (then aged about 9) was sent to England, and his younger brother Donalbane was sent to the Isles. Based on Fordun's account, it was assumed that Malcolm passed most of Macbeth's seventeen year reign in the Kingdom of England at the court of Edward the Confessor.

According to an alternative version, Malcolm's mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth's family, and perhaps Duncan's kinsman by marriage.

An English invasion in 1054, with Siward, Earl of Northumbria, in command, had as its goal the installation of Máel Coluim, "son of the King of the Cumbrians (i.e. of Strathclyde)". This Máel Coluim, perhaps a son of Owen the Bald, disappears from history after this brief mention. He has been confused with King Malcolm III. In 1057 various chroniclers report the death of Macbeth at Malcolm's hand, on 15 August 1057 at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire. Macbeth was succeeded by his stepson Lulach, who was crowned at Scone, probably on 8 September 1057. Lulach was killed by Malcolm, "by treachery", near Huntly on 23 April 1058. After this, Malcolm became king, perhaps being inaugurated on 25 April 1058, although only John of Fordun reports this.

Malcolm and Ingibiorg

If Orderic Vitalis is to be relied upon, one of Malcolm's earliest actions as King may have been to travel south to the court of Edward the Confessor in 1059 to arrange a marriage with Edward's kinswoman Margaret, who had arrived in England two years before from Hungary. If he did visit the English court, he was the first reigning King of Scots to do so in more than eighty years. If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, however, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered. Equally, Malcolm's raids in Northumbria may have been related to the disputed "Kingdom of the Cumbrians", reestablished by Earl Siward in 1054, which was under Malcolm's control by 1070.

The Orkneyinga saga reports that Malcolm married the widow of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Ingibiorg, a daughter of Finn Arnesson. Although Ingibiorg is generally assumed to have died shortly before 1070, it is possible that she died much earlier, around 1058. The Orkneyinga Saga records that Malcolm and Ingibiorg had a son, Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maíl Coluim), who was later king. Some Medieval commentators, following William of Malmesbury, claimed that Duncan was illegitimate, but this claim is propaganda reflecting the need of Malcolm's descendants by Margaret to undermine the claims of Duncan's descendants, the Meic Uilleim. Malcolm's son Domnall, whose death is reported in 1085, is not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga. He is assumed to have been born to Ingibiorg.

Malcolm's marriage to Ingibiorg secured him peace in the north and west. The Heimskringla tells that her father Finn had been an adviser to Harald Hardraade and, after falling out with Harald, was then made an Earl by Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, which may have been another recommendation for the match. Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson. The Orkneyinga Saga reports strife with Norway but this is probably misplaced as it associates this with Magnus Barefoot, who became king of Norway only in 1093, the year of Malcolm's death.

Malcolm and Margaret

Máel Coluim and Margaret as depicted in a 16th century armorial. Note the coats of arms both bear on their clothing - Malcolm wears the Lion of Scotland, which historically was not used until the time of his great-grandson William the Lion; Margaret wears the supposed arms of Edward the Confessor, her grand-uncle, although the arms were in fact concocted in the later Middle Ages.

Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinson when the Northumbrians drove him out, Malcolm was not directly involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at the battle of Stamford Bridge. In 1068, he granted asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy, among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor's nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar Ætheling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots.

In 1069 the exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north. Even though Gospatric and Siward's son Waltheof submitted by the end of the year, the arrival of a Danish army under Sweyn Estridsson seemed to ensure that William's position remained weak. Malcolm decided on war, and took his army south into Cumbria and across the Pennines, wasting Teesdale and Cleveland then marching north, loaded with loot, to Wearmouth. There Malcolm met Edgar and his family, who were invited to return with him, but did not. As Sweyn had by now been bought off with a large Danegeld, Malcolm took his army home. In reprisal, William sent Gospatric to raid Scotland through Cumbria. In return, the Scots fleet raided the Northumbrian coast where Gospatric's possessions were concentrated. Late in the year, perhaps shipwrecked on their way to a European exile, Edgar and his family again arrived in Scotland, this time to remain. By the end of 1070, Malcolm had married Edgar's sister Margaret, the future Saint Margaret of Scotland.

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots Regal names such as Malcolm, Cináed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret's sons, Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar Ætheling, was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy's grasp on power was far from secure. Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon Royal name-another Edmund had preceded Edgar-is not known. Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.

In 1072, with the Harrying of the North completed and his position again secure, William of Normandy came north with an army and a fleet. Malcolm met William at Abernethy and, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "became his man" and handed over his eldest son Duncan as a hostage and arranged peace between William and Edgar. Accepting the overlordship of the king of the English was no novelty, previous kings had done so without result. The same was true of Malcolm; his agreement with the English king was followed by further raids into Northumbria, which led to further trouble in the earldom and the killing of Bishop William Walcher at Gateshead. In 1080, William sent his son Robert Curthose north with an army while his brother Odo punished the Northumbrians. Malcolm again made peace, and this time kept it for over a decade.

Malcolm faced little recorded internal opposition, with the exception of Lulach's son Máel Snechtai. In an unusual entry, for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains little on Scotland, it says that in 1078:

“Malcholom [Máel Coluim] seized the mother of Mælslæhtan [Máel Snechtai] ... and all his treasures, and his cattle; and he himself escaped with difficulty. ”

Whatever provoked this strife, Máel Snechtai survived until 1085.

Malcolm and William Rufus

When William Rufus became king of England after his father's death, Malcolm did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, however, William Rufus confiscated Edgar Ætheling's lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Malcolm marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080. This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, where he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus's approaching army, Malcolm withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Malcolm was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar Ætheling and Robert Curthose whereby Malcolm again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.

In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the idea that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus's new castle at Carlisle and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds was the cause. However, it is unlikely that Malcolm did control Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Malcolm by William Rufus's father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Malcolm sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Malcolm travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Malcolm arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Malcolm refused to accept, and returned immediately to Scotland.

It does not appear that William Rufus intended to provoke a war, but, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, war came:

“For this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the King Malcolm returned to Scotland. And soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into England with more hostility than behoved him ...”

Malcolm was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tánaiste), and by Edgar. Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh.

Death

While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick. Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar. The Annals of Ulster say:

“Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French i.e. in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days.[52] ”

Malcolm's body was taken to Tynemouth Priory for burial. The king's body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona.

On 19 June 1250, following the canonisation of Malcolm's wife Margaret by Pope Innocent IV, Margaret's remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary. Tradition has it that as the reliquary was carried to the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey, past Malcolm's grave, it became too heavy to move. As a result, Malcolm's remains were also disinterred, and buried next to Margaret beside the altar.

Issue

Malcolm and Ingebjorg had 3 sons:

Duncan II of Scotland, succeeded his father as King of Scotland
Donald, died ca.1094
Malcolm, died ca.1085

Malcolm and Margaret had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward, killed 1093.
Edmund of Scotland
Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld
King Edgar of Scotland
King Alexander I of Scotland
King David I of Scotland
Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England
Mary of Scotland, married Eustace III of Boulogne

Malcolm married Saint Margaret of Scotland 1069, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Saint (daughter of Edward, the Exile and Agatha) was born 1045, Hungary; died 16 Nov 1093, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland; was buried Douai, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. [Group Sheet]

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In 1250 she was canonised as Saint Margaret.

Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex and Queen Margaret of Scotland, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England of 1066. Around 1070 Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming his queen consort. She was a pious woman, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth for pilgrims travelling to Dunfermline Abbey, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland and a queen consort of England. According to the Life of Saint Margaret, attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle in 1093, just days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 she was canonised by Pope Innocent IV, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine at Dunfermline Abbey. Her relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost.

Biography

Early life

Margaret was the daughter of the English prince, Edward the Exile and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, king of England. After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, Canute had the infant Edward exiled to the continent. He was taken first to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skötkonung, and then to Kiev. As an adult, he travelled to Hungary, where in 1046 he supported Andrew I's successful bid for the throne. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is disputed, but Margaret was born in Hungary around 1045. Her brother Edgar the Ætheling and her sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court. Andrew I of Hungary was known as "Andrew the Catholic" for his extreme aversion to pagans, and great loyalty to Rome, which probably could have induced Margaret to follow a pious life.

Return to England

Still a child, she came to England with the rest of her family when her father, Edward, was recalled in 1057 as a possible successor to her great-uncle, the childless Edward the Confessor. Her father died soon after the family's arrival in England, but Margaret continued to reside at the English court where her brother, Edgar Ætheling, was considered a possible successor to the English throne. When the Confessor died in January 1066, Harold Godwinson was selected as king, Edgar perhaps being considered still too young. After Harold's defeat at the battle of Hastings later that year, Edgar was proclaimed King of England, but when the Normans advanced on London, the Witenagemot presented Edgar to William the Conqueror who took him to Normandy before returning him to England in 1068, when Edgar, Margaret, Cristina and their mother Agatha fled north to Northumbria.

Journey to Scotland

According to tradition, the widowed Agatha decided to leave Northumbria with her children and return to the continent. However, a storm drove their ship north to Scotland, where they sought the protection of King Malcolm III. The spot where they are said to have landed is known today as St. Margaret's Hope, near the village of North Queensferry. Margaret's arrival in Scotland in 1068, after the failed revolt of the Northumbrian earls, has been heavily romanticized, though Symeon of Durham implied that her first meeting with Malcolm III may not have been until 1070, after William the Conqueror's harrying of the north.

Malcolm was probably a widower, and was no doubt attracted by the prospect of marrying one of the few remaining members of the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret took place some time before the end of 1070. Malcolm followed it with several invasions of Northumberland, probably in support of the claims of his brother-in-law Edgar. These, however, had little result beyond the devastation of the province.

Family

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward, killed 1093.
Edmund of Scotland (c.1070 - after 1097)
Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld
Edgar of Scotland (c.1074 - 11 January 1107), King of Scotland from 1097 - 1107
Alexander I of Scotland (c.1078 - 23 April 1124), King of Scotland from 1107 - 1124
Edith of Scotland (c. 1080 - 1 May 1118), also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England
Mary of Scotland (1082-1116), married Eustace III of Boulogne
David I of Scotland (c.1083 - 24 May 1153), King of Scotland from 1124 - 1153

Religious life

Margaret's biographer Turgot, Bishop of St. Andrews, credits her with having a civilizing influence on her husband Malcolm by reading him stories from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to make the worship and practices of the Church in Scotland conform to those of Rome. This she did with the inspiration and guidance of Lanfranc, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. She also worked to bring the Scottish Church practice in line with that of the continental church of her childhood. Due to these achievements, she was considered an exemplar of the "just ruler", and influenced her husband and children - especially her youngest son, later David I - also to be just and holy rulers.

She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate, and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight every night to attend church services. She invited the Benedictine order to establish a monastery at Dunfermline in Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Forth Estuary to St. Andrews in Fife. A cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline was used by her as a place of devotion and prayer. St Margaret's Cave, now covered beneath a municipal car park, is open to the public. Amongst her other deeds, Margaret also instigated the restoration of the monastery at Iona. She is known to have been an intercessor for the release of Anglo-Saxon captives as well.

In her private life, Margaret was as devout as she was in her public duties. She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. This appears to have had a considerable affect on the more uncouth, Malcolm, who could not read; he so admired her devotion that he had her books decorated in gold and silver. One of these, a pocket Gospel with lavish images of the Evangelists, is kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

Malcolm seems to have been largely ignorant of the long-term effects of Margaret's endeavours, not being especially religious himself. He was content for her to pursue her reforms as she wished, a testament to the strength and affection inherent in their marriage.

Death

Her husband, Malcolm III, and their eldest son, Edward, were killed in a fight against the English at the Battle of Alnwick on 13 November 1093. Her son Edmund was left with the task of telling his mother of their deaths. Margaret was not yet fifty, but a life of constant austerity and fasting had taken their toll. Already ill, Margaret died on 16 November 1093, three days after the deaths of her husband and eldest son.

Veneration

Saint Margaret was canonised in 1250 by Pope Innocent IV in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Church, work for religious reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were moved to Dunfermline Abbey. The Roman Catholic Church formerly marked the feast of Saint Margaret of Scotland on 10 June, because the feast of "Saint Gertrude, Virgin" was already celebrated on 16 November, but in Scotland, she was venerated on 16 November, the day of her death. In the revision of the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1969, 16 November became free and the Church transferred her feast day to 16 November. However, some traditionalist Catholics continue to celebrate her feast day on 10 June. She is also venerated as a saint in the Anglican Church.
Churches

Several churches are dedicated to Saint Margaret. One of the oldest is St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, which was founded by her son King David I. The chapel was long thought to have been the oratory of Margaret herself, but is now considered to be a 12th century establishment. The oldest building in Edinburgh, it was restored in the 19th century, and refurbished in the 1990s.

Others include the 13th-century Church of St Margaret the Queen in Buxted, East Sussex, St Margaret of Scotland, Aberdeen and the Church of England church in Budapest.

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Robert I, 6th Duc de Normandie also went by the nick-name of Robert 'the Devil'. Robert I, 6th Duc de Normandie also went by the nick-name of Robert 'the Magnificent'. He succeeded to the title of 6th Duc de Normandie on 6 August 1028.

Robert the Magnificent (French: le Magnifique) (22 June 1000 - 3 July 1035), also called Robert the Devil (French: le Diable), was the Duke of Normandy from 1027 until his death. Owing to uncertainty over the numbering of the Dukes of Normandy he is usually called Robert I, but sometimes Robert II with his ancestor Rollo as Robert I. He was the son of Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I of Rennes. He was the father of William the Conqueror.

When his father died, his elder brother Richard succeeded, whilst he became Count of Hiémois. When Richard died a year later, there were great suspicions that Robert had Richard murdered, hence his other nickname, "the Devil". He is sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil.

Robert aided King Henry I of France against Henry's rebellious brother and mother, and for his help he was given the territory of the Vexin (1032). He also intervened in the affairs of Flanders, supported his cousin Edward the Confessor, who was then in exile at Robert's court, and sponsored monastic reform in Normandy.

By his mistress, Herleva of Falaise, he was father of the future William I of England (1028-1087). He also had an illegitimate daughter, but the only chronicler to explicitly address the issue, Robert of Torigny, contradicts himself, once indicating that she had a distinct mother from William, elsewhere stating that they shared the same mother. This daughter, Adelaide of Normandy (1030 - c. 1083), married three times: to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu, Lambert II, Count of Lens, and Odo II of Champagne.

After making his illegitimate son William his heir, he set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. According to the Gesta Normannorum Ducum he travelled by way of Constantinople, reached Jerusalem, and died on the return journey at Nicaea on 2 July 1035. Some sources attribute his death to poison and date it to 1 or 3 July. His son William, aged about eight, succeeded him.

According to the historian William of Malmesbury, William sent a mission to Constantinople and Nicaea, charging it with bringing his father's body back to be buried in Normandy. Permission was granted, but, having travelled as far as Apulia (Italy) on the return journey, the envoys learned that William himself had meanwhile died. They then decided to re-inter Robert's body in Italy.

Robert the Magnificent (French: le Magnifique) (22 June 1000 - 1-3 July 1035), was the Duke of Normandy from 1027 until his death. Owing to uncertainty over the numbering of the Dukes of Normandy he is usually called Robert I, but sometimes Robert II with his ancestor Rollo as Robert I. He was the father of William the Conqueror.

Life

He was the son of Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I, Duke of Brittany. He was also grandson of Richard I of Normandy, great-grandson of William I of Normandy and great-great grandson of Rollo, the Viking who founded Normandy. Before he died, Richard II had decided his elder son Richard III would succeed him while his second son Robert would became Count of Hiémois. In August of 1026 their father, Richard II, died and Richard III became duke, but very soon afterwards Robert rebelled against his brother, was subsequently defeated and forced to swear fealty to his older brother Richard.

Early reign

When Richard III died a year later there were suspicions that Robert had something to do with his brother's death and although nothing can be proved, Robert had most to gain. But the civil war Robert I had brought against his brother Richard III was still causing instability in the duchy. Private wars between neighboring barons raged resulting in a new aristocracy which rose in Normandy during Robert’s reign. It was also during this time that many of the lesser nobility left Normandy to seek their fortunes in southern Italy and elsewhere. Soon after assuming the dukedom, however, possibly in revenge for supporting his brother against him, Robert I assembled an army against his uncle, Robert, Archbishop of Rouen and count of Évreux. Only a temporary truce allowed his uncle to leave Normandy in exile but with an edict of excommunication placed on all of Normandy, which was only lifted when Archbishop Robert was allowed to return and his countship was restored. Robert also attacked another powerful churchman, his cousin Hugo III. d'Ivry, Bishop of Bayeux, banishing him from Normandy for an extended period of time. Robert also seized a number of church properties belonging to the abbey of Fecamp.

Outside of Normandy

Despite his domestic troubles Robert decided to intervene in the civil war in Flanders between Baldwin V, Count of Flanders and his father Baldwin IV whom the younger Baldwin had driven out of Flanders. Baldwin V, supported by king Robert II of France, his father-in-law, was persuaded to make peace with his father in 1030 when Duke Robert promised the elder Baldwin his considerable military support. Robert gave shelter to Henry I of France against his mother, Queen Constance, who favored her younger son Robert to succeed to the French throne after his father Robert II. For his help Henry I rewarded Robert with the French Vexin. In the early 1030s Alan III, Duke of Brittany began expanding his influence from the area of Rennes and appeared to have designs on the area surrounding Mont Saint-Michel After sacking Dol and repelling Alan's attempts to raid Avranches, Robert mounted a major campaign against his cousin Alan III. However, Alan appealed to their uncle, Archbishop Robert of Rouen, who then brokered a peace between Duke Robert and his vassal Alan III. His cousins, the Athelings Edward and Alfred, sons of his aunt Emma of Normandy and Athelred, King of England had been living at the Norman Court and at one point Robert, on their behalf, attempted to mount an invasion of England but was prevented in doing so, it was said, by unfavorable winds. Gesta Normannorum Ducum stated that King Cnut sent envoys to Duke Robert offering to settle half the Kingdom of England on Edward and Alfred. After postponing the naval invasion he chose to also postpone the decision until after he returned from Jerusalem.

The Church and his pilgrimage

Robert's attitude towards the Church had changed noticeably certainly since his reinstating his uncle's position as Archbiship of Rouen. In his attempt to reconcile his differences with the Church he restored property that he or his vassals had confiscated, and by 1034 had returned all the properties he had earlier taken from the abbey of Fecamp.

After making his illegitimate son William his heir, he set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. According to the Gesta Normannorum Ducum he travelled by way of Constantinople, reached Jerusalem, fell seriously ill and died[b] on the return journey at Nicaea on 2 July 1035. His son William, aged about eight, succeeded him.

According to the historian William of Malmesbury, decades later his son William sent a mission to Constantinople and Nicaea, charging it with bringing his father's body back to be buried in Normandy. Permission was granted, but, having travelled as far as Apulia (Italy) on the return journey, the envoys learned that William himself had meanwhile died. They then decided to re-inter Robert's body in Italy.

Issue

By his mistress, Herleva of Falaise, he was father of:

William I of England (c.1028-1087).

By Herleva or possibly another concubine, he was the father of:

Adelaide of Normandy, who married firstly, Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu. She married secondly, Lambert II, Count of Lens, and thirdly, Odo II of Champagne

Robert — Herleva de Falaise. Herleva (daughter of Fulbert of Falaise and Duxia) was born Between 1003 and 1012; died Abt 1050, France; was buried France. [Group Sheet]

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She was also known as Herleve, Arlotta and Arlette.

Herleva (c. 1003 - c. 1050) also known as Herleve, Arlette, Arletta and Arlotte, had three sons - William I of England, who was fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy, and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by Herluin de Conteville. All became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent. The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. Translation being somewhat uncertain, Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.

It is argued by some that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class. The idea is supported by the fact that her brothers appear in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both facts would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father (and therefore her brothers) was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as being the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).

Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, still recounted by tour guides at Falaise, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower. The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was for individuals to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the dyeing liquid in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye. The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high. This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's mistress.

She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.

Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts however, maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died because there is no record of Robert ensuing another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters, Emma, who married Richard LeGoz or Richard Goz (count or viscount of Avranches), and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Ferté-Macé.

Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.

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Baldwin V de Lille, Comte de Flandre also went by the nick-name of Baldwin 'the Pious'. He succeeded to the title of Comte de Flandre in 1035

Baldwin V of Flanders (19 August 1012 - 1 September 1067) was Count of Flanders from 1035 until his death.

He was the son of Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders, who died in 1035.

History

In 1028 Baldwin married Adèle of France in Amiens, daughter of King Robert II of France; at her instigation he rebelled against his father but in 1030 peace was sworn and the old count continued to rule until his death.

During a long war (1046-1056) as an ally of Godfrey the Bearded, Duke of Lorraine, against the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III, he initially lost Valenciennes to Hermann of Hainaut. However, when the latter died in 1051 Baldwin married his son Baldwin VI to Herman's widow Richildis and arranged that the sons of her first marriage were disinherited, thus de facto uniting the County of Hainaut with Flanders. Upon the death of Henry III this marriage was acknowledged by treaty by Agnes de Poitou, mother and regent of Henry IV. Baldwin V played host to a grateful dowager queen Emma of England, during her enforced exile, at Bruges. He supplied armed security guards, entertainment, comprising a band of minstrels. Bruges was a bustling commercial centre, and Emma fittingly grateful to the citizens. She dispensed generously to the poor, making contact with the monastery of Saint Bertin at St Omer, and received her son, King Harthacnut of England at Bruges in 1039.

From 1060 to 1067 Baldwin was the co-Regent with Anne of Kiev for his nephew-by-marriage Philip I of France, indicating the importance he had acquired in international politics. As Count of Maine, Baldwin supported the King of France in most affairs. But he was also father-in-law to William of Normandy, who had married his daughter Matilda. Flanders played a pivotal role in Edward the Confessor's foreign policy. As the King of England was struggling to find an heir: historians have argued that he may have sent Harold Godwinsson to negotiate the return of Edward the Atheling from Hungary, and passed through Flanders, on his way to Germany. Baldwin's half-sister had married scheming Earl Godwin's third son, Tostig. The half-Viking Godwinsons had spent their exile in Dublin, at a time William of Normandy was fiercely defending his duchy. It is unlikely however that Baldwin intervened to prevent the duke's invasion plans of England, after the Count had lost the conquered province of Ponthieu. By 1066, Baldwin was an old man, and died the following year.

Family

Baldwin and Adèle had three children:

Baldwin VI, 1030-1070
Matilda, c. 1031-1083 who married William the Conqueror
Robert I of Flanders, c. 1033-1093

Baldwin married Adela of France, Countess of Flanders 1028, Amiens, Somme, Picardie, France. Adela (daughter of Robert, II of France and Constance of Arles) was born 1009, France; died 08 Jan 1078/79, Messines, Ypres, France; was buried Messines, Ypres, France. [Group Sheet]

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She was the daughter of Robert II, Roi de France and Constance d'Arles. She married, firstly, Richard III, 5th Duc de Normandie, son of Richard II, 4th Duc de Normandie and Judith de Bretagne, in January 1027. She married, secondly, Baldwin V de Lille, Comte de Flandre, son of Baldwin IV, Comte de Flandre and Ogive de Luxembourg, in 1028. She gained the title of Comtesse d'Auxerre. She was a nun before 1079.

Adèle of France or Adela of Flanders, known also as Adela the Holy or Adela of Messines; (1009 - 8 January 1079, Messines) was the second daughter of Robert II (the Pious), and Constance of Arles. As dowry to her future husband, she received from her father the title of Countess of Corbie.

Her family

She was a member of the House of Capet, the rulers of France. As the wife of Baldwin V, she was Countess of Flanders from 1036 to 1067.

She married first 1027 Richard III Duke of Normandy (997 † 1027). They never had children. As a widow, she remarried in 1028 in Paris to Baldwin V of Flanders (1012 † 1067). Their children were:

Baldwin VI of Flanders (1030-1070)
Matilda of Flanders (1032-1083). In 1053 she married William, Duke of Normandy, the future king of England
Robert I of Flanders (1033-1093)

Political influence

Adèle’s influence lay mainly in her family connections. On the death of her brother, Henry I of France, the guardianship of his seven-year-old son Philip I fell jointly on his widow, Ann of Kiev, and on his brother-in-law, Adela's husband, so that from 1060 to 1067, they were Regents of France.

Battle of Cassel (1071)

When Adela's third son, Robert the Frisian, was to invade Flanders in 1071 to become the new count (at that time the count was Adela's grandson, Arnulf III), she asked Philip I to stop him. Philip sent troops in order to aid Arnulf, being among the forces sent by the king a contingent of ten Norman knights led by William FitzOsborn. Robert's forces attacked Arnulf's numerically superior army at Cassel before it could organize, and Arnulf himself was killed along with William FitzOsborn. The overwhelming triumph of Robert made Philip invest him with Flanders, making the peace. A year later, Philip married Robert's stepdaughter, Bertha of Holland, and in 1074, Philip restored the seigneurie of Corbie to the crown.

Church influence

Adèle had an especially great interest in Baldwin V’s church-reform politics and was behind her husband’s founding of several collegiate churches. Directly or indirectly, she was responsible for establishing the Colleges of Aire (1049), Lille (1050) and Harelbeke (1064) as well as the abbeys of Messines (1057) and Ename (1063). After Baldwin’s death in 1067, she went to Rome, took the nun’s veil from the hands of Pope Alexander II and retreated to the Benedictine convent of Messines, near Ypres. There she died, being buried at the same monastery. Honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, her commemoration day is 8 September.

Adèle of France or Adela of Flanders[a], known also as Adela the Holy or Adela of Messines; (1009 - 8 January 1079, Messines), she was the Countess of Normandy (January 1027-August 1027), Countess of Flanders (1028-1067)

Life

Adèle was the second daughter of Robert II (the Pious), and Constance of Arles. In January 1027 she married Richard III Duke of Normandy. The marriage was short-lived for on 6 August of that same year Richard III suddenly died. Adela secondly married Baldwin V, Count of Flanders in 1028.

Adèle’s influence lay mainly in her family connections. On the death of her brother, Henry I of France, the guardianship of his seven-year-old son Philip I fell jointly on his widow, Ann of Kiev, and on his brother-in-law, Adela's husband, so that from 1060 to 1067, they were Regents of France.

When Adela's third son, Robert the Frisian, was to invade Flanders in 1071 to become the new count (at that time the count was Adela's grandson, Arnulf III), she asked Philip I to stop him. Philip sent troops in order to aid Arnulf, being among the forces sent by the king a contingent of ten Norman knights led by William FitzOsborn. Robert's forces attacked Arnulf's numerically superior army at Cassel before it could organize, and Arnulf himself was killed along with William FitzOsborn. The overwhelming triumph of Robert made Philip invest him with Flanders, making the peace. A year later, Philip married Robert's stepdaughter, Bertha of Holland, and in 1074, Philip restored the seigneurie of Corbie to the crown.

Adèle had an especially great interest in Baldwin V’s church-reform politics and was behind her husband’s founding of several collegiate churches. Directly or indirectly, she was responsible for establishing the Colleges of Aire (1049), Lille (1050) and Harelbeke (1064) as well as the abbeys of Messines (1057) and Ename (1063). After Baldwin’s death in 1067, she went to Rome, took the nun’s veil from the hands of Pope Alexander II and retired to the Benedictine convent of Messines, near Ypres. There she died, being buried at the same monastery. Honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, her commemoration day is 8 September.

Family

She married first 1027 Richard III Duke of Normandy (†1027). They had no children.

She married secondly, Baldwin V of Flanders. Their children were:

Baldwin VI of Flanders (c. 1030-1070).
Matilda of Flanders (c. 1032-1083). In c. 1053 she married William, Duke of Normandy, the future king of England.
Robert I of Flanders (c. 1035-1093)

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He married Sybilla, daughter of Siward Digera, Earl of Northumberland and Elfleda, circa 1030. He died on 14 August 1040 at Pitgaveny, Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland, killed by a blow from Macbeth.

He gained the title of King Duncan of Strathclyde in 1018. He succeeded to the title of King Duncan I of Scotland on 25 November 1034.

Donnchad mac Crínáin (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Crìonain;[2] anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick"; ca. 1001 - 14 August 1040) was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040. He was son of Crínán, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethóc, daughter of king Malcolm II of Scotland (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda).

Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his grandfather Malcolm as king after the latter's death on 25 November 1034, without apparent opposition. He may have been Malcolm's acknowledged successor or tánaise as the succession appears to have been uneventful. Earlier histories, following John of Fordun, supposed that Duncan had been king of Strathclyde in his grandfather's lifetime, between 1018 and 1034, ruling the former Kingdom of Strathclyde as an appanage. Modern historians discount this idea.

An earlier source, a variant of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba (CK-I), gives Duncan's wife the Gaelic name Suthen. Whatever his wife's name may have been, Duncan had at least two sons. The eldest, Malcolm III (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada) was king from 1057 to 1093, the second Donald III (Domnall Bán, or "Donalbane") was king afterwards. Máel Muire, Earl of Atholl is a possible third son of Duncan, although this is uncertain.

The early period of Duncan's reign was apparently uneventful, perhaps a consequence of his youth. Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláich) is recorded as his dux, literally duke, but in the context - "dukes of Francia" had half a century before replaced the Carolingian kings of the Franks and in England the over-mighty Godwin of Wessex was called a dux - this suggests that Macbeth was the power behind the throne.

In 1039, Duncan led a large Scots army south to besiege Durham, but the expedition ended in disaster. Duncan survived, but the following year he led an army north into Moray, traditionally seen as Macbeth's domain. There he was killed in action, at Bothganowan, now Pitgaveny, near Elgin, by his own men led by Macbeth, probably on 14 August 1040. He is thought to have been buried at Elgin before later relocated to the Isle of Iona.

Duncan married Sybilla Abt 1030. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

She was also known as Ælflæd.

Notes:

Edward the Exile (1016 - Late August 1057), also called Edward Ætheling, son of King Edmund Ironside and of Ealdgyth. After the Danish conquest of England in 1016 Canute had him and his brother, Edmund, exiled to the Continent. Edward was only a few months old when he and his brother were brought to the court of Olof Skötkonung, (who was either Canute's half-brother or stepbrother), with instructions to have the children murdered. Instead, the two boys were secretly sent to Kiev, where Olof's daughter Ingigerd was the Queen. Later Edward made his way to Hungary, probably in the retinue of Ingigerd's son-in-law, András in 1046, whom he supported in his successful bid for the Hungarian throne.

On hearing the news of his being alive, Edward the Confessor recalled him to England in 1056 and made him his heir. Edward offered the last chance of an undisputed succession within the Saxon royal house. News of Edward's existence came at a time when the old Anglo-Saxon Monarchy, restored after a long period of Danish domination, was heading for catastrophe. The Confessor, personally devout but politically weak, was unable to make an effective stand against the steady advance of the powerful and ambitious sons of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. From across the Channel William, Duke of Normandy also had an eye on the succession. Edward the Exile appeared at just the right time. Approved by both king and by the Witan, the Council of the Realm, he offered a way out of the impasse, a counter both to the Godwins and to William, and one with a legitimacy that could not be readily challenged.

Edward, who had been in the custody of Henry III, the Holy Roman Emperor, finally came back to England at the end of August 1057. But he died within two days of his arrival. The exact cause of Edward's death remains unclear, but he had many powerful enemies, and there is a strong possibility that he was murdered, although by whom is not known with any certainty. It is known, though, that his access to the king was blocked soon after his arrival in England for some unexplained reason, at a time when the Godwins, in the person of Harold Godwinson, were once again in the ascendant. This turn of events left the throne of England to be disputed by Earl Harold and Duke William, ultimately leading to the Norman Conquest of England.

Edward's wife was a woman named Agatha, whose origins are disputed. Their children were Edgar Ætheling, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Cristina. Edgar was nominated as heir apparent, but was too young to count for much, and was eventually swept aside by Harold Godwinson. Edward's grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

Edward — Agatha. Agatha was born Bef 1030; died Aft 1070. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Agatha (before ca. 1030 - after ca. 1070) was the wife of Edward the Exile (heir to the throne of England) and mother of Edgar Ætheling, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Cristina of England. Her antecedents are unclear and the subject of much speculation.

Life

Nothing is known of Agatha's early life, and what speculation has appeared is inextricably linked to the contentious issue of Agatha's paternity, one of the unresolved questions of medieval genealogy. As the birth of her children is speculatively placed at around the year 1045, her own birth was probably before about 1030. She came to England with her husband and children in 1057, but was widowed shortly after her arrival. Following the Norman conquest of England, in 1067 she fled with her children to Scotland, finding refuge under her future son-in-law Malcolm III. While one modern source indicates that she spent her last years as a nun at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dying before about 1093, Simeon of Durham carries what appears to be the last reference to her in 1070.