Was William of Normandy a ruthless invader who stole England’s crown, or was he a man shaped from childhood to believe that if you wanted to keep what was yours, you had to fight for it?
Over the past few posts, we have been looking at the men caught up in the struggle for the English crown in 1066. We have followed Harold Godwinson, the man who actually became King of England, and Tostig, Harold’s own brother, who returned with an invading army.
Now it is time to look at the man most of us immediately associate with 1066: William, Duke of Normandy.
Today I want to look at William before he became “the Conqueror”. He was a child surrounded by violence, rebellion and men who were quite prepared to kill one another for power.
William was born at Falaise in Normandy, probably in 1027 or 1028. His father was Robert I, Duke of Normandy, while his mother, Herleva, was not Robert’s wife, meaning William was illegitimate.
That mattered a lot in the 11th century, and his enemies would later use it against him. He may have been the acknowledged son of a duke, but that did not mean every Norman noble believed he had the right to rule them.
Then, while William was still only a child, everything changed.
In 1035, his father left Normandy on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem after arranging for William to be recognised as his heir. Robert never returned. He died on the journey home, leaving William, at around only seven or eight years old, as Duke of Normandy.
It is difficult to imagine how vulnerable that made him. William held an important title, but he was still a child and had to rely on the adults around him to protect both his position and his life.
Normandy descended into years of instability as rival nobles fought for influence, and several of the men responsible for protecting William were killed. One guardian, Gilbert of Brionne, was assassinated, while another protector, Turold, was also murdered. Later accounts even describe William being moved secretly at night for his own safety.
Some details may have been influenced by later writers, but the wider picture is clear. William grew up in a world where loyalty could disappear very quickly and where powerful men could be killed because somebody else wanted what they had.
I think this gives us a rather different way of looking at the man he eventually became.
We often describe medieval rulers as ruthless without thinking very much about how they became that way. William learned extraordinarily young that a title did not guarantee safety. Family connections did not guarantee loyalty. Promises could be broken, and inheritance meant little if somebody stronger was willing to take it from you.
Power had to be defended.
By his teenage years, William was beginning to take greater control of Normandy, although opposition to him continued. In 1047, a major rebellion broke out against his rule.
With the support of King Henry I of France, William defeated the rebels at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes. The vulnerable child duke was gradually becoming a ruler his enemies could no longer easily remove.
Over the following years, William strengthened his authority, defeated rivals and increased his power. He married Matilda of Flanders, connecting himself to one of the most important families in northern Europe.
By the 1060s, the boy who had once depended on others to keep him alive had become one of the most formidable rulers in France.
And then England entered the story.
William later claimed that Edward the Confessor had promised him the English throne. He also claimed that Harold Godwinson had sworn an oath supporting William’s succession after Harold travelled to the Continent.
Exactly what was promised, and what Harold believed he was agreeing to, has been argued over ever since.
What we do know is that Edward died on the 5th of January 1066, and William did not become King of England.
Harold did.
Harold Godwinson was crowned on the 6th of January. To his supporters, there were strong reasons for accepting him. Harold was one of the most powerful men in England, Edward may have nominated him before his death, and the leading men of the kingdom accepted him as king.
But imagine the news reaching William in Normandy.
If William genuinely believed that Edward had promised him England, and that Harold himself had sworn to support his claim, then Harold’s coronation was not just a political disappointment. William may have seen it as a betrayal and, perhaps more importantly, as another moment in his life when somebody appeared to be taking something he believed belonged to him.
This is where his childhood becomes particularly interesting to me.
A man who had spent his earliest years watching rivals challenge his inheritance was now being told that another man had taken the crown he believed had been promised to him.
William responded in the way his life had taught him to respond. He prepared to fight.
But preparing an invasion of England was very different from crushing a rebellion in Normandy. William would need ships, men, money, allies and, perhaps most importantly, a convincing reason why thousands of men should risk their lives for his claim to another kingdom.
In my next Medieval post, I’ll continue William’s story and look at how he turned a disputed claim to the English throne into one of the most famous invasions in history.
But after looking at his childhood, I’m interested to know what you think. Do you think William’s ruthless determination in 1066 was partly shaped by growing up surrounded by violence and threats to his own inheritance- or does that risk making excuses for a man who chose to invade England?
Image info:
Later engraved portrait of William the Conqueror, crowned and holding a sword. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
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