William the Conqueror
William of Normandy took England in a single day's fighting in 1066 and spent the rest of his life holding it. He was the illegitimate son of Duke Robert by a tanner's daughter, succeeded at about eight in 1035, and survived a minority in which several of his guardians were murdered — one in the room where he slept. He had established control of Normandy by the 1050s and was among the most formidable soldiers in Europe. His claim to England rested on a promise he said Edward the Confessor had made him and an oath he said Harold Godwinson had sworn over relics, and he took the precaution of obtaining a papal banner. The invasion was a considerable operation: some 700 ships built in a season, horses shipped across the Channel, and a landing at Pevensey in September while Harold was in Yorkshire destroying a Norwegian invasion. Hastings lasted most of a day and was decided by feigned retreats that drew the English shield wall off its ridge. What followed was a conquest rather than a change of dynasty. The English aristocracy was replaced almost entirely within twenty years, some 500 castles were built, and the Harrying of the North in 1069 and 1070 destroyed Yorkshire so thoroughly that the Domesday survey found much of it waste seventeen years later. Domesday itself, compiled in 1086, is the most complete record any European government made for centuries. He died in 1087 after a horse threw him against his saddle pommel. The funeral is the detail that has survived. His body had swollen and would not fit the stone coffin at Caen, and burst when the attendants forced it, emptying the church. A local man interrupted the service to claim that the ground had been stolen from his family and had to be paid off.
- Lived: 1028 CE – 1087 CE
- Nationality: Norman
- Roles: leader, military_leader
