![]() William Rufus was not an entirely popular king and was often at odds with the church – particularly Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. Anglo-Saxon dominancy in England was over. He held 20% of the wealth in England, his Norman barons 50%, the Church 25%, and the old English nobility just 5%. Recording the population and ownership of every scrap of land in the country, the Domesday Book revealed that in the 20 years since the Norman invasion, William’s plan of conquest had been a triumph. In 1086, William sought to further confirm his power and wealth by drawing up the Domesday Book. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty.” This became known as the ‘harrying of the North’, of which medieval chronicler Orderic Vitalis wrote, “nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. William responded by burning every village from the Humber to the Tees to the ground, slaughtering their inhabitants and salting the earth so that widespread famine followed. In 1068 the North rebelled, slaughtering the Norman lord who William had instated as Earl of Northumberland. His rule was not without opposition however. To consolidate his rule, William set about building a vast legion of motte-and-bailey castles across the country, installing his closest Norman lords in positions of power, and reorganising the existing English society into a new tenurial system. Image Credit: British Library / Public domain William the Conqueror, British Library Cotton MS Claudius D. William won the now-infamous battle, becoming the new King of England. On 28 September 1066 he sailed across the English Channel and met Harold Godwinson, the most powerful claimant to the throne, at the Battle of Hastings. After the death of his father he became the powerful Duke of Normandy, and in 1066 William found himself as one of the 5 claimants to the English throne, upon the death of Edward the Confessor. ![]() William the Conquerorīorn in around 1028, William the Conqueror was the illegitimate child of Robert I, Duke of Normandy and Herleva, a woman at court said to have caught Robert’s heart, despite not being of noble blood. ![]() Over the course of their century-long reign, here are the 4 Norman kings who ruled England in order: 1. Rife with tension and dynastic uncertainty, rebellion raged, family imprisoned (or perhaps even killed) one another, and the country teetered on the edge of anarchy several times. Norman rule in England was not without its challenges, however. Headed by the mighty House of Normandy, this new dynasty of rulers ushered in the age of the motte-and-bailey castle, the feudal system, and the modern English language as we know it. When William the Conqueror crossed the Channel in 1066 with an army of 7,000 Normans, a new age of English history began. ![]()
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