The Norman England

Why “Norman”?

William 1st The Conqueror (1066-1087) , the one that started conquering England in 1066, was also a Norman Duke. He was not a Saxon  but a Viking related to Rollo the first Viking to settle in France. He was known as William The Bastard until he conquered all of England.

William was indeed a “bastard” in that his father and mother never married. His father “Robert The Devil”, Duke of Normandy spotted his mother Arlette, a teenager (15 years old), while she was washing herself in a local stream and her youthful, semi naked, body provided the stimulus for an immediate union and 9 months later William was born.

How did it all start?

The Norman Duke, William ,was friendly with the English King, Edward the Confessor and attacked England on Edwards death ( in 1066) because he had been promised the English crown by Edward but denied it by the Saxon usurper Harold.

What happend then?

The Normans were militarily three centuries ahead of Anglo Saxon England through the massive use of horses (cavalry) and archers against England’s infantry with old fashioned swords, battle axes and spears.  Due to this, they truly had the advantage. In 1066 when William 1st  became King of England he inherited the best run and civilised state in Europe, (Forgetting Byzantium).  William’s lands in France needed continuous defence from the French King and in England he had to quell Saxon reprisals for six years and regular incursions by the still barbaric illiterate Welsh and Scottish war lords. The English King now ruled simultaneously in both England and part of France which set the scene for regular land battles over territory in France for the next 500 years.

To enable him to run both territories William ruled England by replacing the old Saxon Earls with Norman French speaking Barons and the Archbishop of Canterbury and all other senior clergy with French speakers from Norman churches. This involved the building of castles and huge churches all over the country. The local Anglo-Saxon population was duly suppressed being intimidated by these huge new buildings. (The Normans were the best stone masons and architects in Europe.) Indeed the Normans were the best military in the whole of Europe demonstrated by the Battle of Hastings (The battle against Harold for the English throne) where Harold was fighting mainly with swords and spears and William with a huge horse mounted division (Cavalry) and disciplined archers with powerful bows. This military superiority enabled him to enlarge his English territories by push back the Welsh and the Scots. Something the Romans had never achieved. The Normans only brought 4000 people into England, probably ten times fewer than the Angles and Saxons and they never integrated hence the genetic English remained as did the local language (vernacular).

William was used to running a country using the “Feudal System” which involved the King owning everything (land, animals and buildings) and everybody else renting it from him. In practise this meant he rented everything to his Barons in return for them providing him with an army when required. In turn the Barons leased out the land given to them (leased from the King) to local farmers and millers etc.

To find out exactly what rent he could charge William had to do an inventory of the country which was completed in 1085 and published in The Doomsday Book. The population of people and pigs and mills and houses in 1085 is listed in this book for anybody to read today.

We have seen that William was a builder of Castles. Two of his best known being the Tower of London (originally of wood for speed of erection) and Windsor Castle.

William died while fighting the King of France in 1087 and his body is buried in the cathedral of Caen in Normandy. He had previously organised  that England should be ruled by his son William Rufus and Normandy by his eldest son Robert. 

William 2nd or William Rufus. (1087-1100)

When Rufus became King of England his elder brother Robert ruled Normandy. The English church and English people wanted Robert as king as Rufus was seen to have a ruthless  temperament and the Church did not like his promiscuous homosexual lifestyle.  Nevertheless he consolidated and expanded the boundaries of England into Wales and when the Scottish King Malcolm 3rd  invaded he beat back the Scottish army so decisively that not only did he take back the north western area known as Cumberland but also forced Malcolm to pay homage to him. (Homage in feudal law means to acknowledge as the superior and to pay out some peace money.)

William’s first battle had been in Normandy against his elder brother Robert which ended in a truce when it was agreed that who ever lived the longest would rule the vacant territory. It never come to this because Robert being a religious man was determined to join the First Crusade and to raise money he pledged (pawned) Normandy to William for 10,000 Marks.

William Rufus died out hunting in the New Forest in mysterious circumstances with an arrow in his back. No one knows if it was deliberate or an accident but what is known is that Rufus was very unpopular and that his hunting party disappeared never reporting the “accident” and left the body of the king to be discovered by a Mr Purkiss a local farmer.

Being a homosexual William Rufus left no children.  

Henry 1st (1100-1135)

Henry was decisive and quick to act throughout his 35 year reign as is demonstrated by him seizing the English throne from his elder brother Robert who was absent Crusading. He ended up ruler of both England and Normandy with peace pacts with the King of France and the Duke of Flanders. His succession plans were cruelly dashed when, returning from celebrating his deal with the French King, his only two living legitimate sons were drowned off the coast of Normandy in the “White Ship”. England was plunged into civil war as the country was divided over his plans for his daughter Matilda to take the throne as the first ever Queen of England.

He filled the vacant positions in the Church which Rufus had not bothered to do. Notably he brought back Archbishop Anselm who had fled from Rufus.

He made concessions to the Barons for example removing taxes from those who supplied him with Knights.

To please the populous he restored the laws made by Edward the Confessor.

English territorial boundaries remained stable. 

Robert, finally of course turned up to claim the throne of England, elated from his very successful Crusade where he had been offered the Kingship of Jerusalem. The two armies faced each other at Alton Hampshire but with Henry’s diplomatic skills, instead of fighting, the brothers embraced and a treaty was signed giving him 3000 marks a year to relinquish his claim to the English throne.

This friendship did not last and Henry was forced to fight his brother in Normandy. Henry captured Robert and claimed the Dukedom of Normandy.

What happened to Robert who could have been as powerful as his father, the Conqueror, and was offered but did not accept the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Henry kept him in captivity in various castles in England and Wales, (Cardiff Castle) where he died just before his younger brother Henry. 

His daughter Matilda married a great noble from France, Geoffrey Plantagenet but before Henry died, he had had an argument with Geoffrey husband so the succession was questionable as there was also a nephew of Henry capable of taking the kingship.

Stephen of Blois (1135-1154)

Stephen by general agreement is the worst King England ever had. He had no right to the throne which both Stephen and the Barons had agreed with King Henry should go to his only surviving legitimate child, his daughter Matilda. 

Matilda was a snob and an Empress being married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry 5th. The rivalry between Stephen and Matilda plunged England into civil war. Matilda nominally ruled England for a few months in 1141 but the flamboyant but useless Stephen got the support of the Barons and Matilda eventually retired in Germany. They decided that after his death,Her son Henry would inherit the throne.