William I:

Upon hearing that Harold had been crowned (1066) king of England, William secured the sanction of the pope, raised an army and transport fleet, sailed for England, and defeated and slew Harold at the battle of Hastings (1066). Overcoming what little resistance remained in SE England, he led his army to London, received the city's submission, and was crowned king on Christmas Day.

Although William immediately began to build and garrison castles around the country, he apparently hoped to maintain continuity of rule; many of the English nobility had fallen at Hastings, but most of those who survived were permitted to keep their lands for the time being. The English, however, did not so readily accept him as their king.

A series of rebellions broke out, and William suppressed them harshly, ravaging great sections of the country. Titles to the lands of the now decimated native nobility were called in and redistributed on a strictly feudal basis (see feudalism), to the king's Norman followers. By 1072 the adherents of Edgar Atheling and their Scottish and Danish allies had been defeated and the military part of the Norman Conquest virtually completed. In the only major rebellion that came thereafter (1075), the chief rebels were Normans.

William undertook church reform, appointed Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury, substituted foreign prelates for many of the English bishops, took command over the administration of church affairs, and established (1076) separate ecclesiastical courts. In 1085–86 at his orders a survey of England was taken, the results of which were embodied in the Domesday Book. By the Oath of Salisbury in 1086, William established the important precedent that loyalty to the king is superior to loyalty to any subordinate feudal lord of the kingdom. William fought with his factious son Robert II, duke of Normandy, in 1079 and quarreled intermittently with France from 1080 until his death. He invaded the French Vexin in 1087, was fatally injured in a riding accident, and died at Rouen, directing that his son Robert should succeed him in Normandy and his son William (William II) in England.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Duke of Normandy
• King of England
• Bibliography

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