Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors

by English Historical Fiction Authors

  Late Medieval Period (1001-1485)

  William Before He Was the Conqueror

  by Rosanne E. Lortz

  He was born William the Bastard, illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy, but history knows him as William the Conqueror, first Norman king of England and compiler of the Domesday Book. Many historians focus on the year 1066 and the legitimacy of William’s claim to the English crown. But how did an illegitimate boy across the Channel become powerful enough to make that claim in the first place? What did he accomplish before he invaded England? What did he win before the Battle of Hastings?

  France during the eleventh century was not a unified country as it was in the earlier Carolingian period or in the later Middle Ages. It was split up into lots of little areas, which I will call counties—not because they were anything like modern day counties, but because they were typically ruled by a count.

  Some of Normandy’s most important neighbors were Brittany, Maine, Flanders, Anjou, Blois, and Burgundy. And let us not forget the most important neighbor of all: the Isle of France, where the Capetian king Henry I had his court.

  The first duke of Normandy, Rollo the Viking, had sworn a reluctant fealty to the king of France (a very droll story that would take too long to tell here), but there is some question as to whether the duchy of Normandy, during William’s time, was still considered a vassal of the French king.

  When William’s father, Robert, died in 1035, on the return trip from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, his only son and heir was seven years old. Robert had never taken the trouble to marry Herleva, William’s mother, but he had also never taken the trouble to marry anyone else, so there were no legitimate sons to dispute William’s claim to the dukedom of Normandy.

  In the age of robber barons, a seven-year-old duke was hardly able to rule his demesne with the requisite strength of arm. William’s childhood was marked at times by fighting between his various guardians and, at other times, by outright anarchy. But through it all, the boy was learning, and when he came of age he took steps to teach not only Normandy but also the lands around him to fear and honor his iron sword and iron will.

  William of Poitiers (yes, we’re talking about a different William now) was a Norman chronicler who provides one of the most thorough pictures of Duke William’s early exploits. This chronicler was one of the duke’s biggest fans and also proposed his own version of the just war theory: whatever Duke William did was just fine.

  In 1043, when the duke was about fifteen years of age, his neighbor Geoffrey Martel, the Count of Anjou, was having a spat with another neighbor, the Count of Blois. In the process, the Count of Anjou accidentally captured Alençon, one of the Norman castles. William didn’t think it was an accident. He took back Alençon and chased off the Count of Anjou, making a bitter enemy in the process.

  Guy of Burgundy presented the next problem. Realizing that Normandy was quite a nice vacation spot, Guy began to subvert various Norman barons in an attempt to take over the dukedom. William got wise to the situation and marched out to fight Guy.

  This was the Battle of Val-es-Dunes in 1047. In this battle, William had the support of King Henry (who had not yet developed his later fear and hatred of the Norman duke), and with this help, William carried the day and defeated Guy.

  A couple of years after this, William formed a marriage alliance with the mighty Baldwin of Flanders by marrying his daughter Matilda. The county of Flanders was one of the more significant territories in France, and William’s connection with Baldwin increased both his power and his prestige.

  There are many interesting legends about William and his bride. Later sources record that when William asked for Matilda’s hand in marriage, she refused on the grounds of his illegitimacy. She was too high born to marry a bastard.

  Undeterred, William rode to her father’s domains, grabbed her by her braids, threw her to the floor, and beat her until she changed her mind. Whether the story is true or not, it indicates how William was perceived by posterity—a man who would stop at nothing in order to get his way.

  William of Arques was the next French nobleman to test William’s mettle. Unhappy with his feudal obligations to Normandy, Arques renounced his vassalship and began to pillage Norman territory. Incensed by these depredations, William drove the brigand back into his castle and besieged him until he was forced to surrender. With these actions William made it abundantly clear that vassals of Normandy were not allowed to renounce their obligations.

  At this point, King Henry decided William was getting too powerful and too cocksure. The chronicler from Poitiers writes thus:

  The king bore it ill and considered it an affront very greatly to be avenged, that while he had the [Holy] Roman emperor as a friend and ally…and while he presided over many powerful provinces of which lords and rulers commanded troops in his army, Count William was neither his friend nor his vassal, but his enemy; and that Normandy, which had been under the kings of the Franks from the earliest times, had now been raised almost to a kingdom. None of the more prominent counts, however great their aspirations, had dared anything of this sort.

  King Henry realized that he needed to put William in his place before it was too late. What he didn’t realize was that he had already delayed too long. Supported by Theobald of Blois, William of Aquitaine, and Geoffrey Martel of Anjou, King Henry attacked William in 1054 at the Battle of Mortemer. Even these combined powers could not crush the might of Normandy. William drove their armies from the field, taking many prisoners.

  With victory achieved, William showed how insolent he could be. In the middle of the night, he sent a herald to King Henry’s camp, instructing him to climb the tallest tree and there declaim in full detail the sad news of Henry’s defeat. It wasn’t the happiest thing for the king to wake up to.

  Because of this defeat, Henry was forced to make concessions to William. The chief concession was this: that William could do anything he wanted to Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou, without fear of reprisal from the king.

  Extremely pleased by this green light, William began to construct a castle in the region of Maine. This county was under the governance of Geoffrey of Maine, but (in the complicated web of feudal relationships) owed homage to Geoffrey Martel of Anjou. Maine sent Martel an urgent cry for help.

  Martel, joined by William of Aquitaine and Eudo of Brittany, began to attack the stonemasons at the castle site. William, who had been expecting some resistance, soon arrived with his formidable army and put the counts’ collective forces to flight. Then, in the words of the chronicler, William “turned his attack against Geoffrey of Mayenne [Maine]…and in a very short time he reduced him to the point of coming into the heart of Normandy, to put his conquered hands into William’s own, swearing the fealty which a vassal owes his lord.” In this way he stole the county of Maine from Anjou and extended the reach of Normandy.

  With one last burst of energy, King Henry gathered another army against William. (Geoffrey Martel, who didn’t know when to cry uncle, was part of it.) This led to the Battle of Varaville in August 1057. As you probably expected, William defeated Henry who “realized in consternation that it would be madness to attack Normandy further.”

  King Henry I died three years later, in August of 1060, and was soon accompanied into the afterlife by Geoffrey Martel of Anjou. Philip I assumed the throne in France, but by this time the lesson had been well learned: don’t mess with Normandy.

  When Edward the Confessor died in 1066, the Duke William of Normandy who laid claim to the throne of England was far more than some petty nobleman across the Channel. He was a man who had risen through the force of his will and his arm, maintained and increased the lands left to him by his father, and proven himself the equal (or superior?) of the King of France.

  The character that William displayed during his rise in Normandy would continue during his reign in England. His new subjects
found him a harsh master in many things, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that he was “severe beyond measure to those who withstood his will.” When he forbade hunting in the king’s forest, “the rich complained and the poor murmured, but he was so sturdy that he took no notice of them; they must will all that the king willed, if they would live, or keep their lands….”

  The Battle of Hastings may be the one that we remember William for, but it was all the battles before Hastings that paved the way for his victory. And while we call him the Conqueror for his exploits in England, the eleventh century counts and kings of France had good reason to call him by that name as well, a nickname born not from affection, but from the bitterness of the vanquished.

  Sources

  “Medieval Sourcebook: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Assessment of William I.” Fordham University. From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 1086, as it appears in F. A. Ogg, A Source Book of Medieval History (New York, 1907). http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/source/1186ASChron-William1.asp.

  William of Poitiers. The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers. Trans. Marjorie Chibnall. USA: Oxford University Press, 1998.

  Monarchy: William the Conqueror

  by Debra Brown

  Edward the Confessor had in his younger days fled to Normandy with his parents. He later, as king, put Norman friends in high places in England, and promised that his cousin, William, Duke of Normandy, would succeed him—according to William.

  Edward, though, changed his decision upon his deathbed, and he now left the throne to Harold Godwinson, who had no blood ties to the succession.

  William was having none of that, and he made plans to invade England. Winds did not permit the duke to sail across when he had first intended to do so, and he left later, but this turned out to be in his favor.

  Despite realizing that William was finally on his way, Harold II was forced to pull away from southern England to ward off an attack in the north by even more powerful forces, his own brother Tostig along with the King of Norway. When Harold II was asked by Tostig how much land he was prepared to yield to the King, he replied, “Six feet of ground or as much more as he needs, as he is taller than most men.”

  Harold successfully routed that attack at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

  Only three days later, the Normans landed at Pevensey the 28th of September, 1066. Harold headed south, obtained fresh troops in London, and set off to meet the advancing Duke.

  William had but seven thousand men to England’s two million. They met six miles north of Hastings. Though Harold II had the upper hand much of the day, when the ten-hour battle ended, he and his brothers lay dead. He was the last monarch of England to be defeated by a foreign invader. William went on to devastate a large circle of land to establish his authority and then swept into London to claim the throne.

  The Witanagemot had assembled and elected young Edgar the Ætheling, the grandnephew and rightful heir of the Confessor, king after the death of Harold Godwinson. Edgar was never crowned, however, and a group of nobles met the invading Duke of Normandy and handed over the Crown of England—as well as young Edgar. William took him in.

  Edgar lived to attempt the crown, but never gain it. He was still known to be alive in 1126.

  William had some ruling experience from his duchy in Normandy, and set about organizing England his way. He took estates away from English owners, kept much for himself, and gave some to his supporters from France.

  These nobles (who also had interests in France) built castles, following the lead of William with his start on the Tower of London, to protect themselves from the angry English.

  Over the next 600 years, this trend continued and some 2,000 castles appeared. The French barons divided their land into fiefs and handed them out to vassals who organized men under them, knights, for military service to the king.

  William was an administrative genius and commissioned a national survey of belongings—his Domesday Book records the possessions of all his subjects for taxation purposes. It was said that there was “not an ox, cow, or swine that was not set down in the writ”.

  William also took firm action against criminals, even castrating rapists. There was, therefore, less crime in the country under his rule. He introduced trial by jury. However, he was far from just.

  William was an avid deer hunter, and he cleared the New Forest of its buildings and inhabitants to create game reserves for himself. His forests came to cover a third of English land. Poachers were killed or mutilated.

  When rebellions reared he reacted firmly, even burning entire villages and their crops. Much of Northern England was devastated, its economy ruined for decades after a rebellion. In this way, he kept firm control.

  He spent much of his time in France, as did his new English knights and his English tax money. He was, after all, first and foremost, the Duke of Normandy.

  William was the illegitimate son of Norman Duke Robert I and a tanner’s daughter. Though he succeeded to his father’s duchy, he had grown up with the nickname William the Bastard. Perhaps this is why the great conqueror was such a faithful and devoted husband to Matilda of Flanders, by whom he had four sons and five daughters.

  The former English ruling class disappeared when William conquered England, and French speech and customs thereafter heavily influenced the English. French fashions, manners, art, and architecture made a permanent mark. He built great cathedrals, which were to give the impression that he was, indeed, ordained by God to rule England.

  William, a calculating and brutal invader, deemed his eldest son, Robert, too generous and easygoing, and while he left his Norman holdings to him, just before his death he willed the rule of rebellious England to his second son, William Rufus. He then died a day after having been thrown from his horse, who had stepped on hot coals following William’s capture of the French town of Nantes.

  His body was looted by those who had been taking care of him, and he was left nearly naked. His corpse broke in half as it was being forced into a too-small coffin.

  He was buried in Caen. In time, his body was dug up and parts of it taken, but a thigh-bone remained to be reburied in dignity. Even this bone was disinterred and stolen during the French Revolution. The long-missed thigh-bone was found, however, and confirmed to be authentic in the 1980s, and it was finally laid to rest under a new tombstone.

  Christmas 1065

  by Carol McGrath

  Christmas 1065 was one of the most significant Christmases in England’s history. Thanes and their families, bishops and two Archbishops gathered in Westminster for the king’s Christmas feast and for the consecration of the newly built Cathedral Church of St. Peter (Westminster), close to the king’s palace on Thorny Island.

  However, during the twelve days of Christmas, the childless King Edward died, setting in motion a not unexpected succession crisis.

  The day after King Edward’s death, Harold Godwinson was crowned king, thus leading to invasions of England from two usurping contenders, William of Normandy and Harold Harthrada of Norway.

  The story of that Christmas is recorded in both Norman and English writing from the period. William of Poitiers, a Norman historian, refers to Harold Godwinson as “a mad Englishman who seized the throne of England while his people were in mourning for Edward the Confessor.” This is, of course, opinionated. Such comments as that of Poitiers are part of the Norman justification for the invasion of England. Whilst historians may not invent incidents, they do not necessarily tell the truth but rather a version of it.

  Yet the story of King Edward’s death varies little within the main contemporary sources.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains a poem which speaks of the dying king’s visions. He envisioned a green tree, with the prophecy that within a year and a day of his death God would punish the kingdom for its sins by delivering it into the hands of its enemy, th
at devils would go through the land with fire and sword and the chaos of war. The vision is repeated in another contemporary source, the Vita Edwardi, commissioned by the royal widow, Queen Edith.

  The anonymous author reports Edward’s last words to those around him. The king said to Edith, his wife and Harold’s sister, “May God be gracious to this wife for the zealous solicitude of her service; for certainly she has served me devotedly and always stood by my side like a loving daughter.” He commended her into Harold’s protection and also commended to Harold all his servants. It is not a straightforward nomination by Edward of Harold as his heir because it really concerns his direct court of Edith and those close to the king.

  The Bayeux Tapestry seems to illustrate the Vita’s text. In the presence of an Archbishop, a second man helps the king to sit up in bed and a woman is weeping at his feet. Edward appears to stretch out his right hand so as to touch a third man’s right hand. Fingers are fully extended but only the tips of the fingers are in contact. They do not clasp hands. The meaning is ambiguous. However, at that time, a dying king’s wish was sacrosanct.

  The death of King Edward is the pivotal scene in the Tapestry. In the eleventh century, artists, historians, and writers used older traditions to tell events. The poetically beautiful Song of the Battle of Hastings of 1068, written for Queen Matilda’s coronation, harks back to Carolingian praise poetry. William of Poitiers was deeply influenced by classical literature and depicts Duke William as a latter-day Julius Caesar.

  The visual context for the Bayeux Tapestry existed somewhere between liturgical drama of the eleventh century performed in minsters and vernacular plays of the twelfth century performed at court.