William (I) the Conqueror

King of England from 25 December 1066. He was the illegitimate son of Duke Robert the Devil whom he succeeded as Duke of Normandy in 1035. Claiming that his relative King Edward the Confessor had bequeathed him the English throne, William invaded England in 1066, defeating Harold (II) Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings) on 14 October 1066, and was crowned king of England.

William's coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. During the Norman Conquest of England, he secured control of the country by ruthlessly crushing any rebellion and the construction of 50 castles by 1087. He completed the establishment of the feudal system in England, compiling detailed records of land and property in the Domesday Book (1086), and kept the barons firmly under control. A key aspect of his policy was to gain the support of the medieval church through his archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc. He died in Rouen after a fall from his horse and is buried in Caen, France. He was succeeded by his son William II.

After his death, one Norman monk wrote that William ‘excelled in wisdom all the princes of his generation’ and claimed that ‘he was undaunted by danger’. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described him as a ‘man of great wisdom and power, who surpassed in honour and strength all those who had gone before him’. It also, however, complained that William was ‘a hard man...sunk in greed’, who oppressed the people with castles and taxes, ‘but was too relentless to care though all might hate him’.