William to start aggressive operations on his southern
border, capturing the frontier fortresses of Domfront
and Alençon in 1051/52. This in turn brought him into
confl ict with the overlord of Maine, Count Geoffrey
Martel of Anjou, and with his erstwhile ally King Henry,
and was also followed by renewed revolt in Normandy
by a hitherto loyal supporter, his uncle Count William
of Arques. The Duke’s position was saved by his own
military prowess and activity, and smashing defeats
were infl icted on French armies at Mortemer in 1054
and Varaville in 1057. The latter marked the end of the
young duke’s struggle for survival.
From 1062 onward William’s chief concern seems
to have been the acquisition of the county of Maine,
after the death of the childless Count Herbert II. He was
aided in this by the fact that the new king of France,
Philip I, was a minor, while Anjou was weakened by
a succession struggle between the sons of Geoffrey
Martel. By 1065 William had placed a garrison in Le
Mans, installed a Norman bishop, secured the fealty
of the leading nobles of the county, and had his eldest
son, Robert, recognized as count. But his hold over
Maine was never fully consolidated and was to remain
a problem for the rest of his life.
In 1051 the childless king of England, Edward the
Confessor, had designated William, his cousin, as his
successor. One source suggests that the duke visited
England in 1051. This seems unlikely, given how dif-
fi cult his position was in Normandy at that time; prob-
ably Archbishop Robert of Canterbury (a Norman) had
acted as intermediary while on his way to Rome in that
summer. Whether Edward persisted in his intention of
having William as his heir also seems doubtful; he may
have changed his mind several times. William’s chance
of securing the succession was much enhanced when
his potential rival, Harold of Wessex, Edward’s brother-
in-law, visited Normandy in 1064 or 1065 and was
persuaded or forced to swear fealty to the duke and to
support his claim. Many details remain obscure; we can-
not be certain why Harold went to Normandy, whether
Edward sent him or not, or even the date of his visit.
Nor did it have any immediate effect on the English
succession. When Edward died on 5 January 1066
Harold succeeded him. The designation of 1051 and
Harold’s oath had given William a casus belli, and he
used them to orchestrate a propaganda campaign to
secure recruits from all over France and to gain papal
support. The invasion was launched, after some delays,
at the end of September 1066, and on 14 October the
Norman and English armies met a few miles north of
Hastings. After a desperate struggle the English were
defeated and Harold killed. Within two months the
surviving English magnates and the church leaders had
surrendered, and William was crowned king of England
in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066.
This merely marked the start of the conquest of
England. To begin with William sought to emphasize
the continuity of his rule with that of Edward, and to
use Englishmen in his government. His fi rst earl of
Northumbria, Copsi, was an Englishman, and even
Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury, whose appointment
had been canonically dubious and who was regarded
with disapproval by the papacy, was retained until- But widespread rebellion, in the west and north
in 1068, and more seriously in the north and in the fen
country of East Anglia in 1069 and 1070¾the latter
with Danish support—led to a major change in policy
and the widespread replacement of English landowners
by Frenchmen. The king was under obvious pressure
to satisfy what Orderic Vitalis called “his envious and
greedy Norman followers.” So serious was the revolt of
1069 that William resorted to the harshest of measures
to quell it, devastating much of Yorkshire to prevent
further rebellion and thereby condemning many of the
inhabitants to death by starvation. Inured as they were
to violence, contemporary chroniclers were shocked by
the barbarity of his actions.
But this drastic treatment worked. The last bastion of
English resistance, the Isle of Ely, surrendered in 1071.
Thereafter William’s rule in England was not seriously
threatened. There was admittedly another rebellion in
1075, led by the Norman earl Roger of Hereford and
the Breton earl Ralph of Norfolk, but this was crushed
by William’s subordinates, under the direction of Arch-
bishop Lanfranc, while the king remained in Normandy.
Indeed, in his later years, William was largely an absen-
tee ruler, not visiting the country at all between 1076
and 1080 and spending eleven of his last fi fteen years in
Normandy. In his absence England was ruled largely by
his half-brother Odo of Bayeux (until his disgrace and
imprisonment in 1082) and Lanfranc. Queen Matilda
played a similarly crucial role in Normandy until her
death in 1083.
After 1070 renewed problems on the Norman fron-
tiers helped to keep William in the duchy. The king suf-
fered the only serious military setback of his life at Dol
on the Breton border in September 1076. Relations with
the king of France, Philip, deteriorated. Maine became
restive under Norman rule. And worst of all, the king’s
son Robert Curthose rebelled, probably in the spring
of 1078. There was an indecisive battle at Gerberoi in
eastern Normandy in January 1079, in which William
was slightly wounded. Although there was a temporary
reconciliation early in 1080, relations remained diffi cult
and Robert went into exile again in 1084. The root of
the problem seems to have been Robert’s wish to have
an independent role in Normandy, of which he had been
designated as duke before Hastings, and William’s de-
termination to keep his son fi rmly under supervision.
William’s last visit to England came in 1085–86, to
WILLIAM I