he dared not dispose, and that, as in the matter
of that “last quarter of an hour” at Hastings, God
must decide—which meant in effect the Priest
upon whose wisdom and authority he had so
long and profoundly relied, the great Lanfranc,
still towering above all contemporaries there at
Canterbury, in his eightieth year.William’s son, William Rufus, succeeded him as King
William II.
Dead more than a millennium, William the Con-
queror has nonetheless shaped English history, through
his defeat of the ruling family of England and the com-
position of the Domesday books. The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles, one of the Middle Age’s most important
literary documents, states of William: “He was a very
wise man, and very powerful and more worshipful and
stronger than any previous king had been. He was gentle
to the good men who loved God, [but] stern beyond all
measure to those who resisted his will. The good security
he made in this country is not easily to be forgotten, so
that any honest man could travel over his kingdom [in
safety] with a bosom full of gold.” Historian James Har-
vey Robinson, in a 1904 work, utilizes a contemporary
document to demonstrate William’s character: “King
William, about whom we speak, was a very wise man,
and very powerful, more dignified and strong than any
of his predecessors were. He was mild to the good men
who loved God, and beyond all measure severe to the
men who gainsaid his will.... He was also very digni-
fied; thrice every year he wore his crown, as oft as he
was in England. At Easter he wore it in Winchester; at
Pentecost, in Westminster; at Midwinter, in Gloucester.
And then were with him all the great men over all En-
gland, archbishops and suffragan bishops, abbots and
earls, thanes and knights.”
References: Henderson, Andrew, The Life of William the
Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, and King of England (Lon-
don: Printed for the Author, 1764); Hayward, Sir John,
The Lives of the III Normans, Kings of England: William the
first, William the seconde, Henrie the first (London, 1613);
Clarke, Samuel, The Life & Death of William, Surnamed
the Conqueror: King of England, and Duke of Normandy.
Who dyed Anno Christi, 1087 (London: Printed for Simon
Miller, 1671); Tyerman, Christopher, “William I,” in
Who’s Who in Early Medieval England, 1066–1272 (Me-
chanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1996), 2; Tait, James,
“An Alleged Charter of William the Conqueror,” in Essays
in History Presented to Reginald Lane Poole, edited by H.
W. C. David (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927); 151–167;
Belloc, Hilaire, William the Conqueror (London: Peter
Davies Limited, 1933); Robinson, James Harvey, ed.,
Readings in European History, 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn,
1904), 1:229–231.Wolfe, James (1727–1759) British general
Born on 2 January 1727 at Westerham, Kent, James
Wolfe came from a distinguished family: His grandfa-
ther, Edward Wolfe, served in the English army under
William III, Anne, and George I, attaining the rank of
major; and his father Edward served with distinction
under John churchill, duke of Marlborough, seeing
action at Flanders. Wolfe himself entered the service of
the British army in 1740, when he was 14, and he saw
action in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–47)
in Flanders, Belgium, and Germany. He also took part
in the campaign against the pretender to the English
throne, Charles Edward Stuart, in Scotland in 1745.
In 1757, Wolfe was appointed quartermaster gen-
eral of English forces in Ireland. The following year, Sec-
retary of State William Pitt named Wolfe, then just 30
years old, as second in command of English forces in
North America under the command of Major General
Jeffrey amherst. He was put in charge of a brigade of
soldiers sent to fight and capture the French garrison
at Louisbourg, now in the Canadian province of Nova
Scotia. Wolfe’s experienced and skilled command during
the clash, which led to the capture of the fortress, earned
him a promotion to the rank of major general on his
return to England and, ultimately, the task of taking the
French stronghold of Québec, Canada.
In June 1759, Wolfe and his forces, some 9,000
strong, sailed up the St. Lawrence River and set up their
encampment in the hills above the city. Wolfe waited for
an expected French attack, but it never came, so he de-
cided to attack on his own, launching his assault on 31
July. The attack was repulsed, and Wolfe retreated back
to his original position to await a more advantageous
time for another offensive. This came on 12 September,
when he secretly moved some 5,000 forces downstream
of the St. Lawrence to a point southwest of Québec.
The British troops scaled a high cliff to reach a position
above the French. The following morning, the surprised
French, led by Louis-Joseph de montcalm, came outwolFe, JAmeS