William II the Good 7471050 or 1051 he had married Matilda (d. 1083), the
daughter of Count Baldwin V of FLANDERS (d. 1167).
They had five daughters and four sons, including Robert
Curthose (d. 1134), the later duke of Normany, and the
English monarchs WILLIAMII RUFUSand HENRYI.
With his duchy secure, William turned his attention to
ENGLANDat the death of EDWARD THECONFESSORin 1066.
Duke William disputed the coronation HAROLDII GOD-
WINESONas the new king since he claimed that in 1051
King Edward had promised the throne of England to him.
Harold had admitted this during a strange visit to Nor-
mandy in 1064. William invaded England; won the Battle
of HASTINGS, where Harold was killed, and was crowned
king in WESTMINSTERABBEYon Christmas Day 1066.
After years of warfare, William finally crushed the
resistance of the Anglo-Saxon nobility in 1075. To control
the resources necessary to rule his new highly centralized
kingdom, he had an inventory of property carried out,
the DOMESDAYBOOKof the 1080s. To intimate the ANGLO-
SAXONS, he had harshly suppressed any rebellions that
broke out and built impressive CASTLESall over England.
With the help of ANSELM, the archbishop of CANTERBURY,
he reformed the church in England, making it more
amenable to royal control and replacing the Anglo-Saxon
hierarchy with Normans. Injured in a riding accident,
William died at Rouen on September 9, 1087. His eldest
son, Robert, succeeded him in Normandy, while William
King Ferdinand II of Aragon
See alsoBAYEUXTAPESTRY;ODO;LANFRANC OFBEC.
Further reading:Wido, Bishop of Amiens, The Car-
men de Hastingae Proelio of Guy, Bishop of Amiens,ed. and
trans. Frank Barlow, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1999); David Bates, Normandy before 1066 (London:
Longman, 1982); David Bates, William the Conqueror
(London: G. Philip. 1989); David C. Douglas, William the
Conqueror: The Norman Impact upon England(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1964).
William I the Lion (1143–1214)king of Scotland
Born in 1143, William became king in 1165 on the death
of his elder brother, Malcolm IV (r. 1153–65). To an
attempt remain independent of ENGLAND, he entered into
an alliance with Louis VII (ca. 1120–80) of FRANCEin
1168 and interfered in a filial revolt against HENRYII of
England in 1173. He was taken prisoner near Alnwick in
1174, but he gained his release by consenting to the
Treaty of Falaise in which he accepted English
sovereignty over SCOTLANDand the Scottish church. In
1198 the needy RICHARDI LIONHEARTsurrendered his
claims over Scotland in exchange for a payment of 10,000
marks. After the accession of King JOHN, the English
sought control of Scotland, and war almost occurred in
1199 and again in 1209. However, both times peace was
preserved by negotiations and the acceptance of a limited
English suzerainty. In 1188 a papal bull secured from
Celestine III (r. 1191–98) freed the Scottish church from
the claims of an English archbishop. William had to
assert his authority over the independent chieftains of
outlying regions of his kingdom frequently. He died on
December 4, 1214, at Stirling in Scotland.
Further reading:A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The
Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd,
1975); D. D. R. Owen, William the Lion, 1143–1214: King-
ship and Culture(East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell, 1997).William II Rufus(ca. 1057–1100)duke of Normandy,
Norman king of England
William was born about 1057 as a younger son of WILLIAM
I the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders (d. 1083). He was
called Rufus because of his ruddy complexion. In 1087 at
the death of William I, the eldest son, Robert Curthose (d.
1134), succeeded to the duchy of NORMANDYand then
seized the kingdom of ENGLAND. In 1096, Robert pawned
the duchy to William for 10,000 marks in order to join the
First Crusade. William’s reign was marred by his conflict
with ANSELMof Bec of Canterbury, whom he had rashly,
when Anselm was on his presumed deathbed, appointed
the archbishop of CANTERBURYin 1093 and quickly sought
to depose in 1095. He was a competent and successful sol-
dier in SCOTLANDin defense of his domains in France, but
was viewed in England as a grim and brutal monarch and
was frequently assailed by baronial rebellions. William
was, however, a generally effective ruler, whose unsavory
reputation was probably inflated in the sources because of
his taxation of clerical property; the history of his reign
was written by disgruntled clerics. He was killed, struck by
an arrow, while hunting in New Forest on August 2, 1100,
with the issues of control of Normandy and Anselm’s
tenure at Canterbury still unresolved. There were strong
rumors that this was a murder arranged by William’s
younger brother and successor, HENRY I. William was
unceremoniously buried under a tower at Winchester
without the benefit of a Christian burial. The tower’s later
collapse was taken as a sign of God’s disapproval of the
clerical taxation policies of William.
See alsoODO,BISHOP OFBAYEAUX.
Further reading:Eadmer, Eadmer’s History of Recent
Events in England: Historia novorum in Anglia,trans. Geof-
frey Bosanquet, with a foreword by R. W. Southern (Lon-
don: Cresset Press, 1964); Frank Barlow, William Rufus
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); E. A.
Freeman, The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of
Henry the First,2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882);
Duncan William Grinnell-Milne, The Killing of William
Rufus: An Investigation in the New Forest(New York: A. M.
Kelley, 1968).William II the Good (1154–1189)the last Norman
king of Sicily
Born the son of WILLIAMI of SICILY, William II ascended
the throne in 1166 at about age 12, under the regency of
his mother, Margaret of NAVARRE. His chief minister, a