Harold Haardraade, king of Norway, landed on the east coast, only to be defeated and slain at Stamford Bridge on September 25; three days later, however, William, duke of Normandy, who was directly descended from Rollo, the Scandinavian viking, landed at Pevensey, on the English Channel. On October 14 Harold was killed by a chance arrow at the decisive Battle of Hastings, where the Saxon army, which had hastened southward from its victory at Stamford Bridge, was overwhelmed by the superior organization and equipment of William's feudal forces. William the Conqueror marched on London, and on Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey. For five years his sovereignty was disputed.

The Saxon claimant to the throne was Edgar Aetheling, grandson of King Edmund Ironside, whose sister, Margaret, was married to Malcolm III of Scotland. From that asylum Edgar joined with Morcar, earl of Northumbria, and other nobles, in a desperate resistance to the Norman aggression. In 1069 the Danes joined the insurrection by sending their fleet to the Humber, but William bought off these intruders. He recaptured York and proceeded to lay waste the disaffected region from the Humber to the Tees. Morcar joined Hereward the Wake, and when the latter's last stand against the Normans ended on the Isle of Ely in 1071 Williams's rule was finally established in England.

The Norman Conquest was methodical and ruthless. Lands owned by supporters of the old English monarchy were held forfeit to William I, who bestowed them as military rewards on his nobles, so creating an aristocracy that, renewed and transformed from generation to generation, continues to this day. The country was surveyed and rights to property were inscribed in Domesday Book, landholders swearing allegiance to William. Creation of the New Forest, in Hampshire, for hunting brought the king much odium. Upper and lower classes were differentiated by language. Livestock retained English names, but cooked meat appeared on the table in Norman French phraseology. Thus, ox was served as beef; sheep, as mutton; calf, as veal. Power was enforced through massive donjons, of which the "white keep" in the Tower of London remains an impressive example.

The church was active as an ally of the state. Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury under the English kings, was deposed and imprisoned. The Italian, Lanfranc, was brought over from Normandy as his successor, and European civilization poured into the English social system. Whether in peace or war, England and Normandy were associated, and in 1087 William died fighting France, being buried with his queen, Matilda, at Caen.

William Rufus. In following the sequel to the Norman Conquest two factors have to be borne in mind. Firstly, the succession of sovereigns was seldom direct, that is, from father to eldest son. Secondly, the irregularity of the succession made the kings dependent on popular support and thus advanced the freedom of even the conquered English. Within autocracy a nation was thus developing; and further, the kings relied increasingly on the cities, especially London, for means whereby the nobles could be restrained.

William the Conqueror left behind him three sons. To the eldest, the irresolute Robert, he left Normandy. The second son, William Rufus, hurried to London with his father's ring where, assisted by Lanfranc, he was accepted as king. Led by Odo, bishop of Bayeux, the Conqueror's half brother, Norman barons challenged the succession but the English, still the main body of the nation, supported the crown against the insurgents. William II wished to control Normandy as well as England, and in 1096 Robert pledged the duchy to him for funds with which to join in the First Crusade. Financially this reign was oppressive, the instrument of royal extortion being Rannulf Flambard. The king delayed ecclesiastical appointments and, appropriating the corresponding revenues, left behind him one archbishopric and four bishoprics vacant. Appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, Anselm soon was at odds with the king and in 1097 retired to Rome in protest. At William's death poetic justice was satisfied: hunting in the New Forest in 1100, a violent ruler was mortally shot by an arrow.

Henry I. With Robert of Normandy at a distance, the Conqueror's third son became king as Henry I - frequently known as Henry Beaucierc. Knowing that according to primogeniture his title was doubtful, he appealed to public opinion by two acts. Firstly, he created an important precedent by granting a charter, promising, among other pledges, to abandon offenses against the church (recalling Anselm from Rome), to refrain from giving heiresses in marriage against their will, and to retain Edward the Confessor's laws as revised by the Conqueror. Secondly, he married Matilda of Scotland, great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironsides, so uniting Norman with English lineage. The struggle for Normandy continued, and in 1106 Henry captured his brother, Duke Robert, at the Battle of Tinchebray. Robert was imprisoned at Cardiff until his death in 1134; and Henry I died the following year.

Stephen. Tragedy bedeviled the accession to Henry I, with resultant misery to the people. The heir to the throne had been William, fondly known as the "Atheling" after his English mother, Matilda of Boulogne. The White Ship on which he embarked from Normandy for England in 1120 foundered on a rock, and the hope of the nation, now growing into unity, was drowned. The king's other son, Robert of Gloucester, was illegitimate, and his daughter, Matilda, named after her mother, was passed over as a woman. The throne was thus conferred on a nephew, Stephen of Blois, son of the Conqueror's daughter, Adela. Granting two charters of liberties to the people, he was accepted at the outset both by England and Normandy. However, David of Scotland, uncle of Empress Matilda of Germany (Henry I's daughter), invaded the country, only to be defeated by Stephen in 1138 near Northallerton, at the Battle of the Standard (q.v.). The king's authority over the restless barons was at a minimum, and in 1139 Empress Matilda, with her half brother, Robert of Gloucester, landed at Portsmouth to win the throne.

In the ensuing civil war both Stephen and Gloucester were taken prisoner, each being exchanged for the other. By the Treaty of Wallingford, the succession was conferred in 1153 on Matilda's able son, Henry of Anjou, who, at Stephen's death in 1154, was duly crowned as Henry II.

Angevin Empire

At Henry II's accession the Norman line as usually defined was superseded, and there ensued a sudden and spectacular change in the national outlook. The reason was dynastic imperialism. Henry's mother, Matilda, had been married first to Emperior Henry V of Germany, and secondly to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou. From this father, the king derived the title, Amgevin (that is, of Anjou) or Plantagenet (q.v.). He inherited Anjou and Touraine; and by marrying Eleanor of Guienne he acquired Poitou, Aquitaine, and Gascony. Geoffrey, his younger son, married Constance, heiress of Brittany, which also came under the king's control. From the English Channel to the Pyrenees, one third of what is now modern France was thus united with England, a responsibility which necessitated long absences of the king from his island realm. A policy of territorial expansion included pressure on France, Scotland, and Wales. In 1154, Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear), the only English pope, granted Ireland to Henry; in 1171-1172 the king in person invaded the sister isle, where his supremacy was acknowledged, so beginning a long association of the English crown with a resistance people.

Murder of Becket

Within England herself the king set about restoring order. He curbed the nobles by destroying their recently built castles, his main objective being a system of law enforced by the king's courts. He was given vigorous support by Thomas a Becket, whom he had made chancellor in 1155, but their ways parted after 1162, when Becket exchanged this political position for the primacy of Canterbury. As archbishop, Becket became an uncompromising defender of the rights of the church against lay power, notably in 1164, when he refused to seal the Constitutions of Clarendon, which the king had promulgated. Broadly summarized, they were: Disputes over church patronage were to be determined by the king's courts; criminous clergy were to be tried and punished as laymen; no ecclesiastic of high rank was to leave the realm without the king's consent; appeals from ecclesiastical courts were to be to the king, not Rome - save with the king's permission; no tenant in chief (that is, holder of land direct from the crown) and no lings's minister was to be excom-municated without the king's consent, and clergy owning land were to do homage like any other tenant in chief; archbishops, bishops, and abbots were to be appointed by the king and do homage before consecration; serfs or villeins were not to receive consecration without their lords' consent. To the whole of these reforms Becket offered resistance, and on both sides the struggle was violent. Becket fled to France, leaving unsettled the issues raised by the Constitutions; reconciled with the king, he returned to England in 1170, only to be brutally murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights who sympathized with Henry.

(Ref Encyclopedia Vol 13, page 313, 314 & 315)

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