This is a series of articles dealing with the British nobility beginning with William the Conqueror in 1066 and ending with Henry VIII circa 1530. The information within has been compiled from multiple resources and a bibliography will follow the completed work. Beginning with the Normans, the Plantagenets, the Lancasters, the Yorks, and then finally, the Tudors.
William of Normandy: Born in 1027 or 1028 in Normandy France, he took the throne of England in 1066. Being promised the throne by Edward the Confessor but having it taken by Harold II, Edward’s son, William landed a Norman Army at Peavensy and on October 14, 1066, defeated the English forces near the modern day town of Battle.
He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on December 25, 1066.
William put down multiple revolts to his authority and defeated Hereward the Wake in East Anglia in 1071. This put an end to the Saxon resistance to his reign. In 1080, he refused to pay homage to the Pope. He ordered a survey of all England and the culmination, The Doomsday Book, was completed the next year. William replaced many of the Saxon church leaders with better-trained and better-educated Norman ones. He also imposed celibacy upon the clergy and he introduced a trial by jury system. In 1070, He forced Malcolm III of Scotland to pay homage to him.
William died after falling off a horse while laying siege to the French city of Nantes in 1087. When he died, everything that he had on his person was stolen: weapons, cloths, jewelry, bed sheets, armor, etc. He was exhumed to be reburied in a state in 1522, but it was in the following years that his grave was robbed and all that was eventually left was a thigh-bone, which was consequently stolen as well. The thigh-bone was found in the 1980’s and re-buried.