WILLIAM I. (1027 or 1028-1087), king of England, sur named the Conquerer, was born in 1027 or 1028. He was the bastard son of Robert the Devil, duke of Normandy, by Arletta, the daughter of a tanner at Falaise. In 1034 Robert resolved on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Having no legitimate son he induced the Norman barons to acknowledge William as his successor. They kept their engagement when Robert died on his journey (1035), though the young duke-elect was a mere boy. But the next twelve years was a period of the wildest anarchy. Three of William's guardians were murdered; and for some time he was kept in strict concealment by his relatives, who feared that he might experience the same fate. Trained in a hard school, he showed a precocious aptitude for war and government. He was but twenty years old when he stamped out, with the help of his overlord, Henry I. of France, a serious rising in the districts of the Bessin and Cotentin, the object of which was to put in his place his kinsman, Guy of Brionne. Accompanied by King Henry, he met and overthrew the rebels at Val-des-Dunes near Caen (1047). It was by no means his last encounter with Norman traitors, but for the moment the victory gave him an assured position. Next year he joined Henry in attacking their common enemy, Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou. Geoffrey occupied the border fortress of Alencon with the good will of the inhabitants. But the duke recovered the place after a severe siege, and inflicted a terrible vengeance on the defenders, who had taunted him with his base birth ; he also captured the castle of Domfront from the Angevins (1049) In 1051 the duke visited England, and probably received from his kinsman, Edward the Confessor, a promise of the English succession. Two years later he strengthened the claims which he had thus established by marrying Matilda, a daughter of Baldwin V. of Flanders, who traced her descent in the female line from Alfred the Great. This union took place in defiance of a prohibi tion which had been promulgated, in 1049, by the papal council of Reims. Pope Nicholas II. at length granted the needful dispen
sation (1059). By way of penance William and his wife founded the abbeys of St. Stephen and the Holy Trinity at Caen. The political difficulties caused by the marriage were more serious. Alarmed at the close connection of Normandy with Flanders, Henry I. joined forces with Geoffrey Martel in order to crush the duke, and Normandy was twice invaded by the allies. In each case William decided the campaign by a signal victory. The invasion of 1054 was checked by the battle of Mortemer; in 1058 the French rearguard was cut to pieces at Varaville on the Dive, in the act of crossing the stream. Between these two wars William aggrandized his power at the expense of Anjou by annexing Mayenne. Soon after the campaign of Varaville both Henry I. and Geoffrey Martel died. He at once recovered Maine from the Angevins, nominally in the interest of Count Herbert II., on whose death (1062) Maine was formally annexed to Normandy.