William was a man of remarkable ability, and owed his success almost entirely to his own ex ertions. He ruled strictly and kept excellent or der, but he was unscrupulous and merciless in punishing any opposition to his own will. He con fiscated all of the land held by his opponents under the pretext of law, as he considered them traitors• and he extorted very heavy fines on all possible occasions. The taxation also bore very heavily upon his subjects. He was religious and blameless in his private life. Although very liberal to the Church, he ruled absolutely over its officials, and refused to give up to the Papacy anything which he regarded as a royal prerogative. In 1076, when Gregory VIL demanded of him fealty and the payment of Peter's pence, he sent the latter, hut refused to hold his kingdom as a fief from the Papacy. In his later years he tyrannical and avaricious. His tyranny was all the more op pressive because it was cloaked with a pretense of law, and he accomplished his purposes by legal subtleties, maintaining as fur as possible the old English customs, which he shaped to suit his own wishes. In his later years he was often
called William the Great. Ilis wife was Matilda, heiress of the count of Flanders. Their marriage was long delayed because forbidden by Leo IX. (ffiv.) on account of consanguinity; but it took place in 1053 in spite of the opposition of the Pope. Finally, in 1059 William secured a Papal dispensation sanctioning his marriage. Ile had four sons and five daughters. The eldest of the sons died before his father; of the others, Robert inherited the Duchy of Normandy, 1Villiam the Kingdom of England, and Delay, who was later King of England, a considerable sum of money.
Consult: Freeman. Ilistory of the Con quest, vols. ii., iii., iv. (Oxford, 1870-71) ; id., William the C(mqucror (London, 1894) ; Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. i. (0th ed., Oxford, 1897) ; Palgrave, Normandy and England, vol. iii. (London, 1864) ; Green, Con quest of England (London, 1884) ; Round, Feudal England (London, 1895) ; and Lappenberg, 7•;ng land Under Xormau Kings, translated by Thorpe (Oxford, 1857).