The man known to history as William Rufus,
or King William II of England, was born in 1060 in the duchy of Normandy, located in
modern-day northern France. His father was William the Conqueror, who
famously defeated King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings during his invasion
of England in 1066. On his father’s side, William’s ancestry
was Norman and before that Scandinavian, and he could count Rollo, the famous Viking warlord,
as one of his ancestors. Unlike his son William Rufus, William the
Conqueror had a rather turbulent upbringing as a young prince, and on more than one occasion
as a child had to be hidden away from enemies in the cottages of the poor for his own safety,
as his family fought for the supremacy of northern France against rival dynasties. Nevertheless, from 1042 onwards when William
came of age, he showed himself to be a strong and ruthless leader and was responsible for
the gradual entrenchment of his rule in the duchy of Normandy, afterwards going on to
annex the county of Maine in 1063 and then England in 1066, which were to become his
son’s birthrights. William Rufus’ mother was Matilda of Flanders,
the daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, and was by all accounts extremely small, standing
at only 4 ft in height. She had married William in 1049 as part of
an alliance that was aimed at strengthening the Conqueror’s hold on Normandy, which
had been challenged most seriously in 1047 when a group of rebellious noblemen led by
his cousin Count Gui had sought to depose him. The Count of Flanders had proven a capable
ally for William in that year as he defeated the rebel force at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes,
with Baldwin’s support being the crucial deciding factor in his victory. There were however issues with the marriage,
which was condemned in 1049 by the Pope for being incestuous, since William and Matilda
were third cousins once removed. This broke the papal regulations on consanguinity
which decreed that the marriage of two people who shared more than 7 generations of relatedness
should not be allowed. Despite their parents being closely related,
William and his siblings were all born relatively healthy and without any disabilities or deformities,
but they were all probably fairly small owing to the size of their mother. William had three brothers, Richard, who died
sometime between 1069 and 1074 in a hunting accident, Robert Curthouse, his older brother
who he quarreled with on and off throughout his life, and Henry, his youngest brother,
a man who would always sit uncomfortably with the fact that he was the youngest son, and
an opportunist who endlessly flitted between Robert and William depending on who he could
get more from. William had four sisters, Adela who married
Stephen, Count of Blois, Cecily, who was to follow the monastic route to become the abbess
of the Holy Trinity at Caen, Constance, who married Alan IV, Count of Brittany, and finally
Agatha, of whom very little is known. In appearance, William was said to be a stocky
man of medium height, with a protruding belly, a ruddy complexion, and eyes of indeterminate
color which were specked with small points of light according to the chronicler William
of Malmesbury, hence he was distinguished from others of his own name with the nickname
‘Rufus’ after his reddish-brown features. William was infamous in clerical circles for
styling his fair hair, which was variously described as red or blonde, unusually long,
with a parting at the centre so that his forehead was on display most of the time. In fact, William was a flamboyant king, who
loved to dress in the latest fashions, and was responsible for introducing many new styles
into court such as short tunics and pointed shoes, which were heavily criticized by monastic
writers who preferred their sovereigns to be less effeminate. William was the opposite of this, and in private
was able to joke around with his friends and confidantes as he went about the day-to-day
affairs of the kingdom, yet in public he struggled to be an articulate statesman, and when angry
his voice would start to stutter, adding to the common perception that he was rather graceless
when addressing an audience. William Rufus was a generous man, who rewarded
those loyal to him well, and who had the utmost respect for those who performed feats of bravery
and boldness on the battlefield. Although he was a military man, he did not
share the usual reserved disposition of the soldier, and was in fact someone who relished
extravagance, once reprimanding one of his servants heavily for buying him some shoes
for one shilling by exclaiming: “You son of a whore! Since when has a king got to wear shoes as
cheap as that! Go and buy me some for a mark of silver” William’s penchant for the latest trends
and fashions and his overt disrespect for religious institutions put him at odds with
the Church for most of his life, who deplored his exuberant lifestyle and indifferent attitude
towards God. William was viewed as a heretic, and even
worse than that an atheist, a position which can be seen in one account in which he is
recorded to have said, in response to the judgment of an ecclesiastical court: What's this? God's a just judge? Damn him I say who believes that after this! I swear that from now on matters that can
be bent by any man's nod shall be brought before my court, not God's. His attackers also point to the many flowery
phrases he is reported to have uttered, including ‘By the holy face of Lucca’ and ‘by
the mountains and the valleys’, which to them illustrated he was more interested in
invoking the names of idols rather than God. He was also accused of indulging in homosexuality. His detractors pointed to his many unorthodox
tastes unbefitting of a lord of his stature as evidence, including his snappy dress sense
and foppish hair. However, unlike all the other accusations
thrown his way, the charge that William was gay is the only one that seems to have any
merit, and remains an important detail of his life that even modern historians all seem
to agree on, as William died without marrying and produced no children, not even illegitimate
ones. Moreover, some historians have pointed to
his comrade Guillaume, count of Poitou, who fought with William towards the end of his
life and spent a lot of time with him, as a possible lover, and also to the fact that
he was a great benefactor of the arts, overseeing the restoration of William the Conqueror’s
‘White Tower’ in London and totally revamping the Great Hall at Westminster. On the other hand, there appears to be no
concrete evidence to suggest that William had any court favorites nor were any of his
companions that way inclined, and in addition his interest in the arts can hardly be pointed
to as confirmation of his homosexuality. At the time of William’s birth in 1060,
his father William had successfully consolidated his authority in Normandy thanks in large
part to the stabilizing influence of his marriage with Matilda and a series of stunning triumphs. In 1057, he successfully repelled an attack
by ambitious French warlords, Count Geoffroi and King Henri, who were seeking to carve
out their own piece of Normandy at the Battle of Varaville, a major watershed moment in
the Conqueror’s career that secured his duchy right up until the last years of his
reign, when William Rufus would fight alongside him to maintain order. He was also able to win the friendship of
the powerful Bishop Yves of Sées, who switched to William’s side and married the heiress
of Bellême to one of his henchmen, Roger de Montgomery, in one of a number of political
master strokes which gave William the upper-hand against his French rivals now weakened by
the deaths of Count Geoffroi and King Henri, and who he was preparing to attack in 1060. When William Rufus entered the world, William
the Conqueror was commencing his campaigns into Northern France, where he would go on
to annex considerable swathes of territory, including the county of Maine in 1063 which
he delegated to his oldest son, Robert. In 1065, At the same time as his father was
cementing his new gains, and planning his assault on England, William Rufus was entered
into formal education and assigned to the household of the scholar and monk LanFranc,
who was the Abbot of Caen. As the third son of William the Conqueror,
William was not directly in line to the throne, and so his parents initially set him on a
path towards being a cleric in the same vein as his sister Cecily. Here, William learnt about Christian doctrine,
how to conduct himself appropriately in a courtly manner, the morals of behavior, and
about the lives of the lower servants who were bound to serve him. However, it turned out that William was entirely
unsuitable for a position in the Church, and it’s most likely that his time spent with
LanFranc learning to be a religious man was an unhappy one, for William excelled more
at military pursuits and had no interest in leading a life of devotion to God. As a boy of 12 in 1072, William would have
started to learn instead about the methods and armaments of warfare, something which
appealed to his sense of duty and honor far more than the stuffiness of a Christian education,
and at this age he would have learnt how to ride a horse properly, how to use a bow, and
how to lead men into battle, all valuable skills for a young princeling who was looking
to distinguish himself as a military man like his father. William was highly competitive in military
affairs, loving nothing more than riding, throwing spears, and being the first to take
up arms and enter the fray, for he believed his pride would be damaged if someone did
this before him. William’s switch to a warrior lifestyle
took on a new significance sometime between 1068 and 1074, after the tragic death of his
brother Richard in a hunting accident unexpectedly promoted him to second son, and into a position
where he was more likely to be king in the event that his oldest brother Robert died,
and which would require him to be well versed in the skills of warfare and diplomacy, and
so as a result he was appointed as a knight’s bachelor to serve by the side of his father
to gain experience. To contemporaries it was clear that William
was the favorite of his father, whose alleged possessive nature only served to push away
his more independently minded heir Robert, whose headstrong personality would always
land him in trouble and out of favor with the Conqueror. During this period William Rufus would have
to learn very fast what it meant to be a leader as he accompanied his father on multiple military
expeditions, including the final pacification of England in 1071 and the invasion and intimidation
of Scotland in 1072, as well as learning how to be a statesman by being witness to all
royal charters issued from 1074 until 1083. But even as a soldier, William soon learnt
that a king could not entirely forget about the Church, and, in 1077, he attended two
major religious ceremonies with his parents and his older brother Robert, one which consecrated
the new cathedral at Bayeaux built by his uncle Odo of Bayeaux on the 14th of July,
and another on the 13th September which marked the dedication of St Stephens at Caen. But in addition to the Church, William also
had a strained relationship with his unruly older brother Robert, as a story told by the
Order Vitalis illustrates: In 1078, when Robert was 25, William was 18, and Henry was 10 years
old, the brothers were with their father, who was preparing to attack one of the adjoining
regions, at L’Aigle situated on the south-east frontier of Normandy. William and Henry were staying at the house
of a merchant called Gunher, and their brother, being the most senior, was lodged at his own
quarters elsewhere. One evening the two younger brothers decided
to pay their older brother a visit, going round to his lodgings to play several rounds
of dice to pass the time. During the game, an argument ensued and in
response William and Henry urinated on the heads of Robert and his comrades. The two mischievous brothers ran away downstairs
from the enraged Robert, who chased them and began beating them up so severely that the
king had to be called in to stop the fight and to force them to make-up and apologize. Robert, being extremely embarrassed by the
incident, sought to reclaim his honor, leaving his base at L’Aigle with a regiment of men
and attempting to capture his father’s fortress at Rouen, about one day’s march away. William the Conqueror issued a warrant for
the arrest of his wayward son, who fled Normandy and for the next year led the life of an aristocratic
bandit on the run from the authorities. In 1079, William the Conqueror and William
Rufus were both injured whilst trying to seize the fortified settlement of Gerberoi from
the hands of Robert, who had illegally occupied the town and refused to give it back. As a result of Robert’s insolence, he was
disinherited from the throne by his father William in favor of William Rufus, who was
consecrated as heir instead. In 1080, Robert, seeking to make amends for
his bad behavior, rode to his father’s court at Rouen, and seemingly apologized to both
his father and brother for the distress and injury he had caused, and as a result it was
announced that Robert, now back in the good books, was the heir to Normandy, which he
was to govern alongside the county of Maine after his father’s death. Next, William Rufus went to England in order
to defend the realm against the incursions of Malcom Canmore, King of the Scots, who
had launched a campaign against the northern regions. Their relationship being somewhat repaired,
William Rufus fought alongside Robert and their father William the Conqueror during
their successful counterattack, which took them into the heart of Scottish territory
as far as Lothian and St Davids. After their success against the Scots, William,
Robert, and their father rode with an army to South Wales to put down a revolt in 1081,
before going to Maine to crush an invasion by Foulques of Anjou, launching a devastating
counter-sortie into Anjou itself and brokering the Peace of Blanchland to reaffirmed Robert’s
overlordship of Maine. In 1082, William Rufus again stood firmly
by his father’s side after the arrest of his half-brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux and
earl of Kent, who was thrown into jail for reasons that are still today entirely unclear,
but it has been suggested that Odo, one of William the Conqueror’s most trusted lieutenants,
was incarcerated with the help of the cleric LanFranc on charges of desertion because he
was raising an army in order to go to Italy and install himself as Pope. Following on from this debacle, William and
his family received devastating news on the 2nd of November 1083 regarding Matilda, who
had always been Robert’s greatest supporter at the royal court even when he was at odds
with it. Matilda had died, compelling the senior sibling
to leave that same year to find adventure and fortune outside the confines of the Norman
realm. As Robert galivanted around Flanders, Germany,
Aquitaine, Gascony, and even Italy to ask for the hand of Matilda of Tuscany, a noblewomen
of the highest pedigree and beauty, William Rufus, the ever-faithful son, stood steadfastly
by his father’s side throughout the early to mid 1080s until the Conqueror’s death. In 1085 he was with his father as he prepared
a military force to defend against a possible Danish invasion. At Christmas that same year he is reported
to have been in the presence of the king when he issued the Domesday Book from his court
at Gloucester. In 1086 he attended the wedding of his sister
Constance who married Count Alan Fergant of Brittany, and in 1087 as a paid retainer of
the king, William Rufus also followed his father to the Vexin, a disputed borderland
between Normandy and France, which was to be the Conqueror’s last campaign. Later that year, William the Conqueror lay
on his deathbed at Rouen for 5 weeks after being severely injured in an attack on the
French town of Mantes. Facing his end, William was persuaded by his
courtiers to reinstate Robert as heir to the throne in the tradition of primogeniture,
in which the eldest son acquired all of his father’s titles and possessions, despite
Robert abandoning the realm in 1083 and the difficult relationship he had always had with
his firstborn. William was convinced by their arguments in
favour of Robert, who was still on his adventures abroad and hadn’t returned, but made arrangements
to bequeath to William Rufus a sizable inheritance in recognition of his unwavering loyalty by
sending him to England on September 8th with a letter for LanFranc, now Archbishop of Canterbury,
alongside several English hostages and possibly the royal insignia, which was to be given
to Robert, yet Rufus had other plans in mind. With a small entourage, Rufus sailed to the
Hampshire or Sussex coast from Toques, and arrived at Winchester to claim the royal treasures. Two weeks later on the 26th of September,
William Rufus, now 27 years old, was crowned as the new King of England by Lanfranc, now
Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster Abbey, who had decided to disobey William the Conqueror’s
last wishes to the anger of Robert Curthouse, who would soon make his feelings known. Although William was fairly inexperienced
in government, with the support of the powerful LanFranc he soon established his authority
over the royal administration and the various nobles that swore fealty to the Crown. As soon as Robert heard about his father’s
passing, he returned home and was reaffirmed by the Church and the baronage as Duke of
Normandy and Count of Maine. Robert was furious that his position had been
undermined, but instead of leaping into action immediately he decided rather unwisely to
wait for the members of the royal court to expel the usurper of his throne. Yet this was to prove impossible, as William
Rufus, appointing the astute Bishop of Durham, William of St Calais, as his principal advisor,
smartly reinforced his rule by bestowing a large portion of the empire’s wealth to
the counties and to the church. Here, William was following the last wishes
of his father, who had requested his treasures be distributed to the monasteries and churches
of his realm for the salvation of his soul in the afterlife, for over the years, the
Conqueror had amassed a considerable treasure trove of the most precious objects, the majority
of which had rather ironically been looted from the churches he was now desperate to
posthumously please. In accordance with his father’s instructions,
William gave to the minsters 10 marks of gold and a selection of stolen church valuables,
to the country churches 6 marks, and to every shire in the land 100 pounds to help the poor. Within a short space of time William had further
entrenched his power and his tenure garnered widespread support from the Church as well
as the landed aristocracy. This was no doubt facilitated by the good
relationship that William Rufus had enjoyed with his father, and in extension his father’s
friends and confidants, the majority of which kept their positions instead of being ousted
immediately, as would have been the case if the estranged Robert had become king. A great sense of continuation thus accompanied
the reigns of William the Conqueror and William Rufus, with the new king even using the same
iconography of his father on the royal seal, the only change being the name it bore. However, William also gave back all the lands
and titles of Odo of Bayeaux, in a move the young monarch would soon regret, for his treacherous
half-uncle, who had been imprisoned for several months by William the Conqueror for dereliction
of duty, was unhappy with the new status quo. Odo, now reinstated as earl of Kent, began
to plot the downfall of the new king almost immediately with the support of his brother
Robert, Count of Mortain, Henry, William Rufus’ younger brother, and other major landowners
including Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury and Geoffrey, Bishop of Countances to install
Robert Curthouse, William’s estranged brother, as king. Odo preferred Robert, as despite regaining
his titles and honors, he saw no future for himself in William’s new administration
as he saw the young king sideline him in favor of William of St. Calais, a man who had once
embarrassingly been his protege. Another of William’s favorites that he also
had a grudge against was the Archbishop LanFranc, a man who had been largely responsible for
his brief imprisonment in 1082 after his attempt to assemble an army to take the papal seat
in Italy. In the spring of 1088, the conspirators began
to strengthen their castles at Rochester, Tonbridge, and Pevensey in England in preparation
for an invasion force led by Robert in 1066, except this time it was for the purpose of
civil war rather than conquest. Before Robert arrived, small revolts had begun
to erupt throughout the empire in East Anglia and the Welsh Marches, and Eustace, count
of Boulogne, with three sons of Roger de Montgomery, had already been sent to England to act as
an advance party for the invasion. However, by July 1088 William Rufus foiled
the rebellion by preemptively capturing the castles at Tonbridge, Pevensey, and Rochester,
and taking prisoner all of the rebellion’s main leaders in the process. In an effort to win back their goodwill, William
Rufus treated the majority of Robert’s co-collaborators with forgiveness, allowing them to keep their
titles and wealth despite being traitors, and reserved his anger only for a select few. The architect of the conspiracy, Odo of Bayeaux
was disinherited yet again and exiled, while Henry, William’s younger brother, who had
sailed with Robert’s invasion force and asked William for lands he claimed had been
bequeathed to him by their mother, had his request ignored by his older sibling. The last person William dealt with was William
of St Calais, his erstwhile ally and advisor, who had deserted the royal army in March 1088
and returned to his Holy See in Durham in an act that was considered the highest of
treasons. On the 2nd of November, after being granted
safe conduct to Salisbury to answer for his crimes, the king with the support of his trusted
friend the Archbishop LanFranc, requested that William of Calais be charged under feudal
law as a baron of the realm. William of St Calais however refused, and
instead asked to be tried under Church law, angering Rufus to such a degree that he is
reported to have said, in the stutter that always surfaced when the king was in a temper: “By the face of Lucca, you'll never escape
from my hands before I have your castle. Believe me, bishop, you're not going back
to Durham, and your men are not going to stay at Durham, and you're not going free until
you release the castle.” The bishop relented, but he was permitted
to cross the sea and become the chief advisor to Robert, who remained duke of Normandy and
count of Maine despite the attempted coup. William Rufus further strengthened his position
by rewarding his followers for their loyalty, bestowing titles for Robert fitz Haimon, who
was given the honor of Gloucester, Henry de Beaumont, who was made earl of Warwick, Simon
de Senlis, who was invested as the new earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, and Walter
Gifford who was inserted as the new earl of Buckingham. William’s staunchest ally, Archbishop Lanfranc,
who had been a notable presence in William’s life ever since he was 5 years old, and a
man who had acted faithfully as a mentor and later an advisor, died the next year on the
28th of May 1089, and although William grieved for him, the archbishop’s death signified
the end of his influence on William’s power, which now became stronger than ever, while
also marking the start of his growing rift with the Church. After the failed invasion of 1088, the relationship
between William and his brother Robert remained uneasy, and over the next few years William
used his financial resources to undermine their eldest brother by lining the pockets
of Robert’s vassals with gold in order to ensure their support in the event that he
had to invade Normandy. At this point in time, William still enjoyed
the full backing of the Church, whereas the nobility in general were still unsure if he
was the right man for the job, with many of them preferring to wait it out and make a
firmer decision pending future developments. Nevertheless, by 1090, William Rufus’ reign
was secured by alliances with a significant number of nobles in Upper Normandy, but his
brother Henry, ever ambitious to prove himself to his older siblings, was now causing trouble. He wished to make the territories of Avranchin
and Cotentin, which he had purchased in 1087 for 3000 pounds from Robert, into an independent
kingdom. At the same time, Robert’s duchy of Normandy
had fallen into ruin, compelling some of Rufus’ allies to start a rebellion in Rouen, which
was only ended after the intervention of Henry, who saw it in his interest at the time to
help out Robert. In an effort to stabilize the region, William
personally made his way to Normandy in February 1091 and set up a base at Eu in order to undermine
Robert, however, thanks to the intervention of William of St Calais, William’s former
advisor and Robert’s current councilor, the two brothers agreed to put aside their
differences and agree to the peace of Rouen, in which William was delegated the county
of Eu, the abbey of Fecamp, and the town of Cherbourg for his own allies to administrate. In return, Robert was given a large amount
of money, a couple of estates in England, and most importantly the military might of
William’s armies, who were to help him recover his lost territories from some of the rebellious
independent lords seeking to stake their claim. In another conciliatory measure, all of Robert’s
dukes and noblemen who had supported his failed coup were handed back all of the privileges
that had been stripped from them, and, in a move that angered the young Henry considerably,
both William and Robert agreed that each was to be their heir, assuming all property and
titles in the event of death. In his rage, Henry forcibly seized the town
of Mont St Michael, which was besieged by William and Robert, who were merciful enough
to eventually let Henry and his men leave unharmed, and it was during this conflict
also that the king showed himself to be a man of the highest bravery. After spotting a party of Henry’s soldiers
riding past his camp in a disrespectful manner, William became so enraged that he leapt onto
the most expensive horse in his collection and singlehandedly rushed towards them with
such enthusiasm that he was brought down and dragged along the ground with a foot stuck
in his stirrup. With the cavalrymen about to strike him down
with a sword, William suddenly shouted: “Stop, you fool! I'm the king of England!” Realizing the true identity of the felled
man, Henry’s knights immediately provided him with a fresh horse, and William asked
which of them had taken him down, the responsible soldier replying: “It was me. But I didn't know you were the king. I thought you were only a knight.” William was sufficiently tickled by the response,
responding with sudden warmth: “By the face of Lucca, from now on you'll
be my man and in my service get a proper reward for your courage and spirit.” Afterwards, Henry roamed France for a while
until in February 1092 he took the town of Domfronts located on the southern frontiers
of Normandy, displacing one of the most renowned border princes of his day, Robert de Bellême. With the disowned Henry out of the picture,
William started strengthening Robert’s languishing duchy, laying out the groundwork for further
consolidation with a provincial synod held by the archbishop of Rouen in June 1091 and
an investigation into the judicial rights their father William the Conqueror had been
able to exercise in the region. On the other hand, trouble was brewing back
in Britain, with a resurgent Malcolm Canmore of Scotland invading England again at the
same time as civil strife was erupting in Wales. The brotherly duo first dealt with the Welsh
before moving on to crush Malcolm’s foray with a devastating counter-attack of Scotland,
which saw the brothers mobilize a fleet up the East coast, land an army on its eastern
shores, and make their way back to England with a devastating raid, forcing Malcolm to
send out one of his representatives, Edgar, to hash out the terms of a peace truce with
Robert. It was decided that Malcolm would resume the
relationship he had had before with William the Conqueror, which involved swearing fealty
to the English in return for some English borderlands held previous to 1087 and a hefty
annual grant, paid directly into Scottish coffers. Shortly after the peace agreement, Duncan,
the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore, accompanied William to the south of England as a sign
of their renewed friendship. With affairs in Britain in order, a new argument
arose between the two brothers, for William seemed reluctant to return to Normandy and
help out Robert and give him the promised English seats as agreed, compelling the English
monarch to sail from the Isle of Wight to Normandy during Christmas of 1091 to address
his brother’s concerns. Here nothing was achieved, and in a sign of
the growing rift between them, one that had seemed to be healing, William did not visit
Normandy again until 1094, and Robert would not travel to England again until 1101. In this period, it seemed William was more
concerned with fixing his own problems in England: In May 1092 he embarked on a campaign
to displace the Scottish-installed ruler of Cumbria, Dolfin, by sending a fleet on the
western sea route to attack it from the coast, which successfully expelled Malcolm’s representative
and led to the reinstallation of Carlisle as an English fief. By doing this, William restored the traditional
border that delineated England from Scotland, and after Malcolm’s death in 1093 he was
able to expand further into Scotland towards Liddell and the Tweed through a series of
alliances and the seizure of several settlements. Yet William’s historic advance would be
halted in its tracks after the king fell seriously ill while patrolling the Welsh marches in
March 1093, remaining in a state of grave health throughout the whole of the Lent period
at Gloucester. For William, it seemed obvious that God was
punishing him for his misdeeds and the mistakes of his administration, and as the sickly monarch
fell deeper into the grips of disease he made a full confession to Anselm, abbot of Bec,
pledging that if he should live that he would carry out a multitude of reforms to strengthen
the realm. More immediately, William released all of
his prisoners and forgave all of their debts, installed Anselm as Archbishop of Canterbury
after the See had lain unoccupied for several years, an insult that had riled the Church
considerably, and bestowed gifts and donations to monasteries all over the country. Close to death, William was perhaps realizing
how disrespectful and exploitative his policies had been towards the Church, such as selling
monasteries and abbeys to his followers camouflaged as ‘gifts’ and ‘donations’ and purposely
leaving church property unoccupied in order to collect its revenues. Although the installation of a new archbishop
of Canterbury suggested William was changing tack, he never did, and Anselm, champion of
the Church, would become one of William’s greatest opponents at court in the following
years, a holy man who despised William’s treatment of the Church so much that later
he would impose four years penance on himself for the crime of serving under him, from November
1097 spending the rest of William’s reign as far away as possible from his heretical
lord, either in Italy at the Vatican City or in France at the See of Lyons. Yet for the time being, William sent out further
glimmers of hope that he was a reformed Christian man, promising to finally take a wife and
to produce heirs, yet these were to be quickly dashed by the hesitancy he displayed when
he was given the chance to marry over the summer of 1093 after his recovery. That summer on a visit to Wilton Abbey, Rufus
had been matched with Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and his wife Margaret,
in a matrimony that would have strengthened the bonds between England and Scotland. However, the abbess presiding over her education,
in an effort to save her from wedlock, supposedly disguised Matilda as a nun so that when Rufus
entered he found her hidden under the veils, compelling him to leave the church. Malcolm was so enraged at what had happened
that he returned there a week later, destroyed her veils, and took her back to Scotland with
him. William’s apparent rejection of Matilda
led Malcolm to invade England for a fifth time, and it was during this campaign that
Malcolm himself was killed during an ambush on the 13th of November 1093 by Robert Mowbray,
the earl of Northumbria, but still afterwards William would remain wifeless, and Matilda
was instead wed to his younger brother Henry later on in 1100. Meanwhile, with Malcolm Canmore no longer
troubling the realm, William turned his attention to his brother Robert again, who was growing
increasingly frustrated that his brother, who had been distracted by his conflict with
Scotland, was not carrying out the terms of the treaty of Rouen, which stipulated that
he was to provide aid. Robert had already been forced to act himself,
re-igniting his friendship with the Count of Flanders and keeping his overlordship of
the territory of Guillaume, count of Eu, whose duchy had been promised to William, yet William
made little effort to address his brothers’ grievances. At Christmas 1093, Robert became so incensed
at his brother’s unwillingness to cooperate that he gave him an ultimatum, stating that
unless he fulfilled the obligation of the Treaty of Rouen, or convinced him of the necessity
of the long delay, that he would consider the agreement void. However, before he could arrange a parley
with Robert, William would first have to deal with his bothersome Archbishop Anselm, who
requested in February 1094 to convene a Church council to answer rumors of sodomy and incest
plaguing the king’s administration, as well as to enquire about William’s persistent
practice of leaving the Church’s abbeys unoccupied, an appeal to which Rufus scathingly
refused and supposedly shouted: “What business is it of yours? Aren't they my abbeys? You do what you like with your manors. Why can't I do what I want with my abbeys?… your predecessor (LanFranc) would never have
dared speak in this way to my father, and I will do nothing at all for you!” His Archbishop sufficiently put in his place,
William next travelled to Normandy to meet with his brother, sailing across the English
Channel on the 19th of March 1094. The meeting was a disaster as the guarantors
of the treaty, alongside Robert, put the blame squarely on William for failing to meet its
terms, and with his own king and brother seemingly deserting him, Robert enlisted the support
of King Phillip II of France, at the same time that William recalled his younger sibling
Henry from his duchy at Domfront to make raids from their base at Eu. Perhaps in recognition that he had let his
older brother down, William continued campaigns to reclaim the duchy of Normandy back, but
by January 1095 he had little to show for his efforts, which had taken the lives of
an enormous number of his men. When William returned he found England in
a state of disarray, with trouble breaking out once again in Wales, where a number of
his subjects had revolted against Norman rule, and even worse, he unearthed another plot
to overthrow him, this time led by his baron Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland,
who wished to replace him not with Robert Curthouse but one of his cousins, Stephen
of Aumale, the son of one of the main conspirators, Odo of Champagne. Indeed some of the barons disliked William
immensely, as like the Church he bled them dry, forcing heirs to repurchase their entire
estates on the death of its lord instead of paying a small relief payment, insisting that
they pay him for permission to marry their daughters and other female family members,
and legally requiring the widows of barons to re-marry were among some of the more duplicitous
schemes that enraged and alienated a large proportion of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. In the summer, William set out with an army
to the North to Durham to reestablish his authority, from where he captured the castle
on the Tyne before besieging the fortress at Bamburgh. Next, William had to rush back down to Wales
to help out the earl of Shrewsbury, who had been unable to defend Montgomery, which had
been taken by Welsh revolutionaries. The presence of the king, and the gathering
of a great army in Snowdonia proved sufficient enough for the Welsh to give up, and soon
after the baronial rebellion ran out of steam, after its architect, Robert de Mowbray, had
fled from Bamburgh Castle and was captured at the monastery situated at Tynemouth. Mowbray was dragged out and incarcerated at
Windsor, found guilty of treason in January 1096, and kept prisoner for the rest of his
life. As for the other conspirators, and in stark
contrast to his benevolent treatment of those responsible for the revolt of 1088, William
Rufus punished them brutally, blinding and castrating Guillaume, count of Eu, so horrifically
that he died of his injuries, hanging the count’s steward, and mutilating, fining,
and exiling several others. On the 27th of November 1096, as William was
putting down the last remnants of the conspirators at Northumbria, Pope Urban II made his iconic
speech at Clermont, proposing that a Christian army should take back Jerusalem and extinguish
its Muslim occupiers. After years of being undermined by his brother
William, Robert Curthouse answered the Pope’s call, becoming one of the major commanders
of the First Crusade after pledging allegiance to the cross in February 1096. At the cost of 10,000 marks, which was less
than a quarter of his annual royal income, it was agreed that William would oversee Robert’s
duchy for a total of 3 years while he fought the Saracens in the Holy Land and in addition
to this, Henry, who had become less headstrong with age, was finally deemed trustworthy enough
to oversee the counties of Coutances and Bayeaux and the town of Caen, which significantly
enlarged his holdings. In September 1096, with all his affairs in
order, Robert Curthouse left his ancestral home of Normandy for the vast plains of the
Middle East, where he was to achieve unimaginable glory for his role in the capture of Jerusalem
in July 1099, the greatest Christian victory of the Middle Ages, while William resolutely
held the Norman realm together for the next couple of years. After Rufus had obtained Robert’s duchies,
he started spending significantly more time in Normandy than before, his longest stay
lasting a year and 5 months, illustrating that with Robert’s absence he clearly felt
far more comfortable there. Rufus’ first task at hand was to restore
the boundaries carved out by his forebear William the Conqueror that had been somewhat
disrupted by the neighboring king of France, an undertaking made easier since he enjoyed
the almost universal support of the Norman barons at this moment in time. Battling against Louis, who was later crowned
Louis VI, Rufus attempted to take the fortresses of Chaumont, Pontoise, and Mantes by force
in two offensives between 1097 and 1099. Yet despite having the support Henry and many
other respected soldiers such as Robert de Bellême and even a French baron, Guillaume,
count of Poitou and the Duke of Aquitaine, who had no doubt heard of William’s burgeoning
reputation as a man who rewarded his allies well, the Anglo-Normans were unable to capture
any of the castles, with the establishment of a stronghold at Gisors on the river Epte,
which was to remain a key border fort until Normandy was taken from King John in 1204,
his only notable accomplishment during this campaign. Another of William Rufus’ priorities was
to restore the duchy of Maine and to replace Helias de la Flèche, whose family were illegally
occupying the seat. The campaign started successfully , after
one of his followers, Robert de Bellême, was able to ambush and apprehend Helias in
April 1098 before handing him over to William. William’s next aim was to take back the
city of Le Mans, which was still in the custody of one of Helias’ accomplices, Folques,
count of Anjou, who was part of the Angevin family, who had historically been the nemesis
of William’s bloodline. Marching south with an enormous army at his
back, Folques was persuaded by members of the Norman nobility and the Church to lay
down his arms, leading to a peace agreement which stipulated that William was to receive
all of the settlements that William the Conqueror had possessed previously and that all prisoners
should be returned. When Rufus entered Le Mans that summer, having
proudly restored his father’s empire, he passed a series of laws and decrees, and also
decided to release Helias de la Flèche from custody, stating for the record that he did
not recognize him as count of Maine. In an exchange recorded by the chronicler
William of Malmesbury, William rebuked Helias with his customary flamboyance: Do you think I care what you would do? Get out! Clear off! You can do whatever you want. And, by the face of Lucca, if next time you're
the winner, I shan't be asking you for something in return for this. After a long time away at the frontiers of
his kingdom on campaign, William finally made his way back to England in Easter of 1099,
where he held an extravagant court at Westminster which saw Edgar, King of the Scots, who had
taken the place of the irrepressible Malcolm Canmore, pay homage to him by carrying the
sword of the state, and in a ceremony designed to reinforce his authority on the throne William
was crowned yet again, a function that was finished off by a grand feast. However, William’s stay was cut short with
the reemergence of more trouble on the Continent - Helias de la Flèche had again disobeyed
the King’s orders and re-captured Le Mans, and William was forced to cut his hunting
trip in June short to deal with it. It is reported that upon hearing the news,
William turned his horse around immediately and set off for the coast, commandeering a
ship of a sailor who was ordered to depart despite there being a great storm. The captain himself supposedly joked that
he had never heard of a king being lost to the sea, and that he himself would order the
wind and the waves to deliver him safely across the Channel, to which the monarch is said
to have quipped that his men would follow him even through raging seas. With the Norman garrison holding on to a few
remaining fortifications having burnt down the majority of the Le Mans in a desperate
defensive measure, they were finally relieved with the arrival of their king, who promptly
started to pursue Helias de la Flèche around the county of Maine. After failing to take the castle at Mayet,
in which he was nearly killed by a stone thrown from its parapets, and also failing to capture
Helias who was able to slip from his grasp, Rufus chose to dole out punishment instead
by ravaging the countryside, ordering the disassembling of the uncompleted cathedral
of Le Mans, and imprisoning its bishop-poet, Hildebert, who later would write several scathing
verses about William Rufus, denouncing him as a man so dishonest he was the equal to
Fortune herself who disobeyed all masters, and also that he was guilty of all of the
most evil vices. In the autumn of 1099, William Rufus prepared
for the return of Robert, who had distinguished himself as a Christian hero during the First
Crusade and was returning with his new Italian bride Sibyl, the daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano,
the Lord of Brindisi in Apulia, who had gifted to Robert an enormous dowry that he intended
to use to shore up his position back in Normandy. With Robert wintering with his new spouse
in Sicily, Rufus took the unusual step of staying in England with his brother Henry
to hunt game, at a time when it was more politically beneficial for him to establish his presence
in Normandy before Robert arrived back in order to strengthen his hand in the inevitable
negotiations, for at the time William was still in control of Robert’s lands. However, it wouldn’t matter anyway, for
the meeting of the two brothers would never happen after an unfortunate, and to some,
suspicious accident that was to happen as Robert was en-route back to the Anglo-Norman
kingdom. On Thursday the 2nd of August 1100, William
Rufus was at Brockenhurst in the New Forest, preparing for an action-packed day of hunting,
his favorite pastime, at the royal hunting grounds he had enlarged for himself in an
unpopular decree some years previously. Rufus would customarily start the day’s
proceedings in the morning, but on this particular day he broke with tradition and decided it
was better for his royal party, which included Henry and several other esteemed nobles to
begin in the afternoon. The royal company divided themselves up into
smaller groups, with each taking position in the forest at assigned spots, where they
would wait for deer disturbed by a beater team to run into their sights. William, who always treated his friends with
generosity and honor, was accompanied by one of his best warriors Walter Tirel, count of
Poix, who like his liege lord was excited for the day’s hunt. Where William stood on the day is still disputed
- some believe it was at a spot just outside the lost village of Througham, whereas others
affirm that he was in Stricknage Wood, at the exact location of the Rufus Stone, a monument
erected in 1745 said to mark the exact spot where William fell. It was during one of those hunting drives
that day that William died instantly after being pierced in the heart by an arrow from
one of his own men in an incident initially thought to have been a terrible hunting accident,
a rather common occurrence at the time that had also claimed the lives of William’s
brother Richard and more recently his nephew of the same name, who was one of Robert’s
bastard sons. However, conflicting accounts of what happened
that day further muddied the waters: later chroniclers such as William of Malmesbury
attributed the shot to Walter Tirel, yet Abbot Suger of St Denis, writing in his biography
of Louis VI, claimed that Walter of Tirel always swore on the most serious of oaths
that he was not even with the king that day, and that he was part of another group that
didn’t even see him. Where the sources do agree though, is that
the unfortunate shot was a representation of God’s vengeance against a man whose reign
had always been dogged with uncomfortable accusations of blasphemy, sin, and vice. Later historians have questioned if it was
indeed an accident, and have entertained the notion that it was in fact an act of pre-meditated
murder organized by none other than Henry himself, who after hearing the news of his
brother’s passing rushed to Winchester to secure the royal treasury and was crowned
king by the bishop of London on Sunday the 5th of August, a mere 3 days after. Henry moved so quickly that he was unable
to attend William Rufus’ funeral on the Friday, a drab affair suspiciously lacking
in the pomp and splendor usually reserved for a king. In fact it seems that Rufus was quickly forgotten
about, his body being transported by a wagon by low-level servants to Winchester, where
he was entombed the next morning at the Old Minster, at the centre of the quire underneath
the tower, with hardly a distinguished noblemen in attendance. Of course, William’s death could just have
easily been an accident, for no conclusive proof exists of a conspiracy to prematurely
remove him from office, but what is for sure is that his untimely passing still remains
one of the most mysterious events in British history, and one that will still be talked
about for generations to come. Although the reign of William Rufus was short,
the documents and accounts left behind tell the story of a man with a unique sort of charisma,
a king who could be equally as upset by a pair of cheap shoes as he could by a rebellion
to oust him from the throne. Although his fondness for exuberance, glamour,
and style, coupled with the large collection of remarkable outbursts attributed to him
as direct quotes compiled by later scholars, paint him as an almost absurd character, a
stroppy, fiery sovereign who threw fits of anger when he did not get his way, his abilities
as a leader should not be understated or ignored. During his reign, William effectively dealt
with two plots to overthrow him, one in 1088 led by Odo of Bayeaux and his brother Robert,
and another in 1096 organized by his own baron Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland. As well as being able to maintain a strong
grip on power, William, ever the warrior and despiser of the Church, an institution he
was more than happy to leave for the battlefield after a traumatic childhood experience as
a student of LanFranc, was an accomplished soldier in his own right, having been trained
under the watchful eye from an early age in the art of warfare by one of the best instructors,
William the Conqueror, a father to whom he remained a loyal and devoted son until the
end, a truth that even his detractors had to admit was one of his best qualities and
which can be seen in the remarkable continuity of his government. William also fought valiantly alongside the
Conqueror in his later years as he sought to pacify for good his English and Norman
realms, and as a king he was able to impose his authority on his own belligerent kinsmen
and the French who were constantly looking to upset the balance of power in Normandy,
as well as effectively protecting the northern reaches of his empire from the incursions
of the Scots. Although William was thoroughly disliked by
the Church and a section of the barony for his exploitative economic practices, today
William is generally thought of as having been a generous king, especially to his friends,
an effective maintainer of the realm, and a loyal son. He was largely preferred by many to his more
independently minded brother Robert, a wildcard with whom he always had a difficult relationship
likely exacerbated by that fateful day in 1078, when he and his brother Henry pulled
what seemed like a harmless practice joke that sent him over the edge. William’s relationship with his brother
Henry, who could be a friend or a foe of his depending on the situation, was a lot more
unclear, and made even murkier by the suspicious circumstances of his death in a hunting accident,
in which some believe Henry, who ultimately became king as a result, was responsible. What do you think of William Rufus? Do you think his lavish desires for the finer
things in life, the fact that he never married nor left behind any heirs, and his hatred
of the Church illustrate that he was homosexual, and do you believe that Henry really murdered
his own brother to usurp his crown? Please let us know in the comment section,
and in the meantime thank you very much for watching.
