Consolidating the Norman Conquest

I have now read enough of Crouch's book to get past the immediate aftermath of the Conquest and the through to the mid 1070's. So now I want to write about how William consolidated his conquest. I have not yet watched the 2nd episode of the BBC series so may have more to add once I have done.

The popular view is that the Battle of Hastings represented a final act and that after it the Norman conquest was assured. It follows from this that William was crowned on Christmas Day 1066 and that there was little significant rebellion against his rule, with the exception of the well known Harrying of the North and the revolt of Hereward the Wake, centred on Ely and the Fens. This is a massive over simplification and fails to recognise the often tenuous hold on the crown William had and the seriousness of the revolts against him and the Normans.

The immediate aftermath of the bloody battle on Senlac Ridge saw William return to Hastings and spend several weeks in the Sussex and Kent. His troops looted and pillaged the area before William and his Army advanced on London. The went via Canterbury which submitted without resistance. Then skirted south of London, burning Southwark and looting and pillaging their way up the Thames valley before finally sweeping round through the Chilterns and down on London from the north. William reached Berkhamstead by mid December. At this point many of the English leaders were ready to submit to William's claims to the throne, and he duly received these submissions at Berkhamstead. The coronation was swiftly arranged and William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 25th December 1066.

The ceremony was presided over by the Archbishop of York and was conducted in both English and French. Many English Earls and Thegns were in attendance to accept William as their new sovereign. But the coronation did not go smoothly. The shout of acclamation (where the assembled nobility and clergy proclaim their new king by shouting) was taken up by the large crowd outside the church, whereupon the Norman guards stationed outside panicked, thinking a riot was starting they laid into the crowds with their swords and in the ensuing melee 2 houses in the Abbey precinct were burnt down. William was visibly shaken by this but the ceremony continued nonetheless.

Despite the debacle of the coronation William felt secure enough to return to Normandy in March 1067. The celebrations welcoming him back were impressive and William now kept a splendid royal court in his residence of Fecamp, much to the envy of the French King.

In spite of the conquest there was to be no united Anglo-Norman realm. In many ways William did not even see England as the centre and heart of his dominions and he certainly did not view England as his home. He returned home to Normandy within a few months of his coronation happy that the English had accepted him as their new king and equally happy to accept, by and large, the status quo in England. For example he issued writs in both English and Latin, he retain Edward the Confessor's chancellor as well as Stigand as Archbishop of Canterbury, in spite of papal opposition.. His first appointments of Earls in 1067 duplicated the regional arrangements of Anglo-Saxon England; William fitz Osbern, his close friend, replaced Harold as Earl of Wessex, Ralph the Staller (a former court official of Edward) replaced Gyrth in East Anglia and Bishop Odo (William's half brother) replaced Leofwine in Kent and most of the home counties. The Earldoms of Mercia, East Midlands and Northumbria were left as they were found. But William did take back to Normandy with him a vast amount of money and treasure looted from England, many French soldiers and several prominent English as hostages for good behaviour: Stigand (Archbishop of Canterbury), Edgar Atheling (the last clear blood heir to the English throne) and Edwin, Morcar and Waltheof (Earls of Mercia, Northumbria and East Midlands respectively) so that "no revolt instigated by them might breakout" according to the commentator William de Poitiers.

William remained in Normandy until December 1067. This is significant because it shows that William was worried by the security of Normandy - he did not return to England until the summer campaigning season in France was over. He was concerned at what his powerful enemies in Northern France might do in his absence. Indeed Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had fought for William at Hastings, did try to cause trouble. Rather than invade Normandy while William was there he fitted out a fleet and sent a force of troops to attack Dover. It was repulsed easily. Clearly William felt his position in England was secure enough for him to concentrate on Norman continental affairs. When William did return to England in December 1067 he took more troops with him and he was greeted with elaborate civic festivities in London.

However, there were problems in England and William spent much of the winter dealing with them. There was fighting in Herefordshire by alienated Mercian landowners who were raiding from the north. Worse, in the South West Exeter refused to accept William as King. Gytha, the late King Harold's mother was there and likely encouraged the defiance. William raised an army which included English shire levies and forced Exeter to surrender.

At this point William felt secure enough to bring his wife Mathilda over from Normandy and have her crowned Queen on 11 May 1068. Once again Ealdred Archbishop of York presided and many English Earls and Thegns attended. However, This was to be the high point of William's reign, thereafter he was faced with crisis and rebellion.

Before I look at why the apparently smooth takeover of England by William suddenly boiled over, and explore how and why William held onto his crown I will narrate the tale of what happened.

In the Summer of 1068 William moved out of the south of England for the first time. He entered Mercia and the North. The brothers Edwin and Morcar resisted him briefly but submitted again at York. William moved north leaving detachments to build castles at Warwick and Nottingham. York submitted to William's approach. William even entertained envoys of Malcolm III of Scotland (the slayer of Macbeth) at York. William then returned south starting castles at Lincoln, Huntington and Cambridge. He left a French Knight, Robert Comin to secure Durham and Northumberland. William, meanwhile returned to Normandy with his Queen to celebrate Christmas. All seemed well, William appeared to be in complete control. But it was merely the calm before the storm, and it was to prove a terrible storm.

William's appearance at York seems to have galvanised the Northern magnates into resistance. On 28 January 1069, Robert Comin and his knights were massacred on their first night in Durham. The surprise was so complete that only 1 or 2 Normans escaped. The news brought William back from Normandy like a thunderbolt, but the rebellion continued to spread. The massacre of Normans was repeated near York and the castle was placed under siege. The rebels appear to have been led by Edgar Atheling and numerous other nobles who had fled Norman rule to Scotland.

William duly arrived at York in March 1069 whereupon he drove off the rebels, refortified the existing castle and built a second. He left William fitz Osbern in charge and returned south to celebrate Easter at Winchester. He wanted to keep an eye on the South West where Harold's sons had landed with a force of mercenaries from Ireland. Throughout the summer of 1069 the Northern rebel army continued to threaten York and it was at this point that the situation became really critical for William. King Swein of Denmark (nephew of King Cnut and with a theoretically better claim to the English throne than Harold had) sent an army and fleet to raid the coast of England from Kent north. The fleet sailed up the Humber and the army joined with the northern rebels at the beginning of September near York. Now all the surviving English Earls chose to defy William. Waltheof of East Midlands, Edwin of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria all joined the Anglo-Danish camp.

York fell on 19th September and in the ensuing massacre only women and children and one Norman man were spared. Fitz Osbern had already been recalled by William so he survived. William was now at the darkest point and it looked as if he would lose his tenuous grip on the English throne. But it was at precisely this point that he now put to use all the cunning and guile, the the ruthlessness and bravery he had. Fitz Osbern was sent to the South West where he defeated the rebels under Harold's sons outside Exeter. William himself went west where he destroyed a rebel army which had been pushing onto Stafford from the Welsh Marches. This ended the most serious threat to his fragile power base in the south and left him free to deal with the Anglo-Danish army in the north. In early December 1069, his way north barred by the larger rebel army at Pontefract, William used cunning and bribed the commander of the Danish fleet to leave the area and retreat to the mouth of the Humber. This worked and the Danes left the northern rebel army. The rebels, now seriously weakened scattered and William entered a ruined York in time to spend Christmas amongst the ashes. But now commenced the Harrying of the North. William sent his troops out far and wide across the Vale of York where they burned and pillaged, destroying houses and villages and crops and driving off livestock. The result was a massive famine in which many thousands are believed to have died and which impoverished the north for many generations. From York William moved North first to the Tees and then the Tyne valleys. In January Earl Waltheof submitted to him and was given clemency. William now moved south crossing the Pennines to Chester and then Salisbury.

William finally returned to Normandy in late 1070 ending the longest continuous period William spent in England and it is a measure of how serious the problems were and how wrapped up in them he was that he allowed the hard won Norman control over the county of Maine to slip. But he had retained his grip on the English crown and indeed had strengthened it. The very fact that he remained king in 1070 must have surprised many even among his own supporters.