so, as promised, we're continuing on with our saga of the kings and queens of england. last time we had a bit of a visit with the one the started the whole affair (well, sort of), william the conqueror. now we're moving on to his son, the next king of england...
William II ('Rufus')
so, we know that William I was both the king of england and duke of normandy. this caused problems for him during his reign, as he was both king of his own sovereign nation and had to swear fealty to the king of another sovereign nation (that being france- where normandy is- for all of you who don't own maps). so, upon his death he decided to cleverly get around this issue and not burden his kids with the same problems. he left normandy to his eldest son, robert, and he left england to his third son, william (who was by far and away his favorite child).
robert was none too pleased about this arrangement, and 'rufus' (so called because of his flaming red hair), was stern and avaricious. because of this many of the norman barons took robert's side and the risings and private wars plagued william's reign. in order to safeguard himself against his elder brother and those pesky disaffected nobles, william had to rely on his english subjects. this was of particular importance in 1088 when he had to put down a rebellion led by robert.
william eventually patched things up with robert (mostly because robert went off on a crusade in 1095). at this time, william also secured the frontiers with wales and scotland, building Carlisle Castle and a chain of forts along the welsh border.
although william was clearly tyrannical, cruel, and blasphemous, his character suffered at the hands of the monastic chronicles because of the way in which he plundered the church (will those kings ever learn to just leave the damn church alone? oh, how much trouble is this crap going to cause for williams great-grandkids?!). as he has squandered his father's treasure, he made money by keeping sees vacant and diverting the monies to his own coffers. he also drove the archbishop of canterbury into exile.
in the end though, he was a strong and (mostly) capable ruler, especially given that he never received any co-operation from the most powerful men in the country (the nobles). he was killed (most believe murdered) by a stray arrow (what is it with arrows and these kings? you'd think they'd watch themselves more carefully) while hunting in the New Forest in 1100.
next time, we will visit with the next in line (another of the conqueror's sons), henry I (not the meddlesome priest one).
2 comments:
oh my god! I totally got the Rufus reference. I feel like its not so bad as long as we don't tell people where that came from.
hehehe, how did i know that you would be the one person who would get it?
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