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William the conqueror full essay
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WILLIAM I 'THE CONQUEROR' (r. 1066-1087)
Born around 1028, William was the illegitimate son of Duke Robert I of Normandy, and Herleve (also known as Arlette), daughter of a tanner in Falaise. Known as 'William the Bastard' to his contemporaries, his illegitimacy shaped his career when he was young.
On his father's death in 1035, William was recognised by his family as the heir - an exception to the general rule that illegitimacy barred succession. His great uncle looked after the Duchy during William's minority, and his overlord, King Henry I of France, knighted him at the age of 15.
From 1047 onwards, William successfully dealt with rebellion inside Normandy involving his kinsmen and threats from neighbouring nobles, including attempted invasions by his former ally King Henry I of France in 1054 (the French forces were defeated at the Battle of Mortemer) and 1057.
William's military successes and reputation helped him to negotiate his marriage to Mathilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders. At the time of his invasion of England, William was a very experienced and ruthless military commander, ruler and administrator who had unified Normandy and inspired fear and respect outside his duchy.
William's claim to the English throne was based on his assertion that, in 1051, Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne (he was a distant cousin) and that Harold II - having sworn in 1064 to uphold William's right to succeed to that throne - was therefore a usurper.
Furthermore, William had the support of Emperor Henry IV and papal approval. William took seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel.
On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at Pevensey and, within a few days, raised fortifications at Hastings. Having defeated an earlier invasion by the King of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York in late September, Harold undertook a forced march south, covering 250 miles in some nine days to meet the new threat, gathering inexperienced reinforcements to replenish his exhausted veterans as he marched.
At the Battle of Senlac (near Hastings) on 14 October, Harold's weary and under-strength army faced William's cavalry (part of the forces brought across the Channel) supported by archers. Despite their exhaustion, Harold's troops were equal in number (they included the best infantry in Europe equipped with their terrible two-handled battle axes) and they had the battlefield advantage of being based on a ridge above the Norman positions.
When William came back from France, he found that his parents had died at the hands of the English army, and that made him extremely angry and vengeful. Whether or not he had a wife, or if the wife was attacked by English is questionable, but what does seem to be true is that the English soldiers were raping the Scottish women. The idea was to get more English blood into the country, but resulting in English babies.
Margaret of Burgundy provided money and an army of 2000 mercenaries. They landed in Ireland in May 1487. Henry paraded the real Warwick through London, but support of the rebellion did not weaken and this was an unsuccessful move by Henry. He offered pardons to the rebels, but they refused them. This form of negotiating or appeasing demonstrates an unsuccessful attempt at dealing with it.
October 14th of the year 1066 two armies faced each other near the town of Hastings. 10,000 Norman troops under the command of William of Normandy faced 8,000 Anglo-Saxon soldiers led by Harold the current king of England.
William of Rubruck was a traveling Franciscan monk. He lived from about 1200 to 1256. He accompanied King Louis IX on the seventh crusade and became close with him. Louis feared Europe was next on the Tartars list to be conquered. His reaction was to send William to the Court of the Great Khan in 1253 to convert them to Christianity and to assure that Europe was safe from invasion.
William I, better known as William the Conqueror, began his medieval and political career at a young age when his father left him to go on a crusade. Effectively William became the Duke of Normandy. He had to fight against other members of the Norman royalty who desired William's land and treasure. William learned at an early age that the men who ruled Europe during the middle ages were primarily interested in their own greed at the expense of all else, including the concepts chivalry and honor. He soon became a feared military commander, conquering all in Normandy who would oppose his interests. Also an excellent statesman, William planed a visit across the channel to England, so that he might meet with the elderly King Edward the Confessor, who had no obvious successors to his throne. It is hard to say what actually transpired during that meeting, due to a lack of historical records. However, what we do know comes down to us from the magnificent Bayeux tapestry. Believed to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, it is in fact not a tapestry at all, but a long (230 feet long, 20 inches wide) embroidery. The Bayeaux tapestry is a pictorial history of the events leading up to and including William's victory at the battle of Hastings in 1066. At any rate the tapestry tells us that William was given the consent of Edward the Confessor, King of England, to rule the country after Edward's death. Furthermore, the tapestry also shows scenes of the Earl of Wessex Harold, swearing, on relics, before William, that he would not take the throne of England. Edward died and Harold took the throne, in spite of any prior arrangement with William of Normandy. William, gathered his armies and set...
After the two costly battles, Cornwallis finally reached Virginia and met up with General Clinton’s reinforcements. His force would now equal around 7,000 soldiers. Cornwallis ...
1066: The Year of the Conquest, written by David Howarth, tells of one of the most important dates in the history of England. In 1066, William the Conqueror and William of Orange fought the historical Battle of Hastings. The outcome of this battle lead to many changes to the English people. The Norman people became assimilated into the English way of life. Howarth proceeds to tell the tale of the Battle of Hastings through the eyes on a common Englishman.
George III inherited more than just the throne. He also had the royal hereditary disease
King George I was born in 1660 at Osnabuuck, the eldest son of Ernest Augustus-Duke of Brunswick-Lunchburg and first Elector of Hanover. Because his father was the Elector of Hanover, George was the Electoral Price of the Empire. He was also in the imperial army, who faced battles against the Dutch, the Turks, Nine Years War, and in the War of Spanish Succession. George soon became a talented and experienced General. He went on to command in many wars. He eventually became lector of Hanover in 1698(2001 World Book Encyclopedia).
The Duke of Normandy, couldn’t have chosen a better time in which to invade England. King Edward the Confessor of England had died January of 1066 with no heir to take his place, and William’s distant family claims to the throne were an opportunity to declare himself king. With the support of the Church and an army of around 7,000, William landed his arm...
Henry VIII was born on June 28, 1491 at Greenwich Palace. His Parents, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, were very loving and proud parents, even though they didn’t see much of their children. Henry was their second son. He was styled as the “Duke of York”. He had his own servants, Court Jesters, and to top it off he had is own whipping boy that would receive whippings whenever Henry did something bad.
They thought he was going to be just like them instead of him having his own individual interests. For example when they finally got a dog, they forgot to get the name of the dog so had think of a new one and the mother wanted to name the dog a scholarly name, ““You could name him after a passé school of literary criticism,”(pg 161) my mother suggested.”, even though he never really cared for their educated and uppity ways. Also that William corrected his mother that the dog was a she when she said “him” in the quote above. After that, the father brushed that off and kept calling it a “he” like on pages 161 “What’ll we name him?”, and 162 ““Dead,” he said. “Before we could even name him.”” which irritated
William was a better leader because although Harold had the upper hand in the battle and they were losing, William managed to outwit and defeat the English. In the Bayeux Tapestry there is a scene depicting that in the days preceding the Battle of Hastings, the wind direction changed and William and his army took this opportunity and managed to cross the Channel while Harold was still in the North. When they arrived, they made a fortified camp. William fed his troops, arranged them carefully and used them well in battle. Whilst in battle, William’s troops were getting killed because Harold’s troops had a strong position. Then he made a plan – he made his troops look like they were retreating and Harold and his army followed them, leaving their strong position on the hill, enabling William to defeat them as they walked into his trap.
Could you imagine yourself becoming the leader of a country at merely the age of nine months old? King Henry VI of England did it. Henry was the only son of King Henry V and Catherine of Valois (Wikipedia). By the time Henry V died, he had not only consolidated power as the King of England, but had also effectively accomplished what generations of his ancestors had failed to achieve through decades of war: unification of the crowns of England and France (Wikipedia). For that one single victory by Henry V, he became very popular for that effort. By the sounds of it, Henry was an outseanding King and loved by the people. His son, Henry VI, seemingly had to follow in his fathers footsteps and perhaps do something even greater than his now deceased father. There was only one problem: How can you run a country when you are only a child? England was okay after the death of Henry V because Henry VI had regents that ran the country for him. Under normal circumstances of this magnitude, the wife of a deceased King ran the country, but the English did not want Catherine of Valois to run the country for the simple fact that she was French; so therefore they gave the power to this infant in hopes of greatness. Because young Henry was too young to run the country and had regents to run the country for him until he became of age, Catherine made sure that her son was well-educated. While politics and foreign policies were being negotiated by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Bishop Henry Beaufort, and John, Duke of Bedford, young Henry VI was either learning or being told to go play (Crow). Henry was finally officially crowned King of England at Westminister Abbey on November 6, 1429 at the age of eight and King of France at Notre Dame in Paris on December 16, 1431. Henry did not assume the reins of government until he was declared of age in 1437 (Wikipedia).
“Led by Richard Earl of Salisbury the Yorkist in the north mobilized an army and headed