Bio

William the Bastard stands before his Norman invaders, who won the day near Senlac Hill at the Battle of Hastings in 1066

Bastard son of Robert I, Robert le Magnifique, the Duke of Normandy. Fought for from a very young age indeed to claim his inheritance as the Duke of Normandy, which he did in the year 1035. Knowing that Anglo-Saxon Britannia was a divided, entirely fractured kingdom, besieged by enemies on all sides from the Men of Alba to the north, and from the sea by the Norsemen, William the Bastard made plans for an invasion.

The Bastard and his Norman knights landed in southern Britannia in September, 1066, meeting the army of King Harold Godwinson, the Anglo-Saxon King of England at the Battle of Hastings in October. It was at Senlac Hill in Hastings where William the Bastard, became William the Conqueror, winning the battle & killing King Godwinson in the process, crowning himself King of England on Christmas Day of that same year.

As King William was known for his brutal reign, crushing almost all who opposed his policies all but destroying the influence of the old Saxon jarls of Northumbria, in the Harrying of the North from 1069-1070. He orders the beheading of Gospatric, known commonly as the Servant of St. Patrick, the Earl of Northumbria following his defeat at the Battle of Tweedsmuir in 1071. William would spend most of his reign between his castles in Normandy and Southern England. The expansion of Norman power increasing in the Midlands and in Northumbria after the Harrying of North in 1069-1070.

King William made peace King Malcolm III in 1075, accepting tribute, agreeing to border concessions and trade rights, and eventually taking both of Malcolm Canmore’s youngest son’s as royal hostages and wards. His later reign was plagued by a series of revolts and uprisings both in Normandy and Northumbria, the later being crushed quickly, while the Duchy of Normandy, left to his eldest son Robert Curthose, remained in a state of war following King William’s death in 1087. William was succeeded as King of England by his much beloved third son, William Rufus who was crowned King William II. His eldest son Robert Curthose succeeded him as Duke of Normandy as Robert II.