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Norman Duke Robert I and a tanner’s daughter. Though he succeeded to his father’s duchy, he had grown up with the nickname William the Bastard. Perhaps this is why the great conqueror was such a faithful and devoted husband to Matilda of Flanders, by whom he had four sons and five daughters.
    The former English ruling class disappeared when William conquered England, and French speech and customs thereafter heavily influenced the English. French fashions, manners, art, and architecture made a permanent mark. He built great cathedrals, which were to give the impression that he was, indeed, ordained by God to rule England.
    William, a calculating and brutal invader, deemed his eldest son, Robert, too generous and easygoing, and while he left his Norman holdings to him, just before his death he willed the rule of rebellious England to his second son, William Rufus. He then died a day after having been thrown from his horse, who had stepped on hot coals following William’s capture of the French town of Nantes.
    His body was looted by those who had been taking care of him, and he was left nearly naked. His corpse broke in half as it was being forced into a too-small coffin.
    He was buried in Caen. In time, his body was dug up and parts of it taken, but a thigh-bone remained to be reburied in dignity. Even this bone was disinterred and stolen during the French Revolution. The long-missed thigh-bone was found, however, and confirmed to be authentic in the 1980s, and it was finally laid to rest under a new tombstone.
    Christmas 1065
    by Carol McGrath
    C hristmas 1065 was one of the most significant Christmases in England’s history. Thanes and their families, bishops and two Archbishops gathered in Westminster for the king’s Christmas feast and for the consecration of the newly built Cathedral Church of St. Peter (Westminster), close to the king’s palace on Thorny Island.
    However, during the twelve days of Christmas, the childless King Edward died, setting in motion a not unexpected succession crisis.
    The day after King Edward’s death, Harold Godwinson was crowned king, thus leading to invasions of England from two usurping contenders, William of Normandy and Harold Harthrada of Norway.
    The story of that Christmas is recorded in both Norman and English writing from the period. William of Poitiers, a Norman historian, refers to Harold Godwinson as “a mad Englishman who seized the throne of England while his people were in mourning for Edward the Confessor.” This is, of course, opinionated. Such comments as that of Poitiers are part of the Norman justification for the invasion of England. Whilst historians may not invent incidents, they do not necessarily tell the truth but rather a version of it.
    Yet the story of King Edward’s death varies little within the main contemporary sources.
    The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains a poem which speaks of the dying king’s visions. He envisioned a green tree, with the prophecy that within a year and a day of his death God would punish the kingdom for its sins by delivering it into the hands of its enemy, that devils would go through the land with fire and sword and the chaos of war. The vision is repeated in another contemporary source, the Vita Edwardi , commissioned by the royal widow, Queen Edith.
    The anonymous author reports Edward’s last words to those around him. The king said to Edith, his wife and Harold’s sister, “May God be gracious to this wife for the zealous solicitude of her service; for certainly she has served me devotedly and always stood by my side like a loving daughter.” He commended her into Harold’s protection and also commended to Harold all his servants. It is not a straightforward nomination by Edward of Harold as his heir because it really concerns his direct court of Edith and those close to the king.
    The Bayeux Tapestry seems to illustrate the Vita’s text. In the presence of an Archbishop, a second man helps the king to sit up in bed