William the Conqueror

King of England and Duke of Normandy.

He was the natural son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, his mother, Herleva, being the daughter of a tanner of Falaise. In 1035 Robert set out upon a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in which he died. Before starting he presented to the nobles this child, then seven years old, demanding their allegiance. "He is little", the father said, "but he will grow, and, if God please, he will mend." In spite of the murder of three of his guardians, and of attempts to kidnap his own person, the child, after a period of anarchy, became the ruler of Normandy in his father's place. He seems to have been a youth of clean life and of much natural piety, while the years of storm and stress through which he passed gave him an endurance and far-sighted resolution of character which lasted to his life's end. In 1047 a serious rebellion of nobles occurred, and William with the aid of Henry, King of France, gained a great victory at Val-es-Dunes, near Caen, which led, the following year, to the capture of the two strong castles of Alencon and Domfront. Using this as his base of operations, the young duke, in 1054 and the following years, made himself master of the province of Maine and thus became the most powerful vassal of the French Crown, able on occasion to bid defiance to the king himself.