Edith "Matilda" Princess of Scotland
princess Edith was renamed Matilda
William The Conqueror King of England
illegitimate son. At the age of 8 he succeeded his father as Duke of Normandy.
Matilda was well under five feet tall.
William was short,heavy and bald.
William was crowned King of England Dec 25, 1066 following his victory over Harold II at the Battle of Hastings.
He was aware of tactics used by Julius Caesar over 1120 years earlier in his conquest of England.
There is a famous 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, still to be seen in Bayeux, a city of Normandy. The tapestry is a linen strip 230 feet by 20 inches showing 72 scenes of the Norman Conquest of England.
william ordered in 1085 the compliation of the Domesday Book. An official census of the English people and their possessions. He began the English peerage system; they wee called peers because they were equal. He called the nobles barons; later the more powerful barons took the title earl, and other titles were added as time passed, resulting in a peerage in order of rank; duke,marquis,earl,viscount, and baron.
Matilda "Maud" of Flanders Queen of England
Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, was the daughter of baldwin IV., Count of Flanders, and of Adela, Princess of France. She was married to William while Duke of Normandy, in 1054, crowned Queen of England in 1068, and died in 1083. Of her eleven children, the best known are Robert, who became Duke of Normandy, William Rufus, and Henry Beauclerc, both of whom succeeded to the English crown. She had great influence whith her husband, and brought about a reconciliation-between him and his son Robert, who had taken up arms against him. To her is attributed the celebrated tapestry, preserved at Bayeux, representing the chief incidents in the Norman Conquest of England.
William II Rufus King of England
William II,
Rufus, or the Ruddy, King of England, was third son of William I., and was born in Normandy, about 1060. He was educated by Lanfranc, and appears to have been from childhood his father's favorite son. On his father's death, and by his express desire, he hastened to England, obtained possession of the royal treasury at Winchester, and was crowned by Lanfranc, then archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster, September 26, 1087. An insurrection infavour of his elder brother Robert, Duke of Normandy, broke out in the following year, headed by Bishop Odo, and several Norman nobles; but by politic promises of good laws William obtained the assistance of his English subjects, and quelled the rising. In 1090 he made war on Robert in Normandy, but their quarrel ended with a treaty. Similar ending had the war begun with Malcolm, King of Scotland, who agreed to do homage to William. It was, however, afterwards renewed, and Malcolm fell at Alnwick, in 1093.
Renewed war in Normandy, campaigns against the Welch, a long quarrel with Anselm, the new primate, from whom William long kept the temporalities of the see, and other troubles, filled up the rest of his reign. In 1096 he acquired, perhaps subject to a right of redemption, the duchy of Normandy for a large sum of money; Robert going on the first crusade. In the following year he began building the first Westminster Hall, and a bridge over the Thames, and completed the Tower of London. His avarice, profligate life, and severity as a ruler made him universally hated, and the manner of his death was considered an expression of God's judgement against him. He was shot while hunting in the New Forest, August 2,1100; by whose hand, and whether by accident or otherwise, it is impossible to tell. He was buried in the cathedral of Winchester.