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1. Why did I choose this subject?....................Page 4 2. A comment..........................................................Page 4 3. William’s family tree........................................Page 5 4. William’s Childhood...........................................Page 5 5. William the Duke of Normandy.....................Page 6 6. Hastings.............................................................Page 6 7. The Bayeux Tapestry.....................................Page 7 8. The traitors.......................................................Page 14 9. The Tower of London.......................................Page 14 10. William’s last fight........................................Page 15 11. After William’s death...................................Page 15 12. At the end.......................................................Page 16 13. Sources............................................................Page 17

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1. Why did I choose this subject?

I read the book „Das zweite Königreich“ by my favourite author Rebecca Gablé. The book was about a young man,, who was King William’s adviser. And I loved the book and told my mother everything, I knew about William the Conquerer. She said: ,Why aren’t you going to write a paper about him?´. I thought that this would be a great idea and so I’m writing

it. Rebecca Gablé

2. A comment I have to say something about this paper: William the Conquerer was a Norman and so he really has to be called Guillaume, the Norman version of William. But I’m writing about him as William, because he went into history as William the Conquerer.

William I

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3. William’s family tree

4. William’s Childhood William was the illegitimate child of Robert I Duke of the Normans. And so nobody really liked him. Everyone called him ´William the Bastard`. So this wasn’t very nice for him because he had many enemies at his father’s court. Why do I write this? You‘ll see it in the next chapters.

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5. William the Duke of Normandy When Robert I died, he designated William as his successor. Although William had two martial half-brothers called Odo (Archbishop of Bayeux) and Robert de Mortain. So William made more enemies without wanting it. In England: Edward the Confessor (King of England) had no children and so he promised William, that he should his successor. But he also gave this promise to Harold Godwinson.

In Rouen (capital of Normandy): Harold Godwinson went to William and helped him fighting against one of William’s enemies. As a reward, William made Harold one of his knights and the oath of loyalithy also contained, that Harold would help William getting on his right to be King of England.

Harold Godwinson went back to England. In January 1066 Edward the Confessor died. And Harold got the crown for himself. Of course William got angry about that and so he drew up an army, which was great enough to conquer England. Also the Pope supported William, because he thought Harold was an oath-breaker.And William and his army set off to Calais. In England: King Harold didn’t have only one problem. Not only William wanted become King of England. Also the King of Denmark Harald Hardare made a claim for the English crown. But William couldn’t get over the Channel because the wind came from the north, and so the Danes could invade in England. So there was a big fight in North England. Harald Hardare died. All Danes fled. And so the English men had won this battle. The wind turned and so the Danes could get back over the Northsea. First Harold was very happy about the Danish escape. But suddenly he realised, that William could get over the Channel, when the wind suddenly came from the South.

6. Hastings William and his army set over the Channel and moved towards London. 14th of October 1066 After William had heard the message that Harold Godwinson was on the way to him, he and his army of over seven thousand men left Hastings to fight against the

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English. Far outside of the city they waited for the English. When they appeared the fight started, after William had given the order to attack the English. The fight was hopeless for the English because they had lost a lot of men in the battle against the Danes. And when it became midday Harold Godwinson died because he was ridden down by a Norman horse.

William I the Conquerer was crowned on Christmas Day 1066 in Westminster Abbey.

7. The Bayeux Tapestry Odo, King William’s brother and Archishop of Bayeux and Dover built a church for God’s honour. Odo wanted to make his brother happy, and so he hired 200 embroideres, who had to embroider a tapestry of over 200 feet (60m) which tells the story how William conquered England. The tapestry starts when Harold Godwison visits William Duke of Normandy and ends when William was crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 24th December 1066. But the last 6m are missing. Historians said that when Archbishop Odo showed the tapestry to his brother, King William ,who never showed emotions, cried. You can see the whole Bayeux Tapestry on the next page.

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8. The traitors When William became King of England, he made lots of enemies. Some of the enemies hated William, because he was Norman, and they wanted an English King on their throne. Others had enough of being always the second or third person in the kingdom. For example Archbishop Odo. He and some others planned to push William off his throne. They contracted some troops on the Isle of Wight and waited for the right moment, when William was in trouble with the Scotts. But a courier informed William about his brother’s trait and William set off to the Isle of Wight and William send Odo and his accomplices as `guests´ to William’s castle in Rouen. All these `guests´weren’t allowed to go out of the castle. So they really where prisoners in a golden cage...

9. The Tower of London King William needet a residence in London. And he had lots of prisoners from all the wars against the Scotts and Danes (which attacked the northern border of England). He also needet a

save place for the crown jewels (right). And so he began to built the TOWER OF LONDON in

These are the crown jewels today. They are save in the Tower of London.

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1066. First the Tower was a residence fort all the English royals who had to stay in London. Later the Tower was a big prison for every lord who had broken his oath with the King. Since 1852 the Tower has not been a prison any longer. Prince Albert suppordet the idea to make the Tower of London a great tourist atracction. The Tower is a great place in the south of East Smithfield in London. It’s in the east end of London on the northern Thames side. Today nobody lives in the Tower.

Actually it is one of the most famous buildings in London.

10. Williams last fight It was the 6th of September in 1087. William , now old ,lazy and fat, fiought again against an enemy in Normandy. His army attacked the city William’s enemy lived in. When William thought the battle was won he went into the city with some of his advisers. Everything was still. They came to the market square and suddenly a dog barked at William’s horse. It shied and fell to the ground. William was under the horse. His advisers moved Williams body away from the horse and brought him to the camp. William I the Conquerer, King of England, Duke of Normandy, husband, and father of four sons (one of them died in 1085) and one daughter died on the 9th of September in 1087.

10. After William’s death After his dead William’s son Richard became Duke of Normandy and his son Rufus became King of England. He died in 1100.The chronists never said good things about him, but we should not forget, that all the chronsists where monks and bishops, for the chronists was Rufus a bad guy because he was homosexual. Rufus wasn’t a friend of the church. It is said, he threats a bishop with a sword. He didn’t became married and he didn’t became a father and so his brother Henry became King of England when Rufus died. He was better a King than his brother he accepted the English traditions and loved everything that was English. But the story

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of Henry is (as J.R.R. Tolkien would say), another story and has to be telled another time. Henry and all of his grandchildren where called PLANTAGENETS. The oldest sons of the Kings became King, when their fathers died. But then in 1399 Henry of Lancaster (who wasn’t the King’s son or heir to the crown, but grandchild of Edward III) became the first ,who had been chosen by the parliament, King of England. Queen Elisabeth I is a grandchild of him. And so the royal family of today are all grandchilds of William the conquerer.

11. At the end I think this paper is OK. I don’t know what to write about it. I think I have to read the book “Das zweite Königreich” the next time more carefully. It was very difficult to find all these dates and places and the things which happend then and there and then all the persons I left out. For example, I didn’t write about the younger brother of Harold Godwinson, Wulfnoth Godwinson. He was a `guest´ in Rouen for about twenty years without a right reason. William only thought that all Godwinsons were traitors and so he was a `guest´in Rouen Castle for about twenty years. I couldn’t write about everything what happened to William. And so I left out some very interesting facts about him. For example there was an old woman, who said, that two of his sons would die when they were on a shoot(auf Jagd wahren). And it really happened. Richard (Williams second son) died two weeks, after the woman said this. And Rufus died from a loosed arrow. This is all I can say about this paper (I think so). Christina Schmidt Welschen Ennest, 10th of Febuary 2003

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12. Sources Texts: Books: title: Das zweite Königreich author: Rebecca Gablé puplishing house: Bastei Lübbe ISBN: 3-404-14808-8 title: Der Tower von London author: Peter Hammond publishing house: Crown ISBN: x-xxx-xxxxx-x Internetpages: http://www.battle1066.com http://www.wissen.de Pictures Internetpages: http://www.battle1066.com (Bayeux Tapestry a.s.o.) http://www.royal.gov.uk http://suche.lycos.de/cgi-bin/pursuit?query=the+tower+of+london&SITE=de&sfn=loc&cat=image&matchmode=and&lang=any&idx=all&maxhits=10&x=51&y=15 http://suche.lycos.de/cgi-bin/pursuit?matchmode=and&mtemp=main&etemp=error&query=the+tower+of+london&cat=de_spkr