Burial of William the Conqueror, King of England
Burial of William I, 1087. The clergy of Rouen arranged to have the body sent to Caen, where William had desired to be buried in his foundation of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes. The funeral, was attended by the bishops and abbots of Normandy as well as his son Henry. William I (1028 - September 9, 1087) was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant of Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035 under the style William II. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066. William was crowned king on Christmas Day 1066, in London. He made arrangements for the governance of England in early 1067 before returning to Normandy. Several unsuccessful rebellions followed, but by 1075 William's hold on England was mostly secure, allowing him to spend the majority of the rest of his reign on the Continent. His final years were marked by difficulties in his continental domains, troubles with his eldest son, and threatened invasions of England by the Danes. He died in September 1087 while leading a campaign in northern France, and was buried in Caen. His lands were divided after his death: Normandy went to his eldest son, Robert, and his second surviving son, William, received England. His reign in England was marked by the construction of castles, the settling of a new Norman nobility on the land, and change in the composition of the English clergy. His government blended elements of the English and Norman systems into a new one that laid the foundations of the later medieval English kingdom.
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Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
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