Housecarl 1066
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The bastard and his rebellious... "family"
William the bastard's family 'loyalty' was in tatters from the start...
* Suspicions that the illegitimate William's father Robert poisoned his own brother, Richard, can never be substantiated now, but contemporary rumours were thriving.
* In 1047 many powerful nobles rallied to William's own cousin, Guy, and took up arms against their Normandy duke, aiming to replace him.
* William's traumatic childhood would have left him vulnerable to assassins were it not for such men as his uncles- Mauger (later Archbishop of Rouen) and the illegitimate William of Talou (Count of Arques)- who later took up armed revolt against their own ducal nephew in 1052-3. They also had designs on seizing power from their illegitimate nephew.
* The bastard's own short-arsed son Robert 'Curthose' revolted against his puffing father in the latter 1070's/80's.
* The bastard's own half-brother, and "trusted" lieutenant- Odo- rebelled in 1082, leading to his arrest and imprisonment for the next 6yrs!
* Even when the stammering, odd-eyed gayboy Guillaume II 'de Rose' took over his fat father's usuarpation, the newly-freed Odo and Robert of Mortain continued the family tradition of internal murder, betrayal and treason...the Viking-Norman way.
Hardly cohesive? Then there was the other revolts of Count Eustace II of Boulogne (1067); Norman nobles in 1075; Mowbray's rebellion in 1095...
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7/23/2008, 8:51 pm
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mousteriana
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Re: The bastard and his rebellious... "family"
Housecarl 1066:
I guess you could say that there were a lot of people who didn't much like William for various reasons, and they thought they could do a better job. Or something. As far as Daddy Robert is concerned, there seems to have been(at least according to Frank McLynn), a long history of various rulers of Normandy coming into their rulership by doing in their predecessors or the designated heirs.
Then there was the uncomfortable and unpleasant fact of William's being left fatherless at the age of seven or eight. Not a very good position on "them days". For obvious reasons, if you think about it. Hence the assassination attempts.
I have the distinct impression that his son Robert was never given much responsibility for anything; William seems to have been the type who liked people doing his bidding but not giving them any real resoponsibilities. I guess Robert just got awfully resentful as he got old enough to understand what was going on.
Then there's Odo. Odo is an interesting character in his own right. He helped William a lot, and according to some, did it well. At least in England. But I suppose he thought that if he couldn't be a king or a duke, he could be a pope, so he tried to make himself one. Unfortunately for Odo, William "owed" the Church. Supposedly the pope of the time blessed a banner for Williaam to take to England. I have no idea whether or not this was true. In any case, there were lots of reasons why William "owed" the Church. And, unfortunately for Odo, that made Odo "disposable". Never mind that he was William's half brother. It doesn't sound as if William had much "family feeling", and this lack of "family feeling" was returned, as they say, "in spades".
Anne G
quote:
Housecarl 1066 wrote:
William the bastard's family 'loyalty' was in tatters from the start...
* Suspicions that the illegitimate William's father Robert poisoned his own brother, Richard, can never be substantiated now, but contemporary rumours were thriving.
* In 1047 many powerful nobles rallied to William's own cousin, Guy, and took up arms against their Normandy duke, aiming to replace him.
* William's traumatic childhood would have left him vulnerable to assassins were it not for such men as his uncles- Mauger (later Archbishop of Rouen) and the illegitimate William of Talou (Count of Arques)- who later took up armed revolt against their own ducal nephew in 1052-3. They also had designs on seizing power from their illegitimate nephew.
* The bastard's own short-arsed son Robert 'Curthose' revolted against his puffing father in the latter 1070's/80's.
* The bastard's own half-brother, and "trusted" lieutenant- Odo- rebelled in 1082, leading to his arrest and imprisonment for the next 6yrs!
* Even when the stammering, odd-eyed gayboy Guillaume II 'de Rose' took over his fat father's usuarpation, the newly-freed Odo and Robert of Mortain continued the family tradition of internal murder, betrayal and treason...the Viking-Norman way.
Hardly cohesive? Then there was the other revolts of Count Eustace II of Boulogne (1067); Norman nobles in 1075; Mowbray's rebellion in 1095...
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7/24/2008, 5:54 am
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Housecarl 1066
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Re: The bastard and his rebellious... "family"
A happy deathday to the detested Pink one!
Shame about his brother helping the killer/s?
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8/3/2008, 1:42 am
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mousteriana
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Re: The bastard and his rebellious... "family"
Housecarl:
I don't exactly rejoice over the death of anybody. However, it would seem that William II just wasn't too well-liked for a variety of reasons. . . .
Anne G
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8/3/2008, 4:17 am
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WilliamtheRed Forum1
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Re: The bastard and his rebellious... "family"
There is nothing wrong with divisions in anything.They are much better than any unity which papers over the cracks.That was the Confessor's way basically.The Usurper's family was divided and the divide between him and Tostig was crucial and those divisions lost him Angleland and ended the Anglo-Saxon hegemony which had lasted 500 years+ down to 1016 and had been resuscitated briefly under the Confessor in a limited way and even more briefly under the Usurper despite the fact he was a Saxon-Dane ruler. The Conqueror's family certainly had divisions but they did not prevent him winning nor did they lose him his lands or his fame throughout Medieval Europe
Marita Keel,First Secretary,Steve Walsh,Pereobu,John G,Becky (all in personal capacity)
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8/3/2008, 2:18 pm
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mousteriana
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Re: The bastard and his rebellious... "family"
Marita and WRTF:
Get this through your collective heads: First, "Saxon" is a complete misnomer(this fashion actually got started with Walter Scott and has for some unfortunate reason, stuck; they were thought of as "English" by 1066). Second, whatever his ancestry, Harold thought of himself as English and styled himself, AFAIK, "King of the English", as all kings since Alfred had done. And he wasn't a "usurper" by English law; the Witan agreed that he should be king.
Anne G
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8/3/2008, 8:17 pm
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