448 – The Death of William the Conqueror

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 448: The Death of William the Conqueror.

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The story of William and the Conquest has been a long road.

And I've heard from some of you that this season has been challenging to listen to.

And I get it.

No matter how awful William is, he never seems to face any real consequences.

And sometimes, history just has these kinds of figures.

And they feel more more like a force of nature than a human being.

And William specifically feels like he wasn't ruled by people type of laws, but instead physical laws.

Specifically, Newton's first law of motion.

An object in motion stays in motion.

Talking about William, it feels like there's no power strong enough to stop the inertia of this too powerful man.

But that's not true.

Even a force of nature can be stopped, and it's often stopped by another force of nature.

At the end of the day, and I mean the very last day, we're all equals, and no one can bully the reaper.

So chin up, it's nearly over.

And man,

it really needed to be over.

Because here's what the chronicle says.

Quote, it was a very severe year and a very laborious and sorrowful year in England.

In cattle plague and corn and crops were checks, and there was such great misfortune with the weather as cannot easily be conceived.

There were such big thunderstorms and such lightning so that many people were killed, and it kept on getting worse and worse among the people.

More and more so.

May God Almighty make things better when it is his will.

End quote.

Sounds awful, right?

Like the kind of year where you'd be forgiven if you started building an ark.

And I don't want a monksplain to the scribes of the chronicle, but if I was facing thunderbolts, I might take a break from Big J and try reaching out to Zeus or Thor.

I mean, in this situation, reach out to the Thunder Department, not the head of HR.

But while the English were desperately asking a peace-loving carpenter to help them out with the weather, William was over on the continent dealing with his war against Hubert.

Now, William had, possibly for the first time in his life, tried to keep things from escalating.

But despite his efforts to keep the conflict constrained, you know, to a simple personal beef, rather than letting it spiral to the point where Anjou, Burgundy, and even King Philip might get directly involved, this whole affair had still become incredibly expensive.

Well, it it had become expensive for the Normans.

For Hubert and his friends, it was actually fantastically lucrative.

But for the Normans, those military losses and outrageous ransom sums were getting so bad that according to Orderic, Alan Rufus threw up his hands and headed back to England.

This disaster of a campaign was then left in the hands of another Breton commander.

And this new guy, well, he didn't end up living too long in that role.

So the debts and the bodies were just stacking up faster than the bougie camp could handle.

And luckily, their diplomatic efforts to convince Hubert to cash out while he was ahead had gained traction.

And after securing a guarantee of safe passage, Hubert agreed to meet with William and negotiate a peace.

We don't have a detailed account of what their negotiation looked like, but it was clear to everyone that Hubert had the upper hand here.

William, who had made a career out of being unstoppable in the field of battle, was starting to look a lot less intimidating in his later years.

And for good reason.

I mean, he nearly met his death at the hands of his own son during that civil war.

And now he was even failing to take a single castle.

Hell, he couldn't even hold Hubert to a stalemate.

Hubert just basically had the run of the place.

So in the context of William's track record, this was a disaster.

And the object in motion was finding itself forced into a rest.

And with knights from all over France coming to join Hubert, it's pretty clear that everyone knew it.

But at the same time, William was still a king.

And so even though Hubert had the upper hand, If there was going to be a peace, the count would have to make the first move.

So he was the one to travel to Rouen.

But once he arrived and met with William, I suspect it was Hubert who was making the demands, and it was William who was trying to negotiate him down.

In the end, it seems that Hubert got exactly what he wanted.

He was restored to court, William confirmed and restored all of his rights, and then he pardoned Hubert for any and all of his past offenses.

So for Hubert, this war had been one massive money-making machine with absolutely no negative political consequences.

And so he went back to governing as a count and was, quote, rejoicing in his independence and happy in the possession of his domains, end quote.

And Orderic specifically tells us that this rejoicing included everyone, not just Hubert, which, you know, might be true.

Wars can be pretty ugly, and when they're over, a lot of people are happy.

But I wonder if if there were a few knights in hubert's army who were quietly annoyed that their revenue stream had suddenly been cut off we might want to keep an eye on those guys anyway having extracted himself from this pickle as gracefully as he could have hoped william was now looking to build some allies and deepen whatever bonds he had with whoever was willing to still call him a friend And at the top of that list was Duke Alan Fergant of Brittany.

Not to be confused with Count Alan Rufus, who was William's commander.

Anyway, with Anjou and the King of France breathing down his neck, William needed friends who might come to his aid should everything go to hell.

And you know what that means?

That's right, it was time to sell a daughter.

So, sometime around December 8th of 1086, William attended the wedding of his daughter Constance to Duke Alan Fergant of Brittany.

Now, the records can't decide where this wedding was actually held, either Khan or Bayeux, nor are we given a precise date.

But we do know that by December 8th of 1086, the two of them were husband and wife, and William had bolstered his southwestern political flank.

After the wedding, he returned to his capital at Rouen.

Meanwhile, things in England were somehow getting even worse.

They were getting so dire, in fact, that the tone of John of Worcester gets downright biblical.

Quote, this year was the great mortality, first from fevers and afterwards from famine.

Meanwhile, the devouring flames laid nearly all cities of England in ruins, including the Church of St.

Paul the Apostle and the largest and best part of London, end quote.

So 1087 was rocking England hard.

And honestly, it kind of reminds me of summer of 2020, where only four months into a global pandemic, we experienced a brand new, deadly type of weather phenomenon called a heat dome, followed by nearly hurricane-level windstorms that sparked mega fires that turned the air so poisonous that there was no rating system to describe how dangerous it was to be breathing, which, you know, you have to do.

Just straight up divine wrath nonsense.

And sometimes, bad things really do happen all at once.

So I don't think Worcester was being dramatic here.

And when we look at other records, we see similar accounts of this just absolute disaster, even outside of England.

And a drastic change in the climate could certainly have created the environment that would have allowed for all of this.

I mean, an unseasonably hot and dry period could lead to failed crops and wildfires.

And then the ensuing famine could have easily led to outbreaks of disease.

So that's probably what was happening here.

But the point is that England was in crisis.

And when we look at Malmesbury's account, we get a sense of how King William, their vaunted leader, was handling this crisis.

Malmsbury tells us that during this period, William was so fixated on wealth that he sought any and all opportunities to gather more of it to himself.

He would wield his subjects' fear of their enemies to levy greater and greater taxes upon them, and dispense his duties not based on justice, but based on, quote, whoever offers more carries the prize, with all former agreements being disregarded, end quote.

Malmsbury goes on to say that in pursuit of this wealth, William, sought all opportunities of scraping together.

He cared not how.

He would say and do some things, and indeed almost anything unbecoming of such great majesty, end quote.

And he adds that even at the time of Malmsbury's writing in the 12th century, William's quote, disgraceful calamity is still prevalent and every day increases, end quote.

So basically, by Malmsbury's assessment, William broke any sense of justice and duty and established a culture of kleptocracy, which continued well into the subsequent generations.

So it seems like fires weren't the only thing ravaging English cities.

People all across England were going hungry.

And over in Rouen, someone else was going hungry too.

William.

And not because of famine, and certainly not because he was acting out of some sort of solidarity with the starving peasants.

William had let his stress eating get out of control, and the results of his overindulgence had become such a problem that he was currently in seclusion at his palace at Ruan

and he was taking weight loss remedies.

Yeah, you heard that right.

In late 1086 or early 1087, the Conqueror had checked himself into medieval fat camp.

Now, while it is possible that he was doing this because he was an aging widower and was trying to slim up so he could get back on the dating market, I think it's far more likely that he was experiencing health consequences.

And his doctors had told him it was time to trim up.

In fact, the state of art of medicine in the 11th century dictated a very specific treatment plan for this exact issue.

Physicians were trained to first address their patient's diet.

And then, if that didn't work, the doctor would introduce pharmacology.

And then finally, if all else failed, they'd use surgery, but not in the case of weight loss issues, because this was long before lap bands and liposuction.

So his doctors probably adjusted his diet a bit and then put him on some weight loss drugs, which overall is a fairly sensible treatment plan for this issue, even if the theory that underlies it all, the concept of the four humors, turned out to be complete nonsense.

And if you'd like to know more about this whole thing, Z and I have done a whole series on the members feed about how this medieval medical system worked, and honestly, it's fascinating.

Now, just in case you're wondering what kind of pharmacological remedies William was taking to lose all of this weight, weight, well, it turns out that there was in fact a medieval version of Ozempic.

It was a plant called bitter vetch.

And given that we're told that William was bedridden and that he was attempting to reduce his size through medicine, that very well might have been what he was taking.

So while England was literally starving, Big Bill was probably feeling a bit peckish as well, but for entirely different reasons.

And due to his sudden commitment to 11th century weight watchers, he was also essentially out of commission.

He wasn't commanding troops in the field, he wasn't in court handling political matters, and he certainly wasn't attending feasts to handle diplomatic matters.

He was in bed, and if he was thinking about anything, it was probably about food.

Because let's be real here, that's what we all do when we go on a diet.

But while William had become an object at rest, that didn't mean everyone else was.

And all of a sudden, there was a lot of activity coming out of the disputed lands of French Vexan.

Now, the reason why French Vexan was under dispute between Normandy and the French crown is quite complicated.

The too-long didn't read version is that both Normandy and the King of France wanted control of Vexen.

And this resulted in a whole variety of wars.

And as for the people who were ruling over that disputed land, well, they kept dying in suspicious ways, or forced into retirement in equally suspicious ways.

Basically, ruling Vexon was a bit like being the professor of the defense against the dark arts.

You just know something bad is going to happen to you, and chances are you're not going to even last more than a year.

And, just like in Harry Potter, this whole cursed conflict had begun a generation earlier.

King Philip's father, King Henry I of France, was having trouble actually becoming the king of France.

And so William's dad, Duke Robert of Normandy, helped him out, you know, for a price.

He wanted a chunk of royal lands that lay between the central crown territory and his lands in Normandy.

And this was, of course, Vexon.

And King Henry gave it to him, though I'm sure he wasn't thrilled about doing it, since it reduced crown territory and put the famously ambitious and avaricious Normans even closer to Paris.

Fast forward to 1035, and Count Drogo was the man ruling over Vexen, and he decided to go on pilgrimage with his friend, Duke Robert of Normandy, when

whoops, they both died.

Now, Drogo's son, Walter, inherited Vexen, and he installed himself in the territory's central city of Mont, thus becoming Count Walter III of Mont.

Meanwhile, Robert's son, William the Bastard, might have heard of him, became Duke William the Bastard of Normandy, and that kicked off several uprisings and a few assassinations.

And it turned out that Walter had pretty much the same opinion about William that many of William's family members had.

Basically, he really didn't want to be ruled by this guy.

And so he started working to get Vexan back under crown control.

Now this, obviously, pissed William right off.

And adding fuel to the fire, Walter was King Edward the Confessor's nephew, which made him a valid claimant to the English throne, a throne that William very much wanted for himself.

And you can see where this is going, right?

In the early 1060s, William imprisoned Walter and his wife Beota, and they managed to live just about as long as your average Boeing whistleblower.

To say that their deaths were suspicious would be an understatement, especially as due to Walter and Beota not having any children, Vexon passed to his cousin, Ralph, who it turned out was friendly with Normandy.

About a decade later, in 1075, Ralph died and his son, Simon de Creepy, inherited Vexan.

And likely intending to solidify his hold on Vexon, William proposed a marriage between Simon and his daughter Adela.

In response, King Philip went ape.

And you can see why, if that marriage went through, Vexon might be lost forever.

So Philip decided to withhold Simon's inheritance, basically guaranteeing that Simon, and more importantly, William, couldn't have Vexan.

Now this didn't sit well with Simon, and so he started a full-on war with the King of France.

Three years later, Simon was still duking it out with the king, and William, being William, was involved in fights of his own, which also intersected with this conflict.

For example, you might remember how in 1076, William was besieging the city of Dole, and then he absolutely got thrashed when King Philip launched a surprise attack upon him.

And you can refresh yourself on the details in episode 436.

But the point is that suddenly William was on the back foot and Philip looked strong.

And so right on cue, Pope Gregory got involved and he decided to help out the winning side by declaring that Count Simon couldn't marry William's daughter Adela.

Why?

Well, he claimed that they were too closely related, but they weren't.

Simon was raised in William's court, but that didn't make them close blood relatives.

At best, the Pope was saying that even if if there weren't any concerns about inbreeding, the marriage just looked creepy.

Like, if all the kids in the Brady bunch hauled off and married each other.

But I doubt that was actually Gregory's issue.

Because honestly, if the Pope was this concerned about consanguinity and even the appearance of consanguinity, the nobility wouldn't look the way it does, and the Habsburgs would be able to chew their own food.

So I'm pretty sure this was political, and the Pope was currying favor with King Philip by barring the marriage that had so worried the French monarch.

Now, Simon married someone else not long after, but on their wedding night, they suddenly announced that they were going to enter monasteries, both of them.

And while it is possible that their wedding night went so poorly that celibacy was the only rational option, I suspect Simon was under heavy political pressure from King Philip and his allies.

Because with Simon retiring to a monastery without any direct heirs, that meant his lands were up for grabs.

And while Philip would have no doubt liked all of Vexen, a land seizure like that probably would have meant escalating the conflict with Normandy.

So instead, they did a kind of post-war Berlin thing, and they split the territory in half.

The portions of Vexen closer to Rouen went to William.

The lands closer to Paris went to Philip, thus creating French Vexon and Norman Vexon.

Clear as mud?

Cool.

Okay,

so that split had taken place about a decade ago, and like all compromises, neither side was particularly happy about it.

Vexon was at the center of a medieval Cold War, complete with proxy fights and underhanded support of uprisings against rivals.

For example, remember how King Philip supported Robert's rebellion against his father?

And Philip's ally in Flanders gave support to Denmark for their failed invasion of England.

So this conflict had reached real housewives of northern France level messy.

And despite all the chaos and bloodshed, nothing was getting resolved.

Vexon continued to be a hot-button issue.

And remember, William and Philip weren't the only people in the world who had an opinion about Vexen.

There were also people who were living in Vexen, both the regional nobility and also just the average people.

And they were people who could and did form their own opinions on this matter.

And with William clearly starting to show his age and struggling with his health, not to mention the recent losses in the field, well, opinions regarding war with Normandy had begun to shift.

The prospect of war with Normandy just wasn't as scary as it used to be.

And suddenly, a couple local nobles named Hugh Staville and Ralph Malvoy, no relation, organized with the people of Mont in French Vexon.

And together, they fortified the town.

It was obvious what was about to happen next.

And this was feudal France.

So as soon as word spread, knights, bandits, and other opportunists started flocking to the city.

And it had only been months since William's war with Hubert had come to an end.

So I suspect that some of those knights who were getting rich off of all those Norman ransom payments headed right to French Vexan in hopes of picking back up their business model.

When the plans were set, groups of fighters left the city under the cover of darkness, crossing the river and entering Norman territory in secret.

Their target was Evroux.

And Evrux wasn't just a major city within Norman Vexon.

It was also the territory of Count William de Preituy.

And this was the son of Fitz Osborne, William's long-dead best friend.

And Boituy was also a close companion of Robert Curthose and part of the new generation of nobles who were moving into leadership.

But I suspect the most important thing about this guy, at least as far as the forces of Mont were concerned, was that he had fought on William's behalf against Hubert and got captured and then paid a hefty ransom to be released.

So a huge band of what Orderk calls freebooters, which were probably just a collection of knights, bandits, and assorted people with flexible morals, headed right to Voitui's lands to, uh,

you know.

And these raiders, led by Hugh and Ralph, arrived at their target in the middle of the night, and they, quote, threw themselves unexpectedly on the diocese of Evreux, end quote.

They seized large numbers of prisoners in the attack, no doubt intending to ransom them back later on.

But they didn't stop there.

They also stole cattle, an enormous amount of cattle, actually.

And once the cattle rustling and kidnapping was complete, they returned to Mont, quote, elated at their success, end quote.

Soon thereafter, they struck again, this time attacking the lands of William's butler, Roger de Ivory,

where, once again, they kidnapped a bunch of locals and stole their cattle.

This went on for a while, and Orderick tells us that the forces of Mont, quote, made frequent predatory excursions into Normandy, end quote, with the lay people and the clergy apparently getting hit particularly hard by the attacks.

And while Orderic assures us that the raiders were absolutely ecstatic with how this campaign was going, and for obvious reason, raiding with impunity is pretty much a night's dream, not everyone was thrilled.

And I'm not talking about the peasants that were being captured and killed by these bands.

Those people rarely got their opinions recorded.

No, I'm speaking about King Philip.

As you recall, when Hubert rebelled against William, the bastard's response had been uncharacteristically restrained.

He carefully avoided provoking a broader conflict with Folk of Anjou and with King Philip.

And he did this almost certainly because he realized that a war with Folk and Philip would end in a disaster for him.

And here we are, mere months after the cessation of that war, and once again, attacks are being launched against Normandy from their borderlands.

And this time, it's not coming from Philip's allies, it's coming from Philip's own lands.

It's not hard to see what was going on here.

And in response to this bait, William was once again being uncharacteristically restrained.

And so according to Malmsbury, Philip decided to up the ante.

He publicly mocked William, knowing that it would get back to the bastard.

And in essence, he started saying, you know, it's totally fine that William isn't defending his lands.

I understand.

I mean, the poor guy is so big these days, he can't even get out of bed.

Which, you know, we should forgive him for because I'm sure he had a pretty difficult pregnancy.

And you might think I'm joking here or that I'm embellishing, but I'm not.

Momsbury reports that King Philip said, quote, the king of England is lying in at Rouen and keeps his bed like a woman after her delivery.

And Philip continued to mock William's belly, which he had been reducing by medicine, end quote.

Brutal.

And when word of this reached Rouen,

it didn't go well.

William raged.

He's quoted saying, when I go to Mass after my confinement, I will make him an offering of a hundred thousand candles, end quote.

Which doesn't sound like a rageful comment until you realize what it means in context.

He's saying that Phillips' comments about his weight were so deeply sinful that he was gonna burn in hell for it unless something drastic was done.

And William's belief that Big J would personally send people to hell for hurting his feelings really should put to rest the debate on whether or not this guy was a narcissist.

And as silly and overwrought as these threats were, he was apparently still terrifying to the people who were close enough to hear him.

Apparently, he freaked everybody out.

And I'm guessing, I'm gonna light so many candles for your soul probably wasn't the thing that was scaring folks.

You know, not unless he was being euphemistic, and by candles, he meant villages.

Which actually might have been the case now that I think about it.

But if we go back to Orderk, I think we do get a clearer picture of what kind of threats he was making and why the court was in a bit of a tizzy.

Quote, This induced the warlike King William, who was excessively enraged, to lay claim to the whole province of the Vexon, requiring Philip, king of France, to surrender Pontois, Chaumont, and Mont, and making terrible threats against his enemies if he was not restored to his lawful rights.

⁇

And as for the grounds for this?

Well, as far as William was concerned, all of Vexon had been Norman since the days of his father.

So it was time to right that wrong and restore him to his proper inheritance.

All of it.

Mont, the fortresses, the cities, all of it.

And Philip looked at these these demands and told William precisely where he could stick them.

So,

I guess it's time to get this object back in motion.

William got out of bed, summoned his army, and prepared to ride to war, which we're told was a bit more difficult than usual.

Malmsbury, who suddenly starts giving us very vivid depictions, tell us that William was so big at this point that in order to fit into his saddle, he had to flop his belly over the top of the pommel.

But whatever, it didn't matter what he looked like.

It just mattered what he did on the field.

And once he was done, no one would ever dare laugh at him again.

So he squeezed himself onto the back of his long-suffering horse and rode to war.

And sometime before mid-August, William made it to French Vexon with his army.

And he was mad, big mad.

And Monsbury tells us that he used the season to his advantage and he destroyed the local harvest, quote, trampling down and laying everything waste.

Nothing could assuage his irritated mind, so determined was he to revenge this injurious taunt at the expense of multitudes, end quote.

And I honestly can't think of a truer moment of William's character than this one.

inflicting famine upon the poor because another rich guy had made fun of his weight.

But William's attack against the crops and peasantry was just the appetizer.

The main course was Mont.

This was the center of operations for this entire situation, and it apparently wasn't ready for the full force of the Norman army.

William had acted quicker than Philip had anticipated.

And since it takes time to raise an army, Mont was only defended by the garrison that was stationed there.

Orderick tells us that not even the townsfolk were on hand to defend Mont, since when they heard that William's army was burning and killing their way through the countryside, they wisely legged it.

So Mont, barely defended, was quickly breached, and the bastard put the entire city to the torch.

Homes, markets, churches, everything was burned.

And we're not just talking about buildings.

People were also caught in the fire, including some holy men and women who were within the churches that William and his men were burning down.

And William, of course, loved every minute of this.

And according to Malmsbury, quote, exhilarated by this success, while furiously commanding his people to add fuel to the conflagration, he approached too near to the flames, end quote.

Now, he was on horseback when he did this.

And here's the thing about horses.

They're prey animals.

And so they have a very well-developed sense of self-preservation, and they well know to stay away from fire.

So, right in the middle of William's revelry, as he was galloping around and shouting orders and just having a blast, his horse suddenly dug his hooves into the dirt and stopped.

But William kept going.

Because an object in motion will stay in motion until it meets an opposing force.

In this case, it was the pommel of his saddle.

Just like his son Richard, William was squished.

Only this time, it wasn't a tree that did it.

It was just his own inertia.

The bastard had sustained a gut injury.

It was quite literally visceral.

And we're talking about an area of the body that is full of nerves.

So when it's injured, it's extraordinarily painful.

So the Norman king would have known immediately that something was wrong.

Honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if he started dry heaving or even passed out from the pain.

Gut trauma doesn't mess around.

And the records do tell us that immediately following this sudden collision with the cold, hard reality of physics, William sounded the retreat and his whole army marched back to Rouen.

It was about a day's march for the army.

And as they plodded along the road, William was feeling worse and worse.

When they finally got to the Capitol, he immediately took to bed and sent for his doctors.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

His physicians rushed into his chambers and they provided what would have been state-of-the-art diagnostics at the time, which involved, you guessed it, taking a good hard look at the king's urine.

Now, Malmsbury doesn't describe the king's sample, but whatever the doctors saw, they didn't like it.

And if I had to guess, given their reaction and his symptoms, it was probably blood.

Probably a lot of blood.

And they told the king that he was dying.

And while the accounts agree that William was in an extraordinary amount of pain, he wasn't going to die right away.

So he was advised to use this time to get his affairs in order.

So,

In late July of 1087, in the middle of an uncommonly hot and dry year, William wasn't able to rest.

Instead, even though he was reportedly writhing in pain, he was in Rouen, carrying out his duties as a duke and a king.

And it sounds like there was a lot of work to do, and he was probably having to rein in a lot of people's behavior because we're told that upon learning that William was dying, some quote, rejoiced, hoping to have free scope for pillage and robbing their neighbors, end quote.

Feudalism.

Now, nobody was able to tell William precisely how long it would take for him to die.

So he decided to play it safe and kept a variety of bishops, abbots, and other religious figures with him pretty much 24-7.

And we're also told that he confessed his sins and sought to appease God's wrath that was almost certainly going to be inflicted upon him.

And that's not me saying this, by the way.

That's Orderk.

And he was probably right.

Something tells me that Jesus wouldn't be thrilled with what William had been up to.

Now, all of this went on for, well, quite a while.

Probably at least a week.

And as it progressed, Worcester says that, quote, the dreadful pains in his bowels grew worse from day to day, end quote.

And as anybody who's dealt with severe and chronic pain can tell you, it really lowers your tolerance for just about everything else.

And Rouen was a bustling city.

It was lively.

It was busy.

It was noisy.

And William, sweating from the summer heat, the certain internal injuries, and the probable developing infections, well, he simply could not handle it anymore.

He wanted out.

He wanted to go to Saint-Gervais, which was a possession of his old allies, the monks of Facamp.

That would definitely be quieter than Rouen, and as it was outside of the city, it was probably also cooler.

So he gave the order, and his servants set to work.

Given that William was in no shape to ride a horse, I'm guessing they bundled the king up and loaded him onto a cart, then rolled him the 70-odd kilometers to the monastery.

Alternatively, they might have put him on a ship and rode down the Seine, which would have lengthened the trip quite a bit, but probably would have been a bit more comfortable than a cart.

Either way, though, he did eventually make it to Saint-Gervais, where he was carefully watched over by a new collection of bishops, abbots, and other holy men who were said to be skilled in medicine.

But even the best medicine of the 11th century wasn't equipped to deal with the situation like William's.

And as the weeks passed, his symptoms continued to worsen.

Orderic tells us that the king remained lucid during this process, which was hardly a mercy.

William was racked with pain, with his groans actually making it into the record.

During this time, the great figures of England and Normandy came to visit him.

Churchmen, nobles, physicians, his half-brother Robert of Mortain, William's chambers were a rotating cast of the who's who of Norman life.

So William was dying in a very public way, but also in a slow way.

It had been over a month now, with every day worse than the one before it.

Apparently, he wasn't eating, which is consistent with some sort of severe intestinal injury.

And so he also would have been growing weaker and weaker as time went on.

But given his size, he was also able to hang on for well over a month in that condition.

But eventually, inevitably, he got worse.

And Orderic reports that by the end, there was an evident change in William.

Quote, at length, his disorder continually increasing and perceiving that the inevitable death was becoming imminent, he became anxious about the future, which was veiled from his sight, reflecting on which with deep concern, end quote.

And something that you learn from knowing people in the medical field is that people tend to have a sense of their own mortality.

Nurses in particular learned that when a person tells you that they feel like they're dying, you listen.

William had lived as a knight, and so he surely had his share of bumps and bruises.

But he felt more than pain this time.

He felt death coming.

So he summoned his sons, William Rufus and Henry, and the two boys rushed to their father, who was being attended by his close companions and advisors.

He spoke to the boys at length and quote, gave them many wise and prudent directions for the regulation of his states, end quote.

You see, he had determined that William Rufus should be the next king of England, and Henry would inherit.

Well,

there might have been a bit of an argument regarding what Henry was going to inherit.

You see, William's eldest, Robert, wasn't there, and according to Orderic, that was because he wasn't invited.

And just in case he thought Robert's absence was an oversight, It wasn't.

Despite William's oath that Robert would inherit Normandy, the dying dying king declared that short pants wasn't gonna get d.

Not a single damn thing.

Now, obviously, Normandy would have to go to someone, so I genuinely wonder if William wanted to give Normandy to his youngest son and balcony pisser, Henry, you know, as a final fk you to Robert.

Either way, though, William's advisors did not want to find themselves in the middle of another civil war, and so they were horrified that the king would use one of his final acts on earth to put them on course to exactly that.

So they pled with William to follow through on his oath and allow Robert to become the next Duke of Normandy, exactly as he promised to do.

This was, in fact, the very least he could do.

And William begrudgingly relented.

Rufus would be king, Robert would be Duke, and Henry,

well, Henry would receive 5,000 pounds, which apparently didn't come from William.

It came from his mother, Matilda.

Henry was not impressed.

He asked his father, what exactly was he supposed to do with this money if he didn't even have any lands or titles to go with it?

In order it claims that William told his son to trust in God.

He then adds that the dying king predicted that in the end, Henry would get everything.

And, you know, maybe he had a deathbed prophecy, but I doubt it.

I suspect that William's response to Henry's dissatisfaction and request for lands was actually a bit more spicy than Orderick was willing to recount.

But after the matter of inheritance was handled, because the girls obviously weren't included here, well, William began to really grapple with the fact that his life was nearly over.

He knew that it wouldn't be too long before he'd have to face God.

And nobody, not even William, expected God to be pretty happy about that meeting.

And you don't have to take my word for it on this.

According to Orderic, William was concerned that he was, quote, stained with rivers of blood, end quote.

But if you think that this was a moment where he repented and turned over a new leaf, think again.

I mean, sure, his soul was stained with rivers of blood.

No one could deny that.

But it wasn't his fault.

In fact, it was everyone else's fault.

His subjects had conspired against him, him, or they had let him down, or they left him exposed to danger.

And as for all his wars, well, he had no choice.

The Normans are basically criminals and rebels who would, quote, rend in pieces and ruin each other, end quote, anytime they weren't at war.

So the fact he was constantly attacking his neighbors and then brutally repressing his subjects in times of peace was really for their own good.

You should be thanking him.

And William assures us that you can trust him that it wasn't his fault because his family was mean and his childhood sucked.

And this is another point where you might be thinking I'm adding to the narrative, but I'm not.

This is all in the record.

In this account, he basically says, yeah, I was a tyrant and killed a ridiculous number of people, but my childhood was bad.

So, you know, you can't really blame me.

And the record of William's excuses goes on for a while.

I'm talking about pages here.

This guy said mean stuff about me.

That guy called me a bastard.

This guy rebelled.

That guy talked with people behind my back.

We're treated to this long list of resentments that began with events that, I kid you not, took place when he was eight years old.

And granted, William didn't have a great start to his life.

I mean, you usually don't end up like William if you had a good childhood.

But my dude, you're 60 years old.

Anyway, he goes on.

And on.

Nobles, archbishops, kings, counties, duchies, no one was spared from William's monologue of grudges.

And all of this is interspersed with consistent self-praise.

So sure, everyone was mean and awful to him, and he was beset on all sides by jerks, but never fear.

William was tough and valiant and just amazing, and he always got his revenge.

And reading this, you get the sense that a priest came to him and said, Your Highness, it's time to confess.

And William responded, yeah, I'd like to confess.

I'd like to confess that I'm finging amazing and my only regret here is knowing so many jealous losers who tried to hold me back.

And once he was done with his airing of grievances, he surprisingly adds an admission that he seized England, quote, not by hereditary right, end quote.

And that is genuinely shocking, since he spent the last couple decades telling everyone that Edward had bequeathed it to him.

But here, on his deathbed, he was finally changing his tune.

But naturally, this was William, so he wasn't doing that because he felt bad about the lie that he spread, nor the conquest that it resulted in.

No, he's proud of it.

And he goes on to claim that he did it all for God.

And that framing, the insistence that really, if you think about it, all of this murder, theft, and genocide was due to his love of Jesus.

Well, that was really important because William was starting to get a little concerned about how God would feel about his behavior in England and quote, with what barbarities the English were attended, end quote.

Basically, William was pretty sure that the harrying of the North wouldn't be all that appreciated by the guy upstairs.

And he all but admits that no amount of spin could turn what he did into a kick-ass hero's journey.

So instead, he turned to the assembled clergy and told them that he did it all for God.

And while it did look bad, it really was for all of them.

So really, they should show some appreciation by praying to God to get them out of this spiritual jam.

And if they did, he'd make sure to send some donations to the appropriate institutions.

Now, I get the sense that there might have been a few skeptical faces in the room.

Because next, William doubles down on the you guys owe me line by telling the assembled holy men that despite all he'd done, he had never injured the Church of God.

And

I think York Minster, the monks of Ely, the various church officials that he'd imprisoned, and all the other and all the other holy institutions that he looted and outright destroyed would like to have a word.

In fact, the entire reason he was dying this slow agonizing death was because he got too excited while burning down the church of St.

Mary's in Mant.

Now, he doesn't provide an answer for those actions, by the way.

He just seems to pretend they didn't happen.

And my guess is that if anyone in the room mentioned them, he would have just responded with, why you bringing up old shit?

But, you know, in French.

Anyway, William continues.

He says that, yeah, Robert Curt Hose will become Duke of Normandy.

And I'm sorry for that, because even though I'd like to put a stop to it, all of you people and a bunch of barons have already given him homage, so there's nothing I can do.

Quote, but I know for certain that the country which is subject to his dominion will be truly wretched, end quote.

William really hated Robert.

Now, as for England, well, William was still worried about how God would view the harrying of the North and the way he'd gone about ruling England.

Quote, I have persecuted its native inhabitants beyond all reason.

Whether nobles or commons, I have cruelly oppressed them.

Many I have unjustly disinherited.

Innumerable multitudes, especially in the county of York, perished by me through famine or the sword, end quote.

And that's a confession that almost borders on insight.

But this is still William.

And so even though he talks about carrying out extermination campaigns, he describes himself as a ferocious lion while doing it.

It is absolutely wild to read someone from like a thousand years ago who was so clearly diagnosable.

Anyway, even William recognized that he couldn't front his way out of this.

And so in a final attempt to get in good with God, he declared that he wouldn't appoint an heir to the throne of England.

Instead, the kingdom would be entrusted to God.

Which, wow,

what a noble and forward-thinking end to a monarch.

Oh, wait, this is William.

And since God wasn't in the room at the moment, he adds that Rufus would do great in that role, you know, on God's behalf.

This fing guy.

Anyway, to ensure that God's inheritance landed in the proper hands, William dictated a letter to Archbishop Lanfrank telling him that Rufus would be the next king of England.

This was the moment that God's stand-in had been waiting for.

And as soon as that seal was affixed, Rufus grabbed it and rushed to his ship.

He was headed to England to secure his new throne.

Henry, for his part, also bolted as soon as he found out that he's only getting five grand.

Like a medieval Scrooge McDuck, he rushed to the treasury to get what was promised, and then, quote, had it carefully weighed that there might be no deficiency, and summoning his intimate friends in whom he could confide, sought a place of safety in which to deposit his treasure, end quote.

These boys didn't even wait for the body to be cold.

They didn't even wait for the body to be a body.

William was still very much alive at this point, but whatever, they got their payout, so no need to stick around.

Meanwhile, William, who was quote, tormented with excruciating pains in his intestines, end quote, was still expected to carry out his duties.

And so nobles, courtiers, and church officials were coming to him and asking him to undertake various official acts.

And at the top of the list was the matter of pardons.

William had imprisoned a lot of people, and a lot of those sentences were unjust.

And again, you don't have to take my word for it.

William reportedly admitted that his application of justice was a bit light on the just portion.

And so his physicians, his attendants, and his nobles were all urging him to pardon and release his prisoners.

And William responded that he'd love to.

But it's not that easy.

I mean, sure, justice says he should release Earl Morcar, you know, after all the injustices that Morcar had suffered at his hands.

But if he did release him, what would he do in response?

Maybe he'd want to do some injustices back.

That wouldn't be fair.

And while it might sound nice to release Fitz Osbourne's rebellious son, Roger, William had sworn an oath that he'd never release him from prison.

And, you know, he couldn't go back on an oath.

As for all the others that he'd imprisoned, well, he had imprisoned them in order to keep the innocent safe.

So if they were released, then that would go against divine law that dates all the way back to Moses.

And what would happen to all the innocent people?

I mean, that's a problem.

But on the other hand, he was dying, and he was concerned about going to hell.

So, you know, f it.

Quote, as I hope to be saved and, by God's mercy, absolved from my sins, I order that the prison doors shall be forthwith thrown open, and all the prisoners, except my brother, the Bishop of Bayeux, be released and suffered to go free, for the love of God, that he may also have mercy, end quote.

But this was still William.

So while he did say that the doors should be thrown open, that was kind of divine pillow talk.

And it's in the small print.

where you see his actual policy.

These prisoners weren't to be set free unless they made oaths to preserve peace in Normandy and England, and those oaths would have to be sufficient to satisfy William's officials.

And I think you know how the Norman officers are gonna view the oaths of English prisoners.

So, King Harold Godwinson's baby brother Wulfnoth and Earl Morcar and many of the other prisoners who were just ordered released probably shouldn't get too excited because most of them wouldn't be going anywhere.

But speaking about not going anywhere, even with the fairly significant caveat applied to his pardon, you might have noticed that there was one person that William didn't take any chances with.

His half-brother, Odo.

Odo wouldn't even be given the chance to impress the officers with his oath.

He was exempted from the pardon, and as far as William was concerned, could rot in prison for the rest of his miserable miserable life.

And that pronouncement really didn't sit well with William's other half-brother, Robert of Mortain.

It also didn't sit well with Odo's friends, who were numerous and well-connected.

He was a political guy, after all.

And the fact was that Odo's continued imprisonment, he'd been locked away for four years at this point, and the fact that William wouldn't even release him on his deathbed really wasn't sitting well with these guys, which meant that as William lay dying and as he was so sick he was unable to eat and so weak he couldn't get out of bed, he had to play host to a seemingly endless stream of nobles and officials who wanted to talk to him about his son of a bitch brother.

Eventually, the king broke.

He snapped that it was shocking to him that for all their attention to Odo's plight, they hadn't actually learned anything about the character of the man that they were advocating for.

He went on to say, quote, Are you not making petitions for a prelate who has long held religion in contempt and who is the subtle promoter of fatal divisions?

Have I not already incarcerated for four years this bishop who, when he ought to have proved himself exemplary in the just government of England, became a most cruel oppressor of the people and destroyer of the convents of monks?

In desiring the liberation of this seditious man, you are ill-advised and are bringing on yourselves a serious calamity.

It is clear that my brother Odo is a man not to be trusted, ambitious, given to fleshly desires, and of enormous cruelty, and that he will never be converted from his whoredoms and ruinous follies.

I have satisfied myself of this on several occasions, and therefore I imprisoned not the bishop, but the tyrannical earl.

There is no doubt that if he is released, he will disturb the whole country and be the ruin of thousands.

⁇

To this, Odo's friends swore that he'd reformed and that he was a good man now.

And William called bullsh ⁇ , saying that Odo was a goddamn blight and would bring havoc to all of them.

But, you know, whatever.

I'm dying anyway, and I'm tired of talking about this, so fine.

He's free.

He's your problem now.

Not my monkey, not my circus, losers.

Meanwhile, the pains continued to get worse, and while William, very unfortunately for him, remained lucid, he was also clearly at the end.

And on Tuesday morning, on September 9th of 1087, after about six weeks of excruciating pain, William died.

He was surrounded by highly ranked nobles and church officials, and as soon as his death was confirmed, quote, the the wealthiest of them mounted their horses and departed in haste to secure their property, end quote.

Which honestly kind of makes sense.

The death of an authoritarian leader can be a very chaotic period.

The Norman aristocracy really didn't know what was going to happen next, but there was a chance that there might be a civil war.

And at the very least, if they failed to defend their property, their neighbors might try and steal some of their stuff.

So pretty much everyone who was ranked highly enough to have been present at the moment of William's death was now on the road.

Meanwhile, William's body remained where it was, which is shocking, but then again, this was a man who was famous for his greed and his disinterest in social norms.

Those unspoken beliefs and codes, and even the spoken ones, were violated anytime William thought it would be to his advantage.

And now that he was dead,

well, it looks like no one thought it was a good time to start the norms up just yet.

And so, the nearby people, quote, laid hands on the arms, the plate, the robes, the linen, and all the royal furniture, and leaving the corpse almost naked on the floor of the house, end quote.

So yeah, he was stripped and left in a bare room on the floor.

And then, slowly, he began to rot, abandoned and forgotten, at least for a time.

Now, usually, at this point, I give a eulogy.

I've often done that for major figures in our story.

Alfred, Penda, Offa, Harroward, even Edric Streona, they all got eulogies.

But in this case, I think I'll just offer you a passage from Ordoric.

Quote, his death was worthy of his life.

End quote.

The king is dead, and he always will be.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can reach me at the British History Podcast at gmail.com.

And if you'd like to sign up for membership, you can do so at thebritish historypodcast.com.

We'll see you in season 10 of the British History Podcast.