Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (5 page)

Once crowned King of England, William spent most of his reign fighting to retain his kingdom against the English, the Welsh, the Scots and the Danes, and he did so with great success. William was a tall, fierce-looking man with exceptionally strong arms. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes him as “very stern and violent”. By the standards of those times, that meant a lot.

William and his wife, Queen Matilda (granddaughter of King Robert II of France and seventh generation descendant of Alfred the Great), had ten children. There were six daughters: Adeliza, Cecilia, Agatha, Constance, Matilda and Adela; and four sons: Robert, Richard, William and Henry. With so many children, at least one of them was bound to cause trouble. So it was with the first son.

The problem was that with their overwhelming success in battle, the Norman leadership was not being killed at the customary rate for those times, and their sons were becoming restless. It must have seemed as though they would never inherit their fathers’ titles.

Brave and ambitious Robert may have been, but he did not have the reputation of being clever. When he was 25 years old, he decided that it was time for him to become Duke of Normandy. His father had England, that was enough. Robert confronted his father and demanded the dukedom. William was not interested; he refused. That demand did not endear Robert to his father, nor to William and Henry, his surviving brothers; the second son, Richard, having been killed by a stag while hunting in the New Forest.

Predictably, the hostility turned to violence. One evening after dinner there was a ferocious brawl between Robert and his supporters on one side, and his two brothers and their supporters on the other side. Apparently it started when his brothers, probably the worse for drink, dumped stinking liquid on Robert’s head from the gallery. King William stopped the fight, but he refused to punish the pourers of the liquid. Shouting abuse and threats, Robert stormed out, bent on revenge.

Robert went to Normandy, and with money provided by his mother, he recruited his own army. He attacked Rouen, where his forces were beaten back. Then, Robert went to his father’s enemy, the King of France, and asked for help. King Philip, always jealous of Norman power, sent Robert a contingent of soldiers.

William was not a man to rest idly, waiting to be attacked. If Robert wanted a fight, he could have it. Having sailed to Normandy, William led his army in battle against Robert, defeating him at Rémalard. Robert withdrew to the east of Normandy, and barricaded himself and his men in the Castle of Gerberoi.

Charging after his son, William besieged Gerberoi Castle. Three weeks went by, and Robert knew that by waiting any longer, his position would only deteriorate. So Robert and his men rode out of the castle to attack, catching William completely by surprise.

With William’s army being considerably larger than Robert’s, surprise would not be enough. Robert realised that his best chance of victory would be to kill his father. After William’s death, his army would have nothing to fight for and even better, Robert would be their new ruler. It seemed to be the perfect solution.

Riding in full armour, Robert made for the centre of the fighting where he found William, and he engaged his father in combat. By now William was nearly 50 years old; Robert gained the upper hand, and he pressed his advantage. Then, with a savage slash at William’s side, Robert injured his father, causing a wound to William’s arm from which he would never fully recover.

Robert continued the assault, going for the kill. However, William had his senior knights near him, and one of them saw that his king was in danger. That knight, whose name was Toki, attacked Robert, driving him away from his injured father. Now more of William’s men came to his aid and helped him from the field of battle, but not before Toki had been killed.

William’s forces withdrew. Next, King Philip of France changed sides. With that development, despite victory Robert’s position was no longer promising. It was time to talk.

The Norman nobles wanted some sort of agreement, as many of them had impatient sons fighting alongside Robert. Yet negotiation would not be easy with Robert having tried to kill his father, the King of England. Despite his reputation of not being clever, Robert dealt with the issue by explaining that he had not realised that the armoured man he was fighting was William, and that as soon as he had recognised his father’s voice he had immediately withdrawn. Toki was not there to contradict him.

Accepting the excuse, William tried compromise.He offered Robert the dukedom of Normandy, but only on William’s death. Although it was not what he wanted, Robert accepted that it was the best deal available, so he agreed to the bargain and returned to court.

All was quiet for some time. Then, in 1083, Queen Matilda died in the convent to which she had been sent by William, angry at her for supporting Robert. It provoked the grieving Robert to rebel once more, and he made for France where he was welcomed by King Philip. From now on, Robert would be the centre of all opposition to William in Normandy and the surrounding territories.

One of those territories was the Vexin, which had always been a source of dispute between Normandy and France, each holding part of that region. There were constant disturbances on the border, and matters worsened with raids into Norman Vexin by French troops.

William decided to deal with the French. In 1087, he led his army into France, murdering and laying waste as they proceeded. He took the town of Mantes, which was set on fire, possibly by the fleeing citizens, and it was then sacked by the Normans in the most brutal manner.

The fighting was over, and William decided to ride through the deserted town to survey the fate of the inhabitants. Whilst relishing the murder and destruction, William rode too close to the burning buildings. Suddenly, flames shot out from a doorway and William’s horse reared in fright. Now an elderly fat man and holding on with his damaged arm, William was unable to keep control. He was thrown to the ground as the horse turned sharply, and William suffered a serious internal injury, perhaps caused by the pommel of his saddle thrusting into William’s abdomen as he fell.

Gravely wounded and in pain, the ailing king was taken to Rouen. William realised that the end was near, and he knew that he had matters to deal with; in particular, the succession. There were no kind words for Robert, William said that he was unfit to rule. Robert had taken up arms against him, had tried to kill him and had wounded him – a wound that had later led to his fatal injury. Even now, Robert was at the court of William’s greatest enemy.

William made it clear that he did not wish to divide the inheritance. With his second son having died, he announced that everything should go to his third son, also named William.

The Archbishop of Rouen interrupted William to remind him that he had sworn on oath that Robert would succeed to the dukedom of Normandy. Breaking an oath taken on the Bible was a risk too far when he was about to meet his Maker. So William reluctantly confirmed that Robert would become Duke of Normandy. England was another matter; it had come to William by conquest not inheritance, and in William’s view it was therefore at his disposal and not subject to any hereditary rights. The Conqueror gave the English succession to his third son, William, handing him the crown and sceptre. Then, King William told his son to leave for England so that he could claim the throne on his father’s death before Robert could react.

A few days later, William the Conqueror died. He was buried in Caen. Unfortunately, the injury suffered in Mantes had caused William’s abdomen to swell. At the funeral, the bloated corpse would not fit into the stone coffin. As they struggled to squeeze William in, his stomach burst open and the putrid contents sprayed over the mourners. Everyone ran away to escape the foul stench. During the French Wars of Religion the corpse was dug up and the bones were scattered on the streets. Some were later returned to the tomb, but the same thing happened during the French Revolution. All that remains of William in his tomb is his left thigh bone.

What of Robert? Denied the crown of England, which he considered to be his birthright, he determined to obtain it in battle, in many ways copying his father. But he failed. Robert ended up imprisoned in Cardiff Castle, where he remained until his death 28 years later. Not unreasonable for causing the death of his father. However, the attempted murderer of William when he was a child escaped without punishment.

King William II, known as William Rufus because of his red hair, was the third son of William the Conqueror. He succeeded his father as King of England in 1087.

William Rufus is said to have been a repulsive character. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pronounced him “hateful to almost all his people and odious to God”.

With William taking the crown ahead of his older brother, several Norman nobles who supported Robert rebelled. William easily defeated the rebels, exiling the survivors to Normandy. However, Robert was still a threat, so William invaded Normandy andcrushedRobert’sforcesinbattle.Thetwobrothersthenmade a truce that put much of Normandy under William’s control. One of the terms of the truce was yet again that if either of them should die childless, the other would be his successor.

William triumphed once more when the Scots invaded England; he drove them back over the border. Then, having fallen out with the Church, William was involved in further fighting in England, Scotland, Wales and France. But despite delivering victories, William was despised by his people for his savagery and high taxation. Among the very large number of
people who hated William II was his younger brother, Henry.

In August 1100, William Rufus was hunting in the New Forest near the south coast with Henry and six other lords. At a certain moment, William found himself alone to one side of a clearing. Suddenly, a single arrow flew across the clearing and struck William in the heart. He died instantly.

On being told of his brother’s death, Henry rode with two lords to Winchester, where he seized the royal treasury. Early the next morning, William’s body (which had been left where he had fallen) was thrown on to a cart by some peasants, taken to Winchester and buried. Two days later, Henry was crowned king in Westminster Abbey.

The timing was everything. Henry was hungry for the crown. He knew that William, a homosexual, unmarried and without children, had agreed that if he died childless, his older brother, Robert Duke of Normandy, would succeed to the throne. Robert had gone to the Holy Land on crusade, but he was now on his way back, having won a reputation as a hero and having obtained a wife and a substantial dowry in Italy on his way home – a dowry that would enable him to raise an army. Once Robert had returned, Henry’s chance might be gone.

Henry had a novel claim to the throne. He could not demand it as brother of William II, that suggested that his older brother Robert should be crowned. Instead, he relied on a custom that existed at times during the Roman Empire of being born ‘in the purple’. Under that system, the succession did not go to the oldest son of the late emperor, rather it went to the oldest of the sons who had been born after their father had been crowned, because only those sons had been born to an emperor. Robert and William were born whilst their father was merely Duke of Normandy, Henry was born in England after William the Conqueror had been crowned king. On that basis, William Rufus had been a usurper and Robert had no claim at all.

Of course, with two brothers dead and leaving no children, and another brother travelling somewhere in Europe, Henry was the only claimant immediately available to be crowned.

So, although the death of William Rufus was said to have been a tragic accident, if anyone had an interest in arranging it at that time, it was Henry. It need hardly be said that murder was already within the range of Henry’s accomplishments, to which can be added his subsequent reputation of being the cruellest of all the Norman kings.