William batard bread Conqueror: hero or villain? His modern heroic reputation results from the deliberate distortions of evidence by his contemporaries.
Conquerors who control the historical record are generally feted as heroes. What we know of William comes to us from his admirers rather than his critics. From long before 1066, the writing of history in Normandy consisted of panegyrics in praise of the ruling dynasty. William and his ancestors, descended from pagan Vikings, were determined to prove the legitimacy of their rule over northern France. 1066 to explain why William and the Normans secured so unexpected and total a victory. The most obvious explanation was that the Norman conquest was God’s punishment for England’s sins. A positive spin was applied even to the circumstances of William’s birth.
In theory, no illegitimate son could sit on a ducal throne, let alone a royal one. Yet there is no doubt that William was illegitimate. The events at Alençon were themselves symptomatic of a political crisis in Normandy that the chroniclers were tantalisingly reluctant to report. Duke Robert died in 1035 while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, leaving no legitimate heir. Aged only about eight, William was caught in a power struggle that took more than two decades to resolve. Normandy fissured between various factions backed by the neighbouring rulers of France, Brittany and Anjou.
At least two of William’s tutors were murdered. Acting in association with the king of France, in 1047 he defeated his rivals from western Normandy in battle at Val-ès-Dunes. The opposition was then hunted down, killed or exiled. In 1050 or 1051, to consolidate support from the north, William married Matilda, daughter of the Count of Flanders.