How Great A Threat Were Rebellions To William I's Government Of England From 1066- 1072.

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Mark Weale

How Great A Threat Were Rebellions To William I’s Government Of England From 1066- 1072

After Hastings William advanced on London by a circular route that started via Kent, burning a ring of fire around the country's main city. The advance was resisted and met much armed resistance. Meanwhile the Witan had proclaimed the young , last section of the old Wessex royal line, king. William moved fast towards London to enforce his will before the remaining English nobility were able to regroup around Edgar and start an organised resistance to him. Such was William's uncertainty, and the problems he was having with the local populace, that he was forced to take a considerable detour to Wallingford, well west of London, before he could find a safe and defensible place to cross the Thames. Even then it was uncertain what the reaction of the Londoners would be to his army. London, upon the advice of Aldred, Archbishop of York, and Earl Morkar of Northumberland together with his brother Edwin, submitted. Even so there was an armed skirmish which resulted in the massacre of many Londoners.

William's coronation was on midwinter's day, and shortly after he returned to Normandy taking the surviving English nobles with him.

The English resistance first showed itself, not in armed defiance, but in stubbornness, when the monks at Peterborough not only elected one of their own to replace the recently deceased abbot, but sought out Edgar Ætheling, whom they declared was the true king, to approve the appointment. William was not amused and sent armed men to display his wroth. Fortunately William was always gold hungry and allowed himself to be bought off with a hefty fine.

But the real trouble in 1067, was brewing in the hilly Marcherland of the Welsh border, where two Norman Earls who belonged to families settled in the area during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, used the confusion caused by William's seizing of the throne, to extend their land holdings at the expense of the local English thanes, especially those lands held by , soon to become known as 'the Wild'. There was already bad blood between Edric and his Norman neighbours and now it exploded into open warfare. In revenge for raids on his land Edric, in alliance with two Welsh princes devastated Herefordshire and eventually sacked Hereford itself, before retreating back into the hills ahead of the new king's revengeful army.

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Meantime, King Harold's mother, Gytha encouraged the people of Devon to rise up and William had major problems subduing them, especially in retaking the city of Exeter. At the same time, the other main claimant to the English throne, Edgar Ætheling, had escaped the Norman king's clutches and gone to Scotland with his family and a large number of important men. The south was also restive and later in the year, the men of Dover invited Eustace of Boulogne to help them in their insurrection. This uprising was soon put down, and without the presence of King William himself. The ...

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