CHAPTER 11
England’s medieval history effectively begins in 1066 – the year that William, Duke of Normandy (later known as ‘William the Conqueror’) defeated King Harold II of England at the Battle of Hastings. William was subsequently crowned King William I. The coronation took place in Westminster Abbey, in front of the tomb of King Edward the Confessor, whose death the same year had triggered the invasion. The reason William selected Westminster Abbey was that he wanted to remind everyone, friends and foes alike, that Edward had promised him that he should succeed to the throne. By holding the ceremony in front of the Confessor’s tomb, he was symbolically invoking the spirit of the deceased as his witness. He did this because his blood claim was very weak. Edward was the son of William’s aunt Emma, who was not of English royal blood, although she had been married to two kings of England. William’s real justification for taking the throne was conquest, but by invoking Edward as his ‘Confessor’ or witness, he was able to give his usurpation some legitimacy in law. This had far-reaching consequences, for as a result, a new tradition was established. From that time onward, English monarchs have nearly always been crowned at Westminster in front of Edward the Confessor’s tomb.
The extension of William’s rule throughout the rest of England was also relatively quick and easy. The only serious resistance came from the North, and this he subjugated with great ferocity. Thus it was that England, quite a large country by European standards, became a vassal state of the much smaller Dukedom of Normandy.
As a reward for their support, William shared out the proceeds of the conquest – in the form of earldoms, baronetcies and bishoprics – with his followers. By contrast, the people of England, until then free men, were reduced to serfdom, with even the nobility, for the most part, stripped of their lands and titles. The Norman conquest of England was quick, revolutionary in its impact and long lasting. Indeed, in its formation of a class system that is more rigid in England than in almost any other European country, its effects are still with us today. Little wonder, then, that the most important date in English history is 1066; the impact of William’s conquest was so great that nothing before – at least in the intervening years since the Roman withdrawal from Britain in AD 410 – remotely compares.
Having taken control of England, William prepared the way for a future campaign to subjugate Wales, at that time a quite separate country. His immediate requirement, however, was to simply contain the Welsh; he needed to make sure that they did not interfere with his plans for the Normanization of England. To accomplish this aim, his strategy was the establishment of ‘Marcher Lordships’ on the England-Wales border. The Marcher Lords, or Marquises as they came to be called, enjoyed special privileges over and above those of ordinary earls and barons. These included the right to hold courts, build castles, raise armies and even wage war without first seeking the permission of the king. Furthermore, through a policy of encroachment, they soon began to hold land in Wales, too. Since these land holdings were not under the jurisdiction of the English Crown, with regard to these properties, the Marcher Lords had the Palatine powers of minor kings. This put them on a par with the leading nobles of Wales who were themselves often styled as princes or even kings.
On looking into the matter further, I soon discovered that Wales differed from England in other ways, too. Although it occupied quite a small part of the Island of Britain, it had nearly always been divided up into even smaller, competing principalities. To a large extent, this was a direct result of geography. Most of Wales is very mountainous so that its fertile plains and valleys are separated from each other. Even so, at times when a particularly strong leader emerged (such as Rhodri the Great, c.AD 820–878), he might establish himself as overlord of most of the country. This, however, was rare. More commonly the country was divided. There was stiff competition between the different princes ruling the separate parts, with each anxious to extend the boundaries of his petty kingdom at the others’ expense. This was in stark contrast to England, which had been unified as a single kingdom for more than a century. The small kingdoms of the early Anglo-Saxons – Wessex, Kent, Northumbria, Mercia and the rest – had gradually been joined together to form a single entity. Thus, although there were regional differences, England was already a single political entity ruled over by just one king.
The two countries also had different religious traditions. The Welsh, or rather one should say British, Church was much older than the English. It looked back to apostolic times for its foundation and had a whole pantheon of local saints to its credit. Much less hierarchical than the English, it regarded itself as at least equal to Rome. The English Church, by contrast, was only founded in AD 597 as a result of the mission of St Augustine. He was sent to England by Pope Gregory I, and as a consequence, the English Church was subordinate to the Church of Rome in a way that the Welsh/British Church was not. Furthermore, because the English Church, in emulation of the Roman, was hierarchical, it was easy for the Normans to take control of it. All William had to do was replace its senior churchmen with men of his own choosing.
To further strengthen their grip on the religious loyalties of the people, the Normans instigated a huge rebuilding programme. Nearly all the old Anglo-Saxon churches and abbeys, including Canterbury Cathedral, were demolished. In their place they built far grander structures. The message was clear: the Normans were not only in control of the secular world in this life but also the gateways leading to heaven.
An equivalent show of force, heavenly and temporal, should have been enough to awe the Welsh into submission. The fact that it wasn’t was further evidence of hidden strength. The source of this, I was soon to discover, was a much clearer picture of King Arthur and all that he stood for. As I later discovered, his story was much more than an empty legend: it was accepted history and so too was the legend of Camelot. Before I could get to this, though, I had to first investigate what really happened when the Normans invaded Wales and what effect this had on them.