William grants the most important posts in the church to Norman churchmen. The Norman bishops begin a major cathedral building campaign. The cathedrals are designed in the New Roman style as at Canterbury and York. Treason by some of the Norman barons follows Anglo-Saxon revolts.
1075 - Treason of Roger de Breteuil, count of Hereford and son of William’s most faithful friend, Guillaume Fils Osbern who had been killed in 1071 at Cassel on William’s service.
1082 - William arrests, judges et emprisons his half-brother, Odon de Conteville, bishop of Bayeux and count of Kent, after Odon abuses the people of Kent and, against orders, raises a private army.
1083 – Death of Queen Matilda.
1087 – Trouble in the Vexin region, partly under the French crown and partly under Norman rule, sets William against the King of France, Philippe I. William decides to teach the King a lesson. The campaign finishes in Mantes in July 1087. William suffering from an accidental wound dies in Rouen in September 1087. He is buried in the Abbatiale in Caen.
On his deathbed William shares out the domain which he had such trouble building and holding together :
Robert Courteheuse, the rebellious elder son, inherits Normandy,
William the Red, the next son, inherits England
Henry BeauClerc, the youngest, inherits various rights but no land. |
