Four kings of England were named William. The first was William I of Normandy, who conquered England in 1066. Every king and queen who has sat on the throne in England since the Norman Conquest can claim descent from this king.

William I

(born 1027, ruled 1066–87), called William the Conqueror, was an illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy. His mother was a tanner's daughter. William succeeded his father when he was only seven years old. At 24 he had made himself the mightiest feudal lord in all France by various conquests, but his ambition was not satisfied. He laid plans to become king of England also.

William married Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V, count of Flanders, in 1053. She was descended from the old Anglo-Saxon line of kings. Among their children were four sons: Robert, future duke of Normandy; Richard, who died as a youth; William Rufus, who succeeded his father as king of England; and Henry, who succeeded William Rufus. One daughter, Adela, became the mother of England's King Stephen.

Edward the Confessor, king of England, was William's cousin. William used his connection with Flanders to put pressure on Edward to extort a promise that he would become heir to the English throne. It is probable that Edward made some kind of pledge to William as early as 1051. Edward died childless on Jan. 5, 1066. William then claimed the throne on the basis of this promise. The English, however, chose Harold, earl of Wessex, as their king.

William prepared a large expedition and set sail for England. On Oct. 14, 1066, he defeated and killed Harold at Hastings in one of the decisive battles of the world (see Hastings, Battle of). Then he marched on London, and on Christmas day he was crowned king.

After subduing England's powerful earls, William seized their lands for his Norman nobles and ordered the nobles to build fortified stone castles to protect their lands. As payment for their fiefs, the nobles supplied the king with armed knights. French became the language of the king's court and gradually blended with the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

William won the loyalty of the mass of the people by wisely retaining the old Anglo-Saxon laws, courts, and customs with only a few changes. Thus the principle of self-government, which lies at the root of the political system of English-speaking peoples, was preserved and strengthened. At the same time, William taught the English the advantages of a central government strong enough to control feudal lords.

Toward the end of his reign, William ordered a great census to be taken of all the lands and people of England. This survey was called the Domesday Book. The original may still be seen at the National Archives in Kew, Surrey. “So very narrowly did he cause the survey to be made,” complained the old Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “that there was not a single rood of land, nor an ox, or a cow, or a pig passed by, and that was not set down in the accounts.”

William was often on the continent dealing with his widespread holdings. He died there in 1087 from injuries received while warring with Philip I of France. William was a man of great stature and had a tremendous voice. Such was the good order he established that, according to a quaint historian of his time, “any man, who was himself aught, might travel over the kingdom with a bosom of gold unmolested, and no man durst kill another, however great the injury he might have received from him.” He was succeeded in Normandy by his eldest son, Robert, and in England by his second son, William II, called William Rufus.

William II, Rufus

(born in about 1056, ruled 1087–1100), was called Rufus (Red) because he had a ruddy complexion. His father, William I, had divided his lands before his death. He gave Normandy to his eldest son, Robert, and England to William, his second son. In 1096 William received Normandy from Robert, to whom he had lent large sums of money for the First Crusade.

Rufus “was hated by almost all his people,” says the old Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “and abhorred by God.” “He every morning got up a worse man than he lay down and every evening lay down a worse man than he got up.” He aroused the wrath of the church because of his practice of selling church offices or keeping them unoccupied so that he might take their revenue for himself.

Once when he fell sick and thought he was dying, William vowed to change his ways and fill the archbishopric of Canterbury, which he had kept vacant for four years. His choice fell on Anselm, abbot of Bec in Normandy, who was the greatest theologian of the age. Against church rules, William insisted upon conferring the symbols of office himself, instead of allowing the pope to do it. Anselm took a firm stand against this “lay investiture” of the clergy, but finally he tired of wrangling and went to Rome. William then again seized the property of the archbishopric.

William's life came to a sudden end while he was hunting in the New Forest, a great tract of woodland that his father had set aside for his favorite sport. He was killed by an arrow; and it is not known who drew the bow. It was probably an accident. His younger brother Henry, who was in the hunting party, left Rufus' body where it lay and hurried to Westminster to seize the royal treasure and the throne. He succeeded William as Henry I.

William III

(born 1650, ruled 1689–1702) ruled jointly with his queen, Mary, until her death in 1694. The English invited them to come to England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which cost James II his crown.

William was the Prince of Orange, stadholder (ruler) of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. He himself had little claim to the English throne, though his mother, Mary, was an English princess, daughter of Charles I. His wife, however, was regarded by many English people as the lawful successor to James II because she was James's elder daughter.

The English turned against James II when he began to show a strong Roman Catholic policy. William was the chief defender in Europe of Protestant interests against the growing power of Louis XIV of France. In this he followed in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, William the Silent, who had won freedom for the Protestant Netherlands from Catholic Spain.

William had been in contact with the opponents of James II for more than a year before he accepted their invitation to become king. William landed on the south coast of England with a large force, but it was no hostile action. At once almost the whole of England and Scotland rallied to his support. James II fled to France. The English then crowned William and Mary as joint sovereigns. A Bill of Rights, passed by Parliament, legalized the changes (see Bill of Rights). Ireland did not accept William and Mary until James was defeated in the battle of the Boyne.

William's chief interest was still on the continent. He had come to power in the Netherlands at a time when the French king Louis XIV was embarking on plans for “universal monarchy,” and he had already won fame for his skill in generalship and in building alliances to resist French aggression. He valued the English crown chiefly for the added resources it brought him in this lifelong conflict. After another eight years of war from 1689 to 1697, Louis XIV made a peace at Ryswick that left him only slight gains and bound him to cease his support of the Stuart pretender to the English throne. The peace, however, proved to be but a breathing space. Five years later, as the last and greatest of the wars against Louis XIV was about to break out, William III made preparations for leading Protestant Europe against the French. But in March 1702 he died as the result of a fall from his horse. Queen Mary had died eight years earlier. Because they had no children, the throne passed to Anne, Mary's sister.

Although William III was never very popular with his British subjects, his reign was one of considerable progress in real liberty and constitutional government. In the judgment of historians he ranks as one of the ablest of Britain's kings. (See also England, “History”; James, kings of England.)

William IV

(born 1765, ruled 1830–37) was the third son of George III. He was in his 65th year when he came to the throne, and he ruled only seven years. Before he became king he was the duke of Clarence. He went to sea when he was 14, and in the war against Napoleon he took an active part in naval activities. He was bluff and hearty as became a sailor and was called the “sailor prince.” During the reign of his brother George IV, William was active in the House of Lords.

During William's reign the demand for more representative government resulted in a major reform bill. When it became necessary for the king to create more peers in the House of Lords in order that the bill might be accepted, William IV long refused to promise his cooperation. In the end the creation of the extra peers proved unnecessary because the conservatives, under the duke of Wellington, allowed the bill to become law as the Great Reform Act of 1832.

William IV was a conscientious king but irresolute and of limited intelligence. He married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in 1818. The couple had no children, and, when William died in 1837, his niece Victoria succeeded him.