The Childhood of William the Conqueror

And our William is only about seven years old at the time. So he inherits, even though he's a bastard, he's the only offspring. So he sort of everyone sort of does still agree. And at that point in the 1030s, being a bastard wasn't it didn't completely rule you out at all. No, no. In later centuries, it would. Yeah, it really would. Is this there's no question. No, you can't inhale it. No, you're a bastard. No. But back then it was a lot less. Especially if there are no other competitors. But there's no one more legitimate. Well, got to be really, isn't it? And so at that moment in time in 1035, doesn't look good for young William. He was probably be pushed aside or murdered or something. Yeah. It's a seven year old. Yeah. What can he do? Yeah. And so really, he's in the hands of other men. And many of well, so one of them is the archbishop at the time. He was a kinsman, Archbishop Robert. He was supposed to when his father, Duke Robert, had gone out, he sort of left him in his capable hands. And apparently he was sort of fairly capable, wielded some sort of authority. But he he himself does the archbishop. Robert dies like a year or two later after that. So again, it's sort of undermines everything. And the accounts say that when that Archbishop Robert dies, that this kind of anarchy now in Normandy or something approaching that everyone, not everyone, but all the men of power. Yeah. Just start building unlicensed castles. That comes up a lot. And just start making their own thief as their entire own thing. Start raising loads of armed retainers without permission to. And all sorts of things. It breaks down into one historian. Was it Mark Morris? I think it was talking about how it becomes sort of a mafioso state where you just got lots of these families, mafioso style families go around killing each other and generating vendettas against each other and all that sort of thing and like raiding each other's weddings and, you know, like the IRA would blow up a funeral. All that sort of thing. Like it's sort of as cutthroat as it gets in a way. Again, one or two bits, I think that George R.R. Martin took for Game of Thrones from this exact period where there's one example of a wedding where they dragged a guy out and sort of blinded him, cut his nose and ears off and things like that. So it is really quite. Yeah. All sorts of. Well, one of the lines from I think it was, it would have been from William of Poitiers said, fierce fires all over the country. So pretty terrible. Yeah. But William the Conqueror, we'll just keep calling him that from now on, did have lots of other, you know, grown up, powerful men sort of try and look after him again. Sort of kinsmen or members of his extended family. There's an there's an Alan, Count of Brittany. There's a Gilbert, Count of Briand. These are sort of cousins, basically cousins of his father anyway. It seems like despite their best efforts, they actually didn't help all that much because by 1040, they'd both got themselves murdered. Oh, unfortunately. So again, things just keep going against him. They really do keep going against him. But as we were talking about, like, you know, the 11th century created a lot of tough men and it was dangerous times. And you can see it just describing the internal cohesion and order of Normandy. It's like, yeah, people getting murdered everywhere. Mafioso State. Whoever rises to the top of this is going to be a hard man. You know, there's no question of it. You know, and if you're seven years old, your entire life is in this milieu. Like, what are you going to turn out like if you don't get murdered? Isn't it crazy? Just to stress that point, then. So absolutely, you're absolutely right. It seems that, well, not that it is the case, if you believe the accounts. There's no reason not to. Quite often, yeah, that he that even do murders of his of his protectors in front of him. I think one of those one of those guys I just mentioned was murdered in front of him. They broke into his keep and cut the guy's throat in the same room with the boy, William the Conqueror. Why? Why are you? Why are you leaving the boy alive? Well, that's great. That's interesting. That's what he's trying to talk about. So, yeah, so it's it seems that when you've got a little boy ruling in his minority, yeah, you could kill him, of course. But it's actually easier. It's better. It's more stable, slightly more stable to just kill the guys around him, and he becomes your little puppet. But he's going to grow up. Yeah, right. So that only lasts for a window of time. And surely he's not going to be happy with the things that happened when he was a child. Yeah. There's one or two accounts where he had to be quite literally spirited away, sort of secretly escaped from a castle or a keep at night and spirited away because men that did want to kill him had broken in. So he escaped by the skin of his teeth a number of times in childhood. Jesus. Again, what kind of psychology for the adult man does that breed? Well, a very brutal one. Yeah. And by our standards. And it shows you the world is not secure and constant. Like, that's the thing. Like, you know, like the English under Edward the Confessor have got a long period of constancy, whereas William has total like insecurity constantly, constant security. And like the worst kind of insecurity. It's not like, oh, I might end up poor and destitute. No, you're going to end up killed. Like all of these other guys you've seen murdered in front of you. And the amount of times you've had to flee from your own castles and stuff like that. Like you're going to want to be strong when you're an adult. Yeah. You're going to take your martial like inheritance very seriously. There's lots of people in life who have very, very brutal childhood. And of course, of course, they're going to grow up to be very, very brutal adult men. Yeah. I mean, again, it pops into mind. Stalin had an extremely brutal childhood and early adulthood, sort of unbelievably brutal in some sorts of ways. So no wonder when he's the master of Mother Russia in the Kremlin. Yeah. He's got no time for weak. In Zaris, Georgia. Yeah, I can imagine it was pretty tough. Like his father almost beaten to death. He was sent up to Siberia to freeze to death and survived it all. And so, yeah, now you're a... you get it. Well, so in 1041, one of his tutors, a Turold, was murdered, another one of his protectors, an Osburn, one of his stewards. That was the guy that had his throat cut in the same room with him. Right. We need you to be the steward for William. It's like, no, thanks. But I know what happened to the last five. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I just I'd rather not. It's a very dangerous position. Yeah. Yeah. There will be loads of people out there that want you out of the way. Yeah. So at the time, as I mentioned, there's chroniclers at the time like William Poitier and then there's chroniclers we've got that are much later, like Aldrich Vitalis. And the ones at the time say they don't really name the people that are doing it. Yeah. Because, in fact, we do have a lion. Again, I think from William Poitier, where he says the men that currently surround the Duke are the same men that killed all his. So I'm not going to name them. It's too dangerous for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when Aldrich Vitalis goes, no, one of them is Rodolf of Gasset. He just names him because he's not in any immediate danger by doing so. Yeah. So we do know some of these people and they basically are his. They're just thugs, right? Well, yeah. Murderous thug. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a Mafioso type. Yeah. Yeah. Gangsters. Yeah. Yeah. It is sounding very much like a Mafia film. You know, it's very much like that, isn't it? Mm hmm. And he had one of his uncles, Walter, Uncle Walter, smuggled him out of various places at various times. Yeah. So historians, exactly as you say, have argued over why not just kill him? Yeah. Well, it's because if you've got him, if you've got him, you can say, well, he's legitimate heir. No one's arguing with that. You know, so you sort of it's sort of a shortcut to controlling policy. If you don't kill him, it's probably better if you don't kill him. But it'll only last until he's old enough to have his own mind. I bet William was like, I can't wait until I'm 15 and I can raise an army. And I'm going to deal with all of these people. Yeah. Well, that is exactly that is exactly what happens. I've got no sympathy for the people he deals with either, to be honest. Yeah. It's difficult to have any sympathy for any of these characters, really. Yeah, you're actually scumming, you know. So the king of France through most of William's early life is Henry I of France. Obviously, completely different to Henry I of Britain, who is one of William Conqueror's sons. But William I of France, actually, Henry I of France is the king throughout nearly all of this. And he does, it seems, support William the Conqueror's claim, because you could think you could imagine that Henry I of France sees all this instability and weakness and something approaching anarchy in Normandy. You might think, oh, this is my chance to push all of these guys out and take it for myself. But it looks like he's not powerful enough to do that himself. Otherwise, he might have done either way. He tries to back up or does support the claim of the young William, whoever his his protectors are at that time. So that's sort of interesting to note. But he does want things in return, you know. So but the whole thing is just it's a real mess is what it is. Now, we get to the point when William the Conqueror is between about 13 and 15 years of age. There's all sorts of sieges and counter sieges and all sorts of craziness going on the whole time. And from some of the chronicles, we see that when he's about 13, he's still just a complete puppet. And the grown up men around him are just doing as they please in his name. But then by the time he's 15, in about 1043 odd, there's a there's a siege of fillets or the relief of rebellious siege of fillets. And it seems at that point when he's about 15, so suddenly he's the man he's he's in control for himself. He's sort of he's not taking orders from anyone. So it's just interesting because we don't have that in fantastic detail of exactly what changed. But between those two, something profound has changed in those two years. And it sort of makes sense, doesn't it? When you're 13, you're still really pretty much a child. Yeah. And when you're 15, you're starting to you're starting to be a man. In this time, they probably didn't mature a bit more quickly. And then we we moderns understand, you know, because I mean, it's not like William isn't going to have plenty of life experience by the time he's 15. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, I've seen more men murdered than you've had hot dinners. You know, I've I've I've, you know, I've been carrying a knife since I was 10 or something, you know, and all this sort of stuff. And it's like, OK, you know, these are different people. There's no time, no room for any sort of extended childhood or any childhood really at all. Yeah. It's childhood would be gone. Yeah. A childhood as we know it, where you're kept in a state of innocence. Yeah. No, that's not. No, none of that. Yeah. No, none of that whatsoever. Yeah. By the time you're 15, once again, we said it in the last one, didn't we? If you're strong enough to wear a great helm and wield a sword. That's it. That is that is the definition. And it's good to go at that point. It's hard to imagine that William personally didn't want to be martially competent, right? Like he's going to be like, well, I need to train. I need to learn how to use a sword. I need to learn how to fight, you know? And so like and all he needs to do really is get, you know, a handful of loyal men around him because he's got the the authentic claim to get a handful of actually decent loyal men around him. And then you can see how he could start asserting himself. But, you know, OK, but we can fight these mafioso types, you know, we can actually start, you know, actually returning some order and actual peace to the realm. So, you know, good, good on him, to be honest. One thing I'd say is that you can say that, but like the reality is, is it's a very difficult thing. So one thing to say, for example, a spring to mind is that Henry, the third of England. I think he was more like 23 before he got the balls. Yeah. Right. So when you do a 15. But did Henry have multiple people murdered in front of him when he was seven? Yeah, no, no. You know, it wasn't as brutal. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, you know, this is the the the the forge in which he's being fired. Yeah, that's a really tough one. Yeah. And it's clearly like, you know, I've got to I've got to grow up quick sooner rather than later. Yeah, that's that's, you know, if I'm going to I'm going to live in this. I haven't got the luxury of just allowing the great men around you to carry on. You haven't got luxury of that. Because sooner rather than later, they'll probably cut your throat. Yeah. So we've got a great line here from William Poitier, who again was sort of something like a family chaplain. We think he was certainly there and saw it all himself. He's a primary source. Absolutely. He says this about sort of about the 15 year old William the Conqueror. He says, at last, the most joyous day. So at last, the most joyous day dawns splendidly for all who desired and eagerly awaited peace and justice. Our Duke, adult more in his understanding of honourable things and in the strength of his body than in his age, was armed as a knight. The news of this spread fear throughout Francia. Gaul had not another man who reputed to be such a knight in arms. It was a sight both delightful and terrible to see him hold the reins girded, honourable with his sword, his shield shining formidable with his helmet and javelin. Oh, yes. He's describing a 15 year old kid to us, a kid. But probably fully grown. And, you know, someone who's been just training since he was a boy. You know, there's certain people in history. They seem to hit the ground running, don't they? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And William's clearly one of them. Yeah. Yeah. And just as you said, sort of the next thing, next main thing is that he starts removing the people around him who are not sensibly enough and replacing them with people that he trusts or likes or whatever. I mean, there are obviously sympathetic people around him. It's just there are a bunch of murderers around him who are not sympathetic. And so, yeah, OK, now you're 15. You've probably, you know, you've developed a man's body and voice. And actually, I've got my arms now so I can get, you know, a dozen guys break into their castle, kill them. You know, let's go do that. Brilliant. You know. Oh, this feels good. Revenge. You did this. Oh, my God. You know, you can see how it'd be totally motivated. Right. We are we are selling some bloody scores now, lads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, for example, I mentioned Rodolf of Gassay. Yeah. He's out. Yeah. Well, I imagine he killed all these people. A lot of them seem to have been bumped off. Yeah. Yeah. No sympathy whatsoever. And just to stress one last time, it's not just the physical ability to do it, but the mindset. I don't know. Murdering people is totally normal. You guys made it totally normal. You know, this is what we do in Normandy, isn't it? I mean, I don't know what it's like for you in your life, but at some point. No, I don't mean that. Sorry. I was just going to say at some point in most men's lives, most people don't have to be a male or female thing. But in most people's lives, at some point you realize, oh, wait, I can do whatever I want within reason, of course. No, I don't have to take direction from anyone, including my own family, including my closest friends. I don't have to bow to any peer pressure whatsoever from anyone. I'm just going to do I've got my own mind now. Well, it doesn't really matter what century you're talking about. To be to realize that absolutely at 15, it's quite something. To watch the full video, please become a premium member at Lotus Eaters dot com.