1. William the Conqueror is also known as King William I (Borg designation: first of four).
But, here’s something you may not have known, before that, he was called William the Bastard. Yes, William was a bastard. Not only in the "Your Mummy not married to your Daddy" kind of way, as his father was the Duke of Normandy and his mother was the unmarried hussy daughter of a bloke who played with dead bodies, but also in the "You’re a complete and utter..." type of way.
Mainly because he invaded England. Sheesh, what a complete and utter....
Yep, he invaded England with an army made up entirely of people called, "Norman." Now, most Brits think he did this just because he was a complete and utter ... bad man.
However, he actually had a claim to the English throne. Edward the Confessor, who was William's cousin, had named William as his successor, but Harold-Got-Something-In-My-Eye got to the throne first and claimed Baggsie-No-Returns. William-The-Complete-And-Utter-Expert-Conker-Player was furious, so invaded England.
3. The invasion went well for Will-I-Am-A-Bad-Singer and culminated in the Battle of Hastings.
It was initially meant to be a quiet Sunday afternoon so William could meet Harold for an English cuppa tea, crumpet, and a jolly nice chat. It turned into the battle from hell. Swords clashed and clanked, horses did the foxtrot, lances poked squirrels.
Then King Harold suffered from a serious case of arrow-through-the-eye and it was over. And, unfortunately for Harold-Oh-Boy-This-Really-Hurts-Like-A... who was pretty good at baggsie-no-returns and calling shotgun, a case of arrow-through-the-eye is always fatal.
Will-I-Am-Going-To-Press-This-Button-And-Swivel-My-Chair-Around was declared the winner, much to the annoyance of Tom Jones, who really wanted to do a bit of twerking whilst singing My Oh My Delilah.
4. Will-I-Am-The-King-Now-Please-Call-Me-The-Conqueror had a troubled reign, which is probably why he went back to Normandy for most of it.
He did, however, bring in a few notable reforms. He created the doomsday book. It has a slow beginning and a terrible ending, but I won't spoil it for you. Basically, Dumbledore is killed by Gandalf after suggesting he should've just used the eagles.
The doomsday book also included a section with a survey of all the landholders in England and their holdings, so the monkeys, who will soon take over the planet, knew who to tax.
5. William also instituted a castle building program. He built loads of them. Seriously, if you ever come to England, they are everywhere. Can't throw a stone without hitting one of those things. But I'll let him off on this one, as castles are awesome.
4 comments:
I'm rapidly becoming addicted to this blog. Conkers!
I loved playing conkers as a child. Heck, I'd enjoy it now if they did that kind of thing in the US. My mum tells me they don't allow it in schools anymore. Something to do with the violence of the game. Of course it's violent! You're trying to smash someone's conker. That's the whole fun of it. And to anyone who hasn't a clue what a conker is, that probably doesn't sound like a good thing. Trust me, it's the best fun you can have with a shoelace and a nut.
And if you ask any of the Saxon insurgents post-1066, William quite deserved that nickname. :) In seriousness, I feel badly for Harold. The Godwins were not necessarily the nicest of dynasties (dynasties are rarely maintained by being lovely people), but he gave Will a run for his money at Hastings. If it wasn't for the fact his army had just trudged all the way from Yorkshire after defeating Harold's estranged brother, he probably would have sent Will back to Normandy with broken conkers.
Fun, post Jed. :D
Thank you DLM and Colin for the great comments. There was a thing a while back here in the UK about conkers being banned from schools or kids only allowed to play them if they wore safety goggles. A world gone crazy. I had loads of fun playing conkers as a kid.
I love this, Jed!
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