Why does the British monarchy trace its history to William..

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28 Apr 2023, 7:51 am

...William the Conqueror, a.k.a. William the Bastard, the Duke of Normandy

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/charle ... erm=042823

Quote:

The British monarchy traces its history back to William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066, though royals ruled the patchwork of kingdoms which stretched across what became England, Scotland and Wales for centuries before that.

Sure, the Normans defeated the English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings

and Harold was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England.

But, England had several dynasties after William's. And, not all of them were Norman. The current dynasty is of the House of Hanover.

Why is such a big deal made out of 1066?

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ToughDiamond
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28 Apr 2023, 8:35 am

I don't know why they're so irrational about it. I think there was a point after William I when they dethroned the actual king and put another one in his place. So much for sticking to the rules of lineage.

Personally I have little but contempt for the idea of hereditary wealth and power anyway.

The_Walrus
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28 Apr 2023, 11:52 am

Not quite sure what it is that you are not understanding precisely, or what you think the "big deal" is.

Essentially the "theory of monarchy" is that God chooses the monarchs. The way he does this is by 1) choosing who wins battles, and 2) choosing the souls to go into the person who will inherit the throne.

Why William I and not, say, Henry VII (who also claimed the throne in battle)? Well, William is further ago.

Why William I and not Alfred the Great (grandfather of Æthelstan, first King of England, and his successor Edmund I)? Well, the Normans looked down on the Angles and Vikings. The English upper classes remained French for a long time, and even today this is felt in things like how we call cow-meat "beef". The Saxons were the underclass - don't want to associate with the riffraff!

There's also the "continuity" thing. Yes, British royalty (along with everyone else with any European ancestry) is descended from Alfred the Great. But William I wasn't! It's only when you get to William's great-grandson, Henry II, that you get a line back to Alfred. So if you're saying "we're legitimate rulers because we're descended from Alfred" then you're saying that William, his children and grandchildren were not legitimate. Big no-no. The only monarchs since William I to not be descended from him are the Cromwells, who the monarchy don't view as legitimate monarchs anyway.

Ultimately it is wrong to look at this as something that makes sense. It doesn't make sense. It's a thin justification a bunch of inbreds use to attempt to justify their privileged position in society.

Honey69
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28 Apr 2023, 12:20 pm

According to someone on Reddit

Quote:

"...and there have been various dynasties, no longer connected to William the Conqueror, after him."

Ah, there's your problem right there, all the dynasties are descended from William, that's why they could claim the kingship in the first place. King Charles III is connected to William I by about 34 generations.

Charles is the son of Elizabeth II of the house Windsor/Saxe-Coburg and Gotha whose first King was George V.

George was son of Victoria II Of house Hanover whose founder was George I.

George I was the Great Grandson of James VI & I of Scotland & England of the House of Stuart.

James VI & I was the Great Great grandson of Henry VII of the house of Tudor.

Henry VII was the great great great grandson of Edward III of house Plantagenet, whose founder was Henry II.

Henry II was the son of Empress Matilda and Grandson of Henry I of Normandy.

Henry I was the son of William the Conqueror.

While there have been branches of monarchs that hit dead ends through lack of children or being the wrong kind of Christian. Every monarch has been a descendant of William I.

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Honey69
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28 Apr 2023, 12:54 pm

The above comment was deleted on Reddit, but someone replied with

Quote:

This is true but I believe they are also descended from the older Cerdicing Wessex line through Matilda of Scotland’s marriage to Henry I; his heir was named “William Aethling/“Adelin”” on account of this, and Matilda of Scotland’s grandson eventually inherited the throne after the Anarchy as Henry II

It’s less common but I have heard “descended from Alfred the Great” before.

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Honey69
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28 Apr 2023, 12:57 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Well, the Normans looked down on the Angles and Vikings. The English upper classes remained French for a long time,

The Normans were Vikings.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norman-people

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28 Apr 2023, 1:39 pm

/\I didn’t know that.Thanks!
I do family research and have Norman ancestry and had no idea.

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funeralxempire
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28 Apr 2023, 2:28 pm

Honey69 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

Well, the Normans looked down on the Angles and Vikings. The English upper classes remained French for a long time,

The Normans were Vikings.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norman-people

The Normans were the Francified decendents of vikings, not vikings themselves.

The earlier reference to vikings was contrasting the Normans with the settled Anglo-Danes.

Neither of those groups were vikings though because viking is a career, not an ethnicity.

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28 Apr 2023, 5:40 pm

Here is another answer from Reddit

Quote:

This is less about historical facts and more about English cultural self-perception. While there are instances where foreign invasions were attempted (e.g. the Spanish Armada) and battles were fought using mostly foreign troops (e.g. various Stuarts attempting to reclaim the throne), as well as a lot of warring with Scotland and Wales and plenty of civil war too, William the Conqueror was the last person to, well, conquer England from an outside territory.

The Glorious Revolution involved royals being shipped in at the request of the British political establishment, Cromwell was the winner of a civil war and was English, and Charles II was the heir to the throne and invited back, to name some examples of non-traditional succession that are nevertheless in the cultural memory of the UK not considered invasions. There's also a long history of English monarchs having lands in France and fighting for/over them, but again, due to no English soil being lost they're not considered as relevant.

From that perspective, it's easier to see what the various claims relating to William the Conqueror refer back to: they're extolling a long history of English independence and (arguably) English successes. 'Since/from/to William the Conqueror' is a stand-in for 'the last time any conquering of England occurred'.

The British monarchy (like many royal families) can trace its way back to ancestors significantly earlier than William the Conqueror, but he's considered especially meaningful for the reasons given above, which is why his name is used.

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naturalplastic
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28 Apr 2023, 5:49 pm

Yes... the northern slice of France was seized by "Northmen" in viking longboats centuries before all of that 1066 stuff and came to be called "Normandy".

Not Norwejian Vikings despite the name, but Danish Vikings.

But by the Eleventh Century the were thoroughly assimilated into French culture. And spoke a Norman dialect of French that only had faint hints of Danish remaining in it.

Then in 1066 the Normans invaded England and beat the Anglosaxons at Hastings and became the rulers of England.

The modern aristocracy of England, even today, is mostly Norman descent. Lording it over the Anglosaxon commoners.

The Anglosaxon English maybe the oppressors of the Celts, and may have gone on to be...the oppressors of one forth of the World during the Zenith of the British Empire. But "we Normans are the oppressors of...the oppressors!" as the American columinist of Norman descent Roy Blount Jr. put it. :lol:

Ironically the fact that a province of France conquered Britain resulted in the British crown ruling most of France. And this resulted in the Hundred Years War between England and France.

But yes...England has had several dynasties since then. So though Britain's nobility is largely Norman, I am not sure how their modern Royals are related to the William the Conqueror.

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28 Apr 2023, 6:50 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tr ... _and_Blois

It looks like William the Conqueror/Bastard was related to the previous kings of England, although I don't know why they're showing Harold Godwinson and Edward the Confessor as being King of England at the same time.

They're all basically Danes, descended from Sweyn Forkbeard, who was King of the English in 1013-1014.

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Honey69
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29 Apr 2023, 8:21 am

Another response from Reddit

Quote:

The "tracing" aspect of this is not so much a question of dynastic bloodline as it is of the monarchic system itself.

In terms of simple blood relations, the monarchy can be traced back further than William the Conqueror - he was, after all, related to Edward the Confessor (on which his claim to the throne rested), and thus to the bloodline of the Saxon kings who preceded him. All subsequent monarchs have been related, in some form, to William the Conqueror, so I'm not quite sure where your claim of "various dynasties, no longer connected to William" comes from. William the Conqueror is the 26th great-grandfather of the current monarch, Charles III.

The key thing is the changes to the monarchy itself which William introduced, replacing the old Saxon nobility with the Norman aristocratic system, and simplifying the administration of tax collection. Anglo Saxon England had previously been divided into what was known as a "heptarchy" - seven smaller kingdoms with their own regional control. The Saxons themselves had unified this system into one "England" with a single King, but the basic division into these seven areas persisted with ranks of nobility. William more or less removed this division, consolidating power under the Monarch more exclusively than before. The acquisition of land by the Monarchy was a key part of this power consolidation too, and indeed much of the land owned by the Crown Estates today was in fact claimed by William nearly a millennium ago.

Historians debate the true effect of William on England itself, with some claiming that the changes he introduced were already underway before the Conquest. Others see it as one of most radical shake-ups of power in British history. The nature of historical investigation in this period is frustratingly imprecise (at least compared to the Early Modern and Modern periods) because primary sources are relatively few and their reliability is hotly contested.

In any case, the arrangement of the monarchic system which we see today (constitutional reform notwithstanding) is traced back to the changes introduced by William as part of his consolidation of power. It bears comparatively little resemblance to the kind of monarchic power which the Saxon kings wielded. If you're solely interested in tracing back the bloodline of the current monarch, then you can take it back much further than William.

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The_Walrus
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29 Apr 2023, 9:06 am

funeralxempire wrote:

Honey69 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

Well, the Normans looked down on the Angles and Vikings. The English upper classes remained French for a long time,

The Normans were Vikings.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norman-people

I was trying to contrast three groups:

1) the "settled" Anglo-Saxons like Alfred
2) the conquering Danes like Forkbeard and Canute
3) the Normans

Given that "Dane" is somewhat ambiguous (the Anglo-Saxons include the Jutes, who were from what is today Denmark), it's common for people like Canute to be called "Vikings", not least because Canute actually was a professional Viking when he wasn't just being a king.

The Normans were sufficiently distinct from these groups for there to be snobbery between them, let's put it that way.

Quote:

I don't know why they're showing Harold Godwinson and Edward the Confessor as being King of England at the same time. They're all basically Danes, descended from Sweyn Forkbeard, who was King of the English in 1013-1014.

Harold was only king for a very short period in 1066, between the death of Edward the Confessor and Harold's death at Hastings. The family tree shows this accurately - his date of reign is shown as just 1066.

While William could only trace his ancestry (at least as far as kings of England go) to Forkbeard, Edward and Harold traced theirs back further, to Alfred, and beyond Alfred to minor royals like Ecgberht.

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29 Apr 2023, 9:46 am

Another response

Quote:

William's reforms vested a huge amount of authority in the monarchy, from the introduction of the Norman-style of feudalism which placed the King solely at the top of the hierarchy, to the requirement to pay fines and taxes directly to the crown. It was a complete (but gradual) restructuring of society which placed the monarchy squarely at the centre of state power.

Initially, William attempted to work with the existing Saxon nobility and administrative structures, and some have argued that he had designs on preserving the Saxon culture (his regnal declaration in 1066 was given in Saxon English). Over the course of his reign, however, successive rebellions against his rule led him to remove all Saxon officials (eg the sheriffs, tax-collectors, etc) from their posts and replace them with Normans. He likewise deposed the existing Saxon nobility, reorganised their estates around defensive castles, and gave them to Normans. By the end of his reign, the aristocracy was entirely Norman and spoke exclusively Norman French, and he had also completely "Normanized" the Church (which now spoke Latin). It was a complete cultural shift, the echoes of which you can still see in Britain today.

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funeralxempire
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29 Apr 2023, 11:29 am

The_Walrus wrote:

funeralxempire wrote:

Honey69 wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

Well, the Normans looked down on the Angles and Vikings. The English upper classes remained French for a long time,

The Normans were Vikings.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norman-people

For what it's worth I wasn't really challenging your use of the word viking, it's meaning was clear in-context. I was mostly trying to make sure other readers understood you meant former Vikings settled within England, as opposed to former Vikings settled within northern France who had another name to refer to them by (Normans).

I just couldn't resist also mentioning that Viking isn't a good ethnonym, even if it was clear what you meant by it.

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29 Apr 2023, 11:53 am

Francified Vikings.
I’m imagining Vikings in lace with powdered wigs.

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