Death in the New Forest

When he was in his 40s, King William II "Rufus" of England had successfully dealt with rebellions, been pretty successful in dealing with the clergy and asserting his own authority in the area of investiture, and ruled Normandy (finally, though temporarily) while its duke, his brother Robert Curthose, was on the First Crusade.

One day, he decided to go hunting in the New Forest. This was not unusual. Hunting was a sport of kings, and the New Forest was a great place to do it. Even now it is one of the largest tracts of unenclosed land in England. William's father had declared it a royal forest (today, 90% is still owned by the Crown). William II's older brother Richard had died in the New Forest, colliding with an overhanging branch while riding.

On 2 August 1100, while hunting with companions, he was found with an arrow through his lung. That's all that was recorded. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records only that he was  "shot by an arrow by one of his own men." Later records report the name of the bowman: Walter Tirel. A generation later, William of Malmesbury offered more detail:

The day before the king died he dreamt that he went to hell and the Devil said to him "I can't wait for tomorrow because we can finally meet in person!" He suddenly awoke. He commanded a light to be brought, and forbade his attendants to leave him. The next day he went into the forest... He was attended by a few persons... Walter Thurold remained with him, while the others were on the chase. The sun was now declining, when the king, drawing his bow and letting fly an arrow, slightly wounded a stag which passed before him... The stag was still running... The king, followed it a long time with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the power of the sun's rays. At this instant Walter decided to kill another stag. Oh, gracious God! the arrow pierced the king's breast.

On receiving the wound the king uttered not a word; but breaking off the shaft of the arrow where it projected from his body... This accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, but as he found him senseless, he leapt upon his horse, and escaped with the utmost speed. Indeed there were none to pursue him: some helped his flight; others felt sorry for him.

Thurold was another version of the name—Walter Tirel was a real noble connected to the royal family by marriage—and the idea of the king's dream is fantasy. It is true that Tirel fled the scene: having killed the king, his life was forfeit, so he wisely fled to France, where he was sheltered by Abbot Suger, who later confused the issue when he wrote:

It was laid to the charge of a certain noble, Walter Thurold, that he had shot the king with an arrow; but I have often heard him, when he had nothing to fear nor to hope, solemnly swear that on the day in question he was not in the part of the forest where the king was hunting, nor ever saw him in the forest at all.

And supposedly Tirel/Thurold was an excellent marksman, so would he have "accidentally" hit the king? When investigating a crime, the question often asked is cui bono, "to whose good?" Who would benefit from William's death? Also in the hunting party was his younger brother, Henry. With William's death and Robert Curthose off on the First Crusade (he would only return a month after the death), Henry quickly declared himself king.

Did Henry arrange it? He certainly benefited. Did Henry manage to put the blame on Tirel? Who can tell?

Before we leave William Rufus, I want to latch onto one other trivial point about him. Contemporaries noted he was not a particularly nice person, and that his language was "rough." He had a favorite curse, which was "By the Face of Lucca!" What was the "Face of Lucca"? Let's find out next time.

Rufus versus Anselm

The professional relationship between Anselm of Bec (later "of Canterbury") and King William II of England was as rocky as any similar pairing through England's Middle Ages. The ongoing debate over lay investiture—secular lords appointing priests and bishops—was ripping apart the continent as well, leading to rival popes. Anselm, like those before and after in his position as Archbishop of Canterbury, wanted the clergy to be independent.

Even as Anselm was being invested as archbishop and it seemed he and William had reconciled their differences, William made a move that caused the first big clash. William's father, William the Conqueror, had left him England, but William senior's original possession of Normandy on the continent went to his elder son, Robert Curthose. William junior wanted to rule Normandy as well, so planned a takeover. Plans like this required soldiers and supplies, and those required money. The quickest way for a king to raise cash was to tell everyone to give you some.

So William sent to Anselm, asking for £1000. Anselm offered £500. William felt he was owed money for Anselm's new position (something called annates, which maybe we'll go into someday). Anselm decided to pursue his own agenda. He asked William to fill all the vacant church positions and allow Anselm to enforce canon law. William refused. Anselm withdrew any offer of funds, saying "that he [Anselm] disdained to purchase his master's favor as he would a horse or ass." William was said to reply that he didn't want Anselm's money or blessing for the endeavor, because "I hated him before, I hate him now, and shall hate him still more hereafter."

Anselm really wanted to make his appointment official by receiving a pallium from the pope; William had refused Anselm's travel for this purpose earlier. A meeting of nobles and bishops gathered to discuss this. William ordered the bishops not to treat Anselm as their archbishop, and they caved to the king. The nobles, however (many of whom did not approve of William's rule) supported Anselm. Secretly, Anselm asked two men to travel to Pope Urban II and request the pallium. They were Bishop of Exeter William of Warelwast and Archbishop Gerard of York.

They persuaded Urban to send a papal legate with the pallium. The legate met with the Bishop of Durham, who represented the king (and had argued against allowing Anselm to go get the pallium himself). William agreed that he would support Urban (over Antipope Clement III), in exchange for the right to block papal legates and intercept any papal letters to clerics. This was unacceptable, so William tried to sell the pallium to anyone who would take it and replace Anselm. No one would take it (or the price was too high). He tried to get money from Anselm for the pallium; Anselm refused. William then wanted to personally put the pallium on Anselm, but Anselm refused again: this act would suggest that the king had the authority of a pope over the archbishop.

Finally, the pallium was placed on the altar at Canterbury Cathedral, and on 10 June 1095 Anselm placed it on himself (seen above in a 20th century representation by E.M.Wilmot-Buxton).

A few months later, Urban would declare the First Crusade. William continued to deny Anselm's attempts at reform and church independence, and Anselm even had to go into exile. But it was around this time that he wrote the most consequential piece of Christian theology in the Middle Ages, an essay titled Cur Deus Homo.

Anselm had a better relationship with William's successor, his younger brother Henry. For that to happen, however, William had to die, and the circumstances of his death have inspired a conspiracy theory that has never died. I'll tell you that story next time.

William Rufus

Technically, he was King William II of England but was called "Rufus" for his reddish beard, William was the third eldest son of William the Conqueror. The eldest was Robert Curthose (given the title Duke of Normandy after his father's death), and the second son Richard died early. This left William junior to succeed as King William II of England. (The youngest, Henry, would ultimately become king as well.)

Born about 1057, he might not have been raised from early on with the thought that he would have to rule some day, but when the second son Richard died in a hunting accident in the New Forest in 1070, Rufus' destiny altered course. He would have made an odd-looking person, never mind a king. According to William of Malmesbury, Rufus was 

...well set; his complexion florid, his hair yellow; of open countenance; different colored eyes, varying with certain glittering specks; of astonishing strength, though not very tall, and his belly rather projecting.

He was also given to mischief as a child. Orderic Vitalis, a contemporary historian, wrote that the younger sons William and Henry, in a moment of great boredom and little discretion, emptied a chamberpot from an upper story onto Robert. Their father had to break up the ensuing fight.

After becoming king, he had to deal with the Rebellion of 1088 (led partially by his uncle, Bishop Odo), which he defeated. In 1091 he decided to invade Normandy and successfully captured some lands from Robert. He made it up to Robert by promising to help him recover some of his land that had been taken by France. (Their joint venture failed.)

In 1097 he initiated the construction of Westminster, the largest Hall in England.

He took the secular side (naturally) of the Investiture Controversy. In the case of England, bishops and abbots were feudal subjects of the king, and so he was less concerned about clashing with them over the subject of investing clerics. He then made a tactical error in this regard: he nominated as Archbishop of Canterbury the greatest theologian of the age, Anselm of Bec. Their conflict would mirror one between a future king of England and his archbishop, but I'll talk about William and Anselm's conflict tomorrow.

The King That Almost Was

I mentioned here that, after the Battle of Hastings, another claimant to the throne of England had to flee to Scotland in the face of William of Normandy's success. There, Edward's sister Margaret married King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, and Edward gave up the dream of his line ruling England.

There was, however, a chance for the throne to pass back to his family, after all.

William of Normandy divided his rule by giving Normandy to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, and England to a younger son, William Rufus. When William Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in 1100, the youngest son, Henry, became Henry I of England. In 1105, prompted by his older brother Robert's poor performance, Henry invaded Normandy, succeeding in claiming Normandy for his own within a year.

Henry was not just a good soldier; he was a decent politician. He chose to placate his Anglo-Saxon subjects by marrying a "local" girl, Matilda of Scotland. (There was a small snag, in that she was believed to be a nun, but that was settled eventually.) Matilda was the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret of Scotland, and therefore the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, a previous Anglo-Saxon king. Marrying her and having heirs would put a combined Norman-Saxon king on the throne. That king was William Adelin ("Adelin" was a form of Ætheling, the Anglo-Saxon word for "prince" or "noble"). He was born in 1103, and while in his teens was called rex designatus [King designate].

Then came the night of 25 November, when William Adelin and his brothers made some bad decisions while in command of the White Ship on their way back to England from Normandy. Henry lost all his sons in the disaster. Henry's attempt to place his daughter on the throne led to a period called The Anarchy, after which the throne was taken by the very un-Saxon (and reportedly unpleasant) Stephen of Blois.

The Walking Dead

Orderic Vitalis (1075-c.1142) has been mentioned here and here for his history writing. The 13 books of his Historia ecclesiastica ["Ecclesiastical history"] told many tales of his time that had nothing to do with the Church. One of his anecdotes is truly outré.

While discussing some of the travails of William Rufus, he interjects a tale of a priest of Lisieux that took place on 1 January 1091. The priest, heading home at night from visiting a sick man, heard a loud noise coming along the moonlit road, as of an army. He decided to flee toward some trees in a field to hide himself, but as he ran toward them*

he was stopped by a man of enormous stature, armed with a massive club, who, raising his weapon above his head, shouted to him, "Stand! Take not a step further!" The priest, frozen with terror, stood motionless, leaning on his staff.

The giant stands by his side and awaits the arrival of the crowd making the noise.

a great crowd of people came by on foot, carrying on their heads and shoulders, sheep, clothes, furniture, and moveables of all descriptions, such as robbers are in the habit of pillaging. All were making great lamentations and urging one another to hasten their steps. Among them the priest recognized a number of his neighbours who had lately died, and heard them bewailing the excruciating sufferings with which they were tormented for their evil deeds. They were followed by a troop of corpse-bearers, who were joined by the giant already mentioned.

But there was more after this:

Then followed a crowd of women who seemed to the priest to be innumerable. They were mounted on horseback, riding in female fashion, with women's saddles which were stuck with red-hot nails. The wind often lifted them a cubit from their saddles, and then let them drop again on the sharp points. Their haunches thus punctured with the burning nails, and suffering horrible torments from the wounds and the scorching heat, the women pitiably ejaculated, woe! woe! and made open confession of the sins for which they were punished, undergoing in this manner fire and stench and unutterable tortures for the obscene allurements and filthy delights to which they had abandoned themselves when living among men.

He then sees a knight on horseback, who stops to speak to him, revealing himself as the priest's brother, and says:

"You deserve to die, and to be dragged with us to partake of the torments we suffer, because you have rashly laid hands on things which belong to our reprobate crew; no other living man ever dared to make such an attempt. But the mass you sang to-day has saved you from perishing. It is also permitted me thus to appear to you, and unfold to you my wretched condition. After I had conferred with you in Normandy, I took leave of you and crossed over to England, where, by the Creator's order, my life ended, and I have undergone intense suffering for the grievous sins with which I was burdened."

There is more (I have placed the whole story here). After this experience, the priest falls ill, but recovers to live another 15 years.

Orderic claims that he was told this tale directly by the priest who experienced it.


*Excerpts all from The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, trans. Thomas Forester, 1956.

To Marry a Nun

Seal of Queen Matilda

When King William II died mysteriously in 1100, his brother immediately ascended the throne. Needing a queen, he turned to Matilda of Scotland, then about 20 years old. There was one potential problem with this plan, however: Matilda was a nun.

Or was she?

Matilda was the daughter of Queen (later Saint) Margaret and Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland (and the model for the Malcolm in Shakespeare's MacBeth). Her mother raised her with daily religious instruction and a ruthless attention to discipline: the steward had permission to beat any of her children if they exhibited bad manners.

At the age of six, Matilda (along with her three-year-old sister, Mary) was sent to Romsey Abbey in Hampshire, where their mother's sister was abbess. "Aunt Cristina" dressed the girls in the heavy black clothing of nuns and beat them regularly to remind them that they were sinful. Several years later, they were sent by their mother's instructions to Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire for further education, saving them from their aunt. Instruction included more than catechism: Matilda knew English, French and Latin, and was able to read St. Augustine and the Bible.

Romsey Abbey today

In 1100, Henry I's wish to marry her created a controversy. Was she a nun and ineligible for marriage? Henry wasn't sure, so he turned to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm of Bec (c.1033-1109). Anselm, recently returned to England after a long time away, shied away from making that decision—although he was a brilliant theologian, he was possibly torn between betraying the Church and annoying a King—and called a council of bishops to debate the matter.

Matilda herself testified that she was never meant to be a nun, that her parents only sent her to abbeys because they wished her to be educated, and that she hated the nun's life and tore off the veil whenever she was out of sight of Abbess Cristina. The council concluded that Matilda was never supposed to be a nun after all, and gave permission for the marriage.

Winchester Cathedral Begins

One of the largest cathedrals in England—in fact, one of the longest Gothic cathedrals in Europe—Winchester has been through many changes. The original building (on a site just north of the present cathedral) was founded in 642 and over time came to hold the remains of several Saxon kings.

The very long nave of Winchester

William the Conqueror, wishing to show the strength of his Norman regime after 1066 (or wishing to placate God for any sins William might have committed) began a building campaign, replacing several Saxon churches all over England with great Gothic edifices.

He also needed men to guide the dioceses connected to the new structures. For Winchester, that would be his cousin and personal chaplain, Walkelin, who was consecrated bishop in 1070 for the express purpose of running Winchester. This nepotism benefited Walkelin, who was able to "pay it forward": he made his brother Simeon the prior of Winchester, putting him in charge of the monastery that had started in 971. He later helped Simeon become Abbot of Ely. Walkelin also later advanced his nephew Gerard to become Archbishop of York.

To build the new cathedral would take materials, and since all natural resources in England belonged to the king, it was up to the king to allocate them as he saw fit. William gave Walkelin access to Hempage Wood in Hampshire, granting him as much wood for timbers and scaffolding as carpenters could produce in four days and nights. Walkelin took no chances: he assembled an army of carpenters sufficient to cut down the entirety of Hempage.

The next time William passed through Hampshire, he was at first stunned to see no Hempage Wood, then enraged when he realized what had happened. He summoned Walkelin, who dressed himself in his poorest outfit and knelt at the king's feet, offering to give up his position if only the king and he could remain friends. William relented, saying "I was as much too liberal in my grant as you were too greedy in availing yourself of it."*

The new Winchester was completed in 1093, and a grand and joyous procession of monks carried the relics of saints (especially of St. Swithin, former bishop of Winchester and patron saint of the old church) from the old building to the new.

Under William Rufus, Walkelin supposedly refused to send the king a large sum he was requesting, because Walkelin knew he could not raise the sum with taxing (and oppressing) the poor in his diocese. Instead, the bishop prayed to be delivered from the difficulty he was in. Ten days later he died, on 3 January 1098.

*Annales de Wintonia [Annals of Winton], entry for 1086.

And Then There's Maud

Matilda of Flanders (c.1031-1083), also called Maud, was the wife of William II of Normandy (later William the Conqueror). Their legendary and odd "courtship" was described here. The odd thing is that, after the supposed abuse he heaped on her when she first refused his hand, she later defied her father, Count Baldwin of Flanders, and refused to marry anyone else.

The pope objected, because they were too closely related. Determining the exact relationship has been difficult for modern scholars, however:

It has thus been suggested that both William and Matilda were cousins in the fifth degree, being both directly descended from Rolf the Viking. ... Finally, it has been suggested (perhaps with greater probability) that the prohibition was based on the fact that after the death of Baldwin V's mother, Ogiva, his father, Baldwin IV, had married a daughter of Duke Richard II of Normandy. All these theories have difficulties to overcome, and the matter may well therefore be left in some suspense. —William the Conqueror, David C. Douglas (1964)

We know that she was a direct descendant of Alfred the Great, and also was a descendant of Charlemagne, but those connections should not have sparked the pope's concern. Whatever his objections, they were overcome eventually with the help of Lanfranc (see the link above).

Matilda proved to be an admirable consort. She outfitted a ship, the Mora, with her own funds to join his fleet for the Conquest of England. She also had skills as an administrator: William left the Duchy of Normandy in her hands when he headed to England in 1066 to defeat Harold. In fact, although she did spend time with her husband in England—notably when she accompanied him during his Harrying of the North campaign—except for giving birth to their fourth child, Henry, in Yorkshire while on that campaign, all of their other children were born in Normandy.

One thing she likely did not do is work on the Bayeaux Tapestry. As picturesque as the image is of her and her ladies in waiting working away as seamstresses and embroiderers, it is now believed that the tapestry (actually a banner) was arranged by Bishop Odo of Bayeaux (William's half-brother) and created by Kentish artists.

So far as we know, once she captured William's heart she never let it go again. There are no records of William having any children outside of his marriage, or of taking a mistress. They had nine children, all of whom lived to adulthood. Two of them became kings: William II, called Rufus, who ruled England after the Conqueror, and Henry who ruled after William as Henry I.

Her illness and death, with William at her side, was devastating for her husband. William survived her by four years, but he was changed. True, in 1085 he called for the Domesday Book, but his interest in ruling England was waning, and he returned to Normandy for good in 1086. There are also reports that he became more cruel. When he died, he was buried in Caen, near but not with his wife. While he was buried at Abbaye aux Hommes (Abbey of Men), at which Lanfranc had once been abbot, Matilda was interred down the road at the Abbaye aux Dames (Abbey of Women), which had been founded by William and Matilda in 1062. She is buried under a slab of black marble.

Matilda of Flanders died 929 years ago today. The illustration is a statue of her in Paris

Tornado Surprise

Tornadoes usually form when masses of warm, moist air and higher altitude cooler air meet. The cooler air descends, the warm air ascends, and the action creates a vertical funnel of swiftly rotating air. The majority of tornadoes in the world are created in the North American mid-west, when cool air coming over the Rocky Mountains meets the warm air rising from the Great Plains. With these geographical features, North America has what is called "Tornado Alley." Without these geographical features, tornadoes have a more difficult time forming; when they do, they are usually very weak. In fact, in the 1000 years prior to the 20th century, only about 2 dozen tornadoes were recorded in all of Europe.

Artist's impression of St. Mary le Bow being destroyed

Which makes it all the more interesting to learn that a tornado—the earliest known in England and perhaps the biggest ever experienced by that country—hit London in 1091. Once again, London Bridge fell down. The church of St. Mary le Bow was flattened, and four of its 26-foot-long rafters were driven into the ground with such force that only 4 feet remained showing. Several other churches were damaged or destroyed, as well as 600 houses. Estimates of the force of the tornado seem foolish, but people have tried, and they rate it an F4 on the Fujita Scale (F0-F5), with winds at 200 miles per hour or more. If that is true, then it is truly remarkable that there were only two deaths reported.

A tornado like that hitting London now would be striking a city of more than 8 million, but in 1091 estimates for London's population range from as few as 10,000 to as many as 20,000. In October of 1091, actually, there were even fewer people in London than usual. Thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we know that King William II was up north with his retinue and army fighting King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland (1038-1093). William prevailed, and was out of town when disaster struck. All things considered, it was probably the luckiest military campaign he ever undertook.

Jews in London

One street is all that remains of the Jewry

Jews had followed William the Conqueror to England* and established a significant presence in London in an area still called Old Jewry. Their business and money-lending practices were efficient, such that their homes were made of sturdy stone more often than their Gentile neighbors' houses. William II (1087-1100) seems to have been tolerant of the Jews; Henry II (fl.1154-1189) as well. Life in London was considered amenable enough to Jews that the well-known Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra visited London, where in 1158 he wrote his Iggeret ha-Shabbat (Epistle on the Sabbath), which can still be found in print today.
Of course, life was never "good" for the Jews in medieval Europe. In England, for instance, there were laws designed to harass the Jews, like that which required every Jew who died in England to be buried at a special cemetery set up at Cripplegate in London—which forced every Jewish family to pay a fee for the burial.

King Henry III of England was first mentioned here in my second-ever blog post. In 1232 he established the Domus Conversorum (House of Converts), meant for Jews who converted to Christianity, giving up their possessions in exchange for a home and a daily stipend for food and necessities.

Henry was devout, certainly, but not always charitable. In the words of one scholar:

If Henry III, despite being constantly broke, managed to find enough money to keep work at [Westminster] Abbey in progress, that was partly because he was at least a devout enough Catholic to be able to rob the Jews with a good conscience. [A History of London, Robert Gray]

Henry, always in need of money, was fond of borrowing from the Jews and simply not paying them back. Jews were seen as being a tool for the King's pleasure, and the Barons and others resented the Crown's control over them. For the Coronation of Richard I Lionheart in Westminster Abbey, a Jewish group tried to crowd in the Abbey to show support and bring gifts for the new king. Their presence touched off riots. Londoners rushed to the Jewry and set fire to houses, killing those who tried to escape.

Thirty were reported killed. The conviction rate afterward: three. Two of those had accidentally torched a Christian home, and one had robbed a Christian home in the confusion.

*No evidence exists of a Jewish presence in England prior to 1066.

London Bridge is Going Up!

London Bridge—the first of which was built in 80 CE—has, indeed, fallen down. In fact, for the first millennium of the Common Era, the wooden structure linking Southwark to the City of London was rebuilt countless times. As the only link between the banks of the river from the sea until Kingston (15 miles upriver from London), it was important for commerce and defense.

In 1014, when Æthelred the Unready's Saxons and King Olaf's Vikings joined forces and sailed up the Thames, they aimed to split the Danish forces in London by attacking the Bridge. The Danes hurled spears down on the ships, which defended themselves with thatch taken from London cottages; then the attackers went under the Bridge and pulled down the supports with cables. To some, this is the origin of the nursery rhyme.*

That wasn't the only time "London Bridge is Falling Down" would have entered the vocabulary. For the first 70 years after the Norman Conquest in 1066, there were ten incidents in which fire destroyed or significantly damaged the bridge. Several of the rebuilding efforts included aid from different counties, proving the importance of London Bridge to those outside the city.

A stone bridge was begun in 1176. Financed by a tax and overseen by Peter de Colechurch, it took 33 years to finish.

The enclosed road on the Bridge

This was an enormous undertaking. The new London Bridge was 300 yards long, with 20 arches that were 60 feet high and with 30 feet wide spaces, each with gates. The bridge supported a road 20 feet wide—wide enough to be used for houses and shops, some of which were three stories high. Upper stories would be built wider than the main floor, and joined by timbers. The Bridge became a narrow lane lined with shops, with a roof overhead. Their rents supported the upkeep. Mill wheels were set up under the arches to grind grain.

Sadly, the City's modern needs demanded that the old Bridge be demolished and a new one be built, in 1831-2. Another decade, and we might even have had photographs of the structure that stood for over six centuries.

*More on that in the future.

Thorkill of Arden

When Leofric, Earl of Mercia, died in 1057, his estate of Kingsbury passed to his widow, the Countess Godgifu, better known to later generations by the Latin version of her name, Godiva. The Domesday Book, compiled on King William's orders in 1086, lists her as a landowner as of the Conquest in 1066, but no longer. So where did her property go?

Prior to William of Normandy's attack in 1066, Edward the Confessor had been inviting Normans over the Channel as councilors; several of them had already been given lands. After 1066, Normans were put into all positions of power, and Saxon nobles were demoted to lesser landholders. Two Saxons, however, had chosen to support William in 1066. One of these was Thorkill of Arden (also called Turchill).

Early Heraldry for Arden

Thorkill's father, Æthelwine, was a nephew of Leofric and the Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1066. Perhaps Thorkill saw supporting William as a way to enhance his own standing. Perhaps he truly believed that William was the rightful ruler; reasons why he might were discussed here. Perhaps he just didn't like Harold. In any case, he was confirmed as Sheriff after his father's death.

At some point—the simplest explanation is the death of the Countess Godiva, whose date we do not know—King William gave Kingsbury and its 700 acres to Thorkill. This made Thorkill the sole member of the pre-1066 Saxon nobility to hold an estate of any significance at the time of Domesday.*

Thorkill held Kingsbury for several years; he is listed as the landowner in Domesday. King William's third son was crowned William II on 26 September, 1087 by Bishop Lanfranc. William II was in many ways a successful king, although not universally popular; perhaps confiscating people's lands had a role. William took Kingsbury away from Thorkill. That was not the end of the Arden family's prosperity, however: they remained prominent in Warwickshire politics. A descendant, Mary Arden, was the mother of Shakespeare.

*That is, of the nobility; Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester was, technically, the most powerful Englishman in 1086.