Book Review: "William the Conqueror" by David Bates

The one thing I like about reading historical nonfiction is that there is so much scope. You don't have to just write about the facts, you can use primary and secondary resources to assess something and draw conclusions based on various facts - especially if the person you are writing about is far back in history like William the Conqueror.

This is a part of my series on reading a book on every king and queen of England from Edward the Confessor all the way through to our own times. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you; at the moment it isn't working out too good and I have spent way too long reading that book on Harold Godwinson which I didn't find all that great (I didn't review it because I really don't want to give something that has such great reviews a bad one). But this book on William the Conqueror was pretty impressive, especially as it begins with William's days in Normandy - before he came to England.

The first thing this book sets up is the fact that Europe is highly unstable. There are changes happening everywhere they can happen and especially in the land of the French. Normandy is run by William the Conqueror (who was not yet a 'conqueror needn't I remind you) and he is being the war-lord type leader that people grow to respect. The fact that he can gain so much favour means that when he comes to gather that army to fight the English, he is going in strong with many people.

I like how it also depicts the making of one of the greatest records of the Medieval World - the famed Domesday Book. I don't think many people realise that this is simply a record of land throughout England at the time of William the Conqueror and that is because I think I've seen it spelt Doomsday which, I don't know, might throw people off I guess? But, the Domesday Book has to be one of the biggest and most interesting achievements of the age of William the Conqueror and, in Bates' book, it is described in some real meticulous detail of the hows and whys. I really appreciate it when a historian goes into that much depth about such an incredible event.

But, this book also shows us a side of William the Conqueror that I think we all knew but didn't want to accept. Greedy for power, machiavellian at heart and intolerant on differences, William the Conqueror was not a man who enjoyed the individual nature of the English people and sought to confine them into his ways and methods as a soldier, husband and father. Often violent and cruel, William the Conqueror was someone, we are reminded by David Bates, who was basically the most famous soldier and war hero in Europe. You don't become a war hero without piling up the bodies from the other side. You don't become a war hero without a dash of cruelty and malevolence. I think David Bates depicts the two sides of the coin of William the Conqueror absolutely perfectly, it is ingenius how they mix together to create the man who was the first non-English king of England for a while.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading this book. I knew a lot about William the Conqueror beforehand and so, this knowledge helped out a bit. When it came to the more famous things he had done such as the Battle of Hastings and the Domesday Book, there was explorations so deep I didn't think I would ever get out - but in the end, I learned a lot about every face to William the Conqueror, and not all of them are nice.