All language subtitles for William.The.Conqueror.2015.WEBRip.x264-ION10

- Almost 1,000 years ago,

a man assembled an armada
of 15,000 warriors.

He had made Normandy
a rich, powerful land,

but hatred was at his door.

Mocked, detested and envied,
his burning ambition led him

to formulate a wild, yet
meticulously planned scheme

to invade England and become king.

For this, he would go down in history

as William the Conqueror.

What remains of his story?

Largely erased, forgotten

and left in ruins, traces do remain.

Thus the line between one man's dream

and historic reality becomes blurred.

- It could be a bit higher,

but it's not bad.

- Yes, the
neck was totally bare.

- We can
see their shaven necks

on the Bayeux Tapestry.

It probably helped when
wearing the helmet,

or the headgear that went underneath.

- Our story
begins with a little riddle.

The exact date of William's birth

has never been known.

But it is commonly accepted

that he was born around 1027.

What we know for certain

is that he was raised
in Falaise in Normandy,

in the castle of his father,
Robert the Magnificent.

As the Duke of Normandy,

his father had influence.

His mother Arlette however

was a local girl with no noble blood.

William was therefore
considered a bastard.

What was going on at
this grandious ceremony?

What was Robert the Magnificent's plan?

- Before
setting off on a pilgrimage,

Robert the Magnificent,

the duke who ruled Normandy

from 1030 to 1035, officially enthroned

little William when he was only seven.

He inherited a duchy

with theoretically the
recognition of nobles.

But they did not uphold their commitment.

- Upon the death
of Robert the Magnificent,

the Normans contested young
William for two reasons.

Firstly, because he was a bastard.

It wasn't as fashionable
as in the previous century,

when practically all the Dukes of Normandy

were of illegitimate birth.

Secondly, because he was a child

and certain ambitious uncles of William

were staking their claim to power.

At one point, around 1045,

they tried to assassinate him in Valognes.

- Luckily
a jester in Valognes,

a close friend of William called Gaul,

overheard the would be assassins

and their accomplices plotting.

He went straight to wake
the Duke in his bed,

and ordered him to leave
as quickly as possible.

Taking only a cloak and jump on his horse

or be murdered in a matter of minutes.

William fled and rode all
night towards Falaise.

He must have crossed the ford

of the Bois des Fays, which
was extremely dangerous.

He must have crossed the Besson,

avoiding the towns where
accomplices may be waiting.

He also crossed the forest of Boisville.

- This flight
helped forge the myth

of William as young, brave and headstrong.

A bastard and a loner,

capable of riding 150 kilometers

with killers at his heels.

Texts of the time transform this event

into legend, but struggle
to authenticate the details.

Was William's horse spooked?

Perhaps William was unseated.

What if there never was a river to cross?

What can historians say with certainty?

In fact, just what do
we know about William?

It was all so long ago.

What was he really like?

- We obviously have portraits

of William from the 14th,
15th and 19th centuries.

Even statues like the one in Falaise.

And this is a more or less romantic vision

of the character, not based
on anything historical.

William never doubted his own legitimacy.

Most of the Dukes of Normandy

came from illegitimate marriages.

Consequently, he was totally in line

with his ancestors and considered

that those who challenged
his legitimacy were rebels.

And that it was his duty
to punish them for that.

William took refuge in Falaise,

and there aged 18 took his
first political initiative.

He called upon his sovereign,
the king of France,

and with his help was able

to bring down the accomplices

who wanted to take his power,

that was the Battle of Val-es-Dunes.

- William and the king

faced between one and 2,000 warriors

commanded by the rebel barons

with the bewitching names,

Ranulph de Briquessart,
Grimoald du Plessis,

and Hamon le Dentu.

- Historians consider

that it was a great battle

and a chance for William
to prove his worth.

They even say that the
fighting was so terrible,

and the massacre on such a scale

that the river Orne ran red with blood.

William settled in Caen,

where he built his castle

making the town the
capital of lower Normandy.

- It's hard to pick one's way

through this warren of ruins today.

What here dates back to William?

The ramparts, the ditches, the keep,

the artillery turrets
are just a succession

of changes wrought through the centuries.

Yet on the ground there are traces

that give us a clue

as to what the castle and the town

might have been like around the year 1000.

Perhaps a castle, peace, wealth,

all that was missing
from the perfect picture

was a wife.

- William and Matilda

formed a couple unlike most others

in the Middle Ages.

All their lives, they were
faithful to one another,

and William had no known
mistress, nor bastard.

He chose Matilda, daughter
of the Count of Flanders,

one of the most powerful
figures of the time.

Matilda was a descendant

of the kings of France, the Carolingians,

so the bastard was marrying
into the highest royal line.

- News of the
marriage was heard in Rome,

where Pope Leo IX did
not accept it for reasons

of fifth degree consanguinity

between William and Matilda.

He therefore banned the marriage.

But that did not stop William

from marrying Matilda,

either in 1050 or in 1051,

in Eure on the edge of
the duchy of Normandy.

- William was a builder.

He and Matilda built the men's abbey

and the woman's abbey in Caen.

Acts of allegiance that must have

gone down well in Rome
with Pope Nicholas II,

with whom William had made his peace.

Could we imagine that
William's story ends here?

Good husband and father,

pious Christian, occasional builder,

could William have become
a provincial nobleman?

- No.

- No, there
was no room for routine.

The surprise, when it
came, came from England.

Edward the Confessor took the throne

after a 28 year exile in Normandy.

He had no heir and so he chose William

to succeed him.

- Thus he overlooked

his English brother-in-law Harold.

- In 1064, Harold set sail

to come and meet William.

And when he landed on the Ponthieu coast

to the north of Normandy,

he was taken prisoner

and William ordered his release.

- It was at that time in fact,

that the Bayeux Tapestry was begun.

- A treasure of humanity,

a treasure trove for any historian.

A work of propaganda,

as well as a powerful testimony

of the manners of the time.

The Bayeux Tapestry also told

of what was to come,

of the upheaval in William's life,

and far more besides.

- We know the Bayeux Tapestry

was exhibited in early July

every year for the Feast of Relics

in Bayeux Cathedral.

It was laid out in the nave,

so as to be completely
visible to the public

who came to the cathedral.

- The crowd jostles to relive

the adventures of William and Harold.

Here they are setting off to wage war

together in Brittany.

- It seems
that a friendship grew

between the two men,

but William was wary of Harold's ambition

and asked him to swear on the relics

to promise to back his claim

to the throne of England.

This oath was probably sworn

in the crypt of Bayeux Cathedral.

- One thousand years on

the crypt is still there, identical

aside from paintings that an untrained eye

might think were of that period.

But which were actually
added 400 years later.

The text of the oath was authenticated,

transcribed according to the testimonies

of several who took part in the ceremony.

- By this oath, I Harold

will be the representative of Duke William

- at the court
of my lord, King Edward,

as long as he shall live.

I shall do all in my power

so that after Edward's death

the kingdom of England be handed to him.

- Back in
London, Harold soon witnessed

the last moments of Edward the Confessor.

Who, on his deathbed, entrusted

the kingdom of England to Harold.

- He was a weak king

who had promised his
throne to several figures.

So much so, that several figures

might feel legitimate.

- We have reason to think that

at the last moment, the
moment of his death,

he designated Harold as his successor,

as the tapestry shows.

- Edward died on January 5th,

and the very next day Harold

had himself crowned king.

The news traveled very fast in England,

and immediately went to Normandy,

thanks to the great number
of spies on English soil.

So William was quickly informed.

- One can ask whether Harold

really did go back on his word.

Some dispute it, but it
does merit discussion.

- There are in fact

quite a few sources on the subject

from the quills of medieval authors.

Penned in a scriptoria of monasteries,

among them William of
Poitiers, William of Jumieges

and the Anglo-Norman monk Orderic Vitalis.

- And we have another version,

that of Wace, a Norman author

who wrote the "Roman de Rou."

Wace's account was written

a century after the events.

But he relied on the
testimony of his father,

who was present at the Battle of Hastings,

and gives us information that we don't get

from other sources.

- The duke was delighted.

He was happy with the flag

and the permission given him by the pope.

He sent for blacksmiths and carpenters.

Building materials were hauled in.

Wood brought, dowels were shaped,

planks were planed,

boats and ships were fitted out.

Sails were set, masts were mounted.

A lot of bodies were busied,

lots of money spent.

It took the whole summer and harvest time

to fit out the fleet and raise the troops.

- In the second half of April,

and exceptional event happened

in the western sky.

We now know it was Halley's Comet.

It shone in the sky for a fortnight,

to the people of the time

it foretold of a calamity,

a shift in the destiny of kingdoms.

- The presence of Taillefer,

a rather excitable character,

endlessly shouting "The Song of Roland,"

was recorded by Wace the Norman historian.

- Taillefer, who sang so well,

preceded the duke

singing of the exploits of Charlemagne,

Roland and his vassals
who died at Mount Savoy.

- Still playing at war,

but not yet with any conviction,

William moved his pawns further north

to Saint Valery in the Baie de la Somme

still waiting for a favorable wind.

- William stayed two weeks

in the Baie de la Somme,

and waited for a favorable blowing

from the English side.

On the morning of September 28th,

the wind turned and
allowed William to embark.

- For a historian

who has dedicated his life

to the saga of William,

the crossing of the channel

by the Norman armada

remains a moment to be endlessly pondered

and reimagined.

- Pull.

Pull.

Pull.

Pull.

- Nobody
expected the Norman landing.

That was part of William's plan.

He knew that Harold had
sent all his troops north

to face the Norwegians.

And at Stamford Bridge, on September 25th,

there was a terrible battle

where virtually all the
Norwegians were slaughtered.

William took advantage

of this absence of troops in the south

to land unhindered.

He landed on Pevensey Beach.

The next day, the infantry
set off across the fields,

while William's fleet
made for a little harbor

at the foot of Hastings cliffs.

- From that point on,

the little village of Hastings

has owed its universal renown

through the ages to William.

On the English side,
the men with long hair

gathered by the famous gray apple tree.

Tired, but galvanized by their victory

against the Norwegians,

they readied themselves
to take up arms yet again.

- The army of King Harold was akin

to what we normally considered to be

the feudal army.

There were two main parts to it,

one were his own household,

which was essentially the
aristocracy of England

who held their land on the basis

of military service and personal loyalty

to King Harold,

and they are usually called
the Housecarls of the king.

But crucially in battle they didn't fight

on horseback like calvary
normally would fight.

They dismounted and
they fought with a sword

and the axe, like the Norman infantry.

Alongside the Housecarls, there was the

Anglo-Saxon word fyrd.

In other words, the feudal levies

when the words are linked,

who were the normal
country people of England,

who owed their own tenure

to their lords who owed
their tenure to the king.

They had the duty of turning out

for so many months, or
so many weeks every year

to fight for the king.

Now one of the problems with Harold's army

as indeed with feudal armies later on,

is that that right only
lasted for six weeks

or two months.

So there's a point at
which the fyrd was called,

was assembled, was ready to fight

and after so many months
they went home again.

So Harold had some limitations there.

It's probable that if Harold had waited

two, three, four days,
and no more than that

to assemble a force that
was significantly bigger

and significantly better rested,

than the force he actually
fielded at Hastings,

then he might have triumphed

and English history would
look rather different.

- The English
were shrewdly encamped

at the top of the hill,

which overlooked the
plain by some 40 meters.

And William had naturally camped

at the foot of this hill
to be able to manuver.

- The battle
began at nine in the morning

as William de Poitiers tells us.

The Normans first deployed their archers.

They sent them in as close as possible,

but hardly were they
within an arrow's range,

around 40 to 50 meters,

then spears rained down
on them from the hill

killing a good many men.

William saw then he would obtain nothing

with his archers,

and sent in his infantrymen.

- The battlefield sheds light

on the customs of the time.

We find that William's half brother Odo,

swapped his cassock for a chain mail suit.

As a bishop he didn't have
the right to shed blood,

so his sword was forbidden.

But a club was tolerated.

- For around
one and half to two hours,

William had both his infantry and calvary

attack the hill.

But they couldn't gain a foothold,

as they were hindered
by the hail of spears

and chaffs of all kinds,

hurled by the English.

William de Poitiers, William
the Conqueror's biographer,

said the cloud of projectiles was so dense

it blocked out the sun's rays.

Perhaps an exaggeration
for the sake of the epic,

but it shows that the English were able

to keep the Normans at bay.

And that's what they did for
the first couple of hours.

What happened next was
an incident stemming

from a bold manuever that the Breton's

were charged with performing.

They advanced as close as possible

to the English flank,

and at a given moment

they provoked what is
known as a feigned flight.

- It was a ruse.

William's soldiers appeared to turn back,

to retreat from the shield wall

of the Anglo-Saxon Housecarls,

which hitherto had been impregnable.

So the pretense on the part of the Normans

to give up, to retreat, to runaway

tested the discipline
of the Anglo-Saxon army

to breaking point.

And there was a moment
when they broke their wall,

they ran down the hill

and of course by doing that

they exposed themselves to attack

by men on horses armed with lances,

and were extremely vulnerable.

- William, who
had advanced on his horse

to direct the highly delicate
feigned flight manuever,

was held up because his horse was killed

by an English spear.

The horse collapsed and rolled on top

of William the Conqueror.

- William's fall became one

of the great dramatic moments
of the Battle of Hastings.

As a knight, it's something you'd be keen

to tell your beloved
when you were reunited

after the fighting.

Here William becomes his own historian.

- It was as
if nothing else existed

but the epic of a hero,

whom fate has pitched
alone against the world.

- And probably
a new phase began then.

Identical to the first, that is,

that William relaunched his archers,

his infantry and his cavalry.

And we can say that
from one or two o'clock

until three in the afternoon,

William met with the same failure.

They needed to clear the battlefield,

to take away the corpses, the dead horses,

the wounded.

To restock with weapons, spears, arrows

and all kinds of lances.

They also had to regroup a certain number

of forces to enable them
to mount another attack.

- One of the problems with Harold's army

was the lack of archers.

And it's very difficult to explain that

because archery was a
perfectly common thing

in England just as it was in Normandy.

And one of the, not strategic
but tactical advantages

William had, as we all know,

was the large company of archers

he brought with him,

and the effect they had on the battle.

- If we look carefully

at the Bayeux Tapestry,
we see that there's

a character called Harold
who gets an arrow in the eye.

And just next to him,
is a knight amputating

another character's leg.

That's a second representation of Harold.

- And once the king was dead,

the idea of the state
in Anglo-Saxon England

was not strong enough to hold
this mass of people together.

So with the death of the king,

all loyalty to a common cause breaks apart

and disintegrates.

And at that point, the
dispersal of the English army

is inevitable.

There's no one there
to hold them together.

The king and his two brothers
have both been killed,

and the Normans rule the field.

- It is
hard to evaluate losses

on either side.

We know both sides suffered severe losses,

probably around 3,000
dead on the English side,

2,000 dead among the
Normans, Bretons and French.

So it was probably a very hard battle,

which lasted from nine in the morning

until six in the evening.

It was one of the great battles

of the Middle Ages,
which obviously changed

the fate of England.

From that moment on,

instead of hurrying towards London,

William made an encircling manuever.

Continuing his butchery and setting fires

to terrorize the population.

And what he expected to happen happened.

The aristocrats and the
inhabitants of London

came out to surrender when
William approached the city.

- Here the sources differ
quite significantly.

And my own belief is that
London didn't surrender

as easily as it is usually assumed.

And that there was
actually a siege of London,

in other words London
was captured by assault

and not simply by surrender.

So the Roman walls of London and defended

by the Anglo-Saxon nobility

in support of Edgar the Etheling,

the Anglo-Saxon claimant to the throne

once Harold was dead

put up a pretty fierce resistance.

It's slightly surprising
that we don't hear

more about the siege of London

in the chronicles.

And the really sad thing
is that the Bayeux Tapestry

is cut off at the wrong moment.

And I suspect it's true
that the Bayeux Tapestry

actually had another 20 foot showing

the capture of London in the end of it.

- A dizzying
example of sagas propaganda,

the tapestry made no mention

of any looting, rape and
murder by the Norman army.

It omitted the bloody siege of London

and consigned to oblivion
the moving coronation

of William on the throne of England,

which was nonetheless carefully rehearsed

and staged to avoid any mishap.

- Why did William want to come

so much?

Why did he make this huge effort

to capture England?

Because England was very rich.

The city of London was
already very important

international port.

Because the kings of England

had had to pay off the Dames all the time

with Dane gold,, they were very good

at raising taxes.

They actually raised the money,

revenues from their land.

So it was a very attractive
land for William.

- The population of London was the biggest

of any English city.

So large areas within the Roman walls

were open land, there
were vegetable gardens,

they were fields.

There were churches,

there was some vestige
of the Roman street plan,

but not very much.

But actually, most of
the commerce of London

took place in an area which
was outside the walls,

to the west of London,

which is called by the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"

and by archaeologists today, London Wick.

And that is where the main center

of commerce and population existed.

And then just further west of that

there was Westminister Palace.

And that's where the political power

and the commercial power actually lay.

- As the city of London

was a key piece of the puzzle,

heavily populated and
William feared a revolt,

he immediately built fortifications.

The biggest was called
the Tower of London.

- It's an absolutely magnificent building.

He builds it in the corner
of the Roman wall at London.

The corner, the eastern corner,

so that it dominates both the city

and it would be enormously dominate

to anyone who approached London by ship

up the river Thames.

So they would come along the Thames,

imagine merchants from the empire,

from Scandinavia and from France,

ambassadors coming from say
the Emperor or Flanders.

They would come up the Thames

and they would see this
magnificent building.

It was built out of carved stone,

and we know that it was lime washed.

That's why it was called the White Tower.

The one side that wasn't magnificent

was the north side,

which didn't really matter.

And all the toilets were designed

so that they gave out onto the northside.

So the entire tower, this
magnificent white tower,

but I'm afraid on the northside

would have been rather spoiled

by the effects of guard robes.

But they didn't worry about that.

What matters is the three facades

that people were really suppose to see.

And it was tucked into
a bit of the Roman wall.

He used the Roman wall,
which still existed

almost as if William was Caesar.

- And it's undoubtedly true

that one of the reasons
why the Norman conquest

was a success,

was the proliferation of castles

during William's lifetime,

during the first years after the conquest.

On the initiative specially of the king

and his great nobles,
such William FitzOsborne,

William du Orand and so,

and who built castles

to control England in a very, very

solid kind of way.

And their example was taken up

by the lesser nobility,
as decade followed decade

after William's death more were built.

And by 1100, it's
believed that there about

500 castles in England.

Whereas before 1066,
there had been about five.

- William's problem was that

he couldn't be in Normandy and England

at the same time.

When he was in England,

the Normans never actually rebelled

but often those from Le Mans, Auxerre

and the Breton's did.

Conversely when he was in Normandy,

he managed to quell any revolt,

but the Scots and the Welsh were busy

attacking England.

- There
were insistent revolts.

And the Norman yoke was
mercilessly applied.

There were massacres,
particularly in the north.

And for three years,
William went from one region

to the next with an army to massacre

the population.

Sometimes an innocent population.

We can say that by 1072

order had been restored.

But it was an order imposed by terror.

- William was becoming old.

He'd grown fat and had lost the confidence

of those around him.

- His half brother, Odo,

was William the Conqueror's
right hand man for years.

Each time William came to Normandy,

he played the role of viceroy,

who governed in the name of the king.

So he was an important character.

No doubt not well liked

because he was very authoritarian.

He prized wealth and riches,

but he nevertheless governed
England efficiently.

But there came a time when he took

to much liberty with the king.

We're not absolutely sure
of the circumstances,

but it seems he wanted to
set off on his own expedition

to Rome, perhaps to overthrow the pope,

perhaps to be elected pope.

We don't really know.

- When William
found out, he was appalled.

The scene happened on the Isle of Wight,

he was about to set sail

and William caught him
on the Isle of Wight,

and ordered that his brother
be arrested as a rebel.

- Nobody dared touch him

because he was such an important figure.

- So William himself seized

his brother's shoulder and said,

- And he was arrested,

imprisoned in Rouen,

and remained in prison
until William's death.

So for five years, from 1082 to 1087.

- His whole reign
stretched over 20 years,

between 1066 and 1086.

So has he came to the end of his reign,

he felt the need to
know his kingdom better.

For all sorts of reasons.

In particular for fiscal reasons,

to know what sums were owed

by such and such a lord,
such and such an estate,

or such and such a town.

So he preceded with a great survey.

He sent his investigators
to every county in England,

and the result of this
survey was written down

in a great book, called in English,

"The Domesday Book."

Which means the book
of the last judgement.

So King William was
able to know his people

down to the very last inhabitant.

Like Christ at the final judgement.

- "The Domesday Book" can also

be summarized as a
rather bizarre inventory.

Mr. Smith owns a dozen rabbits.

There are 2,500 pigs in Chester.

Ms. Charleston's hens did not lay any eggs

in the year of our Lord 1072.

Three calfs drowned in Grimsby.

Mr. Wessing's 80 cows
produces 1,000 liters of milk.

There goes a horse.

The town Lewes has 412 inhabitants.

South Hampton, 5,433.

Liverpool 2,987.

- On November 1st, 1083,

Matilda died in Caen.

She was buried at the lady's abbey

that she founded.

This was dreadful news to William.

His faithful collaborator left him alone

with conflicts to resolve.

In particular, with one of his son's,

the eldest Robert Curthose.

- In the autumn of his life,

William entered into conflict
with the king of France,

who was now Philip I, son of Henry I.

who wanted to win back part of the Vexin

that had been yielded to the Normans.

This was a border region

that had long been disputed

between France and Normandy.

And in 1087, William
attempted an operation

to seize the Vexin.

- During an expedition

to the French Vexin,

William had an accident.

His horse reared up and he was wounded

in the stomach by the
pommel of his saddle.

Transported to Rouen, his capital,

it took him about a week to die.

He retained his lucidity until the end.

Orderic Vitalis had him
deliver a long speech

in which he admitted all his faults,

and distributed his inhertance.

Choosing William Rufus, his younger son,

as his heir not his eldest
son, Robert Curthose.

So William was a politician
until the very end.

- According
to Orderic Vitalis,

William owned up on his deathbed

to conquering England unfairly.

But this wasn't in William's nature.

He had to high an opinion of his mission

and his legitimacy to reassess
his reign in this way.

Particularly his conquest of England.

Here one must concede that Orderic Vitalis

perhaps added a little
romance to the story.

- At that moment,

panic spread throughout the house.

All the barons fled,
as well as the clerks.

The servants left, taking the crockery.

William remained alone on his deathbed.

His body had to be taken by sea to Caen,

as he wished to be buried in the abbey

he founded in Saint Etienne du Caen.

- WIlliam's tomb contains

yet another riddle.

Why have the conqueror's say

that he regretted claiming
the throne of England?

Was this an intuition of what was to come?

It is said, who can say if it's true,

that the ghost's of Matilda and William

sometimes wander the throne room

like lost souls.

But somethings we do know for certain,

that Normandy lost its sovereignty

and was definitively incorporated

into the throne of France in 1204.

That the Normans who
had settled in England

took wives and their
descendants became English.

That 250 years after the death of William,

England invaded Normandy

launching a war that lasted 100 years.

And that in 1944, 878 years after William

the British and their allies

finally landed In Normandy,

recreating the Normans exploit

in the opposite direction

and on a far greater scale.