William Establishing Control: Castles & Rewards
The Submission of the Earls, 1066
After his victory at Hastings, William did not march straight to London. Instead, he moved through southern England, burning and raiding to intimidate potential opponents. He seized Dover and Canterbury before circling around London. The remaining English leaders — including Edgar the Aethling, Archbishop Stigand, and Earls Edwin and Morcar — initially considered resistance. However, faced with William’s military strength and the lack of any united English force, they submitted to William at Berkhamsted in December 1066.
William was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066 at Westminster Abbey. The coronation ceremony followed Anglo-Saxon traditions to give his rule an air of legitimacy. However, when the congregation shouted their approval, Norman soldiers outside mistook the noise for a riot and began setting fire to nearby buildings. This was a sign of the tension and mistrust that would define the early years of Norman rule.
The English leaders submitted at Berkhamsted because they had no army capable of stopping William. Edgar the Aethling was too young and inexperienced to lead resistance. The submission gave William a veneer of legitimacy — the English appeared to accept him voluntarily.
Rewarding Followers
William rewarded his loyal Norman followers with English land and titles. This achieved two things: it secured the loyalty of his followers by giving them a stake in England, and it replaced the Anglo-Saxon elite with Normans who owed everything to William. Key supporters like William fitzOsbern and Odo of Bayeux (William’s half-brother) received vast estates. FitzOsbern became Earl of Hereford, and Odo became Earl of Kent.
Initially, William tried to work alongside some Anglo-Saxon earls. Edwin and Morcar were allowed to keep their earldoms, and some English thegns retained their lands. This policy of limited cooperation was pragmatic — William did not have enough Normans to replace every English landowner. He simply could not govern a country of around 2 million people with the few thousand Normans who had crossed the Channel. However, as rebellions broke out from 1068 onwards, William increasingly replaced English lords with Normans. Each rebellion provided a pretext for confiscation: rebels forfeited their lands, which were then redistributed to loyal Norman followers. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, the transfer was nearly complete.
The Marcher Earldoms
William created powerful Marcher earldoms on England’s vulnerable borders. These were placed at Chester (to guard against the Welsh in the north-west), Shrewsbury (to defend the Welsh border), and Hereford (to protect the south-west border). The Marcher earls had greater powers than ordinary earls — they could raise armies, build castles, and administer justice without direct royal permission. This was necessary because the borders were far from London and needed rapid military responses.
The Marcher earldoms solved a practical problem: England’s border with Wales was constantly threatened, but William could not be everywhere at once. By giving trusted followers extra powers in these regions, William ensured rapid military responses to border threats without needing to intervene personally. However, this created a risk — overly powerful Marcher earls could potentially challenge the king, as the revolt of 1075 would later show.
Castle Building
Castle building was central to Norman control. The Normans introduced motte-and-bailey castles to England on a massive scale. These could be built quickly — some in as little as two weeks — using forced Anglo-Saxon labour. By 1086, William had ordered the construction of around 500 castles across England.
Motte-and-bailey castles served three purposes: military (a garrison could control the surrounding area and respond quickly to rebellion), psychological (the imposing structure reminded the local population of Norman power), and administrative (the castle became the centre of local government, replacing Anglo-Saxon meeting places).
The motte was a large mound of earth, sometimes 5–10 metres high, with a wooden tower (or later a stone keep) on top. It was the last point of defence. The bailey was an enclosed courtyard at the base of the motte, surrounded by a wooden palisade (fence) and a ditch. It contained stables, workshops, storage buildings, and accommodation for soldiers. A drawbridge or steps connected the bailey to the motte. Key early castles included the Tower of London, Warwick Castle, and castles at York, Lincoln, and Exeter.
William strategically placed castles at key locations: river crossings, road junctions, and in major towns. This allowed small Norman garrisons of perhaps 20–50 soldiers to control populations of thousands. The castle at York, for example, dominated the main route into northern England. The building of castles often required demolishing Anglo-Saxon homes — in Lincoln, 166 houses were destroyed to make room for the castle. This destruction deepened resentment among the English population and became a source of future rebellion, but it also demonstrated beyond any doubt who was now in charge.