What Problems Faced William I On His Accession To The Throne In 1066?

‘What problems confronted William I on his accession to the throne in 1066 and how successfully were these overcome?’

At Hastings William won a battle- admittedly a decisive one. William’s problems however had only just begun- William had to face several revolts over the next four years, William was going to have to watch out for hostile foreign powers such as Scotland and Denmark that were going to prove to be an issue before and after his reign of England and Normandy. Which leads to another issue of cross channel government, who was to rule England when William was absent? And vice-versa. These were the biggest issues that William was going to face during his reign from 1066-1087, there were of course other issues that he would have to
William was a very just King, he managed to be ruthless when necessary, he was well advised, decisive and courageous, a good family man. He had great military ability and played a major role with the church. He had the needs to become a successful monarch. But even though he had the ‘people’s’ support he was in fact only supported by the English political class, the major population had not given their approval and this was to be shown in the next four years.

Three months after William was crowned, he was confident enough to return to Normandy leaving his wife Matilda of Flanders behind to administer the kingdom. However it took William four years to consolidate his conquest, and even had to face constant plotting and fighting on both sides of the
In this time William made a quick move to reform the church, ousting almost all the English-born bishops and abbots replacing them with Normans. William was a strong supporter of the church and campaigned against pluralism, which were churchmen that held more than one position, and against Simony, which was the buying of church positions. William proved this when he removed Stigand from his position as archbishop of Canterbury, this according to the Domesday book proved to be a good move due to the fact that Stigand had been excommunicated by several popes for pluralism in holding two sees, or bishoprics, of Winchester and Canterbury concurrently, he was finally deposed in 1070. He proved to be easy to dispose of to William and was not the one to coronate him but earlier was the one to coronate Harold. Since William had already had the approval of Pope Alexander II he had already managed to ally himself with the church and made his own ‘crusade’ to clean the English church from corruption. Throughout William’s rule there were a few issues that remained, the fact that William had tried to unite two different entities such as England and Normandy would still be an issue. Also both Scotland and Malcolm III would prove to be a problem for William’s successor William Rufus