On this day, 938 years ago, on September 9, 1087 (August 10, 1087 in the lunar calendar), William I, the Conqueror, the first king of the Norman Dynasty in England, passed away. William I (September 2, 1028-September 9, 1087), the first king of the Norman Dynasty in England (reigned from 1066 to 1087), nicknamed "William the Conqueror" Look, my Lord! By the glory of God, I have taken England in my hands, and England is mine. Everything that is mine is yours-William I's speech when he landed in England; Coward, look, I am William here!-- William I cheered his subordinates in battle. King William I of England was famous for being a "conqueror". In fact, he only did one big thing in his life. This incident was later called the Norman Conquest. His motivation may just come from his own ambition, but it had an important impact on the historical process of Britain and even the world. William the Conqueror was severe, cruel, and energetic. There are two factors that have played a role in William's character and his influence on history that cannot be ignored. One is his illegitimate status. He was the son of his father, Robert, nicknamed "Devil", and Arlette, a peasant girl whom he abducted, but he was the only son. Robert struggled to persuade the Normandy aristocrats before establishing William's inheritance. In 1035, 8-year-old William succeeded to the throne. His illegitimate status caused him to experience more ridicule, discrimination and challenges than others. His three guardians and teachers were killed one after another. This created William's cold and suspicious character in the future. Another factor is the Normandy tradition. The Duchy of Normandy was a product of the French king's helplessness and granted it to the invading Normans. It was established in 841. The duchy has centralized rule, a relatively fixed military force, relatively fixed fiscal revenue, and the inherent Normans 'tradition of martial arts and being good at sailing. These factors helped William's conquest and influenced a series of institutions he later established in England. The young William I had already shown his intelligence. He first defeated the opposition within the duchy at the Battle of Valetouni with the support of the French King, consolidating his position, and then took advantage of the internal conflicts between the southern states of Manembo and the Duchy of Brittany to annex them. At this time, William began to direct his ambitions to England across the sea. At that time, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), King of England, was William's cousin and had no children. It is said that when William visited Britain in 1051, he had promised William to inherit his throne. When Harold, the brother-in-law of Edward the Confessor and another strong contender for the throne, was trapped in the Duchy of Normandy, he also recognized William's inheritance to the English throne. But when Edward the Confessor died in 1066, on Edward's recommendation, the Council of the Wizans of England elected Harold as king. William was furious when he heard this, so he decided to launch his conquest. When William prepared the personnel and supplies for the cross-sea battle, everything was ready except for the southwest wind, but he could not wait for it, and it was delayed for more than 40 days. Later history proved that it was these more than 40 days of waiting that changed the balance of power and tilted the balance of victory and defeat in William's favor. At that time, another challenger to the English throne-Harald III of Norway, a descendant of Canute the Great, was the first to land in northern England. Harold, who was waiting for William on the southern coast, was forced to send his troops north to fight. When William's army, hoping for a southwest wind, landed in southern England on September 28, they encountered Harold's army, which had just defeated the king of Norway, and was exhausted and severely depleted. On October 14, at the famous Battle of Hastings, Harold and his two younger brothers died in the battle, and William won a complete victory. William immediately led his army to press on to London, so he was crowned King of England on Christmas 1999 and began the rule of the Norman Dynasty (1066-1135). As a foreign regime, William encountered strong resistance from the English in the early days. While William brutally suppressed resistance in various places, he also eliminated local forces in various places, preparing him for centralized rule. By 1171, resistance in various places had basically subsided. William ordered the confiscation of the lands of the English aristocrats, leaving one-seventh of them to himself, and the rest to the Norman aristocrats who followed him. He also reorganized England's central administrative and judicial institutions based on the system of the Duchy of Normandy. At the same time, he resisted pressure from the Pope and stubbornly retained the right to appoint the bishops of England. England formed the most powerful kingship among Western European countries at that time. William's most influential actions in England's internal affairs were the two things he completed two years before his death. One was the "Salisbury Oath" of 1086, in which William required all feudal lords at all levels to surrender to himself, establishing the principle that "my vassals are still my vassals"; the other was the "Doomsday Book". In order to grasp the country's land, property and income situation, provide a basis for collecting taxes, and ensure royal income, he sent people to various parts of the country to conduct inspections. Because the investigators he sent were all ferocious and the investigation content was extremely detailed, making the people under investigation feel like walking on thin ice, as if they were receiving the doomsday judgment of God's messenger, the investigation result was called the "Doomsday Book", and its official name should be "Land Taxation Survey" or "The Book of Winchester." This large-scale "house-scraping movement" was extremely rare in medieval Europe. In 1087, due to a territorial dispute with King Philip I, William joined the battle with France and captured the fortress of Mount near Paris. Seeing that victory was imminent, William, the hero, died unexpectedly. Otherwise, his influence on history would have been even greater. But this war kicked off the curtain of hundreds of years of strife between Britain and France. The conquest of William the Conqueror had the greatest impact on history was that it once again involved Britain in the complex relations in the central region of Europe since the Roman Empire (the people who conquered Britain were just Normans whose civilization was even more backward than the United Kingdom). Since the British king owned territory in France, the royal families of Britain and France became a pair of constant and chaotic enemies. After hundreds of years, exchanges and collisions between China and China became one of the themes of political life in Western Europe. This conquest changed the course of England's history. Even the English language was changed, and a large number of new words were added to it. He brought many new things into this island, such as the jury system, which later originated from the establishment of British law. William I brought the traditional centralized rule and military establishment of Normandy to Britain, which was a major turning point in British history. Before that, Britain had always been the target of invasion and conquest. From then on, Britain turned defense into attack. Later wars were mainly fought only in other people's lands, although these two traditions gradually faded in Britain's subsequent development. Comments: England has been attacked and harassed by Normans from Northern Europe for hundreds of years, but it was Normans from France on the other side that conquered the island country. The Norman Conquest seemed to be an accidental historical event, but in fact it occurred as a result of the historical trend at that time, that is, Great Britain was inevitably becoming increasingly connected with the European continent, and could only be fully integrated into the European political system.