A Conqueror’s Final Chapter: Identifying the King Who Died in 1087
For those delving into the annals of medieval history, the question “which king died in 1087” points to one of the most significant and formidable figures of the era. The monarch who met his end in that year was none other than William I of England, more famously known as William the Conqueror. The man who had reshaped the destiny of England with his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, his death was not a quiet fading into history. Instead, it was a dramatic, chaotic, and almost bizarre series of events that perfectly mirrored the turbulent nature of his life and reign. His passing wasn’t merely the end of a king; it was an event that triggered a succession crisis, unleashed chaos, and ultimately shaped the political landscape of England and Normandy for decades to come.
This article will explore in detail the circumstances surrounding the death of the king in 1087, from the final military campaign that caused his fatal injury to the shocking and undignified burial that followed. We will uncover how the death of William the Conqueror was as impactful as his legendary conquest.
The Final Campaign: A Dispute Over the Vexin Leads to a Fateful Ride
By the summer of 1087, William the Conqueror was over 60 years old. He was no longer the vigorous warrior who had crossed the English Channel two decades earlier. He had grown immensely corpulent, a condition that his rival, King Philip I of France, cruelly mocked. Philip reportedly jested that the King of England was laid up in Rouen, enduring a long “confinement” as if he were pregnant. Stung by the insult and fueled by ongoing political tensions, the aging but still fearsome William was provoked into action.
The source of the conflict was the Vexin, a strategically important border region between William’s Duchy of Normandy and the lands of the French king. When French garrisons from the town of Mantes launched a provocative raid into Normandy, William’s fury boiled over. He swore a terrible oath to exact revenge. Despite his poor health, he raised an army and marched on Mantes in late July or early August 1087. His response was brutal and decisive: his forces stormed the town, plundering it and setting it ablaze.
“He ordered that the whole town of Mantes should be burnt,” wrote the chronicler Orderic Vitalis, “and all the churches in it, together with all the recluses who were dwelling there, and that all should be consumed in the one conflagration.”
It was amidst this fiery devastation that the fateful incident occurred. The events that followed would prove to be the final, painful chapter in the life of the king who died in 1087.
The Fatal Injury: How a Stumble in the Ashes Doomed a King
The story of how William the Conqueror died is a stark reminder of how even the mightiest can be brought down by a moment of misfortune. As he rode through the smoldering ruins of Mantes, surveying the destruction his army had wrought, his warhorse suddenly stumbled or reared. Some accounts suggest the horse stepped on a hot ember, causing it to panic. Whatever the cause, the powerful king was thrown violently forward against the high, hard pommel of his saddle.
The impact caused a severe internal injury. While the exact medical diagnosis is lost to time, historians and chroniclers suggest he suffered a ruptured intestine or a perforated bladder. This was not a swift, clean death on the battlefield. It was the beginning of a slow, agonizing decline marked by fever and infection. The Conqueror, who had survived countless battles, was mortally wounded not by a sword or arrow, but by a gruesome internal trauma in the chaotic aftermath of a punitive raid.
Gravely injured, William was carried from the ruins of Mantes back to his Norman capital, Rouen. To escape the noise and heat of the city, he was moved to the priory of Saint Gervais on a hill just outside the city walls. It was here that he would spend his final weeks, grappling with his mortality, his legacy, and the future of the vast realm he had forged.
A King’s Repentance and a Kingdom’s Division
For nearly six weeks, William the Conqueror lay on his deathbed, his powerful frame wracked with pain. The period was one of intense political maneuvering and, according to the clerical chroniclers who recorded the events, profound personal reflection. Surrounded by his bishops and two of his sons, William Rufus and Henry, the dying king supposedly sought to atone for a life of violence and bloodshed.
He is said to have confessed his sins, lamenting the brutal acts he had committed, particularly the devastating “Harrying of the North” (1069-1070), a campaign of scorched-earth tactics that had left much of northern England a wasteland. He ordered the release of prominent political prisoners, including his ambitious half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and the Saxon Earl Morcar.
However, the most pressing matter was the succession. William’s decision would have profound and lasting consequences. He had three surviving sons from his marriage to Matilda of Flanders, each with a different claim and character:
- Robert Curthose: The eldest son. By Norman custom, he was the rightful heir to all his father’s lands. However, Robert was rebellious and had openly warred against his father. William held him in low esteem, considering him weak and feckless.
- William Rufus: The second surviving son, known as “Rufus” for his red complexion. He had been a loyal and dependable son, and he was his father’s clear favorite.
- Henry Beauclerc: The youngest son, known as “Beauclerc” for his education. He was intelligent and shrewd but had not yet had a chance to prove himself.
Torn between custom and his personal feelings, the king who died in 1087 made a momentous and ultimately divisive decision. He would split his inheritance. Robert, as was his birthright, would receive the ancestral Duchy of Normandy. But the grand prize, the Kingdom of England—won by William’s own sword—he bequeathed to his favored son, William Rufus. To his youngest son, Henry, he left no land, but a vast sum of money: 5,000 pounds of silver. It is famously said that upon hearing this, Henry lamented being landless, to which the dying William prophetically replied, “Be patient, my son, and comfort yourself in God; for in your own time you will have all the lands that I have possessed, and you will be greater than either of your brothers.”
The Conqueror’s Will: A Divided Inheritance
| Son | Inheritance | Father’s Viewpoint & Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Robert Curthose | Duchy of Normandy | Granted out of adherence to feudal custom, despite William’s personal disdain for Robert’s rebellious nature. |
| William Rufus | Kingdom of England | A reward for his loyalty and perceived competence. As England was a conquered land, William felt it was his to give as he pleased. |
| Henry Beauclerc | 5,000 pounds of silver | Given a financial start, not land, but accompanied by a prophecy that he would eventually unite the entire inheritance. |
This division deliberately separated England and Normandy under two different rulers, creating an unstable political situation that guaranteed future conflict between the brothers.
The Chaos of Death: An Undignified End for a Great King
On the morning of September 9, 1087, after weeks of suffering, William the Conqueror finally died. The moment his last breath was drawn, the veneer of order and loyalty evaporated, revealing the raw, self-serving nature of medieval court politics. What happened next stands as one of history’s most striking examples of a power vacuum.
The moment the king died, the wealthy barons, knights, and clergymen who had gathered around his deathbed abandoned him. Their allegiance was to the living, not the dead. They scrambled from the priory, mounted their horses, and galloped away to secure their own castles and protect their interests in the uncertain times ahead. William Rufus had already departed for England to claim his crown, while Henry left to secure his silver. Even the lesser attendants and servants saw their opportunity. They ransacked the death chamber, stealing everything of value—weapons, furniture, clothes, and even the bedsheets—before stripping the king’s corpse and leaving it naked on the stone floor.
For several hours, the body of the great Conqueror, the man who had brought all of England to heel, lay abandoned and dishonored. It was a shocking testament to the fact that his power, so absolute in life, had vanished in the instant of his death.
A Grotesque Farewell: The Burial of William the Conqueror
The task of arranging a fitting burial fell not to a great lord, but to a humble Norman knight named Herluin, who, out of a sense of loyalty and “for the love of God,” took it upon himself to have the king’s body prepared and transported for burial. He arranged for the corpse to be carried to the Abbey of Saint-Étienne in Caen, a magnificent church William himself had founded as an act of penance.
But the calamities were far from over. The funeral of the king who died in 1087 was plagued by a series of disasters that made it a truly ghastly affair.
- A City on Fire: As the funeral procession made its way into Caen, a fire broke out in the town. The procession was thrown into chaos as many of the mourners, including the clergy, rushed off to fight the blaze or save their own property.
- A Claim from the Crowd: The service was eventually reconvened inside the abbey. Just as the eulogy was being delivered, a man named Ascelin fitzArthur dramatically interrupted the proceedings. He shouted that the very ground on which they stood had been stolen from his father by William to build the church. He forbade the burial until he received justice. In a moment of incredible drama, the bishops were forced to negotiate with Ascelin on the spot, paying him sixty shillings for the gravesite and promising the full value of the land later.
- A Final, Horrific Climax: The most gruesome event was yet to come. Because of the long delay between death and burial, and the summer heat, the king’s body had become badly bloated. When the attendants tried to force the oversized corpse into the specially carved stone sarcophagus, it wouldn’t fit. In their efforts to shove it in, they applied too much pressure, and the king’s abdomen burst. According to Orderic Vitalis, a “vile stench” erupted, filling the church and overwhelming the mourners and clergy. The foul odor was so overpowering that the rest of the ceremony was rushed, and the attendees fled the church as quickly as they could.
Thus, the Conqueror of England was laid to rest not with solemn dignity, but amidst fire, financial disputes, and a final, visceral horror that seemed a fittingly violent end to a violent life.
The Legacy of 1087: How One Death Ignited Decades of Conflict
The death of the king in 1087 was not just an end but a beginning. The decision to split England and Normandy created an unstable dual-state that became the central political issue for the next century. The Anglo-Norman barons, who held lands on both sides of the English Channel, were now forced to serve two different lords—the warrior-duke Robert in Normandy and the stern King William Rufus in England. This divided loyalty was untenable and immediately led to plots and rebellions, most notably the Rebellion of 1088, where powerful nobles tried to reunite the realm under Robert.
The prophecy William made to his youngest son, Henry, proved astonishingly accurate. After William Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in 1100, Henry seized the English throne. He then went to war with his brother Robert, defeating and capturing him at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106. In doing so, Henry I reunited England and Normandy, fulfilling his father’s deathbed prediction and finally bringing a temporary end to the instability William the Conqueror’s will had created.
The death of William I also marks a symbolic endpoint for the initial phase of the Norman Conquest. Just a year before, in 1086, he had completed the Domesday Book, a monumental survey of his new kingdom. His death closed the chapter on the man who had seized the throne and cemented his power through force and administrative genius, leaving his sons to grapple with the consequences.
Conclusion: More Than Just a Date in History
So, which king died in 1087? It was William the Conqueror, a ruler whose life transformed a nation. Yet, the story of his death is as compelling as the story of his conquest. It is a tale of pride, pain, and political calculus, culminating in a chaotic and shockingly undignified end. The abandonment of his body and the grotesque spectacle of his burial serve as a powerful medieval allegory for the transience of power. For all his strength and authority in life, in death, William I became a symbol of human frailty, leaving behind a divided legacy of conflict and ambition that would define the next generation.