Name: Matilda, Countess of Flanders, & Queen of England Date of Birth: About 1031 Place: Flanders Date of Death: November 2, 1083 Place: Caen, Normandy, France Parents: Baudouin V (Baldwin), Count of Flanders & Adaele (Alix), Princess of France	Date of Marriage: 1050 Place: Castle Angi, Normandy, France	Name: William I "The Conqueror" Date of Birth: October 14, 1024 Place: Falaise, Normandy, France Date of Death: September 9, 1087 Place: Hermenbraiville, Rouen, Normandy, France Parents: Robert I "The Magnificent", Duke of Normandy & Harlette De Falaise
	Children: Adaele (Alice) Constance Mathilda Henry I "Beauclerc" William II "Rufus the Red" Agatha Alice Robert II Richard

Facts:
William was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy and Harlette De Falaise. He spent his first six years with his mother in Falaise and received the duchy of Normandy upon his father's death in 1035. After years of battles, William was crowned William I on Christmas Day 1066.

The arrival and conquest of William and the Normans radically altered the course of English history. Anglo-Saxon law was combined with with native custom. William I died as he had lived, a warrior on September 9, 1087 from complications of a wound he received in a siege on the town of Mantes.

"The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" gave a favorable review of William's twenty-one year reign, but added, "His anxiety for money is the only thing on which he can deservedly be blamed; . . .he would say and do some things and indeed almost anything . . .where the hope of money allured him." He was certainly cruel by modern standards, and exacted a high toll from his subjects, but he laid the foundation for the economic and political success of England.

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