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posticon William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


This second surviving son(as Richard had died aged 14 in 1081 in a hunting accident- ironic?) was the 12th, 14th, 15th or 17th King of "all England", depending upon the source used.

His older brother, Robert, rebelled many times against his father(as had many Norman nobles before and after 1066), whilst William always stayed loyal. His younger brother Henry also rebelled against his father and brother later became king Henry I of England(after perhaps having William murdered).

He was tutored by archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, and was in fact destined to become a great lord rather than a king. That changed with the death of Richard, and the constant rebellions of his brothers.
On his deathbed Normandy was given to Robert('Curthose'), Henry('Beauclerc') was given a large amount of money and estates, but favourite son William ('Rufus') inherited the greatest prize - England.

A tyrannical and generally hated ruler by the populus, he ruled harshly with an iron hand but was reputedly loved by his Norman and largely foreign mercenaries, which distanced him from the dispossessed people somewhat, especially in the matter of avaricious taxation.

Almost immediately he had to deal with rebellions instigated by his uncle archbishop Odo of Bayeaux, Robert Curthose and Robert de Mowbray, the earl of Northumberland. All of these were brutally crushed by largely English armies, who upon the surrender of the earls soldiers shouted for the traitors to be hanged. Odo was exiled from England soon after. Quite something when it is understood that the Normans scorned the Saxon culture but thirty years earlier?

Elsewhere we learn of fashionable pointed shoes worn at his court, effeminate courtiers- who now adopted the English fashion for long hair. William himself spoke with a stutter, had a paunching stomach which might have caused him to PUFF alot, and had the infamous family nasty temper.

We know he was never married and had no children, perhaps largely due to his homosexuality- evident in his penchant for hoardes of pretty male 'favourites' in court...even ardent biographer Frank Barlow admits this oddity for the time!
He was said to have advanced favourites according to their looks and performance between the sheets rather than governmental abilities. In short he was stigmatised in the most brutal terms as woman-like and cowardly. [To escape this image one of the first acts of Henry I once he became king was to deprive his courtiers of their long hair].

William II had a most unusual, and notorious, disregard for the institution of the church, which he persecuted and stole from. He was the opposite of his father- a god-fearing man (when it suited) whose court was austere. His did not alter his opinion throughout his reign despite threats from the English church and the Papacy.

He consistently kept several abbacies and bishoprics vacant in order to profit from their revenues. Lanfranc had died in 1089, but it was not until 1093 that William bowed to pressure and appointed the saintly Anselm of Bec as archbishop of Canterbury. He proved a bad choice and the two often quarrelled. Anselm finally was obliged to flee for Rome to seek guidance from the pope in 1097. William simply seized his estates.

William was around forty years old when he died, on August 2nd 1100 - hit by an arrow whilst hunting in the new forest. Some believe that he was killed on the orders of his younger brother Henry(using English crack-shot Sir walter Tirel), also in the hunting party- who fled to secure the treasury very soon afterwards- whilst his naked, dead brother was hauled away on a cart.

Coin dies for William II were produced by Otto the goldsmith, as they had been for his father and back into late Anglo-Saxon times, although the quality and strikes have worsened noticably by this reign.
During William's thirteen years on the throne, five types of silver penny were produced, although at a lesser number of mints than his father employed.
In comparison King Harold had, in addition to also being well known to have authorised 'many just laws' in his short reign of 9mnths, produced coinage from 44 mints!
Harold produced as much coin in that short span as Harold I & Harthacnut did in several years! This coinage(and predecessor Edward's) was a superior one to the shapeless, ill-struck coinages of King's Henry I, Stephen and Henry II.



Last edited by Housecarl 1066, Mar/12/2007, 3:12 pm


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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Housecarl:

One has to wonder, in view of several factors, why the quality of the coinage worsened during the time of William "Rufus". One also has to wonder why the number of mints(by the time of Edward "the Confessor", there were supposed to be mints in every town of any size, so the coinage would be standard wherever trade was carried on)declined under the two Williams. Henry I tried to keep the moneyers "honest" by passing sever laws about adulterating weights in silver coins, but perhaps he may have just been dealing with the debasement that had preceded him. It is also curious that William "Rufus" was perfectly willing to use Englishfighting men --- probably mercenaries --- to control the rebellions of his own lords and his family! And aside from his sexual orientation, he supposedly had a duty to produce an heir to follow him, which he didn't. Oh, and the whole situation with his relationship to the church hierarchy was odder still, especially in view of the way a lot of these Norman folk made a big "deal" of founding abbeys. Everything about him seems "out of character" for the time.
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Hi Anne

PuffingBilly was so impressed with the standard of the English coinage [by far the best in Europe] that he allowed it to remain in place after usurping King Edward and bestowed successor King Harold's throne.

The same family of late Saxon royal jewellers produced the coin dies of William I also. But the quality of coinage had worsened noticably by the 'reign' of Little Willy. These were badly struck, rarely re-minted and even contained less silver.
Image
In comparison King Harold had, in addition to also being well known to have authorised 'many just laws' in his short reign of 9mnths, produced coinage from 44 mints!
Image


King Aethelstan [924-939] was the first monarch to mint coins with a crowned portrait. Until this reign kings were diademed or bare-headed on English coins. In 973 king Eadgar reformed the coinage and introduced a royal portrait as standard on the obverse of coins.

The later Anglo-Saxon minted coinage of King Harold(and predecessor Edward's) was a superior one to the shapeless, ill-struck coinages of King's Henry I(as the moneyers made a large profit by producing underweight coins or coins of debased fineness), Stephen and Henry II.

Known Anglo-Saxon and Norman mint towns. These are places of issue for various coins from the early Saxon period [c.600 AD] to the end of king Stephen's coinage.

CERTAIN ATTRIBUTIONS.
These are mint towns that can be attributed with a high degree of certainty.

AXBRIDGE, AYLESBURY.

BARNSTAPLE, BATH, BEDFORD, BEDWYN, BERKELY, BRAMBER, BRIDPORT, BRISTOL, BRUTON, BUCKINGHAM, BURY ST. EADMUNDS.

CADBURY, CAISTOR, CALNE, CAMBRIDGE, CANTERBURY, CARDIFF, CARLISLE, CHESTER, CHICHESTER, CHRISTCHURCH, CISSBURY, CORBRIDGE, CREWKERNE, CRICHLADE.

DERBY, DORCHESTER, DOVER, DROITWICH, DUNWICH, DURHAM. [The mint of Dunwich, along with the town, six churches and three chapels, now lies beneath the North Sea.]

EXETER. FROME. GLOUCESTER, GUILDFORD. HASTINGS, HEDON, HEREFORD, HERTFORD, HORNCASTLE, HORNDON, HUNTINGDON, HYTHE.

ILLCHESTER, IPSWICH. LANGPORT, LAUNCESTON, LEICESTER, LEWES, LINCOLN, LONDON, LYDFORD, LYMPNE.

MALDON, MALMSBURY, MARLBOROUGH, MELTON MOWBRAY, MILBOURNE PORT.

NEATISHEAD, NEWARK, NEWCASTLE, NORTHAMPTON, NORWICH, NOTTINGHAM.

OXFORD. PEMBROKE, PERSHORE, PETHERTON, PEVESNEY. READING, ROCHESTER, ROMNEY, RYE.

SALISBURY, SANDWICH, SHAFTSBURY, SHREWSBURY, SOUTHAMPTON, SOUTHWARK, STAFFORD, STAMFORD, STEYNING, SUDBURY, SWANSEA.

TAMWORTH, TAUNTON, THETFORD, TORKSEY, TOTNES, TUTBURY.

WALLINGFORD, WAREHAM, WARMINSTER, WARWICK, WATCHET, WILTON [WILTSHIRE], WILTON [NORFOLK], WINCHCOME, WINCHESTER, WORCESTER. YORK.





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Mar/20/2007, 11:18 am Link to this post Send Email to Housecarl 1066   Send PM to Housecarl 1066
 
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Housecarl:

I don't know a whole lot about the mints, or minting towns. I know Winchester was one of them, though. I'm not surprised that Cambridge was one of them, either. The kings wanted lots of mints, because for obvious reasons, they wwanted coinage that was "standard" wherever you were in England. And I do know they issued some pretty strict rules(on paper, at least), for coinage weight. I also know that the coinage was reissued every few years(I think it was about ever 3 years, but I could be wrong on this), in part so the weights could be controlled and the coinage kept "standard". The moneyers(the people who actually owned the mints and supervised the striking of coins)made money off this, and some became quite rich and important. There doesn't seem to have been anything much like it anywhere else in Europe(except perhaps Byzantium, but I don't really know a lot about Byzantium). There certainly wasn't anything like this in NOrmanddy or elsewhere in France. Partly for this reason, England in later Anglo-Saxon times was a very prosperous place, because people who sold and traded various goods knew that, wherever they went, the coinage would be standadized, which was obviously good for trad.

It's likely that, for this reason, the first William wanted to keep things the way he found them, although if you look in Domesday, you will quickly discover that the value of most land seems to have declined after 1066I(there are exceptions, probably due to the manner in which certain lords found ways of collecting more money), but the disruption from the "new regime" was at least partly responsible. I have no idea why the second William neglected the continuing control and standardization of coinage during his reign, but I'm guessing his younger brother Henry kind of inherited a "mess", and that's in part why the coinage deteriorated.
Anne G
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Housecarl066(966?)
Leaving aside your usual pejorative statements,which our Forum has dealt with, about the Red (he was never known as Rufus in Normandy but as 'Le Roux', 'The Red' and since Normandy was the principal force in the Normandy-Angleland unit then that is the significant factor).

The same people who refer to him as being gay are the same people who refer to Alexander the Great as gay.Alexander was the greatest soldier of all time.The Red was often compared to Alexander The Great in his warrior prowess.In fact, both were bisexual.Bisexuality is the highest level of emotional commitment known to humanity. Alexander had two or three children.The fact that the Red had no children is irrelevant since many kings had no legitimate or in some cases illegitimate heirs.

Yet again in your desperation to distort distract and denigrate, the essential facts elude you.

Dinsdale,First Secretary (personal capacity)
Mar/24/2007, 12:34 pm Link to this post Send Email to thewilliam theredforum2002   Send PM to thewilliam theredforum2002
 
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


quote:

Bisexuality is the highest level of emotional commitment known to humanity



Maybe being gay is normal in the Norman world, or your "forum's" emoticon emoticon , but red-blooded males such as KING HAROLD never indulged in the same sex...keep trying, Women'sGuildofPinkDukes!

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Mar/24/2007, 4:06 pm Link to this post Send Email to Housecarl 1066   Send PM to Housecarl 1066
 
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Dinsdale and WRTF:


quote:

thewilliam theredforum2002 wrote:

Housecarl066(966?)
Leaving aside your usual pejorative statements,which our Forum has dealt with, about the Red (he was never known as Rufus in Normandy but as 'Le Roux', 'The Red' and since Normandy was the principal force in the Normandy-Angleland unit then that is the significant factor).

The same people who refer to him as being gay are the same people who refer to Alexander the Great as gay.Alexander was the greatest soldier of all time.The Red was often compared to Alexander The Great in his warrior prowess.In fact, both were bisexual.Bisexuality is the highest level of emotional commitment known to humanity. Alexander had two or three children.The fact that the Red had no children is irrelevant since many kings had no legitimate or in some cases illegitimate heirs.

Yet again in your desperation to distort distract and denigrate, the essential facts elude you.

Dinsdale,First Secretary (personal capacity)



Where on earth do you get this stuff?????

Although there were several rather fanciful tales about Alexander, that were current at the time William Whatever His Name Was, ruled England, I don't think they had much to say about his sexual orientation, whatever that might have been(I wasn't there, so I don't know). And furthermore, I doubt that if William Whatever His Name Was, was being compared to Alexander, the comparisons probably had nothing to do with his sexual orientation(whateverthat was).

And furthermore: "le roux" is "the red" in
modern French, but are you folks by any chance conversant enough with medieval French, to realize that this may not be exactly what he was called in Normandy(or anywhere else, for that matter). There have been a number of vowel shifts in both English and French in the last 1000 years or so, you see. You might want to consult the following web site on this:

http://www.essentialnormanconquest.com/media/sounds.htm

Scroll down the screen till you come to a section on the Song of Roland, read in Old French and modern French, and you will see what I mean(if you're really interested, you can do the same for English, with selections from Beowulf).

Finally, the chroniclers wrote, generall, in Latin, where "red" would have been "Rufus"! Interestingly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply refers to him as William the Younger, to distinguish him from his more famous father. This is one reason one should be careful and pay attention to sources, rather than casually dismissing them, as your Forum has rather consistently done.
Anne G
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


quote:

mousteriana wrote:
Where on earth do you get this stuff?????

Although there were several rather fanciful tales about Alexander, that were current at the time William Whatever His Name Was, ruled England, I don't think they had much to say about his sexual orientation, whatever that might have been(I wasn't there, so I don't know). And furthermore, I doubt that if William Whatever His Name Was, was being compared to Alexander, the comparisons probably had nothing to do with his sexual orientation(whateverthat was).

And furthermore: "le roux" is "the red" in
modern French, but are you folks by any chance conversant enough with medieval French, to realize that this may not be exactly what he was called in Normandy(or anywhere else, for that matter). There have been a number of vowel shifts in both English and French in the last 1000 years or so, you see. You might want to consult the following web site on this:

http://www.essentialnormanconquest.com/media/sounds.htm

Scroll down the screen till you come to a section on the Song of Roland, read in Old French and modern French, and you will see what I mean(if you're really interested, you can do the same for English, with selections from Beowulf).

Finally, the chroniclers wrote, generall, in Latin, where "red" would have been "Rufus"! Interestingly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply refers to him as William the Younger, to distinguish him from his more famous father. This is one reason one should be careful and pay attention to sources, rather than casually dismissing them, as your Forum has rather consistently done.
Anne G



Even though we don't expect, or get, a mature, intelligent and balanced historical conversation from the WhytheGaypretence69 'forum', their repeated posts here to themselves are hilarious!

If only they had the brains, b4lls and knowledge to challenge their evidently weak views on other, busier history websites with their repulsive brand of propaganda and hagiography... emoticon

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Mar/25/2007, 3:21 pm Link to this post Send Email to Housecarl 1066   Send PM to Housecarl 1066
 
mousteriana Profile
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Housecarl:

It would seem that, from time to time, they actually have read some material. The problem is, their interpretations are so skewed and filtered through their worship of certain historical characters, that they either don't understand what they read, or else they totally distorted it. As far as the "Alexander" stuff is concerned, I can't follow their reasoning at all.
Anne G
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Re: William II the gay king (and he was jolly, too!)


Following on from getting historical theories and facts to correlate with accepted modern scholarship(after even Frank Barlow stated that Willy II was gay), re;BillythePink's homosexuality as understood by today's generation, here's a few links confirming how entrenched(no pun intended emoticon ) this suspicion is...

"...He probably was a homosexual"
Billy II = Gay (1)

"...William Rufus's irreligious court was frowned on by the monks who chronicled his reign, and the fact that the king died unmarried and childless has led to speculation that he was homosexual."
Billy II = Gay (2)

Billy II = Gay (3)

"...His personal conduct outraged the moral standards of the time, for he was most probably a homosexual."
Billy II = Gay (4)

"...Hyde, H. Montgomery, The Love That Dared Not Speak
     its Name: A Candid History of Homosexuality in
     Britain, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970)
     [From William II to the present Queen.]"

"...Graham, James, The Homosexual Kings of England,
     (London: Universal Tandem Pub. Co, 1968)
     [brief and superficial: William II, Richard I,
     Edward II, James I and William III.]"

Billy II = Gay (5)

"...Graham, James, The Homosexual Kings of England, (London: Universal Tandem Pub. Co, 1968)
brief and superficial: William II, Richard I, Edward II, James I and William III."

Billy II = Gay (6)

"...His reputation suffered because he was a homosexual and an irreligious man"
Billy II = Gay (7)

Billy II = Gay (8)

"...His personal conduct outraged the moral standards of the time, for he was most probably a homosexual."
Billy II = Gay (9)

"...He drew the condemnation of Church authorities for his homosexual liaisons."
Billy II = Gay (10)

"...Yet the court of King William Rufus, a contemporary of this pope, had courtiers who "shamelessly gave themselves up to the filth of sodomy. They rejected the traditions of honest men, ridiculed the counsel of priests, and persisted in their barbarous way of life and style of dress" (p. 46). Again here we see shame, sodomy and filth — the influence of the church — reaching into the general mind of society."
Billy II = Gay (11)

"...He never married or had illegitimate children...It has been suggested that William was homosexual."
Billy II = Gay (12)

Billy II = Gay (13)

Billy II = Gay (14)

Billy II = Gay (15)

Perhaps the in-denial WalterMittyGayDefence"forum" have visited some of the above sites before? emoticon

Last edited by Housecarl 1066, Apr/18/2007, 7:49 pm


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