Talk:William II of England

message: Is there any doubt as to William's homosexuality, or is this only speculation? RickK 01:58, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Although not directly stated in historical documents (it very rarely is, historians are traditionally heterosexist) William II was famous for his debauchery and his long standing disagreement with Archbishop Anselm for the latter's suggestion that sodomy be made illegal.  Anselm attacked William's courtiers for their practice of sodomy and for wearing their hair long, we are meant to take this as an attack on the king because if Anselm had attacked the king directly he would have been executed for treason.  Unfortunately clear as mud.  Graham  :) 02:12, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: I noted the recent change which reverted the text which read William, however, bribed enough Norman nobles and English folk to help defeat the rebellion back to read William, however, managed to rally the English and defeat the rebellion
I did at first also intend reverting it - it was fairly robustly worded and anonymous - however, after a bit of research in other sources I decided that the text referring to bribery was more likely to be correct, so I left it as it stood. I'd be in favour of putting something similar back in unless anyone has any good reason why not. Naturenet 16:46, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bartlett (2000) talks about William promising the English "the best law there had ever been in this land" and calling those who wouldn't fight for him cowards—"nithing". Seems closer to rally than bribe? Everyking 18:57, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The first part is from the ASC, by way of elaboration: he "sent for English men and announced his need to them, and begged their support, and promised them the best law there ever was in this land; and forbade every unjust tax, and granted men their woods and coursing—but it did not last long. But nevertheless the English men came to the support of the king their lord..." I guess you could really call that rallying or bribing, couldn't you? Rallying their support, but doing it with promises of good government that were effectively bribes. Everyking 19:04, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I think you're right, there's a bit of both. In The History of England, Volume I by David Hume we find The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavoured to engage the affections of the native English. ...they zealously embraced William's cause, upon receiving general promises of good treatment, and of enjoying the license of hunting in the royal forests.. Perhaps a slightly fuller sentence might do justice to it. Naturenet 21:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I took a stab at it, pretty minimal, but I guess it's still better than what was there before. Everyking 22:07, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, "won with promises" is deinitely better than "bribed". -- Francs2000 | Talk  01:40, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me, a suitable compromise which expresses the consensus succinctly. Naturenet 08:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: After all, would anyone even dream of accusing Tony Blair of bribing the British electorate, with promises of better health, education, weather, etc.? (A cynical --Orelstrigo 23:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: No, they would not, if they wanted to retain a NPOV. But that's no reason not to mention it in slightly more neutral tones. Good analogy!!  :) Naturenet 19:34, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bribing the English 

message: :"An alternative Legend suggests that William Rufus' murderer was actually a local poacher.  In this version Walter Tirel, who may have witnessed the murder, choses to save himself instead of avenging the murder of his king.   The song, "who killed Cock Robin", is an account of the murder, being based on a play of words as the murderer's name was Jack Sparrow."
"Who killed Cock Robin" first appears 500 or 600 years afterwards. The coincidence of "Jack Sparrow" make it less rather than more likely. An article Cock Robin should tell the origin, first printing and associations, genuine or spurious, of this nursery rhyme. Anyone ready to write the article? --Wetman 22:00, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fakelore?

message: The article (twice) describes William II as the third son of William I.  I can only find one prior son in any of my sources.  William II appears to be the third child, the second son.  Am I missing something? Mark Durst 18:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a son, Richard, who died c.1081, thus taking himself out of the succession.  I know this is a few months late for you, but maybe it'll help....  Cheers, Lindsay 18:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third son? 

message: I moved this here: Margaret Murray theorised that William was actually a member of a witch cult, and his death a pagan sacrifice - a view still popular in pagan circles despite the paucity of supporting evidence. (William's favourite oath, "by the holy face of Lucca", previously mistranslated as referring to St Luke, is argued by Murray to have referred to Loki, thus reinforcing the view that William was a pagan. However, there is at Lucca a crucifix known as the "Holy Face", and there is no reason not to suppose that this was what was meant.)
There's no authentic report that William Rufus swore by the Volto Santo of Lucca (see here) for a start. Margaret Murray was not a historian (see Margaret Murray). --Wetman 15:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No authentic report? Sorry, but what could be more authentic than a report by William II's contemporary, William of Malmesbury? See William of Malmesbury, A History Of The Norman Kings (1066 - 1125), Llanerch, 1989, p.63. Nortonius (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Not history

message: I'm moving this here:  Lammas, the festival of the First Fruits of the Harvest, is the first festival of the Waning Year. It is celebrated on July 31, while the climate (in the United States) is essentially still Summer. Never-the-less, technically, Lammas is the first day of Autumn (fall). Lammas was a time of sacrifice. Sacrifices at Lammas were made to thank the Deities for the First Fruits and to guarantee an abundant Harvest. The victim was often the king, who was God Incarnate to his people. Sometimes a substitute king, a fool or "scapegoat", was sacrificed in the king's stead. King William II rejected the relatively new Christian beliefs, and openly declared himself Pagan. His death in a "hunting accident" on August 2, 1100 c.e., is believed by some writers to have been a case of the traditional sacrifice being disguised for the sake of the Christian priests.
It may (just) be true; certainly as it stands it needs to be referenced ~ who are these writers? ~ and shown to be a viable historiography.  I personally don't believe it ~ apart from anything else the dates don't match, Christianity wasn't relatively new by 1100, and i'm not sure how open his paganism was, even if it was the kind which celebrated Lammas-day sacrifices ~ but my belief is not the point.  We need to prove what we write.  Cheers, Lindsay 19:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Also Questionable

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or Dimadick (talk) 14:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Consistency with what? Certainly not the other monarchs of England. Srnec (talk) 19:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, consistency, as Srnec points out above, is served by leaving it as it is; consistency with each other, with common usage....  Speaking with historians, i'd most likely say 'Rufus', not even using his given name, but for anyone who may not be familiar with the nicknames rulers get, surely i'd say William II.  Cheers, Lindsay (talk) 19:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Just commenting on this, not trying to be snarky or anything, but the main reason most folks won't recognize the name is that most folks wouldn't know he existed. This particular king is pretty much only discussed in historian circles (or in wild fringe theories that he was killed for some pagan ruler sacrifice) he's not exactly common knowledge among the non-historians. Ealdgyth | Talk 20:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know where you are writing from but i would say he is known by people with even a brief knowledge of history in England. As the Norman dynasty had such a profound and lasting affect on us, the 4 King's are reasonably famous. I would just suggest that the name Rufus is associated with him in only academic or interested circles, certainly there is no argument at all for the article to be moved. Regards --Tefalstar (talk) 18:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I oppose this move, too, but the nickname is hardly obscure. It is as common as mention of him. Srnec (talk) 00:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: I'm a newbie editor, so forgive me if I've stepped on anyone's toes with my edit to the sub-heading and info at 'Relations with the church', but I believe I've added useful stuff.
Also, under the sub-heading 'War and rebellion', it says that William II 'was less effective than his father in channeling the Norman lords' propensity for rebellion and violence'. But the example immediately following seems to demonstrate that in fact he was extremely effective, both in its details and in its outcome. Perhaps the observation is wrong, or a better example is needed? The observation also appears directly to contradict what is said previously, under the sub-heading 'England and France'. Nortonius (talk) 21:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  William II's relations with the church & his political nous 

message: Recently the file : was uploaded and it appears to be relevant to this article and not currently used by it. If you're interested and think it would be a useful addition, please feel free to include it. Dcoetzee 12:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: now included Tom B (talk) 16:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  New file [[:{{#ifexist:File:File:William Rufus engraving detail.jpg|File:File:William Rufus engraving detail.jpg|File:William Rufus engraving detail.jpg}}]] 

message: I have in my hand a piece of card. (Salmon Cameracolour post card 2-57-01-13 in fact.)  It has a photo of the Rufus Stone, the face in sunlight is a very pale grey. All the photos we have seem to have the stone in shadow. Any volunteers? Rich Farmbrough, 00:30, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Rufus Stone photo

message: In section England_and_France there is a lot of talk about how Rufus had the best royal institutions in Europe and the most powerful kingdom. I am pretty sure that Komnenian East Rome still was in much better shape than Rufus's kingdom, while the papal chancery was at higher levels of efficiency. If the answer is that these are no kingdoms but a papal monarchy and an empire, it is worth noticing that the paragraph explicitly refers to the Salian Empire (all the Salian kings were also emperors, the Byzantine's emperor title in Greek, basileus, translated to king, and the pope was a recognized top-level monarch anyway, although not an official rex), and is anyway misleading, if it attempts to exclude from the statement states which weren't officially kingdoms. The fact that this whole part is unsourced makes it even more suspect to me.
78.34.36.166 (talk) 15:18, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Someone forgot Constantinople 

message: I'm changing the start dates of the reigns of the Norman and Angevin kings to match with their coronations. My source for this is Bartlett (2000) England under the Norman and Angevin Kings which has a section on the Interregnal Period. "The Norman and Angevin kings did not claim to succeed to the royal title immediately upon the death of their predecessor, as was the case in later English history. It was coronation that made a king and kings dated their regnal years from the day of that ceremony" p.123 To use the earlier date therefore misses the particular significance of the coronation ceremony in this period even if in cases where the monarch is de facto king --Jhood1 (talk) 13:51, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reign start date 

message: I dispute the following statement:
William Rufus inherited the Anglo-Norman settlement detailed in the Domesday Book, a survey undertaken at his father's command, essentially for the purposes of taxation, which could not have been undertaken anywhere else in Europe at that time,[dubious – discuss] and is a sign of the control of the English monarchy [Bold mine].
Although, post-conquest Anglo-Saxon bureaucracy may have been well established, and even superior to Norman bureaucracy, I seriously doubt that it would have been on par with Byzantine bureaucracy, which had a several century head-start on the Normans.  Comments? Dinkytown talk 14:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and changed the issue.  Dinkytown talk 00:07, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anglo-Saxon bureaucracy superior to the Byzantine Empire's bureaucracy? 

message: In this period a person did not become king until their coronation: "Until, apparently, the reign of Edward I, no English king assumed the royal style before his coronation" p.30 (Handbook of British Chronology E B Pryde)
No reliable source dates the reign of William II from the 9th September. These sources date the reign from the 26th September:
Handbook of British Chronology p.35
Handbook of Dates (Cheney) p.32
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 1
Bartlett (2000) refers to this as an inter-regnal period p.124
Barlow (2000) does address the issue in his biography, but expresses agnosticism. The question at what moment in September 1087 legally became king cannot be answered p.58. I would therefore suggest that the reign should be dated using the authoritative sources above.
Does anyone know of another source? Jhood1 (talk) 20:15, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coronation and reign date 

message: "The debate about Williams’s sexuality is all in all a futile one, with little evidence to support either side of the discussion. These accusations of sodomy would however have been particularly beneficial to a Church that was deeply angered and upset by William’s rule."Cripps, Thomas. "William Rufus", Historic UK ...The above referenced quote has been reverted now twice and I fail to see what is so controversial. The first edit summary states that's it's POV. If so, it is the POV of the author of the article, and not unique to him. The second edit summary says "one person's opinion, presented without contextualizing". Well, so is the rest of that section. Mason says "Modern historians cannot state with certainty whether William was homosexual or not..." and then gives supposed reasons why he probably was. Most of the so-called reasons proffered have been discusses at length in section 10 on this very Talk page 10 years ago. If Mason says that William's sexuality cannot be stated with certainty, why is Cripps saying virtually the same thing so problematic? As for context, there is an entire section devoted to the king's conflicts with the church, and Anselm's biographer can hardly be said to be disinterested. Mannanan51 (talk) 23:05, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: One reason Cripp's opinion is not worth as much as Mason's has to do with the nature of the source.  It is found on the web site for a travel accommodation guide, and the provided author's background indicates he is a recent school grad and amateur historian.  That makes his opinion something less than the scholarly consensus it is presented as representing.  By contextualizing, I mean you can't just throw out a bare quote from such an author as, literally, the final word on the subject. Agricolae (talk) 23:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible homosexuality 

message: Of relevance - Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive_126#RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes which is pretty clear - his religion is not significant to his notability. --Ealdgyth (talk) 13:29, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur. Agricolae (talk) 13:45, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion... 

message: – You've just reverted my changes (without the courtesy of an edit summary).  Perhaps you would care to explain why you think roman numerals should not be displayed with the  template which formats them nicely and stops them looking like text? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:32, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I find them dreadful with the template. It is a different font size and I am quite sure the template was not intended to be used like that. I also do not see why we should stop the Roman numerals looking like text when they literally are made of letters. Surtsicna (talk) 21:42, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I find using sans fonts horrible.  Using a different font show that you are referring to Henry  and not Henry Ill (poor fellow, he must have been sick for ages).  Using the same font forces you to break your reading scan, and retrack.  The point is that they are not text, they are numerals.  After all we use slightly different symbols for I/l/1 and for 0/O.  The former is interesting, "1" has serifs to show it is a number, not text, just like ! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:10, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If I have ever seen an academic text in which Roman numerals are in a font different from the one used in the rest of the text, it must have been done much more subtly than this template does it because I do not remember it. I do not like the template creep either. If you insist on it, a wider discussion might be in order. Surtsicna (talk) 22:17, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I have seen it in very specialized uses but not for the numerals of monarchs, and I find the font-switch here to be unnecessary, jarring and more trouble than it is worth. Agricolae (talk) 22:33, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

text: - The replies you've gotten adequately explain my reasoning for reverting the use of . It is non-standard, is an eyesore, and unnecessary. Bowwow828 (talk) 00:18, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Well we clearly disagree.  I find the use of sans Roman numerals breaks up reading, can be confusing, looks wrong and is a distraction to understanding.  It's not so bad when the main font is a serif font.  We have to accept that for displays, unlike print, a sans font is preferred however we come back to the fact that roman numerals are not text, but numbers.  Would you be happy with O, I, 2, 3 ... as in old typescript?  So far consensus is against me, so in the spirit of BRD I'll let things alone for a while and see if other's care to comment. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 06:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

text: I created  for use at Roman numerals where I and X and more are used frequently, and where it can be hard to see the meaning without the template. However, I agree that in article like this,  should not be used as there is no risk of confusion and the different styling is unnecessary and obtrusive. Johnuniq (talk) 09:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman numerals 

message: Dudley Miles - I find your wholescale overturning of my edits disrespectful. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. It is not about using your preferred form of words. If there are errors or problems then raise them. I'd rather we avoid edit warring so can we have a conversation here and decide how to handle. Thanks. Contaldo80 (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is indeed collaborative, but anyone who won't let me unilaterally decide what the article should say is being disrespectful is not really what collaborative means. You were Bold - really bold, rewriting major swaths of the most controversial aspect of the article - it was then Reverted, so now is the time for you to Talk to other editors about why you think your version was better, rather than just putting it back again and browbeating the reverting editor. That is the best way to avoid an edit war - to achieve consensus first, and only then make the edits again. Agricolae (talk) 22:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not about my preferred form of words but about correctly summarising the sources. As I explained in my edit summary, it was about changing referenced text, which always carries the danger of no longer reflecting the sources. If you have access to the sources and you have checked that your edits reflect them (for example referring to long hair), then say so and other editors can discuss the changes. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

text: The edits seem good to me, and the section reads better. Changing the details and emphasis by digging into the sources is a tricky operation, so it's probably best to post the proposed changes here and, absent any objection, then execute them.Shtove (talk) 09:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds fine providing someone who has access to the sources can confirm. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexuality 

message: Dudley Miles
You have deleted the link to an article in EB1911. You refer to it being an out of date article which I find puzzling. It is a (then) contemporary article written by Henry William Carless Davis, described as an Oxford Regius Professor of Modern History. As with most EB1911 articles, one can expect it to reflect some of the underlying conventions, assumptions and thoughts of the time. On the other hand, the final paragraph in particular seems to me to be forceful, balanced and attractively readable, not what one might expect of a stuffy Victorian bore.  
I can see from your User Page that you likely know more about history than I do. I note too that the Author:Henry William Carless Davis wrote a goodly number of articles about historical figures. I expect you'll have come across him before. Do you have a problem with him? What is out-of-date about the article?
Please reconsider your reversion. ArbieP (talk) 09:17, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not think that EB1911 should always be ruled out as a source. The article could, for instance, have a paragraph about the historical view of William, and this could include "In 1911, Henry William Carless Davis wrote....". However, I do not think it is helpful to include it in the further information section. Any source that old is likely to include statements of fact that have since been disproved or disputed and will confuse readers. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:00, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to Encyclopaedia Britannica