Amongst the most formidable neighbours of these rulers of Paris were the Dukes of Normandy, descendants of a certain Viking chief, Rollo ‘the Ganger’, so called because on account of his size he could find no horse capable of bearing him and must therefore ‘gang afoot’. This Rollo established himself at Rouen, and because Charles ‘the Simple’, one of the later Carolingians,[5] was unable to defeat him in battle he gave him instead the lands which he had won, and created him Duke, hoping that like a poacher turned gamekeeper he might prove as valuable a subject as he had been a troublesome foe. In return Rollo promised to become a Christian and to acknowledge Charles as his overlord. One of the old chronicles says that when Rollo was asked to ratify this allegiance by kissing his toe, the Viking replied indignantly, ‘Not so, by God!’ and that a Dane who consented to do so in his place was so rough that he tumbled Charles from his throne amid the jeers of his companions.
This is probably only a tale, for in reality Rollo married a daughter of Charles and settled down in his capital at Rouen as the model ruler of a semi-civilized state, supporting the Church, and administering such law and order that it was said when he left a massive bracelet hanging on a tree and forgot he had done so, that the ornament remained for three years without any one daring to steal it.
The rulers of the new Duchy were nearly all strong men, hard fighters, shrewd-headed, and ambitious; but the greatest of the line was undoubtedly William, an illegitimate son of Duke Robert ‘the Devil’. William’s ambition was of the restless type of his Scandinavian forefathers, and his duchy in northern France seemed to him too small to match his hopes. When he noted that England was ruled by Edward ‘the Confessor’, a feeble son of Ethelred ‘the Rede-less’, who had gained the throne on the death of Cnut’s two sons, he determined shrewdly that his conquests should lie in this direction. Many things favoured his cause, not the least that Edward the Confessor himself, who had been brought up in Normandy and who had no direct heirs, was quite willing to acknowledge William as his successor.
The national hero of England at the time Edward died, and who promptly proclaimed himself king, was Harold the Saxon, a member of the powerful family of Godwin that had for years controlled and owned the greater part of the land in the south.