ABSTRACT
No personal letters from William have survived, neither have any transcripts of his speeches taken down by contemporaries. Of one historic fact there can be no doubt. The chances of the child Herleve supposedly conceived that night in Falaise Castle ruling Normandy, let alone England, were infinitely remote. The death of Archbishop Robert of Rouen on 16 March 1037 removed the one man in Normandy capable of keeping the barons in check during William’s minority. Without doubt the Norman Conquest was the most significant event in English history in the millennium between the conversion to Christianity and the reformation. Rome’s endorsement notwithstanding, the invasion of England was an audacious leap in the dark that defied all common prudence. The distinguished psychoanalyst Erik Erikson has observed that great men are frequently driven by some paternal curse with which they must live, and which they must live down.
