Everything about William I Of Sicily totally explained
William I (b.
1131 - d.
May 7 1166), called
the Bad or
the Wicked, was the second
king of Sicily, ruling from his father's death in
1154 to his own. He was the fourth son of
Roger II and
Elvira of Castile. His maternal grandparents were
Alfonso VI of Castile and a concubine (perhaps wife) baptised Isabella, but born Zaida.
William's title "the Bad" seems little merited and expresses the bias of the historian
Hugo Falcandus and the baronial class against the king and the official class by whom he was guided. It is obvious, however, that William was far inferior in character and energy to his father, and was attached to the semi-Muslim life of his gorgeous palaces of
Palermo.
Early life
He grew up with little expectation of ruling. The deaths of his three older brothers
Roger,
Tancred, and
Alfonso between
1138 and
1148 changed matters, though when his father died William was still not well-prepared to take his place.
Kingship
On assuming power, William kept the administration which had guided his father's rule for his final years. Only the Englishman
Thomas Brun was removed, and the
chancellor Maio of Bari was promoted. The real power in the kingdom was at first exercised by this Maio, a man of low birth, whose title
ammiratus ammiratorum was the highest in the realm. Maio continued Roger's policy of excluding the nobles from the administration, and sought also to curtail the liberties of the towns. The barons, always chafing against the royal power, were encouraged to revolt by
Pope Adrian IV, whose recognition William hadn't yet sought, by the
Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, and by the
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.
At the end of
1155, Greek troops recovered
Bari,
Trani,
Giovinazzo,
Andria,
Taranto and began to besiege
Brindisi. Landing on the peninsula, William's army destroyed the Greek fleet (4 ships) and army at Brindisi (
May 28,
1156) and recovered Bari. Adrian came to terms at
Benevento in a
treaty of the same name (
June 18), abandoning the rebels and confirming William as king. During the summer of AD 1157, he sent a fleet of 164 ships carrying 10,000 men to sack
Euboea and
Almira. In
1158 William made peace with the Greeks.
These diplomatic successes were probably due to Maio; on the other hand, the African dominions were lost to the
Almohads, and it's possible that he advised their abandonment in face of the dangers threatening the kingdom down from the north. In
1156, a revolt began in
Sfax and quickly spread. Nothing was done to put it down. In
1159, the admiral
Peter led a raiding expedition against the Saracen-held
Balearic Islands with 160 ships. He tried to relieve besieged
Mahdia with the same fleet, but turned around just after engaging in battle. Peter didn't fall out of favour, but no further assistance was sent to the Christians holding out in Mahdia and the city surrendered on
11 January 1160, ending the "African Empire."
The policy of Maio led to a general conspiracy, and in November
1160 Maio was murdered in Palermo by
Matthew Bonello, leader of the Sicilian nobles. The barons, however, had long been plotting to overthrow the king. Desiring a weak power on the throne, they'd been eyeing the king's eldest son,
Roger, Duke of Apulia, as a possible replacement for his father.
After the assassination of Maio, the royal palace was stormed by two of the king's own relatives:
Simon, his illegitimate half-brother, whom he'd dispossessed of
Taranto early in his reign, and
Tancred, his bastard nephew, the count of
Lecce. The king was captured along with his whole family, his life being barely spared by one
Richard of Mandra. Roger was then paraded through the streets and it was announced that he'd be crowned in the cathedral three days thence.
For a while the king remained in the hands of the conspirators, who purposed murdering or just deposing him, but the people and the army rallied round him; he recovered power, crushed the Sicilian rebels, had Bonello blinded, and in a short campaign reduced the rest of the
Regno, avenging the rebel burning of
Butera. Sadly, during the initial assault on the palace, to release the captive king, the king's son Roger was killed by a wayward arrow (though Falcandus, seemingly ever-ready to impugn the royal character, has the king kicking his "faithless" son dead).
Later years
Thus freed from feudal revolts, William confided the government to men trained in Maio's school, creating a triumvirate: the
grand protonotary,
Matthew of Ajello; Count
Sylvester of Marsico, who had inherited Maio's property; and the
Bishop Palmer of
Syracuse, elect, but not consecrated. His latter years were peaceful; he was now the champion of the true pope against the emperor, and
Alexander III was installed in the
Lateran Palace in November
1165 by a guard of
Normans.
William died on
May 7,
1166 and was interred in
Monreale Cathedral. By his wife,
Margaret of Navarre, daughter of
García Ramírez of Navarre, he'd four sons:
- Roger IV, Duke of Apulia (b. 1152 - d. 1161).
- Robert, Prince of Capua (b. 1153 - d. 1158).
- William II of Sicily (b. 1155 - d. 1189).
- Henry, Prince of Capua (b. 1158 - d. 1172).
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