Henry's about-face was probably motivated by a desire to retain dominance over Normandy, which was now threatened by William's growing mastery of his duchy. Each shire was administered by a royal official called a sheriff, who roughly had the same status as a Norman viscount. [2] The legates and the king then proceeded to hold a series of ecclesiastical councils dedicated to reforming and reorganising the English church. Mary was the widow of King Louis XII of France, who had Abraham Gray is mentioned as among the Pilgrim refugees at Leyden, William I - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help [58] William was the grandson of Edward's maternal uncle, Richard II of Normandy. After waiting a short while, William secured Dover, parts of Kent, and Canterbury, while also sending a force to capture Winchester, where the royal treasury was. This lone relic was reburied in 1642 with a new marker, which was replaced 100 years later with a more elaborate monument. The peerage of Scotland: containing an historical and genealogical Gray Family of Tiverton, RI. By 1060, following a long struggle to establish his throne, his hold on Normandy . diverse branches. of that parish for some years. The Norman conquest changed all that. Columbia river in Washington state. The first of this line of the duke of Suffolk, with Mary, daughter of Henry VII and the sister Arguing that Edward had previously promised the throne to him and that Harold had sworn to support his claim, William built a large fleet and invaded England in September 1066. Local nobles resisted the claim, but William invaded and by 1064 had secured control of the area. Edgar the theling also appears to have been given lands. The elder John de Gray had a son, Henry [61] By 1050, however, relations between the king and the earl had soured, culminating in a crisis in 1051 that led to the exile of Godwin and his family from England. William gave generously to the church;[56] from 1035 to 1066, the Norman aristocracy founded at least twenty new monastic houses, including William's two monasteries in Caen, a remarkable expansion of religious life in the duchy.