WILLIAM II

born c. 1056 died Aug. 2, 1100, near Lyndhurst, Hampshire, Eng. byname William Rufus, French Guillaume Le Roux son of William I the Conqueror and king of England from 1087 to 1100; he was also de facto duke of Normandy (as William III) from 1096 to 1100. He prevented the dissolution of political ties between England and Normandy, but his strong-armed rule earned him a reputation as a brutal, corrupt tyrant. Rufus (the Redso named for his ruddy complexion) was William's third (second surviving) and favourite son. In accordance with feudal custom, William I bequeathed his inheritance, the Duchy of Normandy, to his eldest son, Robert II Curthose; England, William's kingdom by conquest, was given to Rufus. Nevertheless, many Norman barons in England wanted England and Normandy to remain under one ruler, and shortly after Rufus succeeded to the throne, they conspired to overthrow him in favour of Robert. Led by the Conqueror's half brother, Odo of Bayeux, Earl of Kent, they raised rebellions in eastern England in 1088. Rufus immediately won the native English to his side by pledging to cut taxes and institute efficient government. The insurgency was suppressed, but the king failed to keep his promises. Consequently, a second baronial revolt, led by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, broke out in 1095. This time William punished the ringleaders with such brutality that no barons dared to challenge his authority thereafter. His attempts to undermine the authority of the English church provoked resistance from St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, who, defeated, left the country for Rome in 1097; Rufus immediately seized the lands of Canterbury. Meanwhile, Rufus was engaged in military operations in Scotland, Wales, and particularly in Normandy. In 1091 he compelled King Malcolm III of Scotland to acknowledge his overlordship. Malcolm revolted in November 1093, but Rufus' forces quickly killed him near Alnwick, Northumberland. Thereafter, Rufus maintained the Scottish kings as vassals, and in 1097 he subjugated Wales. William Rufus' chief interest, however, lay in the recovery of Normandy from the incompetent Robert. After waging war on Normandy for seven years (108996), Rufus reduced his brother to the role of a subordinate ally. When Robert left for a crusade in 1096, he mortgaged his kingdom to Rufus, who quickly added Maine to his possessions. In 1100 Rufus was shot in the back with an arrow and killed while hunting in the New Forest in Hampshire. The incident was probably an assassination, and Rufus' alleged slayer, Walter Tirel, lord of Poix in Ponthieu, may have been acting under orders from the king's younger brother, Henry. Henry promptly seized the English throne as King Henry I. born Dec. 6, 1792, The Hague died March 17, 1849, Tilburg, Neth. Dutch in full Willem Frederik George Lodewijk king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (184049) whose reign saw the reestablishment of fiscal stability and the transformation of The Netherlands to a more liberal monarchy through the constitution of 1848. Exiled to England with his family in 1795, William served in the British Army (181112) as the Duke of Wellington's aide-de-camp in the Peninsular War (180814); he also commanded the Netherlands troops in the Battle of Waterloo (1815). In 1816 he married the grand duchess Anna Pavlovna, sister of the Russian emperor Alexander I. Popular in the Belgian part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, he was sent to Brussels by his father, William I, after the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution of 1830. His concessions to the rebels failed to quell the revolt, and he retired to England until August 1831, when he returned to Belgium, leading a Dutch army to victory over the forces of the new king of the Belgians, Leopold I, before French intervention stopped his advance. William II became king of The Netherlands in October 1840 on his father's abdication. Although he lacked William I's abilities as a statesman and financier, he was fortunate in his choice of F.A. van Hall as finance minister. Van Hall stabilized the public finances and, helped by profits from Dutch colonial ventures in the East Indies, achieved the country's first surplus in 70 years in 1847. William was tolerant toward Roman Catholics and Separatists (dissident Calvinists), but was opposed by the Liberals who wanted a more representative form of government. Afraid that the European revolutionary movements of 1848 would sweep across The Netherlands also, he authorized the leading Liberal statesman, Johan Thorbecke, and his associates to draft a new constitution, approved in November 1848. The constitution expanded the power of the ministers and the National Assembly, established the principle of direct elections, and secured basic civil liberties. William died a few months later. born 1154 died Nov. 18, 1189, Palermo, kingdom of Sicily byname William The Good, Italian Guglielmo Il Buono the last Norman king of Sicily; under a regency from 1166, he ruled in person from 1171. He became known as William the Good because of his policy of clemency and justice toward the towns and the barons, in contrast with his father, William I the Bad. After the regency of his mother, Margaret of Navarre, had ended, William II at first continued his father's policy of friendship with Pope Alexander III and with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus. In 1172, however, the proposed marriage of William to Manuel's daughter Maria was thwarted by the emperor, and William immediately turned against the Byzantines. In 1177 he concluded a truce with his father's old enemy, the German king Frederick I Barbarossa, who had been defeated by the Lombard League at Legnano in 1176 and no longer seemed dangerous to Sicily. Also in 1177, on February 13, William married Joan, daughter of King Henry II of England. After the death of Pope Alexander III in 1181, William felt freer to exploit disorders in the Byzantine Empire, and he sought even closer relations with Frederick I. William agreed that his aunt Constance should marry Frederick's son Henry (later Henry VI); because William's own marriage was childless, this betrothal (Oct. 29, 1184) gave Henry a strong claim to the Sicilian succession, an arrangement disliked by the Norman national party. In June 1185 William commenced a great campaign against the Byzantines. His forces crossed Macedonia and captured Thessalonica (modern Salonika), but when his fleet was in sight of Constantinople (now Istanbul), his army was ambushed and defeated. William died while planning to join the Third Crusade. born May 27, 1626, The Hague, Neth. died Nov. 6, 1650, The Hague prince of Orange, count of Nassau, stadtholder and captain general of six provinces of the Netherlands from 1647, and the central figure of a critical struggle for power in the Dutch Republic. The son of Frederick Henry, prince of Orange, he was guaranteed, in a series of acts from 1630 onward, succession to all his father's offices. On May 12, 1641, William married Mary Stuart (163160), eldest daughter of Charles I of England. After his father's death (March 1647), William succeeded to the title of prince of Orange, to the stadtholdership of all the provinces except Friesland, and to the offices of captain general and admiral general of the Union. Early in 1648 peace was concluded at Mnster, ending the Eighty Years' War for Dutch independence. The treaty, however, was concluded despite William's wrathful opposition. He did not abandon his dynastic and military ambitions. He corresponded with the French government and planned to resume the war in order to conquer part of the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium). He also supported his brother-in-law Charles II, hoping to restore him to the throne of England. The States (assembly) of Holland, fearing that William's high ambitions would lead to war, disbanded some of the troops paid by them (June 4, 1650). William then turned to the States General, most of whom were jealous of Holland's influence, which granted him extraordinary power. On July 30, William imprisoned six leading members of the States of Holland and ordered his army to march on Amsterdam. The attempt to occupy Amsterdam failed, but the States accepted a compromise. William then met much opposition in trying to implement his foreign policy. He died of smallpox before his influence could really be tested. born Jan. 27, 1859, Potsdam, near Berlin died June 4, 1941, Doorn, Neth. German in full Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert German emperor (kaiser) and king of Prussia from 1888 to the end of World War I in 1918, known for his frequently militaristic manner as well as for his vacillating policies. Additional reading Biographies. E. Ludwig, Wilhelm der Zweite (1926; Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1926, reprinted 1970 as Wilhelm Hohenzollern, the Last of the Kaisers), is very good. M.L.G. Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times (1964, new ed. 1972), tries to put the Kaiser in his historical context; V.S. Cowles, The Kaiser (1963), is a more personal account; Alan W. Palmer, The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich (1978), is a highly readable popular biography based on a combination of primary and secondary sources. The Kaiser's own writings. Ereignisse und Gestalten (1922; My Memoirs, 18781918, 1922, reprinted 1975); Aus meinem Leben, 18591888 (1926; My Early Life, 1926, reprinted 1971); N.F. Grant (ed.), The Kaiser's Letters to the Tsar (1921); E.T.S. Dugdale (ed.), German Diplomatic Documents, 18711914, 4 vol. (192831), contains many of the Kaiser's marginal notes. Reminiscences. Count R. Zedlitz-Truetzschler, Zwlf Jahre am deutschen Kaiserhof (1924; Twelve Years at the Imperial German Court, 1924); A. Topham, Memories of the Kaiser's Court (1914), as seen by his daughter's governess; W. Grlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and His Court: The Diaries, Notebooks and Letters of Admiral Georg Alexander von Mller, Chief of the Naval Cabinet 191418 (1961); S. von Ilsemann, Der Kaiser in Holland, 2 vol. (196768). The Kaiser's mother. H. Ponsonby (ed.), Letters of the Empress Frederick (1928), the German edition of 1929 has an introduction by the Kaiser; R. Fulford (ed.), Dearest Child: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, 185861 (1964), and Dearest Mama: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 186164 (1968). Descriptions of the abdication. A. Niemann, Kaiser und Revolution: Die entscheidenden Ereignisse im Grossen Hauptquartier (1922); Memoirs of the Crown Prince of Germany (1922); M. Baumont, L'Abdication de Guillaume II (1930; The Fall of the Kaiser, 1931).