## William's Prior Claim on the Throne of England There is a strangeness in the grain of history, and in the way that history understands itself. Thus we are still trapped in that history, its unwitting and unchosen prisoners. Prior to William's the Conqueror's Invasion of England, a curious fact emerges - he had already been named as successor to the throne of England by Edward. William was at the time Duke of Normandy, the owner of a wealthy proprietary land claim in the North of France. Edward had been prior in his life indebted to the Norman province (fact check again). Thus, some 15 years prior to William's 1066 invasion, he was, at 23, Named as legal proprietor of the vast land to the north, the state of England. The late David C. Douglas, a celebrated Oxford historian who studied the Norman Conquering of England, had this to say: > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=185&annotation=4997R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.169]]) > There can be no reasonable doubt that before the end of 1051 he had nominated William of Normandy as his heir. The fact is curious, because of what would transpire later - the invasion of claiming what was, it is supposed upon us, *already his.* This fact is reported to us thusly by Douglas - as a legal claim which had been both named, and yet was still under challenge. The reason for this again, as Douglas narrates to us - is primarily of a simple material fact: there was a challenge for the right of succession. Owing to the return to power by an English Earl of Godwine, who in 1052 challenged, and thusly defeated the King. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=185&annotation=5028R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.169]]) > In England the year 1052 saw the re-establishment of Godwine and his sons by force of arms. The great earl had taken refuge in Flanders whilst his sons Harold and Leofwine fled to Ireland. From these countries a co-ordinated and brilliantly organized attack upon England was made by sea. It was overwhelmingly successful, and the king was forced to submit. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=187&annotation=5022R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.171]]) > It reduced the Normans in England to political insignificance, and thereby decided that if the duke of Normandy was ever to become king of England it could only be through war.’! Whether the duke of Normandy would ever be strong enough forcibly to assert his claims on England was, however, in 1052 still very doubtful. Yet what in fact, we must at this point ask - what *was* it about the victory of the Earl of Godwine that delegitimized the very notion of the Sovereign's ability to name the legal successor of the sovereign? In fact, what had passed out of William's hands *was* his ownership claim on succession - the future proprietary grant on the vast tract of land known as England. But *how* had it done so? Legally speaking, wasn't Edward *still* the King? Thus we must ask, what *truly* underlay the power granted to the sovereign of naming a proprietary grant? Yet, to understand to understand this question properly, let us ask a more basic question - why *was* it that William might have *had* a proprietary claim in the first place? Let us again look at the history book, to truly appreciate its strangeness - not merely of history, *but of the way in which that history refers to itself.* ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=185&annotation=5028R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.169]]) > In England the year 1052 saw the re-establishment of Godwine and his sons by force of arms ... the king was forced to submit. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=187&annotation=5022R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.171]]) > It ... thereby decided that if the duke of Normandy was ever to become king of England it could only be through war.’! Whether the duke of Normandy would ever be strong enough forcibly to assert his claims on England was, however, in 1052 still very doubtful. Can you feel the absurdity? The presumption of Naming the actors of history is constitutive - the presumption of Edward's Kingship in fact is *negated* by the very act of the Earl of Godwine's usurpation of his right to name a proprietary successor - yet the text continues to name Edward as King! Douglas continues to treat the reality of the legal claim of succession as ontologically primary; when in fact, since the delegitimation of Edward's ability to name a successor had already presumably stripped him thusly of the *true* right of Sovereignty, then thusly too the *legal claim of succession which depended upon his supposed Kingship was in fact, no longer ontologically real!* Thus, the text *ignores* the material reality, and obeys the ontological legal hallucination, without referencing the obvious absurdity: The proprietary claims of sovereignty from which titles depended were self-referential fictions - yet, when the supposed authority which they were in reference to was destroyed, *the proprietary claims are still treated as a non-contingent ontologically real claim*! Look - at the text again. Feel the recursive hallucination! > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=187&annotation=5022R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.171]]) > It ... thereby decided that if the duke of Normandy was ever to become king of England it could only be through war.’! Whether the duke of Normandy would ever be strong enough forcibly to assert his claims on England was, however, in 1052 still very doubtful. Douglas continues to act as though William's claim upon the proprietary land holding charter of sovereignty *was real* - *even when the authority that supposedly underlay its reality no longer existed*! This is the primary absurdity of the Godelian Recursion of proprietary claims. Even when the underlying authority to Name that claim no longer exists, the claim self-references, and thus cannot be delegitimated within the legal ontology. Sure, William's claim was now contingent upon his successful use of violence. But the root absurdity still remains: This is a pure Godelian Tautology: The disenchantment of the Sovereign Word does not disavow the name of property! Proprietary wealth extractive claims survived above all! Thus to exist within the legal system, is to erase the possibility of seeing the true nature of the law. To view property from within the system - self-referentially prevents the glimpse of property's artificial, linguistically contingent creation, and the removal of that authority upon which it was contingent. In other words: it is boys playing in a sandbox dividing up ant colonies, late in the evening, in possession of elaborate systems of ant holdings, now long past the hour and too deeply beneficiaries of the fact that all of this, was nothing but made up. Yet to disprove the sandbox is play requires one to step into the sandbox. The madhouse cannot disprove its own sanity, because it is, in fact, a madhouse. But the logic of absurdity is not simply post "structural." The insanity is the point. The madness is the sanity. This is *Possessio Ex Nihilo.* The Named creation of a proprietary claim from nothing, that self-references, and as it cannot be disproven within the legal system created by the proprietary holding charter known as the state - the "insanity" comes into stark focus as the sane root of Western civilization's extreme wealth hoarding problem. To be within the system of the proprietary extractive system, precludes the disavowal of the proprietary claims of the system. Yet the system is not merely bound to a singular state. The conspiracy of ruling classes summarily *agreed* to the delusion, because they were the *beneficiaries* of the inescapable delusion. In fact, the Godelian Recursion of inescapability *was* the structure. The delusion was *meant* inescapable. --- # Transnational Credit Extraction Let us now however track the formation of William's assumption of the Sovereign proprietorship. The event is in itself deeply important, for it begins the commonization of England's Land system under a centralized legal system of Named grants of land tenure. As I have written about, the Domesday Book was the installation of a self-referential source of authority. It was a declaration - all wealth extractive land grants in the land of Engand now stemmed from, at root, William's sovereign act of Named declaration. Big Brother was watching, because Big Brother was now your daddy. He owned you, because he declared your property as referring to him. [[Against the Violent Microscopy of Legal 'Transformation'#The Domesday Book the Tautology of Power]] Let us try to pierce further in our root of the internal logic of history. What internal pressure systemically led to the centralization of the land record? But prior to this question, lies a fact - many of the would-be proprietors of vast tracts of land - were financiers of the conquering. The root of William the Conqueror's conquering of England was funded by a webbed network of informal promises to financial elites around the world of feudal Europe. They financed him through an informal credit system. Yet what was this based on? The promise of future proprietary wealth extractive claims. If William succeeded, he would be granted the root power of sovereignty - to name property claims on English land, and levy taxes upon the land of approximately 2 million. The wealthy of Europe put up the currency needed to fund the soldiers, equipment, and supplies to perform the invasion. It was done on the issuance of informal credit obligations; "favors," lent on the promise of being granted future titles of nobility, and thus proprietary claims on the extraction of wealth from the serfs of England. They issued property - to extract more wealth via property ownership claims on the people of England. Thus, to whom did the wealth of England's sovereign tax revenue go to after the conquering? A feudal elite. This was the underlying logic of empire. Credit was the issuance of proprietary claims on favor, given on the promise of future proprietary extractive claims on another population. ## Competing Proprietary Claims Upon the Throne > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=180&annotation=4991R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.164]]) > None the less he crossed the Channel, became a member of the household of Harthacnut, and (as it seems) was recognized, at least by one faction, as the successor to the English throne.> On the other hand, there were Scandinavian princes whose claims could not be easily ignored. Sweyn Estrithson, of Denmark, though still a youth, might, as Cnut’s nephew, be said to have an hereditary interest, whilst Magnus, king of Norway, had, apparently in 1038 or 1039, entered into a pact with Harthacnut that in the event of either of them dying without direct heirs the survivor should inherit his kingdom.® A > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=181&annotation=4994R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.165]]) > Edward had succeeded despite the claims of Scandinavian princes; there remained a very strong Scandinavian element in his court ;? and the Danelaw districts in England had strong Scandinavian sympathies. It is not surprising therefore that the opening years of the reign of Edward the Confessor should have been coloured by an imminent threat from Scandinavia, and marked by the efforts which were made to withstand it. In 1043, for instance, Edward, supported by the earls of Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia seized the person of Emma, who was apparently scheming on behalf of Magnus, and confiscated her property. - Who grants the rite of succession? - Is that the Catholic Church? ## Circumstances of William's Crossing Earl of Godwine comes back and demanded that Edward > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=186&annotation=5000R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.170]]) > Whilst moreover some of the king’s continental advisers, such as Ralph the Timid and William, bishop of London, were allowed to remain in England, most of the members of the Norman party were sent ignominiously into exile, including Robert the archbishop of Canterbury. A counter-revolution had in fact taken place, and its consequences were to be profound.? Procourement of a moral justification > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=187&annotation=5008R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.171]]) > that if the duke of Normandy was ever to become king of England it could only be through war.’! Whether the duke of Normandy would ever be strong enough forcibly to assert his claims on England was, however, in 1052 still very doubtful. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=188&annotation=5011R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.172]]) > After 1057 the pre-eminence of Earl Harold in England rapidly became more marked. No royal atheling remained in the country to overshadow his prestige, and the deaths of Earls Leofric and Ralph enabled him once more to increase the territorial possessions of his house. He himself annexed Herefordshire; East Anglia passed into the hands of his brother Gyrth; whilst Leofwine, another brother, was given an earldom stretching from Buckinghamshire to Kent.? As a result of these arrangements Harold and his brothers, Tosti, Gyrth, and Leofwine, controlled the whole of England under the king with the exception of the Mercian earldom under Alfgar which now had been diminished in size. It is little wonder that A‘lfgar felt himself menaced. He was constantly in rebellion during these years, seeking support from Grifhth, king of North Wales, and even from Scandinavian raiders. Sometimes in exile, and sometimes in precarious possession of Mercia, he survived until after 1062. After his death his earldom passed to his young son Edwin, who could offer no effective opposition to the great earl of Wessex. By 1064, therefore, Harold had reached the apogee of his power, and it is little wonder that an annalist could refer to him as ‘under-king’ (sub-regulus).4 Nor could it be any longer doubted that he was hoping eventually to acquire the royal dignity itself. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=186&annotation=5025R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.170]]) > In 1052, however, the victory lay with the family of Godwine. The royal authority in England had been challenged and defeated, and the Norman policy of the king had been broken. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=187&annotation=5008R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.171]]) > that if the duke of Normandy was ever to become king of England it could only be through war.’! Whether the duke of Normandy would ever be strong enough forcibly to assert his claims on England was, however, in 1052 still very doubtful. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=189&annotation=5014R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.173]]) > None the less, it was Duke William of Normandy who was most directly concerned with the developments which were taking place in England. Few political relationships in northern Europe were closer than that which had grown up between Normandy and England during the earlier half of the eleventh century, and this connexion had been fortified by the circumstances of Edward’s accession, and more particularly by the promise of the English succession to the Norman duke. > ([[william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -.pdf#page=189&annotation=5017R|william the conqueror the norman impact upon england -- david c_ douglas -- 1964 -, p.173]]) > William was, moreover, just at this time himself attaining a position from which he could effectively assert the rights which he considered to have devolved upon him. [[Royal Bloodlines - the original Corporate M&A]] [[Corporatist Proprietarian State]] William had been in pole position of a claim of succession upon the Throne of England. <span style="background:#fff88f">Yet, what constituted a proprietary claim? How was one formed? What was the process by which one was supposed to have been established?</span> In fact, the notion of the state itself appears to have been the first holding shell for the accumulation of wealth extraction. A sovereign country was, in other words, a sort of open invitation on the right to extract wealth from a large geographically contiguous body of people. The legal notion of a sovereign "throne" was in fact a "charter" (Fact Check) - a standing invitation to "ascend" to the throne and assume the title of rightful grantor of the legal claim that underlay the right for the throne to exist in the first place. In other words, this is revelatory of the tautological absurdity of the legal ontological reality of the state itself: the very legal concept of a sovereign state - the declarative Naming right of sole proprietary ownership upon a vast, geographically-continuous area - outlived the life of its own justifier! When a King died, the legal proprietary *claim* survived him - despite nominally proceeding from his grant. The state was thus a ## How Did William Fund?