William Longsword

William Longsword (c.893-942), second ruler of Normandy, consolidated what his father Rollo had seized, pushing the duchy's bounds west into the Cotentin. He was murdered on an island in the Somme at Picquigny, cut down at a peace conference by the men of the Count of Flanders; a martyr in Norman memory, and a planctus, one of the earliest of its kind, was composed in his mourning. His son Richard the Fearless, and this family, descend from him.