English parliamentarians legitimized William the Conqueror to deny the Conquest’s revolutionary implications.

Evidence

The analysis put forward by the parliamentarians and parliamentalists begins, paradoxically, by disavowing the Conquest, or rather by wrapping the Conquest up in a eulogy to William the Conqueror and his legitimacy. They said: Make no mistake about it—and here you can see how close we are to Hobbes—Hastings, the battle, the war itself, none of that 1s 1mportant. Basically, William was indeed the legitimate king. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 3134

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: The parliamentarians’ move of legitimizing power to neutralize its contested founding echoes Hobbes — a useful contrast with the Levellers’ and Diggers’ readings that follow, and with how founding violence is narrativized in later texts.