Editing William II of England (section)

== Sexuality ==
William never took a wife or a mistress, or fathered any children. As a bachelor king without an heir, William would have been pressed to take a wife and would have had numerous proposals for marriage.<ref name=":0"/> Several alternative explanations for this have emerged. He may have taken a vow of chastity or celibacy. He may have used the promise of potential marriage as a lever to make alliances. He may not have wanted a powerful woman in his court: his father was regularly at odds with his mother.  Some have also suggested that William may have been homosexual, although this would appear to be at odds with chroniclers who state that William took female lovers, and the fact that monarchs who were known to have taken same-sex lovers, like [[Edward II]], were known to marry for political reasons.<ref name=":0"/>  

Contemporaries of William raised concerns about a court dominated by homosexuality and effeminacy, epitomised more through seemingly "luxurious" attire and [[pigache|unusual footwear]] than with sexual practices.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mills |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e6J0BgAAQBAJ |title=Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages |date=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226169262 |pages=82–83 |language=en}}</ref>

Citing the traditions of [[Wilton Abbey]] in the 1140s, [[Herman of Tournai]] wrote that the abbess had ordered the Scottish princess [[Matilda of Scotland|Edith]] (later Matilda, wife of [[Henry I of England|Henry I]]) to become a nun in order to protect her from the lust of William Rufus, which angered Edith's father because of the effect it might have on her prospects of marriage.<ref>[[Elizabeth M. Tyler]], "Edith Becomes Matilda", ''England in Europe: English Royal Women and Literary Patronage, C. 1000–C. 1150'', University of Toronto Press, Toronto; Buffalo; London, 2017, pp. 302–353, 308. {{jstor|10.3138/j.ctt1whm96v.14}}. Accessed 4 May 2020.</ref>

The historian Emma Mason has noted that while during his reign William himself was never openly accused of homosexuality, in the decades after his death numerous medieval writers spoke of this and a few began to describe him as a "sodomite".<ref name=":0">Mason, ''King Rufus: The Life and Murder of William II of England'', pp. 9–25</ref> Modern historians cannot state with certainty whether William was homosexual or not.

Barlow said that the Welsh chronicles claim that Henry was able to succeed to the throne because his brother had made use of [[concubines]] and thus died childless, although no illegitimate offspring are named. Barlow also allows that William may have been sterile. Noting that no "[[favourite]]s" were identified, and that William's "baronial friends and companions were mostly married men", despite having concluded that the chroniclers were "hostile and biased witnesses", Barlow considers that "there seems no reason why they should have invented this particular charge" (of homosexuality) and states that, in his opinion, "On the whole the evidence points to the king's bisexuality".{{Sfn|Barlow|2000|p=109}}