Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest is Thomas Paine’s pointed example of how English monarchy began through force rather than legitimate consent. In Common Sense, he uses the conquest to challenge hereditary succession and to warn the American colonies that failing to establish their own government could leave them vulnerable to another seizure of political authority.

The Conquest as an Illegitimate Origin

Paine dismisses the claim that English kings possess an honourable hereditary right by tracing the monarchy back to its conquest-era foundation. He depicts William the Conqueror as a French claimant who landed with an armed force and made himself king against the consent of the native population. In Paine’s account, that origin has no divine sanction: a regime founded through conquest cannot make hereditary rule legitimate merely by passing power down a line of descendants.

The conquest also anchors Paine’s broader argument that monarchy’s antiquity does not establish its justice. He asserts that William was a usurper and that the history of the English monarchy cannot withstand close examination. Rather than treating the passage of time as proof of rightful authority, he makes the violent beginning evidence against the institution that followed.

A Warning About Hereditary Rule

For Paine, the conquest is not only a criticism of one ruler’s accession. It exposes the gap between taking power and possessing a right to rule. His argument against hereditary succession is that an act by earlier generations cannot permanently cancel the political authority of later ones; the conquest’s forceful beginning makes that claim especially difficult to defend.

The same historical example supports a practical warning about how governments are formed. Paine contrasts a government established by a people’s own prior agreement with one imposed after a conqueror has already taken control. His proposed order is to establish a charter of government first, then delegate people to administer it. Otherwise, he warns, a successful aggressor might occupy the seat of government and dictate laws by force, putting freedom and property at risk.

From English History to the American Crisis

Paine connects the English example to the colonies’ immediate political predicament. After hostilities began, he argues, the former debate over how to preserve union with Great Britain had been overtaken by events: force had failed to secure the relationship, while the influence of friendship had receded. The conquest supplies a historical precedent for his concern that an unresolved political order can be settled by power rather than by the people affected.

That warning complements his case for independence. While the colonies still called themselves British subjects, Paine argues, foreign powers could not readily mediate their conflict or treat them as a separate nation. He urges a public declaration explaining the grievances and the failed peaceful efforts to obtain redress, while assuring other courts of the colonies’ peaceful intentions and willingness to trade. Independence, in this reasoning, is both a break with an imperial connection and a means of taking political standing before other nations.

Historical Argument and Political Design

Paine’s use of the conquest turns English history into an argument about political timing and institutional design. It cautions against allowing an authority to become established through force before the people have settled the terms on which they will be governed. The example therefore reaches beyond criticism of hereditary monarchy: it helps explain why Paine regards the moment of forming a government as a rare opportunity that should not be surrendered.

His alternative is not simply to reject the old order, but to build a new one deliberately. Paine sketches annual assemblies, a president, and a Continental Congress, with representation distributed among the colonies. He also proposes that a Continental Charter bind the whole to protect the rights of each part, including religion, personal freedom, and property. Against the remembered pattern of a conqueror giving law by the sword, these proposals place the formation of a political framework before the selection of those who will administer it.