Triumph.

The Battle of Tinchbrai!

Henry wins the day!

Henry had bribed neighbouring princes to take his side and the tactic certainly paid off. It appears that the forces from Maine made a substantial contribution to his victory at Tinchbrai. Robert, the hero of Ascalon and who had been present at the capture of Jerusalem had fought his last battle.  The eldest son of the Conqueror was captured and immediately imprisoned by kid brother Henry. Robert would remain incarcerated in Wales until his death in 1134. Robert had always been known for his energy and captivity did little to extinguish it. The former Duke, upbeat as always spent his comfortable, lengthy confinement learning Welsh and composing poetry. Robert was at least eighty when he died, an incredible feat at a time when most people died before the age of forty.

Henry had won a magnificent victory, he was now his father’s equal as Duke of Normandy and King of England.

Modern day Tinchbrai.

Robert Curthose’s tomb in Gloucester Cathedral.

GetIn his lifetime, Henry was known as the ‘Lion of Justice’.  Royal justices were sent out into the shires to ensure that justice was being done in the shire courts.  Those found guilty were treated very harshly indeed.

Tragedy.

Henry’s son, William the Atheling.

Although he had many illegitimate children, Henry had but one legitimate son who could succeed him. This was William, who from an early age had accompanied his father on his campaigns in France against the king of France. Contemporary chroniclers comment on William’s generosity and sweetness of nature and this is borne out by an incident in France.

Robert Curthose’s son, William Cilito was fighting against Henry on the side of the king of France in order to take back his father’s duchy. During the battle, Henry’s son, William Adelin lost his horse along with its valuable equipment. In a most chivalrous gesture William Cilito returned his cousin’s horse to him the very next day.

A figure that may have been Curthose’s son, William Cilito but a shortage of leg length is not in evidence.

Henry’s later years were troubling ones. Matilda had died in 1118 and in 1120 he received a blow from which he never really recovered.

It is a terrible shame that you took that trip

aboard the king’s swift White Ship

On November 25th 1120, William with a number of family members boarded the the King’s vessel, at Berfleur  for the journey back to England. The crew had been drinking and the ship crashed into a rock in the bay and began to sink. William managed to climb aboard a small boat but when he heard his half-sister, Matilda Fitzroy, Countess of Perche calling from the ship, he turned the boat back in a valiant  attempt to rescue her. However the boat was overturned by the waves and William was drowned.

A medieval illustration of the sinking of the White Ship.

Henry was inconsolable, he had not only lost a son but also his heir. This presented Henry with a crisis of succession, he had to have an heir to the throne. In 1121 he married Adeliza of Louvain who was some 35 years his junior in an attempt to conceive a male child. However the marriage was childless and Henry decided the only option, albeit a tricky one, was for him to appoint his daughter the recently widowed Matilda as his heir.

The king knew only too well that there had never been a Queen of England but resourceful and resolute as ever, Henry decided to try what he must have known was an almost impossible task. At Christmas 1126, the king summoned the leading barons to Westminster and called on them to pay homage to Matilda as his heir to the crown. Of course they gave their assurances that they would be loyal to Matilda but Henry undoubtedly saw the glow of avarice illuminating their smiling visages as they sampled the mulled wine. It could hardly have been a merry Christmas for the ageing monarch.

The King asked for his favourite fish dish!

‘A lamprey eel! A lamprey eel!

my favourite, but by God how ill it made me feel!’.

A lamprey is a type of  eel.

Henry I died of food poisoning on December 1st 1135 and is buried in Reading Abbey. The  political career of Henry, given the context of his place in the hereditary line was an undoubted success. This of course was due to a combination of both good fortune and his own astute calculation. However his death at a fairly ripe old age could hardly have been a happy one. A king was expected to leave a male heir and he left but a daughter, Matilda. An immensely shrewd man he undoubtedly foresaw the dreadful chaos that would befall England once he was dead and despite his most earnest efforts to prevent the calamity, it did.

T

Such, such were the joys!

Henry was the last of King Billy’s boys!

Henry being no fool!

Takes measures to consolidate his rule!

Henry I

By marrying Edith or Matilda of Scotland as she became to be known, Henry had secured his northern borders. With a Scottish Queen in London, the Scots were unlikely to come leaping across the border to make a nuisance of themselves in England.

Robert may well be our rightful Duke!

But by God, his style of rule makes us all puke!

As Henry consolidated his rule in England by the use of a number of politically adroit measures, things in Normandy under Robert went from bad to worse. Although great in the saddle wielding a sword on the battlefield, he was hopeless when seated at a table in a chamber, holding a quill and a scroll.

The Duke when not in battle or tournaments, whiled away the hours in wine, women and song.

Duke Robert fighting at the Battle of Antioch.

His bravery in battle was matched only by his buffoonery at banquets.

One story in particular illustrates the sheer buffoonery which characterised Robert’s court. As Duke, Robert was obliged  to attend a sermon given by Serlo, the saintly Bishop of Sees.

A medieval bishop on the diocesan throne.

As this was to be a very important occasion, Robert had new clothes made from silk and gold to wear. However the night before the ceremony, he had spent a drink-fuelled evening entertaining his guests and himself with harlots and jesters.

As Robert was carried off to bed in a drunken stupor, his companions for a prank, stole his newly made clothes and hid them. When the hapless Duke awoke, he discovered that he was without his fine clothes with which to attend the ceremony.

When the Duke awoke!

He realised he had no gown and cloak!

Of course all clothes in those days were custom made, there was no such thing as off the peg (Thank God for Marks and Spencers!).  Robert was forced to sit out the ceremony in bed.

Meanwhile back in England, Henry was pondering two problems. Firstly, the ever present threat of invasion from Robert and secondly, the annual payment that he was paying him which  represented a heavy drain on the Royal Exchequer. Also there was his personal ambition to match his father’s status as both King of England and Duke of Normandy.

But what of opportunity?

Sometimes it knocks!

In 1106 it did. A group of senior Norman Churchmen visited Henry and called on him to sail to Normandy and restore order. Their message to Henry was:

Bobby’s little legs are unable to push the pedals of power!

This was music to Henry’s ears;  with the Church on his side he was now in a very strong position to challenge his brother.

Time to set sail!

With the Church on my side, I cannot fail!

Henry invaded Normandy and he and Robert’s army met at  Trenchbrai castle on September 28th 1106. The sibling rivalry which had begun with the chamber pot incident all those years ago  had reached its climax, after this, only one of the brothers would be lord of both England and Normandy.

A medieval chamber pot which was probably similar to the one that caused a problem between the brothers in Rouen so long ago.

Henry’s army was a good deal larger than Robert’s but the Duke was considered a first class field commander and he had a wealth of experience in battle.

A much later depiction of the battle of Trenchbrai.

Trenchbrai although almost forgotten today, was after Hastings, the most important battle of the Middle Ages. The battle lasted only an hour but in that time the future of the English crown swayed in the balance.

Yes, if Rufus had had no offspring, younger brother, Henry more than made up for it. He would sire at least nineteen children with a variety of mistresses.

Meanwhile,  back to the Afternoon of August 2nd 1100.

He left his brother’s body lying on the forest floor!

He arrived in Winchester and walked through the

door! 

Rufus had been struck by an arrow fired by Walter Tyrell, and had been killed instantly.  Henry, in an action that fell somewhat short of brotherly love, had sped hell for leather for Winchester leaving Rufus’ body lying on the forest floor. We can only imagine what solemn thoughts were going through this young man’s mind as he raced through the woodland in the fading sunlight. Uppermost in his mind must have been his elder brother, Robert who was engaged in the First Crusade in the Holy Land.

‘ I have got to get my hands on the royal gold in the Treasury at Winchester. Then get the Archbishop, old gaffer, Anselm to crown me. No problem there, as he hated my brother.

Thank God, Robert is running around the Holy Land killing Arabs but as soon as he hears about this, he will be back here as fast as his little legs can carry him.

Anyway what’s he got to moan about? If he hadn’t tried to kill dad that time, the English crown would have been his by right!’ After that he was dead lucky that Dad gave him Normandy.’

Winchester Cathedral.

Henry was crowned on August 5th in Westminster Abbey by the Bishop of London. He managed to secure the throne because so many of the nobles were relieved that the tyranny of Rufus was over, and because they harboured a deep distrust of his brother, the fickle and feckless Robert. In an astute act of political manoeuvring, Henry introduced the Charter of Liberties. The Charter gave  guarantees against unfair taxation, the seizure of Church property and other injustices which had been routinely carried out under Rufus.

Henry I

Brother Bobby is back!

Yes!  And he is on the attack!

Duke Robert felt that the English crown was rightfully his so he invaded England in 1101. In fact diplomacy took root, so hostilities were actually avoided. By the Treaty of Alton, Robert agreed to accept Henry as the legitimate King of England but in return, Henry had to pay him a large annual payment. The matter was settled…..or so it seemed.

Wedding Bells.

The King cemented his position with the Saxons when he married Edith, the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland. Her mother, Margaret,  was of the Saxon royal house of Wessex. and this meant that Saxon royal blood would flow in the veins of the next king of England.

The seal of Queen Edith or Matilda.

There had not been a royal wedding in England in sixty years and there was great rejoicing amongst the populace when the wedding took place in November 1100. They were married by Archbishop Anselm at Westminster Abbey.  At her wedding, Edith adopted the Norman name Matilda.

Did brother Bobby receive an invitation?

No! They felt that it was not worth the aggravation!

Some of the Norman nobles were unimpressed and accused Henry of ‘going native’ or becoming ‘more Saxon than the Saxons’ because he learnt to speak English.

Their daughter Matilda was born in 1102, followed by the birth of a boy and heir, William, in 1103.  William would be known as William the Atheling.  After the boy’s birth Henry and Matilda decided to live in separate palaces so Henry could attend to state business and involve himself in ….. well, the activity came to nineteen, and who’s counting?

King Billy’s Boys.

You may well have heard of sibling rivalry in families, well this family were something else in this respect. The first recorded conflict appears to have begun when Robert (Bobby short legs) and William Jr (Rufus) were teenagers.

An argument over a dice game led Rufus and Henry who were in an upstairs gallery tipping the contents of a chamber pot over Robert’s head who was standing below. A furious Robert ran after the giggling boys, and he was so angry that  the Conqueror himself had to be called to restrain him before he killed his two brothers.

Thereafter, things slipped and boy, did they slip!

William Rufus, the second Norman King!

Of  whom, very few, his praises would sing!

The term rough and ready appears to be a fairly accurate description of this particular monarch. William was pretty rough in manner and he was always ready to defend his interests and indulge himself in all kind of pleasures, some of which shocked contemporaries.

William Rufus was born sometime between 1056 and 1059 and was the second eldest son of the Conqueror to reach manhood. He was named ‘Rufus’ for his red hair and ruddy complexion. He had enjoyed strong relations with his father and was William’s favourite son.  William was crowned king by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc on the 26th of September 1087.

He became king through default as the rules of hereditary succession dictates that the eldest son, in this case William’s son Robert, should get the top job.

So how come Robert (Bobby short-legs) was passed over?

The feckless Robert had rebelled against his father and at one point almost killed William during hand to hand  fighting in battle. For once in his life William showed considerable forbearance, Robert got second prize, the Duchy of Normandy.

Holy smoke!

The Church really does not like this bloke!

The king had a somewhat less than cordial relationship with the Church. This was for a number of reasons. Contemporary chroniclers tell us that the Church took a dim view of both William’s taste in clothing and his personal manner, both of which they considered effeminate.  Many Churchmen suspected him of being a homosexual. The fact that he never took a wife, or had illegitimate children, led many to conclude that he was.

In those days, if a Bishop were to die, the revenue from his estates reverted to the crown until a new Bishop could be appointed.

Who appointed the Bishops?

In the first instance, the king!

Then the royal decision had to be approved by the Pope.

So it made sense for any medieval king to drag his feet when appointing Bishops because as long as the Bishopric remained vacant, the funds from the estate flowed into the royal coffers. The church were furious because it meant that they were losing money. All kings were at this scam, only Rufus was worse. He even dared to do this with Canterbury when Archbishop Lanfranc died.  Rufus was shameless!

Canterbury Cathedral.

Short of cash?

Go give that monastery a bash!

Rufus also had a nasty habit of raiding monasteries when he was short of cash!

The New Forest

The Conqueror had loved hunting deer and decided to create a number of royal ‘hunting playgrounds’.  One of these was the New Forest in Hampshire. The Forest abounded with deer and the only person allowed to hunt was the King and his friends.

 His project involved the eviction of large numbers of people who lived in the forest, and who now became homeless as a result. The Conqueror introduced the death penalty for anyone caught poaching in the New Forest.   It is ironic that two of William’s son’s Richard and William Rufus would die there

The death of William Rufus!

On August 2nd 1100, Rufus led a hunting party in the New Forest. His companions included his younger brother Henry and a knight named Walter Tyrell.  As the men were about to depart, a letter arrived from the Abbott of Gloucester. The Abbott wrote that one of his monks had dreamt that the king would be killed soon. Rufus dismissed the warning, declaring that he had:

‘no interest in the dreams of snoring monks.’

What an almighty drag!

My arrow missed the damn stag!

As the men galloped through the woodland, they spread out but Tyrell stayed with the king.  Tyrell shot at a stag, but the arrow bounced off of an oak tree striking the king in the chest. Rufus was killed instantly.  Tyrell fled immediately, and then prince Henry, without delay, rode to Winchester to be crowned.

Whether this was a tragic (?) accident or a well planned assassination is hard to judge and impossible to prove.

The memorial to Rufus which stands in the New Forest.