Kinlight · The British Royal Line

King Henry I

1068 – 1135 · Generation IX · King of England (r. 1100–1135) · House of Normandy

Portrait of King Henry I

Henry I (c. 1068–1135) was the youngest of William the Conqueror’s four sons by Matilda of Flanders, and the one who ended up with everything. He was probably born in England, possibly at Selby in Yorkshire, a year or two after the Conquest. Later writers called him Beauclerc for his schooling. How far that schooling went is uncertain, though he could probably read Latin, and the Royal Family’s own history credits him with being probably the first Norman king to speak English fluently.

When the Conqueror died in 1087, Normandy went to the eldest brother, Robert Curthose, and England to William Rufus. Henry received money, usually put at £5,000, and no land at all. He spent £3,000 of it buying the Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, was imprisoned on suspicion of plotting, lost the county, and in 1091 was besieged by both brothers at Mont Saint-Michel and driven out. He returned the following year when the townsmen of Domfront invited him in, and from that one stronghold he patiently rebuilt a following.

On 2 August 1100 William Rufus was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. Henry, who was in the hunting party, rode straight to Winchester, seized the treasury and was crowned at Westminster three days later, while Robert was still on his way home from the First Crusade. He issued a coronation charter promising to end his brother’s abuses and recalled Archbishop Anselm from exile. In November he married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and a descendant of Alfred the Great, which joined the Norman dynasty to the old English royal line. Robert invaded in 1101 and was bought off at Alton with a pension. In 1106 Henry crossed the Channel himself, beat his brother at Tinchebray in about an hour’s fighting, and kept him a prisoner for the remaining twenty-eight years of his life.

Contemporaries judged Henry a hard man and a capable king. He ruled England and Normandy together for nearly three decades and left the daily work to capable administrators, many of them “new men” of modest birth, led by Roger, bishop of Salisbury. Under Roger the exchequer took shape after about 1110 as the place where sheriffs accounted for the king’s revenue, and the pipe roll of 1130 is the earliest such account to survive. Royal justices began to travel the shires, and moneyers who debased the coinage were savagely punished. A long quarrel with Anselm over the king’s part in appointing bishops ended in compromise. Holding Normandy cost years of war against Louis VI of France, Fulk of Anjou and the supporters of Robert’s son William Clito, until a victory at Brémule in 1119 brought a favourable peace.

Then, on 25 November 1120, the White Ship struck a rock off Barfleur and went down, drowning as many as three hundred people. Among them was William Adelin, the king’s heir and, on the usual reckoning, his only legitimate son. Henry had more than twenty illegitimate children, but he never allowed any of them to expect the succession. Widowed in 1118, he married Adeliza of Louvain in 1121, and no child came. He turned instead to his daughter Matilda, widow of the emperor Henry V, made his barons swear to accept her as his heir, and in 1128 married her to Geoffrey of Anjou.

Henry died on 1 December 1135 at Lyons-la-Forêt in Normandy after a week’s illness, which the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon blamed on a dish of lampreys eaten against his physician’s advice. His body was carried to Reading Abbey, his own foundation, where building had begun in 1121. Within the month his nephew Stephen of Blois had crossed to England and been crowned, the oaths to Matilda were set aside, and the long civil war known as the Anarchy began. The crown came back to Henry’s line only in 1154, with Matilda’s son Henry II.

Place in the family

  • The archive records 146 of his descendants, across 31 generations.

Images

One of 7 people of House of Normandy (until 1154) in this archive. The conqueror’s house — William I took the English crown in 1066 and his sons held it after him.

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Children

Life

  • 1068 — Born
  • 1100 — Married Matilda of Scotland
  • 1100 — Henry I succeeds his brother, William II.
  • 1100 — Henry issues a Charter of Liberties, pledging good governance.
  • 1100 — Henry marries Edith known as Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland.
  • 1101 — Robert of Normandy invades England in an attempt to wrest the English throne from his brother, Henry. After failing, he signs the Treaty of Alton, which confirms Henry as King of England and Robert as Duke of Normandy.
  • 1106 — War breaks out between Henry and Robert. Henry defeats Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai, imprisons him in Cardiff Castle, and takes control of Normandy.
  • 1118 — Death of Henry's wife Matilda.
  • 1120 — Henry's son and heir, William, is drowned at sea when returning from Normandy in _The White Ship_ which strikes a rock and sinks. Henry’s daughter, Matilda, becomes heir.
  • 1121 — Henry marries Adelicia of Louvain
  • 1126 — Henry persuades the barons to accept Matilda as his lawful successor to the throne.
  • 1128 — Matilda, Henry's only surviving legitimate child, marries Geoffrey, Count of Anjou.
  • 1135 — Died
  • 1135 — Henry I dies in Rouen, France, as a result of food poisoning

Sources

  1. Henry I of England · Wikipedia
  2. Henry I ‘Beauclerc’ (r. 1100–1135) · The Royal Family (royal.uk)
  3. Henry I of England · World History Encyclopedia

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