Henry I Beauclerc PLANTAGENET, KING OF ENGLAND

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BIOGRAPHY
Eric Delderfield:
The youngest and only English-born son of William the Conqueror,
Henry had suffered at the hands of both his brothers by the time he
took the throne of England.  Though the ablest of the three, he was
capable of cruelty and deceit, and his greed exceeded even that of
William II.  Nonetheless, he was a capable and efficient ruler, who
like Rufus realized the value of English support against the barons
and against his elder brother.  To help secure their allegiance he
wisely renounced the oppressive policies of his dead brother, issuing
a charter of liberties that promised to restore the laws of his father
and King Edward the Elder.  Anselm was recalled to Canterbury, and
Ranulf was imprisoned.  And, he astutely married Matilda, the daughter
of Malcolm, King of Scotland, which made for peace with Scotland and
pleased the English, Matilda being the great-granddaughter of Edmund
Ironside.  Henry's promises proved as worthless as those of William
II, the exigencies of his costly wars and growing bureaucracy taking
precedence over the restoration of rights.  Though the death penalty
for crimes against property was restored and sentences were often
savagely harsh, they were not arbitrary as they had been under Rufus.
All was done within the law.
The prospect of war with Normandy after Robert's return from the
crusade was precipitated by the escape from prison of Ranulf, who
persuaded Robert that the barons would support him if he invaded
England.  Robert landed at Portsmouth, and at Alton in Hampshire the
Norman army met the local fyrd.  Henry was able to prevent combat by a
few promises, which he was not to keep, but Robert of Belleme, the
most powerful baron in England, continued with his brothers to oppose
the king and had to be defeated.
In exile in Normandy, Robert of Belleme formed the nucleus of a
growing band of dispossessed and disenchanted barons whom Duke Robert
was powerless to control, even if he had the inclination to do so.
Henry used his brother's weakness as a pretext to invade Normandy in
1105, in order to destroy the external threat posed by the barons.
After a slow start and unsuccessful negotiations to avoid combat,
Henry routed the Norman forces at Tinchebrai, thereby uniting England
and Normandy.  Henry's brother spent the rest of his life imprisoned,
first at Devizes and later at Cardiff.  Surprisingly, Henry did not
imprison or constrain his nephew William the Clito, whom many Normans
regarded as Robert's rightful successor; for the rest of Henry's
reign, William provided the cause for further fighting between
Normandy and rebellious barons in alliance with Louis VI, King of
France.  When Louis appealed to the Pope on behalf of William the
Clito's claim, Henry's brilliant use of dynastic marriages paid off:
the Pope was keen to make peace with the Holy Roman Emperor, to whom
Henry's daughter Matilda [# 3032] was married, so he was naturally
reluctant to offend his father-in-law.  William the Atheling, Henry's
only legitimate son and heir to the English throne, was accepted as
heir to Normandy too.
The conflict between king and church continued under Henry,
principally over the right to appoint bishops, which both claimed.
The Pope had granted William I the right to invest his own bishops,
but had no wish to extend that concession to his sons.  After years of
negotiations in a more polite refrain than that between Anselm and
William II, a compromise was reached that still left Henry with
substantial influence and income from sees.
A major contribution to England's institutions was Henry's
reorganization of the judicial system and the methods of raising
taxes.  He greatly expanded the scope of the Curia Regis (King's
Court), in future acting as an advisory body and as a court of law, as
well as supervising taxation.  Members of this court were sent out to
bring even the remote districts into contact with royal taxation, as
well as to make people familiar with royal justice.  The extension of
the Curia Regis's powes paved the way for its evolution into a
Parliament, its inner members forming the Privy Council and the King's
Bench.  Henry's greatest agent was Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, who it
is said commended himself to the king by the speed with which he could
get through church services.  Roger was once a poor Norman priest, and
an example of the way Henry appointed humble men of ability.
In 1120 Henry's legitimate son was drowned in the tragedy of the
White Ship.  It was expected that Henry would nominate his favorite
nephew, Stephen of Blois; but instead, to English dismay, he chose as
his successor his daughter Matilda, who had married as her second
husband Geoffrey, Count of Anjou [# 3031].  (Though Henry had
remarried, no children were born.)  But when Henry died in 1135 of a
surfeit of lampreys, the Council, considering a woman unfit to rule,
offered the throne to Stephen.
Stephen reigned after Henry for 19 troublesome years.
Facts about this person:
Record Change  October 30, 1999
REF: British Monarchy Official Website: After William's death while hunting in the New Forest in 1100, his younger brother, Henry I (reigned 1100-35), succeeded to the throne. By 1106 he had captured Normandy from his brother,
Robert, who then spent the last 28 years of his life as his brother's prisoner. An energetic and decisive ruler, Henry centralised the administration of
England and Normandy in the royal court, and extended royal powers of patronage.
Acceded 1100-1135.
Henry I
William's younger brother Henry (reigned 1100-35) succeeded to the throne. He was crowned three days after his brother's death, against the possibility that his eldest brother Robert might claim the English throne. After the decisive battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 in France, Henry completed his conquest of Normandy from Robert, who then (unusually even for that time) spent the last 28 years of his life as his brother's prisoner. An energetic, decisive and occasionally cruel ruler, Henry centralised the administration of England and Normandy in the royal court, using 'viceroys' in Normandy and a group of advisers in England to act on his behalf when he was absent across the Channel. Henry successfully sought to increase royal revenues, as shown by the official records of his exchequer (the Pipe Roll of 1130, the first exchequer account to survive). He established peaceful relations with Scotland, through his marriage to Mathilda of Scotland.
Henry's name 'Beauclerc' denoted his good education (as the youngest son, his parents possibly expected that he would become a bishop); Henry was probably the first Norman king to be fluent in English. In 1120, his legitimate sons William and Richard drowned in the White Ship which sank in the English Channel. This posed a succession problem, as Henry never allowed any of his illegitimate children to expect succession to either England or Normandy. Henry had a legitimate daughter Matilda (widow of Emperor Henry V, subsequently married to the Count of Anjou). However, it was his nephew Stephen (reigned 1135-54), son of William the Conqueror's daughter Adela, who succeeded Henry after his death allegedly caused by eating too many lampreys (fish) in 1135, as the barons mostly opposed the idea of a female ruler.[bellchance.ged]
Contemporaries: Louis VI (Louis the Fat, King of France, 1108-1137), Roger of Salisbury, Anselm (Archbishop of Canterbury), Pope Pascal II
Henry I, the most resilient of the Norman kings (his reign lasted thirty-five years), was nicknamed Beauclerc (fine scholar) for his above average education. During his reign, the differences between English and Norman society began to slowly evaporate. Reforms in the royal treasury system became the foundation upon which later kings built. The stability Henry afforded the throne was offset by problems in succession: his only surviving son, William, was lost in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120.
The first years of Henry's reign were concerned with subduing Normandy. William the Conqueror divided his kingdoms between Henry's older brothers, leaving England to William Rufus and Normandy to Robert. Henry inherited no land but received £5000 in silver. He played each brother off of the other during their quarrels; both distrusted Henry and subsequently signed a mutual accession treaty barring Henry from the crown. Henry's hope arose when Robert departed for the Holy Land on the First Crusade; should William die, Henry was the obvious heir. Henry was in the woods hunting on the morning of August 2, 1100 when William Rufus was killed by an arrow. His quick movement in securing the crown on August 5 led many to believe he was responsible for his brother's death. In his coronation charter, Henry denounced William's oppressive policies and promising good government in an effort to appease his barons. Robert returned to Normandy a few weeks later but escaped final defeat until the Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106; Robert was captured and lived the remaining twenty-eight years of his life as Henry's prisoner.
Henry was drawn into controversy with a rapidly expanding Church. Lay investiture, the king's selling of clergy appointments, was heavily opposed by Gregorian reformers in the Church but was a cornerstone of Norman government. Henry recalled Anselm of Bec to the archbishopric of Canterbury to gain baronial support, but the stubborn Anselm refused to do homage to Henry for his lands. The situation remained unresolved until Pope Paschal II threatened Henry with excommunication in 1105. He reached a compromise with the papacy: Henry rescinded the king's divine authority in conferring sacred offices but appointees continued to do homage for their fiefs. In practice, it changed little - the king maintained the deciding voice in appointing ecclesiastical offices - but it a marked a point where kingship became purely secular and subservient in the eyes of the Church.
By 1106, both the quarrels with the church and the conquest of Normandy were settled and Henry concentrated on expanding royal power. He mixed generosity with violence in motivating allegiance to the crown and appointing loyal and gifted men to administrative positions. By raising men out of obscurity for such appointments, Henry began to rely less on landed barons as ministers and created a loyal bureaucracy. He was deeply involved in continental affairs and therefore spent almost half of his time in Normandy, prompting him to create the position of justiciar - the most trusted of all the king's officials, the justiciar literally ruled in the king's stead. Roger of Salisbury, the first justiciar, was instrumental in organizing an efficient department for collection of royal revenues, the Exchequer. The Exchequer held sessions twice a year for sheriffs and other revenue-collecting officials; these officials appeared before the justiciar, the chancellor, and several clerks and rendered an account of their finances. The Exchequer was an ingenious device for balancing amounts owed versus amounts paid. Henry gained notoriety for sending out court officials to judge local financial disputes (weakening the feudal courts controlled by local lords) and curb errant sheriffs (weakening the power bestowed upon the sheriffs by his father).
The final years of his reign were consumed in war with France and difficulties ensuring the succession. The French King Louis VI began consolidating his kingdom and attacked Normandy unsuccessfully on three separate occasions. The succession became a concern upon the death of his son William in 1120: Henry's marriage to Adelaide was fruitless, leaving his daughter Matilda as the only surviving legitimate heir. She was recalled to Henry's court in 1125 after the death of her husband, Emperor Henry V of Germany. Henry forced his barons to swear an oath of allegiance to Matilda in 1127 after he arranged her marriage to the sixteen-year-old Geoffrey of Anjou to cement an Angevin alliance on the continent. The marriage, unpopular with the Norman barons, produced a male heir in 1133, which prompted yet another reluctant oath of loyalty from the aggravated barons. In the summer of 1135, Geoffrey demanded custody of certain key Norman castles as a show of good will from Henry; Henry refused and the pair entered into war. Henry's life ended in this sorry state of affairs - war with his son-in-law and rebellion on the horizon - in December 1135.
The Wreck of the White Ship
On the 25th November 1120 a disaster struck in the English Channel which had a dramatic effect, not only on the families of those involved, but on the very fabric of English Government.
The Norman dynasty had not long established itself on the English throne and King Henry I was eager that his line should continue to wear the crown for many generations to come. Despite having numerous bastard offspring, he had but two surviving legitimate children and his hopes for his family were firmly secured by the birth of his only son, William the Aethling: called by the Saxon princely title to stress that his parents had united both Saxon and Norman Royal Houses. William was a warrior prince who, even at the age of seventeen, fought alongside his father to reassert their rights in their Norman lands on the Continent.
After the successful campaign of 1119 which culminated in King Louis VI of France's defeat and humiliation at the Battle of Brémule, King Henry and his entourage were finally preparing to return to England. Henry was offered a fine vessel, the White Ship, in which to set sail for England, but the King had already made his travelling arrangements and suggested that it would be an excellent choice for his son, William.
As the rising star of the Royal Court, Prince William attracted the cream of society to surround him. He was to be accompanied by some three hundred fellow passengers: 140 knights and 18 noblewomen; his half-brother, Richard; his half-sister, Matilda the Countess of Perche; his cousins, Stephen and Matilda of Blois; the nephew of the German Emperor Henry V; the young Earl of Chester and most of the heirs to the great estates of England and Normandy. There was a mood of celebration in the air and the Prince had wine brought aboard ship by the barrel-load to help the party go with a swing. Both passengers and crew soon became highly intoxicated: shouting abuse at one another and ejecting a group of clerics who had arrived to bless the voyage. Some passengers, including Stephen of Blois, who was ill with diarrhoea, appear to have sensed further trouble and decided to take a later craft.
The onboard revelries had delayed the White Ship's departure and it only finally set out to sea, after night had already fallen. The Prince found that most of the King's forces had already left him far behind yet, as with all young rabble-rousers, he wished to be first back home. He therefore ordered the ship's master to have his oarsmen row full-pelt and overtake the rest of the fleet. Being as drunk as the rest of them, the master complied and the ship soon began to race through the waves.
An excellent vessel though the White Ship was, sea-faring was not as safe as it is today. Many a boat was lost on the most routine of trips and people did not travel over the water unless they really had to. With a drunken crew in charge moreover, it seems that fate had marked out the White Ship for special treatment. It hit a rock in the gloom of the night and the port-side timbers cracked wide-open to reveal a gaping whole.
Prince William's quick-thinking bodyguard immediately rushed him on deck and bundled him into a small dinghy. They were away to safety even before the crew had begun to make their abortive attempts to hook the vessel off the rocks. However, back aboard ship, the Prince could hear his half-sister calling to him, begging him not to leave her to the ravages of the merciless sea. He ordered his little boat to turn round, but the situation was hopeless. As William grew nearer once more, the White Ship began to descend beneath the waves. More and more people were in the water now and they fought desperately for the safety of the Royal dinghy. T