In order to rebuild the fabric of the English nation! Henry needed to restructure the country’s administration! Henry was the sovereign of a sprawling empire which stretched from the Pyrenees in the south, to Cumbria in the north and later to the Shannon in the west. Nevertheless, his initial priorities lay in England. The king …
The Plantagenets. ‘From the devil they came and unto the devil they shall return!’ (A cleric commenting on the Plantagenets.) When Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou in 1128, neither of them could have foreseen that their stormy union would produce a dynasty that would rule England for 331 years. The dominance of this family which …
The reign of King Stephen (1135-1154). The barons had made a solemn oath to Henry that they would recognise his daughter, Matilda as their sovereign monarch after his death. However once Henry was dead, they made it clear what they really thought about putting a woman on the throne. Matilda depicted in a stain glass window. …
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
Would you shed a tear at the death of a ruler who had instilled great fear? It is fitting that a ruler who instilled great fear and who inflicted such pain and indignities on others should suffer the same fate. He would spend his last days in the most appalling agony, express fear and after …
Keeping everyone in their role, by a rigid method of social control! The Feudal System. Probably William’s most enduring legacy is his establishment of the feudal system which lives on today in the notorious English class system. His first step was to confiscate the estates of the Saxon nobility and give them to people …
This was the family who to power in England ascended! And from which the present royal family is descended! England now had a new royal family. An exciting new development because King Edward the Confessor had had no children so there had been no ‘royals’ for decades. William had a formidable wife, a relatively large …