Henry I , King of England 1100-1135

b. 1069; d. 1135

Henry was of moderate height and thickly set, with black hair and a soft expression in his eyes. The expression was misleading for he could be ruthless and unforgiving when necessary - on one day he ordered forty-four thieves to be hanged. However Henry was seen to be fair and he became known as the 'lion of justice': the strength of his kingship is perhaps illustrated by the lack of rebellions in his reign. He was also highly pragmatic, had a scandalous private life and only paid lip service to religion (it was said that his chaplain was chosen for the speed at which he could say mass).

His pragmatism stretched to politics and war. In 1100 his elder brother Robert 'Curthose', the duke of Normandy and a rival for the English throne, who had returned from the Crusades with high prestige, invaded England and forced Henry to pay him an annual sum of £2,000. Henry did so for several years but in 1106 himself invaded Normandy and captured Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai. Henry was now king of England and Normandy, and Robert was to spend the last twenty-eight years of his life as Henry's prisoner.

The court and the beginnings of government
The chroniclers warmly praised Henry for his wisdom and his ability to gain military victories; in contrast, he was also noted for his insatiable quest for money. To satisfy this need an accounting system was developed to calculate the dues owed to the king. This involved moving counters about a large chequered cloth and the department became known as the Exchequer. (A chequered cloth and counters were used because the Roman method of using letters for numbers, V for 5, X for 10 and so on, had not yet been replaced by Arabic numerals, which included zero. Arabic numbers were first introduced into England in the fourteenth century.) Not surprisingly the exchequer was the first department which became too large to travel with the king and court and therefore remained at either Winchester or Westminster. The king still travelled about the kingdom a great deal and his usual retinue of followers included great men and small, from the chancellor and treasurer to the fruiterers, tent-keepers and wolf-hunters.

The succession
Despite his twenty known illegitimate children and two marriages he only had two legitimate children, William the Aetheling (the Anglo-Saxon for prince) and Matilda. The succession seemed secure until William died in a shipwreck; only a butcher survived who reported that everyone had been drunk. Henry was devastated and the succession became uncertain. His only other legitimate child, Matilda, had married the Emperor of Germany, and then Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. The second marriage was deeply unpopular amongst the English barons, even though Henry had taken the expedient measure of ensuring that they took an oath to recognise Matilda as Lady of England if he died without male heir. Her husband had other ideas and, eager for the English crown, went to war against Henry. The two were still at war when Henry died, probably after eating too many eels, in December 1135.

This article is based on material taken from A Traveller's History of England (© Christopher Daniell), published by The Windrush Press, and is by kind permission of its author Christopher Daniell.