• General Notes

  BURIAL:  Reading Abbey
  DIED:  Probably of food poisoning from eating lamprey eels
  NOTE:
  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 H.'s death (allegedly caused by eating too many lampreys (fish) in 1135), as the barons mostly opposed the idea of a female ruler.  Henry was in reality a usurper. He imprisoned his older brother, Robert in Cardiff Castle in Wales, and it is said he had Robert's eyes put out. Henry reigned thirty-five years, not only over England, but over one third of France. In 1120 the White Ship went down on a hidden rock in the English Channel with the Crown Prince on board and it is said Henry I is never known to have smiled again. He had only one child left, Maude-Matilda, then a widow of the German Emperor Henry V. For political reasons she was next married to Geoffrey of Anjou, a boy of sixteen, ten years her junior. After the death of Henry I there was civil war between Matilda and her nephew Stephen, who got the throne for nineteen years. At one point in this contest Matilda had to escape from the Robert Doyley tower of Oxford Castle by sliding down a rope with gloved hands, the rope held by her favorite knight, Alain. She, with a few others dressed in white to avoid detection, crossed in the snowy night over the frozen Thames. The condition of the English people was deplorable during the reign of Henry I, owing to the blood-curdling cruelty of the Barons. Henry established a vigorous police system to check this, and tried to stop counterfeiting the money by mutilations. He oppressed his people by taxation.
  Henry I was born in the year 1068---a factor he himself regarded as highly significant, for he was the only son of the Conqueror born after the conquest of England, and to Henry this meant he was heir to the throne. He was not an attractive proposition: he was dissolute to a degree, producing at least a score of bastards; but far worse he was prone to sadistic cruelty---on one occasion, for example, personally punishing a rebellious burgher by throwing him from the walls of his town.
  At the death of William the Conqueror, Henry was left no lands, merely 5,000 pounds of silver. With these he bought lands from his elder brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, only to see them taken back again a few years later by Robert, in unholy alliance with his brother William Rufus.
  Henry could do little to avenge such treatment,

Details of (King) Henry I Beauclerc's family with Sybilla CORBET