Henry I

Henry I (1068–1135), king of England (1100–35) and duke of Normandy (1106–35), was the youngest son of William the Conqueror. In 1087, on his death-bed, William had given Henry a large sum of money, which he used to purchase land in Normandy. He played an intermittent role in the struggle between his elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus for control of the Anglo-Norman realm and seized the opportunity provided by the latter's (probably) accidental death in 1100 to take over the English kingdom while Robert was still on his return journey from the First Crusade. Henry moved quickly to consolidate his coup, issuing a coronation charter which promised to renounce the supposed abuses of William II's rule, recalling Archbishop Anselm from exile, and marrying Matilda, the niece of Edgar the Atheling and the daughter of Malcolm Canmore, to create a dynastic link with the Old English ruling house and an alliance with the kingdom of Scots. By 1101 he was sufficiently powerful to resist Robert's invasion of England and to agree terms with him which confirmed Henry's kingship in England. Thus established, Henry then proceeded to disinherit a number of powerful magnates known to be supporters of Robert's cause and to undermine his brother's already precarious authority in Normandy. In 1105–6 he invaded Normandy and completed his conquest of the duchy by defeating Robert in 1106 at the battle of Tinchebrai, thereby recreating William the Conqueror's Anglo-Norman realm. Henry ruled both England and Normandy for the rest of his life, but his control over Normandy was always threatened until the death of Robert's son William Clito in 1128 by alliances between William, the French king Louis VI, territorial princes such as the counts of Flanders and Anjou, and a group of Norman nobles with few landed interests in England. Henry suffered set-backs such as a military defeat at Alençon in 1119, but was successful in defeating invasions of Normandy in 1118–19 and 1123–4. Marriage alliances were used to secure useful allies, such as the one between his nephew, the future King Stephen, and Matilda, the heiress to the county of Boulogne. The death of his only legitimate son in the White Ship disaster increased Henry's problems and his failure to obtain an heir through his second marriage to Adela of Louvain eventually forced him to the apparently desperate measure of marrying his daughter, the Empress Matilda, to Count Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou in 1128, thereby neutralizing one of his most powerful opponents at the cost of the prospect of an Angevin succession to England and Normandy after Henry's death.

The frequent warfare in northern France had an impact on England because Henry was obliged to raise money to finance the wars. His administration, supervised by Bishop Roger of Salisbury, had a reputation for efficiency and has on occasion been regarded by historians as being notably innovative. The developments should, however, be seen as taking place within the existing institutional framework. The most obvious, the Exchequer, involved a centralized audit of royal revenue and expenditure under Bishop Roger's supervision, for which there were precedents in the 11th cent. Other developments, such as the more frequent interventions of royal justices in the localities, can also be regarded as opportunist centralization because they relied fundamentally on the existing structure of shire courts and were not regular visitations after the pattern later established in Henry II's reign. Henry's regime is also notable for the advance of individuals of lower aristocratic status to positions of administrative prominence, but, with the important exception of Bishop Roger, their power came nowhere near rivalling that of the great magnates. The general character of Henry's rule was one of expedient centralization within a socially conservative framework. The basis of his rule in both England and Normandy, like his father's, was a group of powerful cross-channel families into which Henry advanced a small number of his own relatives, most notably his nephew, the future King Stephen, and his illegitimate son, Earl Robert of Gloucester. Despite enduring problems, Henry was without doubt a very successful ruler. England was at peace after the early years of his reign and Normandy was kept secure. He dominated Wales as no predecessor had done and good relations were maintained with his nephew, David I of Scotland. He experienced problems with the church in his early years, most notably when Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury took a stand over the practice of lay investiture of bishops and went into exile in 1103. Henry and the papacy reached a settlement in 1107 and thereafter Henry's relations with the church were generally good. He was a great patron of monasteries, most notably of Reading abbey, in which he was buried. His last years were difficult because of the continuing insecurity of the succession, and because he was reluctant to provide his designated heir Matilda and her husband with lands and castles to assist their succession. At the time of his death at Lyons-la-Forêt on 1 December 1135, he was involved in another quarrel with Matilda, which facilitated the coup carried out by Stephen. Despite his many successes in war, diplomacy, and government, Henry I's legacy was a disputed succession and almost inevitable civil war.

David Richard Bates

Bibliography

Bates, D. , ‘Normandy and England after 1066’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989), 851–80;
Green, J. A. , The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986);
Hollister, C. W. , Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World (1986);
Southern, R. W. , ‘The Place of Henry I in English History’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1962), 127–70.