King Stephen standing with a falcon, Cotton Vitellius A. XIII, f. Stephen immediately sailed from Normandy to claim the crown, helped by his brother Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester who conveniently held the keys to the royal treasury. The furious Matilda, meanwhile, began amassing an army of supporters and set sail to invade England in The civil war known as the Anarchy had begun. She was never crowned, however. Before she could make her way to Westminster she was thrown out of London by its disgruntled citizens.
Stephen was released, where he was crowned a second time. The following year he almost captured Matilda at the siege of Oxford Castle , yet she slipped away unseen through the snowy landscape, dressed in white from head to toe. After two decades of fighting, in Stephen signed the Treaty of Wallingford declaring Henry his heir. He died the following year and was replaced by Henry II , beginning a period of reconstruction and prosperity in England under the Angevin branch of the mighty House of Plantagenet.
TV A new online only channel for history lovers. Sign Me Up. Over the course of their century-long reign, here are the 4 Norman kings who ruled England in order: 1.
Dr Marc Morris is an historian and broadcaster, specialising in the Middle Ages. He is the author of 'William I: England's Conqueror'. William Rufus by Matthew Paris, He treated the English as cruelly as his father had and kept his vassals , called barons, under his watchful eye. William Rufus loved material wealth and extravagant homes.
In order to have the things he wanted, Rufus imposed heavy taxes on the English people. When there still was not enough money to fund his lifestyle, Rufus took over churches and took church money. William Rufus had few friends, and he never married. One day in the year , William Rufus was hunting with a group of Normans on his private hunting grounds called New Forest. Rufus' father, William I, had taken this land from the English people and created a personal hunting area.
No English were permitted to hunt in New Forest, and the punishments for doing so were severe. Rufus set off with his friend, Walter Tyrell. However, when the hunting party gathered, the king and Tyrell were nowhere to be seen. The king was later found with a single arrow through his heart, and Tyrell was missing. Tyrell fled to France, and always claimed that it was a hunting accident.
It is possible, given how unpopular William Rufus was a king, that Tyrell assassinated the king. This remains a mystery we may never solve. Henry I is ready to defend his crown Henry, the youngest son of William and Matilda, became king of England almost immediately after the death of his brother, William. Robert, the oldest brother was just returning home from the First Crusade, a holy war called for by Pope Urban II, it was an attempt by Western Christians to take the Holy Land away from the Muslims, who had captured these lands earlier and taken them away for the Byzantine Empire.
Upon his return to Normandy, a war broke out between Robert and Henry for the throne. In the end, Henry was victorious, and Robert was imprisoned by his younger brother. Henry set out to win over the people of England. He realized that his father and brother had been harsh and unpopular rulers. Henry wrote a document stating that he would do a better job protecting the people and ruling by their will.
Henry's first gesture was to marry the princess of Scotland. This princess, Matilda, was a descendant of Alfred the Great. This marriage pleased the English as now they would at least have an English queen, and any children from this marriage would be Anglo-Norman.
The royal couple had a son, named William Adelin, and he was the heir to the English throne. Henry was strict with his Norman barons but kind to the English People. His reign was a success until one day, everything changed for Henry. The people on board were having a party, and the boat struck a rock formation that is not easily seen during high tide. White Ship sank, and prince William died. The ship's butcher was the sole survivor.
No one wanted to break this bad news to the king, and it finally fell to one of the baron's young sons to deliver the news. Henry fell to the ground when he heard what had happened. It was said that he never smiled again. Henry's wife died two years before the sinking of White Ship , he was getting older, and his chances for having another son were fading. Henry called his barons together on several occasions and had them swear an oath of allegiance to his daughter, Matilda.
Henry wished that she would rule England after his death. Matilda's first marriage was to the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany. The Emperor died, leaving Empress Matilda a widow. Her second marriage was to Geoffrey Plantagenet, the Count of Anjou. Times could be tough and unjust even though the best Norman Kings tried to bring back old Anglo Saxon rules of law. The last Norman King should not have been Stephen but a Queen, Matilda, however the male dominated society at the time could not bring its self to crown a woman.
Matilda however got her revenge by negotiating using the military force of her supporters her son Henry as leader of the Plantagenet Dynasty which succeeded the Normans. Please refer to the previous section to read the legal claim William 1st had to the English throne even though he was not a Saxon but a Viking related to Rollo the first Viking to settle in France.
He was known as William The Bastard until he conquered all of England. He saw little of his father who was almost permanently at war and was brought up by Arlette until he was 7 when his father went on a pilgrimage to Nicea and was never seen again. William The Bastard immediately became Duke of Normandy and had three body guards who were straight way murdered. This seven year old wonder boy survived against all odds and kept Normandy intact even though the King of France was regularly attacking to get his land back at the mouth of the Seine.
William was married around to his cousin Matilda of Flanders and granddaughter of the King of France when they were both about She produced him 4 sons and 5 daughters between and Nine Children in 13 years. He had to get permission from the Pope in Rome to marry his cousin even in those times.
In when William 1st became King of England he inherited the best run and civilised state in Europe, Forgetting Byzantium. The English King now ruled simultaneously in both England and part of France which set the scene for regular land battles over territory in France for the next years. To enable him to run both territories William ruled England by replacing the old Saxon Earls with Norman French speaking Barons and the Archbishop of Canterbury and all other senior clergy with French speakers from Norman churches.
This involved the building of castles and huge churches all over the country. The local Anglo-Saxon population were duly suppressed being intimidated by these huge new buildings. The Normans were the best stone masons and architects in Europe. Indeed the Normans were the best military in the whole of Europe demonstrated by the Battle of Hastings The battle against Harold for the English throne where Harold was fighting mainly with swords and spears and William with a huge horse mounted division Cavalry and disciplined archers with powerful bows.
This military superiority enabled him to enlarge his English territories by push back the Welsh and the Scots. Something the Romans had never achieved. The Normans only brought people into England, probably ten times fewer than the Angles and Saxons and they never integrated hence the genetic English remained as did the local language vernacular. In practise this meant he rented everything to his Barons in return for them providing him with an army when required.
In turn the Barons leased out the land given to them leased from the King to local farmers and millers etc. To find out exactly what rent he could charge William had to do an inventory of the country which was completed in and published in The Doomsday Book. The population of people and pigs and mills and houses in is listed in this book for anybody to read today. We have seen that William was a builder of Castles. Two of his best known being the Tower of London originally of wood for speed of erection and Windsor Castle.
William died while fighting the King of France in and his body is buried in the cathedral of Caen in Normandy. He had previously organised that England should be ruled by his son William Rufus and Normandy by his eldest son Robert. The English church and English people wanted Robert as king as Rufus was seen to have a ruthless temperament and the Church did not like his promiscuous homosexual lifestyle.
Nevertheless he consolidated and expanded the boundaries of England into Wales and when the Scottish King Malcolm 3rd invaded he beat back the Scottish army so decisively that not only did he take back the north western area known as Cumberland but also forced Malcolm to pay homage to him. Homage in feudal law means to acknowledge as the superior and to pay out some peace money. It never come to this because Robert being a religious man was determined to join the First Crusade and to raise money he pledged pawned Normandy to William for 10, Marks.
William Rufus died out hunting in the New Forest in mysterious circumstances with an arrow in his back. Henry was decisive and quick to act throughout his 35 year reign as is demonstrated by him seizing the English throne from his elder brother Robert who was absent Crusading. England was plunged into civil war as the country was divided over his plans for his daughter Matilda to take the throne as the first ever Queen of England.
Henry, the youngest son of William the Conqueror had no right to the throne but his eldest brother Robert was still away on the First Crusade, so Henry who was in a different part of the New Forest the day Rufus was killed, saw his opportunity, rode swiftly to Winchester and demanded the keys of the treasury.
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