Monarchs · Norman & Angevin

Henry I

c. 1068–1135

House of Normandy — Beauclerc, the Lion of Justice

In office: 1100–1135

Youngest son of the Conqueror, Henry seized the treasury at Winchester within days of his brother's death in the New Forest and bought consent with a Charter of Liberties. He defeated and imprisoned his eldest brother Robert Curthose at Tinchebray in 1106, reuniting England and Normandy, and built up the machinery of royal government, including the Exchequer. The wreck of the White Ship in 1120 drowned his only legitimate son, and his attempt to leave the throne to his daughter Matilda collapsed into civil war after his death.

How to spot them

▸Beauclerc, the 'good scholar'; later called the Lion of Justice for his administration
▸Coronation Charter of Liberties, 1100 — a model quoted back at John in 1215
▸The White Ship disaster, 1120; the oaths to the Empress Matilda, 1127
▸Death by a 'surfeit of lampreys'; buried at Reading Abbey, which he founded

In the reign

A charter of liberties issued within three days of a coronation, promising to undo a dead brother's abuses (1100)

The Coronation Charter, revived by Archbishop Langton as a model for Magna Carta.

Marriage to a Scottish king's daughter descended from the old West Saxon line, which pleased the English and amused Norman courtiers (1100)

Matilda of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III and St Margaret; courtiers mocked the couple as Godric and Godgifu.

Victory at Tinchebray, reuniting the duchy with the kingdom and putting an elder brother in prison for the last 28 years of his life (1106)

Robert Curthose died a captive at Cardiff Castle in 1134.

A vessel wrecked on a rock off Barfleur one November night, drowning the king's only legitimate son and heir (1120)

The White Ship; William Adelin and some 300 others died, and the king is said never to have smiled again.

Magnates made to swear, twice over, to accept a woman — a widowed empress — as their ruler (1127)

Oaths to the Empress Matilda in 1127 and again in 1131; Stephen of Blois swore and then took the throne himself.

Death in Normandy, ascribed by chroniclers to a surfeit of lampreys eaten against his doctor's advice (1135)

1 December 1135 at Lyons-la-Forêt.

Burial in the Berkshire abbey he had founded, on a site long thought to lie under a modern car park (1136)

Reading Abbey; the grave has never been found.

Quick-fire facts

•He was the only son of William I born in England, and the only one to succeed by seizing the treasury first
•The nickname Beauclerc reflects his unusual literacy for a Norman prince
•The Exchequer, with its chequered cloth for reckoning, first appears in his reign; the Pipe Roll of 1130 is the earliest to survive
•He settled the investiture dispute with Anselm in 1107: bishops would do homage for their lands but be invested by the Church
•His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain; the marriage was childless
•He acknowledged more illegitimate children than any other English king, over twenty, including Robert, earl of Gloucester
•His daughter Matilda had married the Emperor Henry V, hence her title Empress; her second husband was Geoffrey of Anjou
•His body was sewn into a bull's hide for the journey home, but his entrails were buried at Rouen

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

The Royal Household — Henry I 'Beauclerc' (r. 1100–1135)
C. Warren Hollister — Henry I