When Christ and His Saints Slept: The History of the Anarchy 1135-54

The idea for this history occured to me for some reason when I was riding the bus from Berchtesgaden back to Salzburg where I was staying for a few days. As part of the Swiss matriculate, one is required to write a sort of thesis on any subject covered by the curriculum. I thus decided to write a history of the Anarchy for that reason, but also to give the participants of my Alternate History a chance to learn more about the period and perhaps make some better informed decisions.

When Christ and His Saints Slept

“Hi sæden openlice ðæt Crist slep. His halechen. Suilc mare þanne we cunnen sæin. We þolenden .xix. wintre for ure sinnes.”
“They said openly, that Christ slept, and his Saints. Such things, and more than we can say, suffered we nineteen winters for our sins.”

The church bells of the village of Lyons-la-Fôret rang throughout the night as they heard the news from the castle where the old king had been residing for the past week. It was the first Sunday of Advent and two riders rode out from the castle into the dark, cold night.
The first rider was despatched by Audoin, Bishop of Evreux, and made his way west, across the twenty miles of countryside to the city of Rouen. Two hours later he was before the Archbishop. The chief prelate of Normandy crossed himself when he heard the tidings from Lyons-la-Foret.
The second horseman took an altogether different route. He travelled north, towards the turbulent English Channel. Within two days he was in Boulogne. The messenger was quickly ushered into the great hall of Boulogne Castle.
The messenger strode to the fireplace and knelt down before the Count of Boulogne.
“My Lord of Blois, I bring news from Normandy…”
Henry, King of England and Duke of Normandy, was dead.

The death of Henry I in 1135 would spark the first civil war in English history as Stephen of Blois, Count of Boulogne and Mortain would struggle for power in a fifteen year conflict first with his cousin the Empress Matilda, Countess of Anjou, then with her son, the young Henry of Anjou. The war was a pivotal point in the eventual strengthening of Royal power and would lead to the Angevin Empire of Henry II, who would rule a realm stretching from the Solway Firth to the Pyrenees.

The seeds of the civil war that would ravage England and Normandy were planted on a cold November night in 1120. The White Ship had just sailed from Barfleur in Normandy and was carrying some of the most important heirs and heiresses of the realm of England and Normandy, the most notable of whom was William the Aetheling, the only legitimate son of King Henry I. Other passengers included William’s wife Matilda of Anjou, his two half siblings Richard and Matilda (two of the estimated twenty-two bastard children of Henry I) and many others, including the younger sister of Stephen of Blois. Revelry began on board the White Ship even before it set off from Barfleur. Many of the passengers had fought at the battle of Brémule, where Henry I had decisively beaten Louis VI of France, and the wine was flowing freely on board. Before long, both passengers and crew were drunk, including the captain, Thomas Fitz Stephen and the helmsman.
That night, as the White Ship raced ahead at the passengers’ insistence in order to be in front of the main fleet of ships heading for England, the ship crashed its port side into some rocks, tearing open the hull. The vessel rapidly took on water and began to capsize. The White Ship soon sank beneath the waves. The sole survivor was a butcher’s boy from Rouen called Berold, whose ram skin clothes kept him warm while his betters froze in their thin garments.
When the King was told of the death of his son and so many of his relations, he collapsed with grief and wept. Henry I was never to recover from the awful blow sustained that day, and though he would remarry, no son would be born out of that union, leaving Matilda, wife of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, as the sole legitimate child of King Henry.

By 1127, it was clear to Henry that his match to his second wife, Adeliza of Louvain, would remain barren. He thus resolved to ensure that his daughter, Matilda, now a widow for the past two years, should succeed him to the throne. That year, Henry summoned all the barons and prelates of England and Normandy in a council, where all swore an oath recognizing Matilda as heir to the Kingdom of England and the Duchy of Normandy. However, according to Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the chief official of the King, the nobles and ecclesiasts, took the oath on condition that the childless Matilda be married only with the consent of the magnates, as her husband, it was presumed according to custom, would rule England.
However, when Matilda was remarried the following year, Henry I did not consult them as he had promised. Henry needed an ally in his wars against the French king, who continually supported the claims to Normandy of Henry’s nephew, William Clito, son of the King’s eldest brother Robert, who was the rightful Duke of Normandy until Henry conquered it from him after the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106.
Anjou was a key ally for both Henry I and Louis VI. Furthermore, in marrying his daughter to the eldest son of Count Fulk V, Geoffrey, Henry I hoped that the lands of Anjou and Maine should pass into possession of the fruit of that union, i.e. the future King of England. Thus on the 17th June 1128, Matilda of England married Geoffrey, now Count of Anjou and Maine (his father had just departed for the Holy Land to marry the Heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem), who was eleven years her junior.
News of Matilda’s marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou was not well received by the barons and prelates. As being overwhelmingly of Norman origin, there was the usual neighbourly enmity for Anjou, especially since Count Fulk had fought against them several times in the past. The prospect of an Angevin sitting of the throne of England was not met with any pleasure.
The marriage was not a happy one. Geoffrey was a constant womaniser, and Matilda abandoned the marital bed several times to join her father in Normandy, being sent back at length each time. The relations between father- and son-in-law were also strained, as Henry was reluctant to hand over several castles on the southern Norman border which he promised as Matilda’s dowry. However, as animosity grew between Henry and Geoffrey, Matilda began to side with her husband against her father. It came to such a point that another chronicler of the period, Henry of Huntingdon, said that the demise of King Henry I was somewhat caused by the “perfidy” of Matilda.
During this time, Henry I was also concerned with enriching other members of his family (a paradox considering he blinded and imprisoned for life his elder brother Robert and is suspected of having his brother William Rufus killed as well), most notably his two eldest bastard sons and his two nephews. The former were Robert of Caen, who married the heiress to the earldom of Gloucester and Reginald, created Earl of Cornwall. Robert would become the most powerful and richest nobleman in the realm, and held extensive lands in Normandy, Southern Wales (the Welsh Marches) and throughout England, especially around his two strongholds of Bristol and Gloucester.
His two nephews were the younger sons of Henry’s sister Adela, Countess of Blois. She had sent them to her brother’s court where they were duly favoured, the younger, Henry, becoming Abbot of Glastonbury and also Bishop of Winchester.
The older brother, Stephen of Blois, was given the lordships of Eye and Lancaster in England and the county of Mortain in Normandy, as well as the hand of Maud, heiress of Boulogne. Like Robert of Gloucester, he would also become an extremely powerful magnate, his fortune and lands only matched by Robert. Such assets were undoubtedly of great help when Stephen took the throne.
Thus, when King Henry I died on 1st December 1135, the stage was set for the Anarchy.

To be continued...

This is very interesting. Keep Posting:book:

Well, and goodly written so far. Do we glimpse the Plantagenant "son" on the rise? We await part two with anticipation.

We do, but that part of our story is still many winters away...

Alas and anon, the firewood will have to be gathered for each winter that we wait. With that said, May I ask a question? (Assuming the affirmative) It seems that Henry I was fairly hard on his brothers. Were the ties of brotherhood and family so tenous in those days that a brother could kill his own brothers so cold-minded without so much as a second thought? I have known intense jealousy of my own brothers in my past, but not enough to want them dead.

Sincerly,

I would assume the same Rotorgun. Especially in that day and age wouldn't Kinslaying be considered especially heinous(not that it isn't now), I mean with the whole code of honour people lived by back then? That certainly couldn't have been good for Henry had his plot been discovered by the Catholic Church.

Evidence tends to suggest that in the princely classes, family bonds were not the strongest, perhaps because of a lack of maternal tenderness. This is perhaps why patricide, fatricide and filicide (?) was not unusual, especially when power came into play.
The death of William Rufus remains mysterious. Whast supposedly happened is that he was hunting in the New Forest with some of his companions, the group dispersed and one of his companions, Walter Tirel, while aiming for what he supposedly thought was a stag shot his crossbow bolt which struck the king in the chest. When his younger brother Henry, who was in the group, heard the news, he immediately galloped to Winchester where the royal treasury way kept and siezed it, the moved on to London and proclaimed himself King. Robert was conveniently on crusade at this time.
If the Church had discovered this possible plot, I don't think they would have been bothered by it much. Rufus was extremely hostile to the Church and the chroniclers of the period say that he was "hated by almost all his people."

Good Lord! That Henry was a formidable brute sure. I suppose that it took that kind of calculation to survive during the early middle ages. I surmise that this Adela, Countess of Blois, was in the thick of things as well, judging by how well her two sons made out. Being that she was Henry's sister, it does give one pause to ponder the connection there.

Are you hinting perhaps at incest? It may be possible, considering at how Henry was such a randy old goat.
Adela of Blois was certainly no shy and retiring woman. When her husband who was with the First Crusade at Antioch, decided that he'd had enough and went back home, rather than being pleased to see him, Adela was absolutely furious that he had dishonered her so. She made him go back the very next year, and he sadly died in battle in 1102.
However, it is unlikely that Henry and Stephen were the offspring of Henry with his sister. Stephen was born in 1096, before his father, Stephen Henry, left for the crusade. Henry of Blois was born in 1101 (so probably conceived in 1100), in the short period between when Stephen Henry arrived back from crusade and when he was made to join it again, getting up to the things which husbands normally do when they have been away a long time from their wives.

Actually I was hinting at the possibility of incest. I can see from your answer that it was very unlikely. It just seemed odd that his nephews got such differential treatment, while his own brothers got the axe. I do remember reading about Adela's disappointment with her husband's abandonment of his duties during the 1st crusade. I think it was mentioned in the Plantgenant Chronicles, which delves into the early history of the dynasty, but I'm not sure. It might have been in a history of the Crusades that I read as well. In any case, these were some ambitious people, which is fitting for those times.

Thanks for the great posts.

Cheers,

in this anarchy, i read somewhere that castles sprouted in england as flowers in spring...

please continue, both... its very interesting

Indeed, the decentralisation of royal power allowed some barons to build castles wherever they wished, however, they were mostly crude structures made out of wood (a few had stone keeps and occasionally some were completely built with stone).

After almost a year, I have decided to return to this history, as my Matura work (which I have finally decided to write on "The Anarchy and the Creation of Angevin Government") looms nearer. This is actually stuff which I wrote last summer, but which I haven't had the inclination to type up yet.

...When Stephen of Blois learned of the death of Henry I, no hesitation was made. Taking only a small retinue of armed men with him, he embarked immediately at Wissant on a ship bound for England, despite the roughness of the Channel at that time of year. Upon landing in England a few days later, Stephen found the situation ripe for a rapid seizure of power. News of the King’s death had spread rapidly and already the kingdom was beginning to disintegrate into chaos as nobles and peasants alike took advantage of this power vacuum to further their own ends. A strong ruler was desperately needed to remedy the situation. The Empress Matilda was still in Anjou; besides no one thought a woman would be able help matters, nor the rule of her infant son Henry. Only Stephen of Blois, leading magnate of England and favourite nephew of King Henry was present. In order to secure the throne, Stephen knew he had to accomplish three things. Firstly, he had to gain London, the largest and wealthiest of all the cities of England; and the support of its citizens, especially the guilds and merchants whose taxes would be indispensable. Secondly, Stephen had to hold Winchester, where the royal treasury was kept. Thirdly, he had to be crowned and anointed as King by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Stephen quickly overcame all obstacles. Despite being denied access to Gloucester’s strongholds of Dover and Canterbury, he was soon acclaimed by the townsfolk of London where, as Count of Boulogne, one of the key posts on the Flemish coast through which much of England’s vital wool trade passed, he would have held considerable economic influence. Its support was also probably bought with the promise of the status of commune and thus the right to levy its own taxes, which it would receive soon afterwards.
From London Stephen made his way to Winchester, where, perhaps with the help of his brother though it is not certain, the treasury along with the keys to the city and castle were handed over to him.
The last task proved the most difficult. William of Corbeil, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a close adviser of the late King and was reluctant to ignore Henry’s wishes by crowning a rival of the King’s heir. However, two major factors swayed the Archbishop’s decision. Firstly, the realm was growing increasingly chaotic and a ruler was desperately needed to restore order. Secondly, Hugh Bigod, a nobleman from East Anglia, swore an oath that Henry I disinherited his daughter on his deathbed and designated Stephen as his heir. Corbeil conceded, and on 22nd December, Stephen of Blois was crowned King of England
The coronation of Stephen of Blois fastened his hold on the throne. The Norman barons would soon also pay homage to Stephen as Duke of Normandy (creating some antagonisms between Stephen and his elder brother Theobald, the Count of Blois, who the barons had previously acclaimed as Duke), and even Matilda of Anjou’s firmest supporter Robert of Gloucester, faced with a fait accompli, accepted Stephen of Blois as king. Stephen also gained a special status as the Lord’s anointed sovereign. To fight against him was not only high treason, endangering one’s life and possessions, but also a crime against God, endangering one’s immortal soul, and more than a few barons would have qualms raising arms against him in the coming civil war.
Thus as the year passed into 1136, Stephen of Blois was undisputed ruler of England and Normandy.
It is here that we should like to take a brief pause from a narrative and examine the legality of Stephen’s succession. He has often been called a shameless usurper, who broke his oath and ignored his dead uncle’s wishes by treacherously seizing power. Stephen is condemned as a usurper on two grounds: firstly Matilda of Anjou was the only legitimate successor as she had been chosen by Henry I, and secondly that Hugh Bigod was lying: Matilda was never disinherited by her father on his deathbed. This last one is further strengthened by Bigod’s treacherous behaviour during Stephen’s reign, leading one to believe that he might have done so out of wrath for having not been more generously treated by the King. However, some historians, such as Professor Jim Bradbury, do not consider Bigod’s oath to be perjury: relations between Henry and Matilda were strained; between Henry and Geoffrey they were positively hostile. Does it not seem likely that Henry I, angered by his daughter’s and especially his son-in-law’s conduct, disinherited them with the same capriciousness as displayed by many old men? Though it is true that Bigod was not actually present at the old King’s last moment , his oath was made by two other knights, and their testimony confirmed by no less eminent prelates such as the Bishop of Evreux, present at the King’s demise, and the Archibishop of Rouen.
However, even if Hugh Bigod’s oath was false, that does not mean to say that Stephen’s succession was illegitimate. While it is true that Stephen of Blois, as one of the great magnates of the realm had sworn three times to Henry I that he would uphold the succession of Matilda, Christian teaching and the Church said that a solemn oath made under duress was a worthless. None of the barons could have refused to swear the oath: to do so would be rebellion against their king. Some nobles, such as Waleran Beaumont and William Talvas had tried before; none had succeeded.
On moral and religious grounds, the oath was an empty one.
It has also been said that the Empress Matilda was the rightful heir to the throne, as she was the only legitimate child of the late King. However, it was only seventy years after the Norman conquest of England and as such customs of succession like primogeniture had a shaky tenure. Anglo-Saxon customs still pervaded, most notably the election of those considered throne-worthy as king. So far, the succession to the throne of England had not once followed the principle of primogeniture. When William the Bastard died on 1087, the crown of England did not pass to William’s eldest son Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy but to the second son, William Rufus, who his father judged (wrongly) to be more suitable for the throne. When Rufus was killed when out hunting in 1100, it was the youngest brother, Henry who promptly seized power, taking advantage of this brother Robert’s absence on crusade. However, England was not enough for Henry, and, encouraged by his barons who would always prefer to see England and Normandy under one ruler (a sentiment that would be both an advantage and a disadvantage for the king), he invaded the duchy. Henry defeated Robert at the battle of Tinchebrai in 1108, conquered Normandy and imprisoned and blinded his brother in Cardiff Castle, where he would languish until his death in 1135.
If History has not judged Henry I to be a usurper, why has it done so to Stephen? Perhaps the answer lies in the old maxim “History is written by the victors”.

It is good to see you back on form!