biography
| name: |
Henry I (of England)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1068–1135)
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| biography:
| King of England (1100–35) and Duke of Normandy (1106–35), the youngest son of William the Conqueror. Under Henry, the Norman empire attained the height of its power. He conquered Normandy from his brother, Robert Curthose, at the Battle of Tinchebrai (1106), maintained his position on the European mainland, and exercised varying degrees of authority over the King of Scots, the Welsh princes, the Duke of Brittany, and the Counts of Flanders, Boulogne, and Ponthieu. His government of England and Normandy became increasingly centralized and interventionist, with the overriding aim of financing warfare and alliances, and consolidating the unity of the two countries as a single cross-Channel state. His only legitimate son, William Adelin, was drowned in 1120, and in 1127 he nominated his daughter Empress Matilda, widow of Emperor Henry V of Germany, as his heir for both England and Normandy. But Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, proved unacceptable to the king's leading subjects. After Henry's death at Lyons-la-Forêt, near Rouen, the crown was seized by Stephen, son of his sister, Adela. |
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