The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England: Power and Blood 9781399067348

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The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England

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For Nicholas Turner Loving father and cherished friend

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The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Power and Blood

James Turner

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First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Pen & Sword History An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd Yorkshire – Philadelphia Copyright © James Turner 2023 ISBN 978 1 39906 734 8 The right of James Turner to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Typeset by Mac Style Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.

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Contents Introductionvi Chapter 1

Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family

Chapter 2

Family, Affinity and Hegemony

30

Chapter 3

Crisis and Opportunity

57

Chapter 4

The Anarchy

84

Chapter 5

Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II

Chapter 6 The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings

1

118 145

Conclusion176 Notes183 Bibliography198 Index205

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Introduction

1

174 was, to the extent that the two could be separated from one another, a period of profound political and personal crisis for Henry II.1 Undoubtedly one of the wealthiest and most powerful monarchs in Europe, Henry was the ruler of a vast medieval hegemony, his writ running through much of the British Isles and across swathes of northern and western France. However, this domain was far from a monolithic or homogenous entity. Instead, it encompassed a range of different cultures, legal traditions and distinct regional identities that were governed variably according to their own established customs and Henry’s ability to project power and authority into them. In England, from whose rulership Henry derived his royal title, royal government was, by the standards of the time, both highly centralised and far reaching. In Ireland and parts of Wales, dominion was still enforced at spearpoint by Henry’s Anglo-Norman allies and lieutenants. While the lords and aristocratic families of eastern Aquitaine resisted and resented the encroachment of any sort of centralised outside authority upon the autonomy they had traditionally enjoyed under a succession of weak or distracted dukes. Rather than a single unified realm or edifice of governance, the ‘Angevin Empire’ of Henry  II was formed out of the expansive network of hereditary rights, affinities, alliances and acquisitions of a single family and, in a process smoothed by the considerable wealth generated from the intensive governance of England, was ultimately predicated upon Henry’s ability to co-operate with and incentivise local power brokers. The war that threatened to bring this whole construct crashing down upon Henry in 1174 had arisen in April the previous year out of disputes concerning the administration and allocation of the family’s expansive portfolio of land and titles. Supported by their mother, the exceptionally formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry’s eldest legitimate sons rebelled against him, each hoping to secure their stake within their family’s hegemony and expedite their rise to genuine power. Their cause was swiftly and opportunistically bolstered by an alliance with Henry’s principal rivals, William of Scotland and Louis VII of France.

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Introduction vii Not all of the king’s family abandoned him, however. In the same year, his eldest illegitimate son, Geoffrey, launched a highly successful military campaign in the north of England which contributed to the suppression of the rebellious Roger Mowbray and the repulse of the rebel-aligned Scots. Henry is reported to have greeted Geoffrey’s arrival at the royal court with the declaration, ‘My other sons are the real bastards. He alone has proved himself legitimate and true!’2 While this wholesome and heart-warming declaration of paternal affection is unlikely to be a definitive record of the king’s actual words, their source, the chronicler Gerald of Wales, was a former royal clerk and close intimate of the court. They, therefore, surely capture a paraphrased and dramatized version of the king’s sentiments and regard for Geoffrey, a conclusion which, as we shall see, is supported by the considerable favour Henry II showered upon his illegitimate son and the effort and resources expended in finding him positions within the power structure of the Anglo-Norman realm. At the very least, Gerald’s account attests to a contemporary perception within the royal court of the close and engaged nature of Henry and Geoffrey’s relationship.3 The parental praise and affirmation given to Geoffrey in response to his decisive action in protecting his embattled father’s interest displays the acceptance and inclusion of a royal bastard within a shared royal dynastic enterprise. As bold and decisive as his actions in the north of England were, Geoffrey’s engagement in military service to his father was far from anomalous. Instead, it fits within a distinct and recognisable pattern of empowered and deputised royal bastards coming to the aid of their legitimate relatives and patrons. The twelfth century is littered with incidents in which the presence or intervention of illegitimate royal family members proved crucial in the advancement and preservation of the powerbases of Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings. Henry II had previously promoted the career of his illegitimate paternal half-brother, Hamelin, principally as a means to fill the void opened in royal political and dynastic strategy by the death of his younger legitimate brother, William. The brokering of a prestigious marriage and attached earldom elevated Hamelin to the upper echelons of the aristocracy, allowing him to more ably and convincingly support the king during the Becket crisis. Henry II, then, had in times of crisis and severe instability deputised an illegitimate family member to act on his behalf, a strategy which was also used to great effect by both his immediate predecessors and successors throughout the long twelfth century. Both Richard and

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viii  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England John, while seemingly agreeing on very little, invested considerable trust and authority in their illegitimate half-brother, William Longespée, raising him to an earldom and an informal role as the king’s principal lieutenant, respectively. Similarly, when Henry  II’s grandfather, and role model, Henry  I’s only legitimate son, William Ætheling died suddenly in 1120, he was faced with considerable unrest and the severing of his alliance with the counts of Anjou, as his vassals and rivals sensed blood in the water. Part of Henry I’s strategy to dispel this perception of vulnerability was to elevate his eldest bastard son, Robert, to a position of pre-eminence within the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Awarded the newly created earldom of Gloucester by his father and invested with lands garnered through both a royally-brokered marriage to a wealthy heiress and considerable direct donations from the royal demesne, Robert functioned as one of his father’s primary supporters and most reliable lieutenants. Indeed, it was the career of Earl Robert and his careful cultivation of an image of royal prestige and authority that provided most of the initial impetus for this project.4 Despite his status as an illegitimate son, born outside the precepts of a recognised and binding union, and therefore barred from the right to inherit, Robert was keenly aware of his royal heritage. Indeed, he often went to great pains to emphasize and accentuate his royal connections. Robert ably, and on the whole, loyally served both his father and later his legitimate half-sister, Empress Matilda. However, he did so as the master of an almost autonomous lordship, freed from all but the most cursory recourse to the royal centre. This curious dynamic was manifested particularly clearly in Robert’s relationship with Matilda where the royal bastard operated in a manner far closer to that of an ally or confederate than a direct subordinate. It is during this period in the 1130s and 1140s that, seemingly free from consequence or censure, Robert began to mint and issue his own coinage, a breathtaking usurpation of royal rights and powers. Robert, it seems was determined, and as result of the political and dynastic context in which he inhabited was able to present himself as a participant and partner in royal familial identity rather than simply an ancillary to it. While certainly the most prominent of Henry I’s illegitimate children, Robert was far from the only one. Geoffrey White credited the king with upwards of twenty illegitimate children in his weighty edition of the Complete Peerage. This number, while still prodigious and enough to mark

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Introduction ix Henry I out as a man of noted fecundity, has since been revised downwards in more recent historiography as errors and misidentifications introduced by the host of supremely enthusiastic antiquarians and genealogists, upon whom White drew upon, have been identified.5 Many of these Anglo-Norman illegitimate royal family members can be identified as functioning amidst the highest levels of aristocratic society, frequenting the ever Itinerant royal court and forming strong mutually reciprocal relationships with their siblings. Henry  I cultivated his hegemonic status by brokering a series of strategic marriages between his numerous illegitimate daughters and the lords of a variety of neighbouring affinities and buffer zones. Rather than merely inert pieces on the dynastic game board, however, these women were recognized and engaged participants in both royal family identity and the regional aristocratic networks in which they were embedded. Far from trophies or passive conduits of dynastic and political affiliation, Henry I’s illegitimate daughters often proactively mediated and shaped these alliances. In the tumult and violence that swelled during the reign of King Stephen, a small but significant coterie of Henry I’s illegitimate children rallied to the cause of their half-sister Empress Matilda, forming part of a core of diehard supporters. To an extent, the close rapport and co-operation exhibited between twelfth-century rulers of England and their illegitimate children and family members seems only natural. While administrative practices and the mechanisms of royal governance within England evolved substantially over the course of the twelfth century, kingship and the distribution of royal patronage was still insuperably personal in nature. The extensive hegemonies of both Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings during this period were managed and given a degree of coherency, in part, through the performative and cultivated associations between a ruler and members of significant aristocratic networks able to act on their behalf. Such compacts and bonds of mutual self-interest were inherently personal in nature, a characteristic which was in no way diminished by the role the allocation of patronage and royal largesse played within their formation. Regardless of the semantic similarities to naked bribery, the ability of twelfth-century kings to directly incentivize and reward those in alignment with their political and dynastic interests was crucial to the effective projection of power and authority through their patchwork domains. When viewed in these terms, the deputisation of illegitimate royal family members seems like a straightforward and logical strategy, since

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x  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England their participation in royal family identity meant they were already invested in the preservation of royal interests. Moreover, in addition to a broad familial and political association, certain twelfth-century English monarchs were connected with individual royal bastards by strong ties of affection and personal affinity. Although occasionally deployed and utilised in a way similar to what would be expected for legitimate royal children or allies from wider aristocratic networks, royal bastards of the twelfth century formed a recognisable and distinct yet incredibly varied group. A motley and fascinating collection of individuals whose extensive activities and unique positions in the shadow of the throne offer important insights into the form and function of royal governance during this period, while further illuminating some of the century’s most dramatic and pivotal incidents. A particularly striking trend that emerges when surveying those illegitimate members of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin royal family, who came to play an important role in the governance of twelfth-century England, is the high level of loyalty they displayed to their legitimate royal family members and patrons. In a sense, this shouldn’t be surprising or abnormal given that twelfth-century aristocratic families tended to trend towards inclusivity and co-operation between their members. Setting aside the considerable influence that personal affection for a father or brother may exert on an individual’s loyalties and decision making, for many participants in twelfth-century aristocratic or royal familial networks, the aiding and support of family members was often an act of enlightened self-interest. The family was to an extent organized around and defined by a shared portfolio of interests and resources which, by dint of their shared membership and the mechanism of inheritance, they all had some stake in preserving or advancing. Of course, by their very nature such networks were expansive and interconnected, potentially affording multiple avenues of resource and opportunity, as well as creating grades of membership and participation. Familial bonds, therefore, were more contextual than prescriptive and, while helping to orientate individuals within the tangled networks of aristocratic familial affinities that stretched across medieval Europe, they were far from inviolate. The adherence of twelfth-century royal bastards to their legitimate family members is made more striking when properly contextualized within a court and wider culture which was predisposed, as a result of dynastic and demographic circumstances, to internecine conflict and the use of warfare as a political and diplomatic tool.

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Introduction xi The primary reason for this unusual level of devotion, and one of the major sources of illegitimate royal family members’ utility to Anglo-Norman or Angevin kings throughout this period, was the Church’s continuing reform and codification of marriage and the wholehearted adoption by the aristocracy of these new increasingly narrow and delineated objectives. A crucial factor when considering the role of twelfth-century royal bastards within royal governance and their position within aristocratic networks is the changing legal and social ramifications of illegitimacy throughout this period. While the idea of illegitimate offspring, those outside a valid and recognized union, is ancient and pervasive, its definition and connotations have changed significantly over time and between cultures. In medieval Europe prior to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, marriage was a largely secular institution indicating a merging of dynastic and political interest with only limited religious connotations. In practice, prior to the adoption and promotion of the institution as a religious sacrament in the eleventh century, marriages were rarely considered inviolate or indissoluble. This fluidity of status meant that the legitimacy of children born of such ill-defined and conditional unions was often hazy and permeable. The increasingly accepted relegation of illegitimate children from any prospects of inheritance was the result of the proliferation of monastically influenced reforms to the prerequisites and criteria of marriage which were adopted and spread by elements within both the Church and the laity.6 A causal effect of this redefinition of marriage and the transmission of related reforming principles throughout the Church was a sharper delineation between what constituted a licit and illicit marriage. The adoption of these ideas by lay society continued into the twelfth century, a period of notable social and demographic change, becoming increasingly enshrined in developing legal practices. Isolated from any claims to inheritance and strongly delineated from their legitimate siblings and family members, royal bastards were, outside of any maternal connections, largely dependent upon their legitimate royal family members for advancement. Illegitimate royal family members’ participation within royal family identity was heavily caveated by their status which was compounded by their lack of any real prospects of inheritance. This conditional degree of access to royal familial identity and the considerable benefits of continuing royal patronage meant that, unlike their legitimate siblings, royal bastards had comparatively little to gain and much to lose from rebellion.

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xii  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Illegitimate royal relatives then represented a pool of potentially useful auxiliary family members to twelfth-century Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings of England. Somewhat counterintuitively, this usefulness was informed and perhaps even enhanced by their illegitimacy. Royal bastards’ inclusion within a shared family identity, even if qualified by their illegitimacy, was one of the principal elements of their considerable utility. Participation within a shared royal familial identity provided those royal bastards who were invested with a measure of power and authority, with an incentive to effectively support their legitimate relatives as a means of securing their own interests. This close familial association informed the loyalty of illegitimate royal family members who possessed a considerable stake in the continued success and fortune of their royal family members and patrons, as well as providing them with a means of justifying their beneficial, yet conditional, inclusion within that family identity. Furthermore, the dependency on royal patronage and the continued goodwill of their legitimate relatives created by their isolation from heritable resources meant that royal bastards’ best interests almost inevitably lay in defending and advancing the king’s authority. Those twelfth-century Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings who invested resources in empowering and deputising their illegitimate sons were rewarded with the service of supporters who were strongly tied to them through mutual self-interests. Likewise, those illegitimate royal daughters who experienced a degree of personal affinity with their legitimate family members or were otherwise permitted to participate in a royal family identity came to occupy crucial roles in the management of the family’s resources and associations. This inclusion of illegitimate royal family members as active participants and beneficiaries of royal familial identity was, however, by no means systematic. Instead, there existed a significant degree of variance in the status and political careers of royal bastards throughout the twelfth century. Despite their shared origins, some rose to the upper echelons of the nobility or were placed in the heart of royal governance while their siblings and relatives languished in obscurity. The primary determining factors of these variances were the nature of their relationship with their legitimate family and, equally importantly, the wider political context within which they operated. Illegitimate royal family members were elevated to positions of authority or otherwise integrated into the family’s political and dynastic machinations largely on an ad hoc basis, often in reaction to their relatives’ immediate political needs. As a result of this

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Introduction xiii and the inconsistently applied patronage of their legitimate relatives, royal bastards’ identity as a group was descriptive rather than prescriptive, denoting only their illegitimate status and familial relationship to the royal dynasty rather than indicating any set and predetermined roles within the royal court or wider society. Fittingly, given their long exile to the shadowy peripheries of historical regard, the careers of illegitimate royal children and the implications of their auxiliary role in royal governance have in recent years enjoyed an increased attention from historians. In reflection of the contemporary prominence attained by several illegitimate royal family members within twelfth-century aristocratic social and political networks, a select number of those who benefited substantially from strong personal and political ties with their legitimate family are the subject of a number of historiographical works. Several recent biographies of members of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman royal family such as Catherine Hanley’s Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior and Robert B. Patterson’s The Earl, The Kings, and the Chronicler: Robert Earl of Gloucester and the Reigns of Henry I and Stephen while still retaining their focus on an individual, have attributed a greater degree of significance to the position of royal bastards within royal familial identity, touching upon the wider effects and implications of their illegitimacy on the nature of familial co-operation.7 Possibly the scholarly work that has exerted the most formative influence on this work is Kathleen Thompson’s article, ‘Affairs of State: The Illegitimate Children of Henry I’.8 Thompson’s highly valuable contribution to the subject is partially structured around an analysis and interrogation of William of Malmesbury’s extraordinary assertion that Henry  I was motivated to father quite such a prodigious number of illegitimate children out of a sense of dynastic duty. This statement from a contemporary observer and court commentator carries with it the implicit recognition of the utility and potential importance of illegitimate family members within aristocratic culture. Thompson also undertakes a laudably extensive survey and overview of Henry  I’s illegitimate children, revising and instilling some much-needed scholarly rigour into White’s earlier survey in the Complete Peerage. She evaluates William of Malmesbury’s eyebrow-raising claim regarding Henry  I’s illegitimate children, principally through the close examination of the personal context and familial affinities of known royal mistresses, as well as the nature and political implications of their relationship with the king. In order to ascertain the character and potential

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xiv  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England political engagement and utility of royal bastards throughout the twelfth century, the current work uses in part a broadened version of Thompson’s methodological approach, expanding it to include the illegitimate children of Henry  II and their participation in wider aristocratic networks. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England by Chris Given-Wilson and Alice Curteis provides a meticulously and dedicated overview of the careers of illegitimate royal family members during this period, although its focus and scope mean that the lives and actions of these royal bastards are not fully contextualized and feature only a limited analysis of the topic.9 More recently, Robert Bartlett’s expansive study on the forms and functions of royal and aristocratic dynastic connections, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics In Medieval Europe, dedicates an entire chapter to a survey and skilful analysis of the role and status of illegitimate royal family members within a dynastic context.10 While primarily concerned with a macro view of Europe and the trappings and mechanisms which distinguished monarchy as an institution, Bartlett’s examination of royal bastards and mistresses is an encouraging acknowledgement of the increasing recognition of the historical impact of illegitimate family members and their place within contemporary aristocratic culture. Sara McDougall’s Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy 800–1230 is another highly influential work on the topic of illegitimate royal family members.11 McDougall focuses on an examination and analysis of the process through which illegitimacy as a social and legal category was formulated and formalized. Throughout the work McDougall cogently and convincingly argues that, rather than a purely ecclesiastical endeavour, perpetrated by reforming elements within the Church to which secular society acquiesced, the changing definitions and increased formalisation of illegitimacy as a legal and social category was driven by the dynastic needs and political inclinations of the aristocracy. To better facilitate this focus and explore the changing conceptions and ramifications of illegitimacy within aristocratic society and networks of power, she examines the topic through a relatively wide geographical and chronological framework with only its fourth chapter explicitly examining this topic in the context of Anglo-Norman illegitimate family members within the first half of the twelfth century. The discussion in Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy 800–1230 of both evolving conceptions of illegitimacy as well as the importance of aristocratic networks and dynastic affinities to this increased definition is of great scholarly value and a significant contribution to the

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Introduction xv topic which further orientates and complements this study’s methodology and focus. This study is, at the time of writing, the only complete full-length scholarly examination of the illegitimate family members of the kings of England throughout the twelfth century. Illuminating the topic, wherever possible, through a significant biographical component and rare glimpses into our subjects’ inner lives, this book is first and foremost a work of political history within a culture in which the political and personal were irrevocably linked. As touched upon above, many illegitimate royal family members came to occupy positions of enormous power and influence within their relatives’ regimes. Others were embedded into regional aristocratic networks operating as curators and mediators of royal favour and patronage, their efforts and associations drawing such networks closer into alignment with the royal centre. The circumstances and mechanism through which this was achieved, the high-profile nature of their political engagement and the heavily caveated, somewhat arbitrary, criteria for inclusion all facilitate a wider understanding and examination of the exercise of royal authority and the centripetal forces that held the aristocracy together. To explore this importance, and hopefully demonstrate the seminal role of illegitimacy within it, this work has adopted a broadly chronological structure with the aim of properly contextualising the activities of the twelfth-century kings of England and their illegitimate children within their native political environments. This format will then let our discussion and analysis of the major historical and thematic elements build naturally upon those of previous chapters as topics are introduced and developed. This approach is predicated upon the incorporation of textual analysis, assembling a wide variety of often familiar sources, re-examining these sources, their content and context from a focused perspective to examine the nature of the relationship between twelfth-century English kings and their illegitimate family members. As a result of this approach, this study makes use of and ultimately rests upon the analysis of several different varieties of primary sources, making extensive use of contemporary financial and administrative records such as the Pipe Rolls of the Exchequer or calling upon the often politically charged and framed charter evidence, in addition to an examination of many of the most prominent and wellconnected chroniclers of the twelfth century. One useful effect of selecting a relatively broad chronological framework is the opportunity to make a possible assessment of the effect of increased

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xvi  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England social and legal relegation of bastards upon the careers and political affinities of illegitimate royal family members throughout this period. Another advantage of this format is that it allows an examination of the topic across the reigns of multiple kings, each of whom inhabited very different political and dynastic contexts. While we have briefly touched upon several of Henry I and Henry II’s most notable illegitimate children, King Stephen appears to have had very few illegitimate children of his own, forming something of a potential interregnum in our examination. Gervase, the only illegitimate child of Stephen for whom there exists substantive evidence, was appointed abbot of Westminster by his father.12 While this was a prestigious position which significantly increased the abbey’s alignment with the king, granting him more influence over the use and distribution of the abbey’s considerable resources, when compared to other twelfthcentury kings of England, this appointment represents only a limited engagement and political utilisation of an illegitimate royal family member when compared to both his predecessor and successors. Nevertheless, his reign is still of considerable interest as a time of dynastic conflict and rivalry in which illegitimate family members and their conceptions of a shared and mutually beneficial dynastic enterprise played a significant role. This structure and the analysis of individual royal bastards and their variable place within both royal family identity and aristocratic society will take us through the personal circumstances and itinerant lifestyle of Henry  I, the extent to which he cultivated a sense of solidarity amongst his illegitimate children and the numerous ways in which they supported his hegemonic ambitions. It will then follow the careers of Henry  I’s illegitimate children as they transitioned into the instability and civil war that marked Stephen’s reign and the great rewards for service afforded to capable and loyal royal bastards during times of crisis and conflict. Henry  II’s reign affords us the opportunity to examine a period of reconciliation and consolidation that was eventually consumed by political wrangling and internecine conflict from the perspective of the illegitimate royal family members who lent Henry their unstinting support. Finally, we will examine the contrast between Richard and John’s fraught relationships with their elder half-brother Archbishop Geoffrey and their close co-operation with the far younger William Longespée. But first we must concern ourselves with matters of category, definition and the seminal impact that the evolving conceptions and conations of bastardy had upon the form of twelfth-century aristocratic society.

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Chapter 1

Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family

T

he codification of illegitimacy and its formalization as a legal status was like the first crack in the ice, a deceptively momentous event. It was at once symptomatic and catalyzing the highly visible manifestation of a long-running process, the ramifications of which reverberated through the structure of twelfth-century aristocratic society. The establishment and acceptance of legitimacy as a binary was of crucial importance to reshaping the structure of aristocratic families during this period. It underpinned, and was accompanied by, the proliferation of other transformative binaries such as the growing distinctions between licit and illicit marriages and between full family members and those whose access to familial identity was moderated and caveated. As we will explore in greater detail in the next chapter, membership within a familial group was of paramount importance in the establishment of an aristocrat’s identity and position within wider regional and political affinities. These family groupings were expansive and intricately interconnected through the proliferation of marriage ties. While these connections between familial groups tended to endure, particularly in those cases where such unions produced children, marriages themselves were often highly mutable and temporary. This began to change in the mid-eleventh century as reforming movements within the Church came into the ascendancy and began to exert a greater influence over secular society. However, this process was inconsistent and its adoption initially variable, meaning that the social and legal ramifications of illegitimacy and the consequences of a more prescriptive definition of marriage and family continued to play out well into the twelfth century. Extended families were drawn together and incentivized to a degree of mutual support in part because they all had some claim to the same portfolio of inheritable interests. These were lands, goods and even hereditary rights held by members of the family that, upon the death of its current owner, would remain within the family and be shared amongst its members to one extent or another. Indeed, in addition to their cardinal

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2  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England importance in signalling and fostering political ententes, aristocratic marriages, regardless of contemporary perceptions of their permanence, provided participants with potential access to additional inheritable interests. Clearly illegitimate children, those born to unwed parents, were not a new development and had existed in one form or another since the emergence of marriage as a social compact. However, the impermanence of marriage, its lack of legal or theological definition and the habit of members of the aristocracy to set aside their spouses and enter into new unions in response to changing political circumstances created a spectrum of grey areas. As such, bastards inheriting property or even emerging as their relatives’ primary heirs was a relatively common occurrence in the various kingdoms and polities of Christian Europe prior to the latter half of the eleventh century. What was new to this period was the creation of illegitimacy as a readily identifiable social category formed as a result of the Church’s strict definition of marriage and its precepts. The resultant unambiguous and unavoidable delineation of legitimate and illegitimate divided families between those who possessed a stake within its inheritable interests and those who did not. Essentially re-organizing families around the division between its ‘real’ or ‘full’ members and those whose place within the family would always be marked with an asterisk. The inexorable result of the imposition of this binary and the related programme of Churchled reforms, regarding the form and preconditions of marriage, was that aristocratic families, while remaining closely interconnected, began to fracture and narrow throughout the late-eleventh and twelfth centuries. As the pool of candidates eligible for inheritance narrowed and its distribution became more structured and standardized, aristocrats placed greater emphasis on the immediate stem of their family, those close family members who shared clear and readily identifiable stakes within one another’s inheritable interests. This was a gradual process. Outside of the blanket removal of bastards’ inheritance rights, it was even a subtle one. The aristocracy of twelfth-century Europe remained acutely aware of who their cousins and extended family member were and exactly what they stood to inherit from them. The management of expectations created by the increased standardization of inheritance practices and the increasingly systematic applied lines through which it was transmitted meant that the distribution of familial inheritance was overall less subject to negotiation or challenge by members of the extended family. This gradual reshaping of

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  3 family structure and the establishment of Illegitimacy as a social category whose members subsisted on the periphery of family identity circulated widely throughout aristocratic society, influencing and drawing in kings and princes just as it did their vassals. In the eleventh and early twelfth centuries the distinction between a monarch’s personal and institutional authority was a subtle and nuanced one. The authority of such monarchs was deeply hegemonic in nature, stretching only as far as they were able to enforce it, either through direct intervention or the presence of regional proxies committed to them through dynastic or political ties. While the institution of kingship based on the principal that kings held a special and inalienable status which differentiated them from the unanointed proved to be extraordinarily resilient and robust, prior to the twelfth century this authority lay latent, acknowledged but largely untapped. This is particularly clear in the case of the Capetian kings of France where kingship continued to inspire a degree of deference and regard despite the severely truncated scope of the kings’ practical authority. The circumstances of the Norman Conquest of England meant that the newly established Norman kings of England were able to construct an abnormally powerful monarchy by the standards of the time. While still ultimately dependent upon the support of the nobility, who they ruled over as first amongst equals, the Anglo-Norman kings held several advantages in soliciting aristocratic support. As a result of the Conquest, the royal demesne within England, territory administered and managed directly by the king and his deputies, was expansive. Vastly outstripping the domains of any specific vassal or aristocratic affinity, it granted the king large reserves of money and manpower. The manner in which the spoils of the Conquest were distributed also further reinforced the king’s power and authority. The lands awarded to William’s supporters tended to be distributed in relatively small parcels drawn from numerous different shires, making it difficult for aristocrats to construct a powerbase capable of meaningfully resisting executive power within England. Similarly, William and his immediate successors were able to assert that anyone holding territory in England did so on their behalf as vassals. The ever-looming threat of confiscation made the nobility’s hold on its English domains tenuous and heavily incentivized them to continue to co-operate with royal authority. Lastly, the hoarding and hybridization of the administrative and legal mechanisms of the royal government of

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4  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Saxon England with the rights and privileges of a Norman Lord granted Anglo-Norman kings a formidable suite of powers with which to control the aristocracy and reward their followers. Yet the Anglo-Norman kings of England and their Angevin successors were, for all their power and authority, participants in a larger trend. Indeed, the shape and structure of the Anglo-Norman royal family were significantly altered in accordance with this larger demographic and social trend. Surely one of the most dramatically illustrative demonstrations of the extent to which the principles of the Church reform movement proliferated through aristocratic society and the extent to which this resulted in the marginalization of illegitimate individuals can be found in a comparison between William the Conqueror and the social mores and inheritance customs which removed his illegitimate grandson, Robert of Gloucester, from meaningful contention for the throne. It was readily acknowledged, most candidly by later sources influenced by this growing cultural norm, that William the Conqueror was illegitimate. However, despite being born outside a licit and Church-sanctioned union he was acknowledged as his father’s heir and considered eligible for inheritance by his feudal overlord, the king of France. More importantly for his long-term survival, he was also considered a viable candidate by the network of Norman aristocratic affinities through which ducal authority and consensus had to be consolidated and transmitted. This general acceptance went past the acknowledgement of an all but politically inert child duke in 1035 to acceptance as an anointed king in 1066. Indeed the Duke’s campaign of conquest in England was explicitly endorsed by Pope Alexander II and there exists no contemporary indication of clerical or secular unease with William claiming the throne of England and the mantle of sacral kingship, despite the theological nature and connotations of the anointment.1 In fact, perhaps the Church’s most stringent censure and opposition towards William was in regards to his consanguineous marriage to Matilda of Flanders rather than the circumstances of his birth.2 The king’s most intimate biographers, William of Jumièges and William of Poitiers, eschew the subject of his legitimacy entirely while Orderic Vitalis engages far more with the question, commenting on its supposed role in William’s early career.3 Writing in the twelfth century, Orderic Vitalis formulated his chronicle in the reigns of Henry  I and Stephen, a time in which prejudice against bastardy and the Church’s control over marriage were gaining increasing traction. The extent then to

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  5 which Orderic, who may himself have been considered illegitimate as the son of a Norman priest, characterized aristocratic resistance to William’s primacy and the exercise of his ducal prerogatives as a direct result of his illegitimacy rather than a result of the political and dynastic concerns of autonomy seeking factions within the Norman nobility, could well be an exaggeration.4 It is interesting to note when considering Anglo-Norman conceptions of illegitimacy and familial structure that, in describing such opposition, Orderic couches aristocratic discontent specifically in terms of the low social standing of William’s mother, Herleva, rather than focusing only on the informal, illicit nature of her relationship with Duke Robert.5 As we shall explore in much greater detail in due course, the establishment of illegitimacy as a formalized social category was accompanied and mirrored by an increasing emphasis on the importance of an individual’s maternal heritage and connections. The immediate history of the Norman ducal family prior to William’s somewhat premature assumption of the office also demonstrates the flexibility of inheritance practices prior to the proliferation of the Church reform movement’s definition of marriage through secular society. Without strict preconceptions and conventions regarding the distribution of a family’s inheritable interest, their flow was more vulnerable to being altered through the application of political and military pressure. William’s father, known by the modest sobriquet, Robert the Magnificent, rebelled against the authority of his elder brother, Duke Richard III, shortly after their father’s death. This rebellion was brought to heel and the chastened Robert was compelled to acknowledge Richard’s primacy before he was allowed to resume his position with the ducal family. This was in a way typical of many of the intra-dynastic rivalries and conflicts of the period. While demographic pressures, personal disputes and naked avarice occasionally brought family members into conflict with one another over the distribution of inheritable interests and titles, the social conventions of the early-eleventh century continental aristocracy were such that most of these conflicts ended in reconciliation and re-negotiation. However, when Richard died in 1027, Robert took over as duke displacing Richard’s infant son Nicholas who was placed in a monastery. It is unclear whether Nicholas was legitimate or not. While it appears that he was not a product of Richard’s brief marriage to Princess Adela of France, it is possible but perhaps unlikely that the duke had previously been married in one form or another to Nicholas’ unknown mother. Certainly,

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6  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England their relative age and Robert’s ability to canvas the support of the Norman nobility was a more telling factor in Robert’s usurpation of the duchy than Nicholas’ potential illegitimacy. After all, Robert was able to successfully have his own illegitimate son, William, acknowledged as his primary heir. Interestingly, Nicholas does not simply disappear from the historical records once his claim to the duchy was definitively undermined and discarded. Either Robert or William himself had Nicholas appointed as the abbot of Saint-Ouen Abbey in Rouen which led to considerable cooperation between the cousins, despite their status as rival claimants. The stipulations and requirements of marriage and the demarcation between legitimate and illegitimate persons had long been a topic of debate and discussion within the Church but it was only in the latter half of the eleventh century, after the Conqueror had been safely enthroned, that the precepts of a co-ordinated and consistent reform effort began to influence secular society on a systematic level.

Church Reform and the Re-invention of Marriage The definition and prohibition of illicit unions formed an important thread in the process of the intellectual renewal and doctrinal reform of the Church from the mid-eleventh century onwards. The remarkable success of these impulses to define and prohibit was in part the result of demographic and social change but it was built upon a co-ordinated and supra-regional Church reform movement, supported by the emergence of the papacy as an active and expanding institution. The piecemeal progress of the codification and reconciliation of potentially disparate canon law was rooted to a considerable extent in the re-interpretation of the apostolic traditions and writings of the Church Fathers, whose views on the correct definition of marriage, and indeed the practice’s ultimate compatibility with a Christian life, encompassed a wide spectrum, engendering a great deal of debate between their successors. All the Church Fathers displayed a keen wariness of the inherent spiritual danger and ritual pollution of sexual desire and actively lauded asceticism. Gregory of Nyssa went so far as to maintain that sexual activity or engagement of any kind was contradictory to salvation and anathema to a Christian lifestyle; it was to be renounced or at least avoided and resisted whenever possible.6 The most widely influential and formative of these Church Fathers in the process of the western Church’s definition of

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  7 marriage was Augustine of Hippo.7 Augustine’s teachings on the subject of marriage, which were to an extent shaped by the early Church’s perceived need to mount a theological defence against potentially heretical sects such as the Manichaeans, the Abelonians and the Priscillians, was that the institution of marriage was indeed compatible with salvation and held the potential to foster virtuous behaviour, foremost amongst them being procreation.8 Although Augustine and, more stringently, his contemporary Jerome both maintained that married people could obtain salvation, that salvation was contingent on the self-imposition of stringent restrictions on themselves during their marriage,9 ultimately, the institution was viewed as a concession to those unable to overcome temptation and entirely forsake worldly comforts.10 While this line of reasoning was to form the foundation of the Church’s position on marriage as it grew and developed, it is important to note that, while undoubtedly proscriptive, these exploratory and formative debates were largely concerned with the spiritual ramifications of marriage, not its legal boundaries. The latter, it was agreed, fell firmly under the auspices of secular law. This acceptance of marriage as a valid component within a Christian lifestyle shifted the focus of the continuing internal formulation and conceptualization of marriage towards the necessary prerequisites that bestowed validity while also imbuing it with a certain mutability. Parallel to and abetting this process was the role ecclesiastical figures occupied in the reviewing and arbitrating on the validity of specific marriages. This process was not however systematic, it occurred either at the request of the individuals in question or if there existed some perception of irregularity in the union; much like the scrutiny that would later be visited upon Philip I of France and his marriage to Bertrade de Montfort.11 At this point, however, there had been no compilation and reconciliation of such judgements or attempt to collect precedents into a unified and readily accessible body of canon law.12 Judgements on matrimonial disputes were often delivered on an ad hoc basis, commonly informed by regional and incidental factors, and with only limited thought given – or recourse available – to the standardization of the Church’s position on such matters.13 The Church reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, grounded in or heavily influenced by the monastic tradition and coalescing around the papal court, consciously emphasized a renewal of canon law and its repositioning to the centre of the governance of Christian life

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8  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England and society.14 The reformers sought to establish a functioning and ideally standardized system of Church courts and expand the jurisdiction and authority of such courts to include the settlement of disputes pertaining to Church institutions and spiritual matters. This pronounced focus on legal procedure crystallized an already growing consensus within the Church as to the parameters and prerequisites of marriage. Furthermore, it successfully synergized with the reform movement’s drive to increase the quality and availability of pastoral care throughout Christendom15. Far from marking the end of either ecclesiastical or secular debate upon the legal and spiritual limitations of marriage, these reforms, building upon the Church’s growing involvement in and jurisdiction over marriage, led to its adoption and recognition as a sacrament. Demographic changes throughout Western Europe at this time probably abetted the permeation and widespread acceptance of the Church’s increasingly standardized conceptions of marriage throughout lay society.16 Slowly, this acceptance extended to the aristocracy which had previously frequently engaged in informal and dissolvable but often politically active and engaged unions that the Church now defined as a state of concubinage.17 A natural effect of a widely applied definition of the prerequisites and characteristics of a valid union was the codification of illegitimacy.18 Now defined as anyone born from an illicit or otherwise invalid union, illegitimacy moved from an extant but ill-defined and plastic social distinction to a legal status. However, the legal and spiritual implications for such individuals continued to be debated within the Church and any responsive actions were inconsistently applied. The intended aim of the reform movement was not the relegation of illegitimate children to the periphery of society.19 Bishop Ivo of Chartres, a collector and compiler of canon law, who was influenced by both Augustine and a fellow authority on canon law, Burchard of Worms, both maintained that a father’s sin could not be transmitted to his children.20 Ivo supported the right of bastards and the offspring of priests to enter holy orders, emphasizing the ‘at risk’ status of many illegitimate individuals and the Church’s responsibility towards them.21 Nevertheless, as a by-product of the Church reform movement’s attempts to raise the standard of pastoral care and the strongly ascetic influence of the monastic ideal upon contemporary reformers, the eleventh century saw increased calls from prominent figures and factions within the Church to adopt practices which distanced and excluded

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  9 illegitimate individuals. Gregory VII in 1074 forbade the ordination of not only the children of priests but anyone tainted by illegitimacy.22 The Synod of Melfi, called by Urban II, is associated with the edict that barred the sons of priests from approaching the altar and administering sacraments, with the notable exception of monks and canons regular.23 These restrictions suggest that while bastards were considered tainted by their parentage, this flaw was not beyond remission and could be atoned for to a certain extent. However, the spiritual status of bastards was a controversial and divisive issue within the reform movement. Six years after Melfi, a synod held at Clermont ruled that the sons of concubines were not only to be forbidden from carrying out the sacraments but were barred from entry into Holy Orders of any kind.24 This persecution and alienation from holding offices within the Church was possibly meant to be viewed as part of a programme of normalization and repetition of the reform movement’s position, which was designed to bring about the end of clerical marriage and hereditary positions. The reform movement transmitted conceptions on the parameters of marriage as well as standards of clerical purity and pastoral care which faced significant resistance from the Church, particularly amongst the cathedral canons. This opposition and the sophisticated theologically-rooted defence mobilized on behalf of the practice of clerical marriage may have convinced reformers of the need to pursue a broad and punitive strategy which legally and spiritually compromised not only married clerics but their children. The effect on this programme of Church reform on illegitimate members of the Anglo-Norman royal family, outside of further delineating the already extant distinction between legitimate and illegitimate, was clearly limited. Like many aristocratic family networks, the counts and dukes of Normandy often sought to establish their illegitimate or otherwise surplus male relatives within the Church to gain access to the resources and patronage that those positions could provide. Robert of Gloucester’s own illegitimate son, Richard, was appointed to the bishopric of Bayeux in 1135, a post previously held by William the Conqueror’s maternal halfbrother Odo .25 Henry II, later attempted, albeit with more controversy, to install his eldest illegitimate child, Geoffrey, as the bishop of Lincoln.26 It is unclear, however, how much of the resistance to Geoffrey’s appointment from the cathedral’s canons was based purely on the grounds of his illegitimacy or was motivated by his attempts to occupy the office and exercise its authority while refusing to be ordained. He was, however,

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10  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England later successfully appointed as archbishop of York by his half-brother, the newly-crowned Richard, after a period of intense negotiation.27 This appointment was subsequently called into question on the grounds of Geoffrey’s illegitimacy but only following a period of conflict with the king and Geoffrey’s intransigent refusal to accept the primacy of Canterbury. Consanguinity, which is to say marriage between relatives, was one of the primary grounds upon which the Church asserted a marriage could be ruled as illicit and was a continuous thread in the Church’s examination of the institution of marriage. The conceptual framework for the unlawful nature of consanguineous marriages was present throughout the Church and while the prohibition was enforced throughout Europe prior to the eleventh century, it was done largely on an ad hoc basis, as cases presented themselves. As a result, the Church’s position on the degree to which consanguinity compromised the legality of marriage or the circumstances in which a dispensation could be offered, lacked standardization and verdicts proffered by regional ecclesiastical courts were often informed by social and political biases.28 However, the prohibition on consanguinity was one of the less controversial and internally contested aspects of the Church’s conceptions of marriage and its spiritual and legal ramifications. Indeed, during the ninth century the consensus within the Church, perhaps emboldened by the increasing enmeshment within the apparatus of Carolingian governance on a regional level, significantly expanded the number of prohibited degrees of relations. Despite what the term suggests, consanguinity was envisaged by the reform movement as grounds for prohibiting not only the marriage of direct blood relatives but also those individuals connected through ties of affinity. These networks of affinity were often expansive and invasive; those networks connected through marriage, for example, the relatives of in-laws or the family of former spouses, and those individuals connected through strong spiritual ties, such as those between godparents and children, extended out beyond immediate family members.29 While certainly obstructive to the growth and proliferation of aristocratic family affinities during this time – they would often have to endure the expense of applying for a dispensation or leave open to question the validity of their marriage and the rights of any children born to it – the Church’s recognition of the broad spectrums of familial ties and affinity underlines how pervasive such affinities were and their crucial role in the maintenance and operation of twelfth-century aristocratic networks of power. The

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  11 exploitation and interaction with these extended networks of affinity, principally through the medium of marriage and as part of a coherent and expansive dynastic strategy, was just as crucial for the success of a twelfthcentury Anglo-Norman or Angevin monarch as it was for the echelons of the lesser aristocracy comprised of their counterparts and subjects. The Church’s gradual colonization of marriage gave both legitimacy and illegitimacy form and definition, imposing upon those individuals, in the case of royal and aristocratic bastards, a degree of separation from the familial affinities and networks of power they lived in. The central manifestation of this otherness was the removal of illegitimate members of the family from inheritance, that pool of wealth and resources which formed a focal point of vested interests around which family groups cooperated to expand, maintain, and control their network. Papal and clerical enforcement of the exclusion of illegitimate children was to an extent tidal, particularly in the late-twelfth century when such alienation was either already an established cultural principle or simply removed from the earlier swell of reforming fervour. The precepts against bastards were mitigated and moderated at times by political factors and the variable influence of various secular authorities. If the efforts of the reform movement had redefined the precepts of marriage and more strongly delineated between legitimate and illegitimate, it was the permeation of these ideas through the secular and aristocratic elite which enshrined them within both lay culture and legal practice.30 The secret behind the success of the Church’s reform and re-definition of marriage was that significant elements of the aristocracy were cogent, even enthusiastic, about the advantages of clarifying and formalizing the transmission of inheritance. Eleventh- and twelfth-century aristocratic family affinities, composed as they were of an overlapping mesh of landed interests and marriage ties, greatly benefitted from the adoption of regulated and legally recognized lines of inheritance formed in reaction to Church reforms. Familial identity and affinity were crucial factors in the establishment of an aristocrat’s social and political contexts, defining to a significant extent their place and interactions within the networks of power in which they existed. These factors derived from the family’s role as a receptacle of wealth. While personal disputes were far from uncommon, this sense of identity and participation in a shared dynastic enterprise was incentivized by a stake within the collective fortunes and inheritance portfolio of that family.31

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12  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Marriage was not only the principal mechanism through which these family networks could maintain themselves but also the means through which they could cultivate and grow other connections through a process of consolidation and synthesis. The many material and political advantages of marriage, combined with high rates of death in childbirth and a tendency for men to marry younger women, meant that remarriage was relatively common for aristocratic men and women. Perhaps ironically the prevalence and very inclusivity of blended aristocratic families sharpened the necessity to create straightforward and pre-arranged lines of inheritance. By increasingly demarcating which members of the family could expect a share of which inheritance, these complex and interconnected family groups minimized internal conflict while also being able to plan and co-ordinate dynastic strategies. While this dynastic clarity had undeniable advantages which greatly contributed to the acceptance of the Church’s conception of marriage as a strictly defined indissoluble union, it also marginalized and relegated certain family members, introducing caveats and conditions to their inclusion in family identity. The most obvious and dramatic were, of course, illegitimate individuals who increasingly found themselves facing relegation from inheritable prospects they may well have been able to secure in previous decades. As the twelfth century continued, this alienation became more pronounced and increasingly enshrined in legal practice and social stigma. In addition to the seminal impact it had upon the lives of illegitimate members of the aristocracy, this gradual process of re-organization and refined control over the distribution of inheritance also came to exert a significant influence upon the prospects and careers of other auxiliary family members, such as younger sons. The inevitable effect of aristocratic families’ increasing preference for keeping control of their inheritable interests by settling them on a small number of closely related members, rather than seeking a more equitable distribution of land, meant that younger sons often found their prospects severely limited. Even William the Conqueror’s youngest son, Henry, found himself falling foul of this trend. While his surviving elder brothers, Robert and William Rufus, inherited Normandy and England respectively, Henry was obliged to adopt an itinerant lifestyle, living in and between the hegemonies carved out for his brothers. Henry alternated service between his feuding siblings, moving between their courts as the vagaries of fortune and their

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  13 often-turbulent personal relations dictated. These circumstances, forced upon Henry by the same eagerly adopted trends which led to the formalization of illegitimacy, had a direct effect on the unconventional shape of Henry’s own family and the manner in which he treated his numerous illegitimate children.

The Illegitimate Children of Henry I Henry  I was a man of notable extramarital fecundity, the exact extent of which has proven difficult to determine with any degree of surety. G.H. White, drawing primarily upon genealogical traditions, names and identifies twenty-three illegitimate offspring of Henry I. However, several of these individuals are included in this reconstruction based solely on their contemporary identification as siblings of prominent known royal bastards rather than an explicit reference to their own royal heritage. Given the blended and expansive nature of Anglo-Norman aristocratic families during this period, it is probable that rather than actual children of Henry I, most of or all the individuals identified in this manner were merely the maternal half-siblings of royal bastards. As we shall see, many of the king’s numerous former paramours would go onto to make reasonably prestigious marriages, often with men engaged in service to the royal administration. This leaves somewhere around fourteen individuals who are positively identified as children of Henry I, although a few of these individuals are known only through scant, scattered or even singular references. While this opens up questions regarding the possible existence of additional illegitimate children whom Henry did not acknowledge or who do not figure in surviving historical records, we can of course only work with the evidence we have. The very real and direct relationship between Henry’s illegitimate children’s appearances within historical sources and the extent to which they were permitted to participate within royal family identity will be explored in detail in the following chapter. While the exact heritage or very existence of certain individuals who have been identified as illegitimate children of Henry is open to debate, that still leaves over a dozen confirmed royal bastards. Even this minimum of conclusively identified and verifiable illegitimate children was unusually, verging on scandalously, high when compared to Henry’s aristocratic contemporaries within the Anglo-Norman hegemony and beyond. While

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14  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England perhaps indicative on some level of a licentious or libertine streak within Henry’s personality, his large number of illegitimate children was in part a reaction to circumstances and the limited nature of his early political and economic prospects. Henry was the youngest child of William the Conqueror and his wife Queen Matilda. He was born in 1068 after his parents’ coronation ceremonies in which they were anointed with holy oil and unguents. The Byzantines or Eastern Romans referred to individuals born to anointed rulers as having been ‘born in the purple’ and afforded them additional prestige and status in comparison even to elder siblings born prior to their parents’ reign. The polities of western and central continental Europe also attributed a sacral significance to the institution of kingship but did not necessarily extend this understanding to the status of children born to anointed rulers. Although close in age to his sister Adela, Henry’s brothers were significantly older than him, with Robert, the Conqueror’s eldest son, being born sometime in the early 1050s. Henry was educated to a high standard and was possibly tutored by Bishop Osmund of Salisbury, the royal chancellor and architect of the Domesday survey, a figure who looms large within the surviving records of the prince’s early life. However, it appears that Henry spent the majority of his childhood sheltered from the strain of the vigorously itinerant royal court and spent little time with his brothers. Even during Henry’s childhood, the fraternal squabbling of the Conqueror’s sons had a murderously high stakes edge to it. Orderic Vitalis traces Robert’s break from his father and alliance with King Philip of France to a particularly egregious jape on the part of his younger brothers. According to the chronicler, in 1077 William Rufus and Henry, on one of the rare occasions they were all attending the royal court and lodged in proximity to one another, had emptied the contents of a chamber pot over their older brother’s head. Robert was understandably irate, not least of all because this dowsing in human effluence had apparently occurred in front of the coterie of highly ambitious young magnates and hangers-on who formed the prince’s expansive retinue. When the king intervened and prevented Robert from punishing his brothers, the incensed prince, perhaps driven by an unwillingness to lose credibility with his followers, launched an abortive attempt to seize Rouen. After the thwarting of this coup, Robert and his followers fled to Flanders and his maternal uncle before allying themselves with the French king

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  15 and participating in a series of grand raids across Normandy’s frontier. Father and son were eventually reconciled in 1080 by the intervention of Queen Matilda, but not before Robert had unhorsed and wounded his father on campaign. In 1087 William the Conqueror died from an injury or ailment incurred on campaign against Robert’s allies in the Vexin, the strategically valuable hinterland between the Duchy of Normandy and the personal domains of the French king. Much to the vexation of his eldest son, William opted to adhere to Norman tradition, partitioning his land and holdings between his surviving three sons. Yet he did so in a somewhat unusual and grossly inequitable way. As the eldest son, Robert became Duke of Normandy, inheriting the domains and titles which William had inherited from his own father. With this patrimony, passing directly down the stem of the family to the eldest son, the throne of England which William had acquired through conquest and claimed through his familial relationship to Edward the Confessor was given to his second son, William Rufus. It is interesting to reflect that, although the English had their own manner of determining the succession in the form of the Witan, a council of senior aristocrats, churchmen and royal officials, from the perspective of the continental aristocracy Duke William would have expected to inherit the lands and titles of his childless cousin. Despite the monumental nature of the task and its status as an enormous paradigm shift, the Norman Conquest and William Rufus’ eventual succession to the throne were simply the securing and management of inheritable interests on the periphery of the Norman ducal family. In contrast to his elder brothers, Henry received a large cash settlement, and it seems some recognition of his claim to his late mother’s extremely modest holdings within England. Clearly both England and Normandy were more than large enough to carve out some significant but ultimately subordinate lordship for a younger son as had been done by previous generations of the Norman ducal family. The Conqueror’s decision to leave each of the component parts of his dual domain whole and intact reflected the growing preference for aristocratic families to regulate and exert tighter control over their holdings by minimizing their division between multiple heirs. Embedding Henry in either England or Normandy could only be achieved by diluting the holdings of one of his brothers and the family’s stem. At the same time, the very presence of an

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16  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England alternate legitimate heir posed a potential threat to the stability of the reigning brothers’ rule. Henry was not the only one dissatisfied with this arrangement. Duke Robert had, as the eldest son, inherited his father’s patrimony, the usually hotly contested core of a family’s holdings and powerbase. However, the remarkable success of the Norman Conquest radically altered the balance of this equation. England was larger than Normandy; it was substantially richer and crucially it came with a royal dignity and title. Rather than accept his father’s will and effectively cede seniority to his younger brother, Robert, and his numerous sympathizers within the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, sought to push emerging inheritance trends even further by advancing the claim that Robert, as the eldest son, was the rightful heir to both halves of the Anglo-Norman realm. The landless Henry initially attached himself to Robert’s court, a decision which was either influenced by or precipitated William Rufus’ confiscation of his English estates. Although initially taking no significant role in the mounting hostility between his brothers, in 1088 Henry recognized an opportunity in Robert’s dire need of funds to help prop up his faltering plans for the invasion of England. In exchange for £3,000, a significant portion of his inheritance, he purchased the rulership of the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy. Henry leveraged Robert’s need for cash into a granting of the title of Count, a significant degree of autonomy from the ducal government and tacit authority over the two bishoprics which lay within the newly-formed lordship. While Robert’s grant to Henry was exceedingly generous on paper, he had no obligation nor did he make any real effort to help Henry exert any measure of meaningful authority over the region. That Henry and his followers were able to establish a powerbase robust enough to resist the duke’s initial attempts to rescind their agreement was a testament to the young Henry’s statesmanship and the ability of his newly-formed inner circle. Returning from England later that year, where he had unsuccessfully petitioned William Rufus for the return of his estates there, Henry was arrested by his paternal uncle, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who accused him of plotting against Robert with William. Odo was one of Robert’s foremost supporters, but he was also a rival of Henry for control and influence within the Cotentin. Henry was eventually released the following year after lobbying by the Norman aristocracy, many of whom had large estates in England and were therefore disinclined to accept the conflation of contact with the English king with treason.

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  17 In 1091 William Rufus launched an invasion of Normandy, forcing the embattled Robert to reach a concordat with him. The Conqueror’s two eldest sons agreed to recognize each other as their sole heirs, conclusively side-lining Henry. Worse still for the young prince, William Rufus agreed to help Robert secure the Duchy by reclaiming Maine and the Cotentin in exchange for the granting of certain strategically valuable Norman estates and castles. Henry was simply unable to match the combined strength of the duke and king, which led to the rapid collapse of his powerbase and eventual surrender. The alliance that had initially brought Henry down had proved to be only temporary and by 1192 Robert and William Rufus were once again vying for sole control of the Anglo-Norman hegemony. Newly re-established in a modest powerbase around Domfront, Henry became increasingly aligned with William Rufus who financed his attempts to undermine Robert’s control of western Normandy. Apparently, content to accept a subordinate position to his brother, at least for the time being, Henry made frequent trips to his brother’s court in England and co-operated extensively with William’s piecemeal attempts to secure Normandy. Henry was eventually able to secure the throne upon William Rufus’ sudden and unexpected death in 1100 as a result of guts and guile, crossing over to England, seizing the royal treasury and having himself crowned while his rivals were still reeling from the news. Male members of Norman aristocratic families tended not to marry until well into middle age because attracting a wife from an aristocratic family whose pedigree, inheritable prospects and political interests had the potential to both enhance and complement their own, required them to already have come into their inheritance. In addition to this expectation, the importance of finding the right familial alliance, now that marriage was increasingly regarded as permanent and difficult to dissolve, further encouraged the eldest sons of the aristocracy to delay marriage. Robert was well into his forties by the time of his marriage to the glamourous and popular Italo-Norman heiress, Sibylla of Conversano, in 1100 while William Rufus never married at all. These demographic and social pressures placed certain members of Anglo-Norman aristocratic families into a form of extended adolescence in which, materially unable to establish their own households, they participated in broader aristocratic networks in search of a way to make their fortune. As a third son with a complex and often confrontational

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18  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England relationship with his two landed brothers, Henry was compelled, through a lack of resources and prospects, to eschew marriage until later life, adopting a transitory lifestyle through the Anglo-Norman aristocratic networks, often in the service of one or the other of his competing siblings. The recontextualization and proliferation of this class of highborn and well-connected but landless young men throughout aristocratic society was accompanied by a degree of sexual and moral latitude in tacit acknowledgement of their isolation from the traditionally accepted familial structure and modes of sexual conduct. The marriages of Henry I’s illegitimate daughters Matilda, Juliana, and Sybil in the early years of his reign clearly indicates that they were born during his extended stay in the political wilderness. Likewise Robert, the future earl of Gloucester, who is specifically identified as the king’s eldest illegitimate child, and Richard of Lincoln were both born prior to the king’s accession and were subsequently educated in or near the royal court.32 This not only fits into the general pattern of Anglo-Norman society in which propriety and codes of behaviour, as it pertained to the propagation of dynastic strategy, were often more flexible when applied to younger sons or those with only limited inheritance prospects, but also prefigured the behaviour of his great grandson, King John, another younger son with little chance of succession who also had a number of illegitimate children who had reached early adulthood by the time of his succession.33 However, it is equally clear that Henry  I continued his extramarital relations and continued to father illegitimate children long after his coronation and subsequent marriage to the Anglo-Scottish royal descendent, Matilda of Scotland. Robert of Torigni describes three of Henry’s illegitimate children, Reginald de Dunstanville, Robert the future lord of Oakhampton, and Gilbert, as being youths in the 1130s and too young to hold territory of their own, indicating that they were born in the 1110s or 1120s, during their father’s reign.34 Likewise, one of Henry’s illegitimate daughters, Constance, the wife of Roscelin de Beaumont, lived into the 1170s, suggesting that she was born relatively late in her father’s life.35 Even when taking into account mitigating personal circumstances and societal factors, it seems that many contemporary and modern observers of Henry’s behaviour would struggle to refute the claim made by Orderic Vitalis, who on occasion throughout his Ecclesiastical Histories expounded

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  19 upon the transitory and insubstantial nature of temporal glory and power, when he declared that throughout Henry’s life the king had remained a slave to his lusts and passions.36 In fact one chronicler, William of Malmesbury, attempted to do just that. William makes the extraordinary claim that that Henry  I was in no way susceptible to lust but rather motivated throughout his extramarital liaisons by the prudent and laudable desire to generate children.37 Amusingly, later in his chronicle, William praises the chastity and marital fidelity of the Scottish royal house in the twelfth century, holding it to be contrary to the deplorable social and aristocrat norms of the time, although William declines to draw a direct comparison to the English king.38 William’s defence of Henry, or at least his attempted mitigation of his sins, is formulated in a manner representative of the Church’s conceptions of marriage. Specifically, he draws upon, or rather cherry picks, the doctrines of the Church Fathers that were brought to the fore of ecclesiastical thought and debate by the efforts of the reform movement. Namely the widely-held opinion of early Christian scholars and religious leaders that propagation, the creation of children, should be regarded as the primary purpose and the principal good of marriage, while sexual intercourse for the purposes of pleasure remained reprehensible and a dangerous spiritual pollutant.39 William’s characterization of Henry I’s illegitimate children as potential heirs is unusual since, at the time of his chronicle’s composition and revision in 1127, the societal prejudice and legal alienation of bastards was beginning to saturate lay society. Of course, William was writing under the patronage of Henry’s eldest illegitimate child, Robert of Gloucester. Not only would Robert be unlikely to have appreciated any recriminations regarding his birth, but he may well have retained some slim hopes for the succession. Further, and more pertinently, William of Malmesbury’s dedication to his patron in the revised edition of the Gesta Regum Anglorum seeks to depict Robert as a worthy participant in the familial identity of the Norman ducal house and the inheritor of their legacy in a spiritual and figurative rather than legal sense by identifying and imbuing him with the qualities of his ancestors.40 The chronicler’s testimony represents a definitive contemporary acknowledgement of the great political utility of illegitimate children and significant role which they could play in the furtherance of royal dynastic and political strategies which would surely have greatly pleased his illegitimate patron.

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20  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England In characterizing Henry’s atypically large number of illegitimate children as a result of the king’s political nous and foresight, William is attempting to mitigate his transgressions through misrepresenting and exaggerating his motivation. The king’s true motivation, behind his extramarital activities, can be further elucidated upon through a survey of Henry’s known mistresses and the maternal background of his many illegitimate children. These young women were drawn from a variety of social strata, although many of them seem to have originated within the lower aristocracy or so called ‘new men’ whose families’ prosperity were to one extent or another derived from royal service and office holding. These relationships drew families of his various paramours further into an alignment with royal interests, particularly in those cases where the relationship resulted in the birth of a royal bastard and the establishment of a familial link. Such familial ties to the Anglo-Norman royal family and the opportunity they presented for material and political advancement benefitted not only the families of royal mistresses but often also carried on to their husbands and new family affinities, binding the three groups into a loose alignment of shared interests. Indeed, several such marriages by mothers of royal illegitimate children were brokered and arranged by Henry who, on at least one occasion, provided a dowry on behalf of his former mistress. The role of royal mistresses in the careers of their children as well as the extent to which they participated in and mediated access to their own familial affinities is unfortunately difficult to determine because of their elusiveness within the primary sources. The identities of some of the mothers of even prominent royal bastards remains unknown or disputed, and it remains unclear if these women were, for whatever reason, unable or not permitted to engage in this model of post-liaison and mutually beneficial political activity and dynastic strategy. Despite his relative contemporary prominence, the identity of the mother of Henry’s eldest illegitimate son, Robert of Gloucester, has been the subject of some historiographical debate. David Crouch has strongly and cogently argued that Robert’s mother was a member of the Gai family from Oxford.41 John of Worcester, in describing the royalist encirclement of Bristol in 1138, during the fevered height of the unrest that defined so much of King Stephen’s reign, states that one of the most prominent of the Angevin defenders was Philip Gai, a cousin of the earl.42 In the spring of 1137 Robert had gone to Normandy to prosecute the Angevin cause there, alongside his half-sister’s husband, Count Geoffrey of Anjou; it seems then

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  21 that Philip Gai was part of the earl’s military household and along with Robert’s eldest son, William, charged with the defence of Bristol castle in his absence. Identified by John of Worcester as a close relative of the earl, it seems plausible that it was this strong affinity and shared identity which led Philip to be trusted by the earl, alongside other councilors, with the protection of his heir and primary stronghold. Crouch’s contention on the origins and the identity of Robert’s mother as the unknown sister of Philip’s father and uncles Stephen and Robert Gai, is further supported by Earl Robert naming one of his sons Philip, a name unknown in the ducal naming stock or in that of his wife Mabel but featured prominently within the Gai family, suggesting the possibility of a familial link. Further, in building and maintaining his consensus of support within contemporary aristocratic networks of power, Robert was forced to mediate a dispute between the rival but Angevin-aligned magnates, namely Earl Patrick of Salisbury and John Marshal. In reconciling the two factions and minimizing any disruption to the Angevin war effort and political solidarity, John Marshal divorced his wife to marry a sister of Earl Patrick, while his former wife Adelina was remarried to, the then presumably single, Stephen Gai.43 If Stephen was indeed Robert’s uncle, the marriage of Adelina Marshal to so close a relative of the earl could have been intended to further defuse the internal tensions within the Angevin camp and prevent her own familial connections from taking offence. However, the word used in John of Worcester’s account ‘cognatus’ does not necessarily refer to first cousins and there are several familial relationships which could have linked the two men and preserved this distinction, such as if Philip’s father, Stephen, had been married to a sister of Robert’s mother. Further, Robert seems to have spent a considerable time in Normandy during his own youth, fathering an illegitimate child of his own, the Norman-born Richard, who in 1134 was old enough to assume the bishopric of Bayeux; he would have had to be born in 1104 at the latest.44 Robert’s name also suggests a Norman background for him and suggests that Henry named his first son after his elder brother rather than after himself or his father, during a brief period of peace and co-operation between the two in the mid to late 1080s. William of Malmesbury himself, while expounding upon Robert’s inherited virtues and family background, refers to Robert’s Norman, Flemish and French ancestry while making no reference to any Anglo-Saxon or regionally-English heritage, leaving uncertain the case for an Oxfordshire identity for Robert’s mother.45

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22  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England In contrast, the identity of Richard of Lincoln’s mother is more conclusively documented. Richard, who was probably born sometime in the mid- to late-1190s, was another of Henry’s eldest illegitimate sons and highly favoured by his father who had arranged for him to be fostered and educated in the household of royal advisor and court intimate, Bishop Robert Bloet of Lincoln.46 This favouritism extended to the king arranging  Richard’s marriage to the wealthy Anglo-Norman heiress, Amice de Gael. Henry’s relationship with Richard and the king’s tendency to favour his eldest illegitimate children while treating their younger half-siblings with relative indifference is explored in close detail in the following chapter. The Cartulary of Abingdon identifies the mother of Richard, son of the king, as Ansfride.47 Ansfride’s background and familial ties are difficult to determine. Before falling foul of King William Rufus, her husband, William Anskil, had been a noble of middling status and influence, holding land in Oxfordshire and Berkshire and it is likely that Ansfride was member of the same regional aristocracy.48 Following her husband’s clash with the king, the still largely landless Henry intervened on Ansfride’s behalf, taking her into his own transitory household and securing the return of her dowry lands which had been seized alongside her husband’s other holdings. He also helped arrange an advantageous marriage for her legitimate son. While Richard is the only royal bastard specifically identified as Ansfride’s child within the Cartulary of Abingdon, historians and genealogists have speculated that she may have been the mother of two more of Henry’s illegitimate children, Juliana and Fulk. Henry arranged for Juliana, whose mother was identified by Orderic Vitalis only as a concubine, to marry Eustace de Pacy in 1103, suggesting that she must have been born in the early 1080s. The case for Juliana’s relationship to Ansfride, outside of a broad chronological plausibility, rests on the role Ansfride’s son Richard of Lincoln played in soliciting a pardon for Juliana and reconciling her with their father following Eustace’s conflict with Henry and Juliana’s impetuous attempt to kill him in 1119.49 Yet, as we shall see in the following chapter, those illegitimate children of Henry I who were embedded in the royal court and permitted a degree of access to royal family identity often socialized and co-operated closely with one another to the extent that Richard’s advocacy for Juliana does not necessarily imply they were full siblings. Fulk also appears within the Abingdon Cartulary, witnessing a 1156 charter pertaining to the distribution of lands once donated to the

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  23 abbey by Ansfride and her husband.50 White’s speculation in the Complete Peerage that Fulk’s presence at Abingdon suggests he may have been a monk is, despite the lack of any real evidence, an intriguing possibility, given both the contemporary aristocratic practice regarding provisions for the souls of family members and his obscurity.51However, Fulk is identified within the charter’s witness lists only as the son of King Henry with no mention being made of any relationship to Ansfride, leaving both the matter of Fulk’s potential monastic career and maternity ambiguous. Nest, the mother of Henry Fitzroy, was a Welsh princess and daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr whose death in battle in 1093 coincided with and in part facilitated the Norman push for dominance within southern Wales.52 After the death of her father, Nest appears to have spent some time in the Anglo-Norman court, although it is unclear if her liaison with Henry began during this period, in which he frequently attended his brother’s court, or sometime following his own coronation. Nest was married to Gerald de Windsor, the castellan of Pembroke castle and a younger son of Walter FitzOther, the castellan of Windsor castle and one of William the Conqueror’s primary functionaries who held lands throughout the south of England. This meant that, despite being from a well-connected and powerful affinity, as a younger son, Gerald had only limited prospects of inheriting the nucleus of the family’s landed wealth and power. Instead, he attempted to construct a powerbase through office holding and his enmeshment into wider aristocratic affinities, as seen in his service to and support of Arnulf de Montgomery, a younger son of the powerful Roger Montgomery.53 Nest’s marriage to Gerald seems likely to have occurred during the reign of William Rufus, who may have intended that the presence of a Welsh princess in one of the principal Norman powerbases within Wales would ease the transition to and expansion of Norman lordship; Henry  I temporarily stripped Gerald of his office shortly after coming to the throne due to his connections with the rebellious Montgomery family. While Nest’s son Henry was acknowledged by the king as his child and described within the charters of his own tightly woven Marcher affinities as the son of the king, there exists some contemporary speculation that Henry was in fact the son of Nest’s husband Gerald de Windsor and was presented by the family as a product of Nest’s liaison with Henry I as a ploy to gain further favour.54 Born sometime after his father’s coronation in the early 1100s, Henry was appointed by his father to the

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24  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England stewardships of Pebidiog and Narberth which had been granted by the king to Bishop Bernard of St David.55 The identity of Henry Fitzroy’s wife is unknown; that Henry’s son Melier, the future justiciar of Ireland, had evidently reached his majority by 1158 and succeeded to his father’s landed interests upon his death in battle suggest that the marriage took place sometime before the mid-1130s.56 Raised within the household of his stepfather, Gerald de Windsor, Henry seems to have played only a limited role in Anglo-Norman royal family identity and dynastic strategy. Instead, he appears to have operated principally within the social and familial networks formed by the Marcher lords and Cambro-Normans within which he and his half-brothers formed a formidable bloc of aligned landed and administrative interests.57 It is therefore likely that his wife was drawn from a similar background, chosen for the furtherance of regional political affinities rather than as a function of a wider AngloNorman royal dynastic strategy. Another royal mistress of Henry  I, Edith Forne, was like Nest a member of a regional native aristocracy.58 Edith’s father was the AngloDanish Thegin Forn, the lord of Greystoke in Cumberland, a region notable for the wealth of its silver mines and its status as a culturally diverse hinterland that retained elements derived from Norse-Gael and Celtic culture and which had been under the nominal rule of the Scottish kings since 945. In 1092, having successfully repelled an invasion by King Malcolm III of Scotland, William Rufus capitalized upon his success by re-annexing and fortifying Cumbria which had fallen well beyond the effective control of its Scottish overlords. Thegin was part of the region’s Scandinavian-derived aristocracy who had originally been sheltered from the Norman Conquest by Cumbria’s geographic remoteness and nominal status as part of the Kingdom of Scotland. William’s efforts to establish control of the region involved the transplantation of colonists from other regions of the Anglo-Norman realm but also extended to co-operation with members of existing regional aristocracy. In 1120 Henry arranged for Edith to marry Roger d’Oily, the sheriff of Oxfordshire and the castellan of Oxford castle.59 Henry’s decision to relocate Edith Forne, who appears to have been one of his most enduring extramarital relationships, to Oxford and through marriage place her within the centre of its local aristocratic affinities may represent the result of Henry’s particular fondness for the county; indeed, he spent a great deal of time at the royal residence and parks at

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  25 Woodstock, eclipsed only as a favoured residence by the English royal administrative centres of Westminster and Winchester.60 Edith was the mother of Robert, the king’s son and future lord of Okehampton. The use of names derived from the Norman ducal family for multiple illegitimate children of Henry I perhaps indicates that some of them may have been named by their mothers and maternal family members to underscore their royal connections. It has been suggested that Edith is also the mother of Henry’s daughter, Countess Matilda of Perche, of whom nothing is known beyond her name. Matilda was married to Count Rotrou in 1103, suggesting that she had been born sometime in the mid- to late-1080s. While Robert’s date of birth remains unknown, his relative obscurity during his father’s reign and marriage to Matilda d’Avranches during the reign of his nephew Henry II in the early 1160s suggests that he may have been born relatively late into his father’s reign, in which case it is somewhat unlikely that he and Countess Matilda were full siblings. Sibyl Corbet was a royal mistress who has in the past been cited as the mother of up to five of Henry’s illegitimate offspring. Sibyl was the daughter of Robert Corbet, a modestly wealthy but well-connected aristocrat who held land in Warwickshire. Reginald, the future earl of Cornwall, is the royal bastard most conclusively and definitively linked to Sibyl. However, he is referred to as Reginald de Dunstanville by Orderic Vitalis and possessed an evident familial affinity with members of the Dunstanville family despite his mother’s identification as a Corbet.61 Reginald’s connection to the Corbets, beyond the identification of Sybil as his mother, can be seen in charters issued by Reginald confirming his aunt Alice Corbet’s gift of land in Widemouth, Crackington and Beeny to her son William, which Reginald had originally given to her husband at the time of their marriage62. Furthermore, a lawsuit raised by Boterell’s descendants regarding their claim to the inheritance of the earl’s landed estates, reveals the existence of a Walter Corbet, positively identified as the brother of Sybil and Alice63. Weighted against this, lies Orderic’s reference to Reginald as de Dunstanville and his strong and continuing association with the de Dunstanville family. Throughout his tenure as earl, men bearing the moniker would repeatedly attest to his charters; indeed following Reginald’s death, Hugh de Dunstanville, a long serving member of his household was made protector of the earl’s grandchildren, later transitioning into the household of the eldest earl, Baldwin III of Devon64. Furthermore,

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26  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England it can be shown that late on in his life, in addition to the estates afforded to him by his eventual marriage, Reginald came into direct possession of Dunstanville family lands in Wiltshire65. While the unavailability of such sources originating from the lifetime of Henry I makes it challenging to determine at what stage these Dunstanville holdings came into Reginald’s hands, it is possible that his royal affinity facilitated inheritance of a portion of the Dunstanville patrimony in preference to its legitimate heirs. Kathleen Thompson, in her examination of Henry I’s illegitimate children, proposes a convincing solution to this conundrum which is that Sybil was the daughter of Reginald and Adeliza de Dunstanville and that following Reginald’s death, Adeliza married Robert Corbet. Adeliza’s benefaction in Tewkesbury Abbey proves that her husband predeceased her, while a marriage to the Corbets, another family operating within the Montgomery sphere of influence, is a natural step. Adeliza’s children with Robert Corbet would then have been Sybil’s half-siblings and thus Earl Reginald’s aunt and uncle as described in his charters and later legal cases.66 Furthermore, if Alice Corbet was the product of a second marriage on her mother’s part and substantially younger than her sister, it would explain why Reginald was in a position to gift land to his aunt on the occasion of her marriage. While this theory lacks definitive proof, it seems to work within the information given to us and elegantly explains Reginald’s intimate connection with both the Corbets and Dunstanvilles. In addition to Reginald, it has been suggested that Sybil Corbet was also the mother of Henry  I’s illegitimate children Rohese, Gundra de Dunstanville, William and Queen Sibyl of Scotland. However, there exist several problems with these identifications. Rohese remained firmly within Reginald’s eventual sphere of influence within the southwest region and married Henry de la Pomerai, a fellow advocate of the Plantagenet cause during the Anarchy who held substantial lands in Cornwall and later rose to become a member of the king’s household. Gundra de Dunstanville is recorded in the Pipe Rolls of 1130 as holding property in Wiltshire granted to her by her brother Reginald de Dunstanville.67 However, given Reginald’s relative youth at this time and chronicle evidence of his landless state, it is likely that Gundra and her brother Reginald belong to a previous generation of the Dunstanville family with whom the earl enjoyed a close, possibly familial, association. Rohese’s inclusion in lists of Henry I’s illegitimate children comes from her identification as Reginald’s sister in a charter issued in the 1170s in which

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  27 he grants the then widowed Rohese a manor in Roseworthy.68 However, she is not positively identified as a daughter of Henry I, leaving open the strong possibility that she was Reginald’s half-sister and the legitimate child of Sibyl and her husband Herbert, Henry’s chamberlain. Queen Sibyl, on the other hand, is undoubtedly a daughter of Henry I, her father arranging her marriage to Alexander of Scotland as part of his imperialistic ambitions by 1114. Rather, it is her maternity that is in question. The supposition that Sibyl Corbet is the queen’s mother originates largely from their shared name; however, the date of her marriage, especially when compared to Reginald’s presumed date of birth sometime in the 1110s, would make Sibyl Corbet’s tenure as a royal mistress an unusually long one. Sybil’s son, William, appears to have attached himself to Reginald’s household and can be found in the witness lists to a number of the earl’s charters in the 1170s. Throughout these charters William is consistently described as ‘William frate meus’. This identification as Reginald’s brother and the foregoing of any descriptions as the son of the king, suggests that William was, like Rohese and the more positively identified Herbert Fitz Herbert, Reginald’s half-brother through Sibyl’s subsequent marriage. This William’s identification as a royal bastard is further muddled in genealogical tradition by conflation with Henry  I’s illegitimate son, William de Tracy. William de Tracy is identified by Robert of Torigni as one of Henry I’s six bastard sons.69 The abbot says little of William, save for the fact that he died shortly after his father and the identity of his mother remains unknown.70 William has long been presented within the historiography as the grandfather and namesake of one of Archbishop Thomas Becket’s murderers, William de Tracy. The lordship of Bradninch in Devon supposedly passed from the elder William to his grandson by means of his only daughter, Grace. However, not only are the name, family and possible dynastic links of William’s wife missing from this traditional narrative, Nicholas Vincent has argued convincingly that it is the result of overly enthusiastic genealogical reconstruction, which has been left unexamined by historians.71 Instead, Vincent traces the heritage of Becket’s murderer to Turgis de Tracy, the Norman seneschal of Maine, a county in which he retained considerable estates, further suggesting that his acquisition of the lordship of Bradninch came to him from his familial relationship with the Tracy lords of Barnstaple, who had received the lordship from King Stephen.72

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28  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England By pursuing liaisons with members of regional and often partially nonNorman familial networks, Henry was, in a limited sense, extending his own influence into these localities by drawing such families into alignment with his own interests away from the often unreliable and fractious top tier of Anglo-Norman magnates. He further used and expanded his affinity by marrying his mistresses into Anglo-Norman families engaged in royal service and office holding, to both support his illegitimate children and further build his influence and personal affinities within the lower aristocracy. However, one of Henry  I’s mistresses, Isabel de Beaumont, was drawn from the very highest echelons of the aristocracy. The daughter of Robert de Beaumont, a relative and companion of William the Conqueror and sister of two of the Anglo-Norman court’s rising stars, Count Waleran of Meulan and Earl Robert of Leicester, Isabel was exceptionally well-connected within the extended aristocratic networks of power and highly placed within the court.73 The Beaumont family, while extremely powerful, was already strongly personally associated with Henry I and engaged in royal service and it is likely, similarly to her elder brothers, that Isabel was raised at least partially within the court’s sphere. After her relationship with Henry, which produced a daughter, Isabel, of whom little is known, Isabel was married to Gilbert de Clare, the earl of Chester. This union appears to have been undertaken principally for the benefit and further advancement of her family and new husband rather than any notion of perpetuating aristocratic solidarity with Henry I.74 Henry did not pursue a deliberate or coherent political or dynastic strategy when it came to his extramarital relationships. Instead, he entered into extramarital relationships with family members of royal functionaries, lower and upper echelons of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy as well as members of the Anglo-Danish and Welsh nobility. These relationships follow the pattern of his itinerant lifestyle, both before and after claiming the throne, and Henry’s transition through and interaction within numerous aristocratic affinities with which he established lasting connections. The primary criteria for the selection of royal mistresses were personal attraction and accessibility rather than any grand strategic design. While not necessarily part of a predetermined strategy, he often capitalized upon the auxiliary family groupings of his mistresses and illegitimate children by arranging marriages between them and royal functionaries which further consolidated royal support and drew them and their wider familial networks deeper into alignment with the king’s

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Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family  29 own interests. Illegitimate royal children played an important role in Anglo-Norman dynastic strategies and were a useful resource for the cultivation and consolidation of support both within and without the Anglo-Norman hegemony. Of course, the identity of the mothers of many of Henry’s illegitimate children remain ambiguous or as is the case with some of their number, such as Gilbert, William de Tracy, Ailene, Mabel and both Abbess Matilda of Montivilliers and Duchess Matilda of Britany, entirely unknown. The highly mobile and untethered life that enabled and, in some sense, even encouraged Henry’s extramarital sexual exploits was the result of the same induced demographic shifts and evolving social mores which so dramatically and conclusively relegated his illegitimate children from any meaningful hopes of inheritance. Henry’s extensive extramarital activities may not have been motivated, as William of Malmesbury claims, by a desire to secure the succession, but he was keenly aware of the potential political and dynastic utility of the troop of illegitimate children camped on the periphery of royal family identity. Nor was he necessarily devoid of paternal pride and affection for his illegitimate children, many of whom were allowed or even encouraged to participate within the AngloNorman court and broader royal affinity. However, acknowledgement of this kinship and access to family identity was tightly regulated and not distributed equally amongst his many illegitimate children. As we shall see in the next chapter, the criteria for inclusion within this shared dynastic enterprise had little to do with the status and breadth of their maternal connections. The aristocracy’s enthusiastic adoption of the principles and formulation of the Church reform movement, definitely reshaped medieval aristocratic families, forcing bastards, even royal bastards, onto the periphery of family identity.

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Chapter 2

Family, Affinity and Hegemony

A

s we have seen, the size and composition of Henry  I’s family, particularly regarding the extraordinary number of his illegitimate children, was profoundly influenced by his political and dynastic circumstances. Henry’s truncated inheritance prospects and lack of resources compelled him to remain in a state of pseudo adolescence and adopt a largely itinerant lifestyle. After essentially being defrauded of his inheritance by his elder brothers and with no patrimony or estate to call his own, Henry was unable to form his own household or family, at least as the terms were commonly understood within the Anglo-Norman aristocratic networks of the late eleventh century. Instead, Henry travelled extensively throughout the now bifurcated Anglo-Norman hegemony, serving each of his brothers alternately and engaging with a host of regional aristocratic networks and affinities. As a result of this mobility and abetted by the tacit leniency in aristocratic codes of behaviour extended to individuals of his rank and circumstances, Henry was able to enter into and maintain relationships with numerous women from families within the lower aristocracy. Thanks to these extramarital excursions, by the time Henry so decisively seized the throne of England in 1100, he already had a motley collection of illegitimate children, the eldest of which were in or just approaching young adulthood. That Henry was able to maintain these relationships in some form throughout his years in the political wilderness, remaining cognizant of and associated with his illegitimate children, is an impressive testament to the interconnected nature of Anglo-Norman aristocratic networks and the absolute premium they placed upon familial connections. Following the tumult and uncertainty of his early reign, Henry I began inducting and integrating several of his eldest illegitimate children into the royal court, a selective and curated access to royal familial identity and the wider aristocracy which incentivized and enabled their deployment in support of the king’s unfolding political pursuits. Perhaps unsurprisingly, marriage, even marriage to Matilda of Scotland, a royal bride from whom he derived much of his dynastic legitimacy, did

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  31 little to affect Henry’s pattern of peripatetic romances. The king continued to father illegitimate children long after his accession to the throne. He was abetted in this pursuit by the itinerant nature of the Anglo-Norman court which travelled between various royal and ducal centres as a way of better projecting authority into the localities and conserving resources. Henry already retained some ties and a degree of affiliation with the mothers and extended families of his eldest illegitimate children. His new status and position at the heart of the vast networks of obligations and reciprocal bonds which formed the Anglo-Norman hegemony allowed the king to form similar relationships with several noblewomen of diverse familial backgrounds throughout his reign. As striking and fantastical an assertion as it is, in the face of such evidence we must reluctantly, abandon William of Malmesbury’s statement that Henry I was driven to father so many illegitimate children out of a sense of dynastic duty and regard for the good of the realm. Henry had begun to amass a collection of illegitimate children long before he could have hoped to claim the throne of England and continued to do so afterwards but as a side effect of his lifestyle rather than as a goal within itself. In context, the chronicler’s contention could be viewed as an obsequious attempt to curry favour with his patron, Robert of Gloucester, by advancing the notion that the royal bastard was always destined for the position of prominence that he attained. Interestingly, it is possible that Henry I engaged in a similar act of dynastic engineering with several historians conjecturing that the king may have deliberately limited the number of legitimate children he had to avoid the violence and profound dynastic instability that had characterized his relationship with his brothers. If this was indeed the case, it was to backfire quite spectacularly. Building upon these conclusions and the previous survey of the maternal families of Henry  I’s illegitimate offspring, we must now gauge the degree to which the new king cultivated or experienced a sense of personal association and political affinity with his illegitimate children. The extent to which royal family identity was made accessible to illegitimate family members, the mechanism through which integration was encouraged, and the often mutually beneficial manifestations of these associations are all topics crucial to contextualizing and examining the role of royal bastards throughout this period. A short overview, at this stage, of the difficulties and challenges faced in attempting to examine something as significant but as nebulous as familial

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32  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England and personal affinity may be instructive and of some value to the wider examination of the lives and status of twelfth-century illegitimate royal family members. The most significant and fundamental of these is that persistent bane of the medieval historian, the scarcity of suitable evidence. While their familial connections and status on the periphery of royal family identity allowed the most favoured royal bastards to occupy positions of considerable personal power and authority, contemporary chronicles refer to most of Henry I’s illegitimate children only tangentially or in passing. Even William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum which was dedicated to Robert of Gloucester, firmly focuses on King Henry, with the earl rendered only as a peripheral figure outside the work’s specifically tailored epilogue.1 The nature and structure of power within the AngloNorman hegemony was such that, to contemporary chroniclers, the history of the realm was indistinguishable from the careers of its kings, hence the title and focus of Malmesbury’s great work. An intriguing example of the potential obscurity of our subjects is that of Gilbert, an illegitimate son of Henry I, the only trace of whom remains a declaration within Robert of Torigni’s later iteration of the Gesta Normannorum Ducum that he was still a landless youth in the 1120s.2 It is somewhat hard to imagine a more informed or better-connected source than Robert of Torigni, who served as both prior of Bec and abbot of Mont-St-Michel, two prestigious monastic institutions which boasted longstanding links to the AngloNorman royal family. The depth of information at Robert’s disposal lends considerable authority to his account of Gilbert’s existence and status. However, the prior formulated his version of the Gesta Normannorum Ducum several decades after the event in question and based much of his account of Henry  I’s reign on the work of Henry of Huntingdon who makes no mention of Gilbert himself.3 More relevant to our current task than simple gaps in our base of knowledge is the difficulty in interpreting anything as nuanced, complex and thoroughly private as personal affinity from the available sources. Such relationships are by their very nature particularly difficult to quantify or access from the outside. Neither were they fixed; familial affinity was fluid and subject to a plethora of invasive circumstances and political and social tides. Some of the chroniclers are more useful than others in this regard; Orderic Vitalis, in particular, adopts a relatively emotive and personable writing style throughout his Historia Ecclesiastica which, while no doubt coloured by his own views, often makes an attempt to articulate the mood

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  33 of the Anglo-Norman court.4 When discussing the death of Richard, an illegitimate son of Robert Curthose, in a hunting accident in the New Forest, Orderic goes to some pains to highlight the young royal bastard’s virtues, describing him as a worthy youth who was much admired within the court.5 Orderic’s brief but illuminating account of the incident is a strong indication that Anglo-Norman royal bastards could and indeed did enjoy a degree of status and recognition within contemporary aristocratic society despite their somewhat anomalous status. Furthermore, it reveals that even during periods of pronounced political tension and conflict, a strong and flexible sense of a shared and relatively inclusive familial identity continued despite factionalism. A contrast is evident in the chronicle of John of Worcester, who mentions Richard only to draw parallels between his death and those of his legitimate uncles William Rufus and Richard which had both occurred in eerily similar circumstances. John uses these parallels to further express the moralizing message of his chronicle, suggesting the New Forest is anathema to the Normans because of their earlier destruction of a church within its borders by the family’s patriarch, William the Conqueror.6 While this rhetorical device was no doubt an effective and emotive one for contemporaries, it also threatens to obscure royal bastards’ participation in royal family identity and positions within the Anglo-Norman hegemony. The bias and variance inherent within chronicles and other sources are such that there is a potential danger in too closely correlating an illegitimate family member’s visibility within the sources with the degree to which they experienced either a political or personal affinity with their legitimate benefactors. However, it can be argued strongly that there remains a degree of merit to this approach, representing as it does not only correlation but also causation. Those illegitimate royal family members who appear most frequently amongst the sources do so principally because they had attained considerable political power and secular prominence. Such positions of authority and power were only attainable to bastards through the investment of considerable political capital in them which implies a significant level of trust and affinity on the monarch’s part. Through a careful sifting of those sources pertaining to illegitimate members of the royal dynasty, notable patterns emerge in the means and mechanisms through which familial affinity was cultivated amongst royal bastards and the way this affinity was harnessed to draw them into the support of a shared familial enterprise.

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34  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England For members of the aristocracy in twelfth-century Europe, familial identity was of the utmost importance in the formulation of their personal and political identities.7 Familial identity provided the political boundaries and social context within which an Anglo-Norman noble’s identity was articulated and formulated the framework for their engagement with wider aristocratic networks and affinities. Central to this importance was the family’s status as the primary mechanism for the transmission of inheritance. The aggregate of a family’s wealth formed a portfolio of potentially inheritable resources which defined a sphere of influence through which familial identity was reinforced and nurtured. These shared conceptions of the borders and extent of family lands while, to an extent, self-defined and plastic, acted as a focus for family identity and personal ambition.8 The varying equilibrium of genuine familial affection and political association, created through a mutual investment in the perseveration of familial landed interests, could lead to the undertaking of concerted action to defend or advance a family’s shared interests. Given this seminal influence, it is perhaps tempting to envisage the family as the basic unit of twelfth-century aristocratic society and politics. However, such a reductive categorisation quickly becomes unworkable when expanded to consider the large and diversified networks of aristocratic interests and connections each family member was unavoidably embedded in. While the shared political and material interests of families were important in orientating an individual within aristocratic networks and fostering a sense of familial affinity, such identities were by no means exclusive. Instead, they intersected with numerous other familial, regional and political affinities. Indeed, familial co-operation and coherency was contingent on the successful arbitration and allocation of a family’s inheritable interests, a process that was far from straightforward or inviolate. Familial affinity either in its cultivation and mobilisation or through its subversion constituted an important political tool for any twelfth-century aristocrat looking to expand his power and influence within the conductive networks of personal obligations and associations in which he operated. During the eleventh century, internecine warfare was endemic to many of the lands that would later form the Anglo-Norman and Angevin hegemonies. The Gesta Normannorum Ducum compiled by William of Jumièges and based heavily on an earlier work written by Dudo of Saint Quentin, simultaneously strives to glorify and promote the stem of the

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  35 ducal family, while including numerous examples of familial conflict and violence across multiple generations.9 These familial conflicts were often exacerbated by personal difficulties but almost always involved disputes surrounding the distribution of inheritance. Such conflicts remained a consistent feature of aristocratic life in the twelfth century, persisting, in various guises, far beyond the chronological frame of the present work. The scope and profound impact of such conflicts are perfectly demonstrated by the sons of William the Conqueror, who themselves vied extensively with one another in a series of shifting alliance and escalating campaigns. This fraternal rivalry only intensified and grew more intransigent following the death of William Rufus and the subsequent struggle between Henry and Robert for the English throne. Even Henry’s establishment of control in Normandy and Robert’s lifelong imprisonment in 1106 failed to fully dispel the spectre of familial strife as the disposed duke’s son, William Clito, made repeated attempts to win back the duchy. Throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries both familial solidarity and conflict were motivated and incentivized by the family’s role as the source and mediator of inheritable interests. The aristocracy’s concern for the control and planning of inheritance led them to adopt enthusiastically the Church’s increasingly stringent and restrictive definitions of marriage throughout the eleventh century. As we have seen, this led to the reinforcement of the previously blurred binary between legitimate and illegitimate and the increasing acceptance that the stain of illegitimacy isolated an individual from all rights to inherit. Such attitudes continued to grow and develop across the breadth of Europe in the twelfth century, becoming increasingly embedded in legal and social frameworks. This meant that barred from all but the remotest hopes of inheritance, Henry I’s illegitimate children, and subsequent generations of royal bastards across the twelfth century were almost by definition excluded from this central, if sometimes divisive, aspect of familial identity. It was no coincidence that royal bastards throughout this period invariably sided with the reigning monarch. While Henry I and his brothers fought one another for control over their father’s former hegemony, illegitimate royal family members could not compete in the same manner because their bastardy precluded recognition of their right to claim or hold even a portion of their family’s lands. The nobility of the twelfth century were so opposed to the prospect of a bastard being able to inherit, because the prospect threatened to destabilize and undermine their own carefully demarcated

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36  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England dynastic arrangements. Because of this, royal bastards were unlikely to profit substantially from a king’s precipitous fall in the same way that legitimate royal children might. Instead, reward and personal advantage could be gained through conspicuously loyal service to the reigning monarch. The strange conflux of circumstances brought about by the evolving ramifications of illegitimacy and the position of royal bastards on the periphery of royal familial identity introduced a unique and profoundly influential subtext into the relationships between twelfth-century kings of England and their illegitimate relatives. These often-embattled kings recognized that they were surrounded by individuals with whom they shared a close familial connection and were both heavily incentivized to loyalty and almost utterly dependent on them for advancement.

The Extent and Dimensions of Familial Affinity Illegitimate royal family members then represented a useful resource to their legitimate relatives within the royal family, forming a cadre of auxiliary members from which individuals could be deployed or empowered in a variety of ways in response to the king’s needs and inclinations. The degree of this utility and the considerable engagement of royal bastards throughout the twelfth century in the advancement and protection of royal interests was predicated upon the existence of a shared sense of familial and political affinity connecting illegitimate royal family members with their legitimate patrons. These personal affinities were cultivated by twelfth-century kings of England through an acknowledgement of royal bastards’ participation in family identity, most often building upon pre-existing personal connections and ties of familial affection. However, the acknowledgement and participation of royal bastards within a familial identity was highly conditional and far from universally or systematically applied. As previously discussed, part of the potential usefulness of illegitimate royal family members was that while their personal ties of affinity predisposed royal bastards to adhere to and protect royal political and dynastic interests, this relationship was predicated upon and modulated by the advancement of royal patronage. The advancing social connotations and legal precepts of illegitimacy within the twelfth century ensured that even highly favoured and empowered royal bastards were relegated to a position of junior partners within a shared dynastic enterprise.

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  37 A potential signifier of the acceptance of royal or indeed any aristocratic illegitimate children within familial identity was the bestowing of names derived from the family’s traditional naming stock. Like many other aspects of a twelfth-century aristocrat’s public life, the naming of a child was an inherently political act imbued with a great deal of symbolism and subtext. The perpetuation and exchange of names associated with particular families was an important aspect of the political language of the Anglo-Norman nobility, denoting as it did an attempt to identify or affiliate with a particular family. As the youngest of four sons, Henry I’s brothers had exhausted the most used names within the ducal family. Instead, he was probably named after his maternal great-uncle, King Henry I of France, perhaps as a conscious reflection that, unlike his elder brothers, he was born in the purple to an anointed king and queen.10 It can be observed through a survey of the names of Henry’s numerous illegitimate children that those born prior to their father’s accession to the throne were more likely to bear names derived from the traditional naming stock of the Norman ducal family. Robert, William, Richard, and Matilda were all traditional family names awarded to those children born during his time in the political wilderness as a landless youth. In the case of Robert and Matilda, Henry seems to have appreciated these allusions to his family history so much that he bestowed each of these names upon multiple children. While less firmly rooted in Anglo-Norman ducal tradition, Henry  I also named two of his illegitimate daughters Adeliza and Constance after his own sisters, expressing and perhaps even promoting some sense of familial continuity. Henry’s liberal use of names so strongly associated with royal family identity during this period was probably an attempt to stress and enhance his own diminished status and frayed connection to the centre of royal power. Henry strove to present his eldest illegitimate children as members of a royal familial identity precisely because it was a symbol to the Anglo-Norman nobility that, despite his impoverished status and often precarious relationship with his brothers, he, too, was a senior member of the royal family and a possible claimant. In addition to trumpeting his dignity and essential parity, the judicious use of family names and the associations they created could also be used to smooth Henry’s relationship with his brothers, strengthening their political and personal association. The date and location of the birth of Henry’s first illegitimate son, Robert, is unknown while the identity of his mother is subject to heated speculation. However, he was originally

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38  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England distinguished by the toponym ‘of Caen’ suggesting he was either born or spent a significant amount of time within the town.11 Likewise, the date of Robert’s marriage around 1114, alongside the fathering of a bastard of his own, Richard, the future Bishop of Bayeux, around 1104, suggests that Robert was born in the late 1080s, a time in which Henry had used his portion of his father’s inheritance to purchase the Cotentin from his brother Robert.12 This suggests that Henry, then trying to consolidate his position in northern Normandy, named his eldest son in an attempt to foster and emphasize familial affinity with his brother and nominal overlord. Furthermore, it is also possible that Henry’s use of traditional family names for his eldest illegitimate children somehow reflected a greater interest in them and an attempt by the young noble to cultivate a close level of political and personal association with his first born. In contrast, those children sired by Henry later in his life had a greater propensity to be named after members of their mother’s family. After his accession as king of England and later duke of Normandy, it is also possible that Henry, increasingly secure in his power after an initial flurry of rebellions, saw no need to foster further affinities amongst his younger illegitimate children, already supplied as he was with several sons and daughters to act as potential lieutenants and dynastic fodder. On the other hand, it is probable that the obscurity of Henry’s younger illegitimate children was in part a function of their age; the younger sons of AngloNorman aristocrats, illegitimate or otherwise, often remained landless well into adulthood. Even if their lack of names from the Norman ducal household represented a waning interest on Henry’s part in the lives of his numerous bastards, rather than simply an exhaustion of available names, it does not necessarily follow that Henry would have been blind to their potential political utility. In 1114 Henry arranged the marriage of one of his former mistresses, Sybil Corbet to Herbert, the royal chamberlain, many years after the birth of her only confirmed child by the king.13 This continued association suggests that the king remained aware not only of the political utility of his illegitimate children and the wider networks his extramarital ties allowed him to influence, but also the importance of maintaining such links through the fostering of familial affinity. Whatever the exact motivations and strategies behind the distribution of family names, it is undeniable that Henry  I displayed a marked favouritism for his eldest illegitimate sons Robert and Richard. While the details of his early life remain opaque, Robert’s father evidently

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  39 made some provisions for his education, preparing him for the role of young aristocrat. Extrapolating from what we know of Robert’s early life, including the fathering of a bastard son of his own, it seems likely that he received tuition in or around Caen around 1105.14 Both Walter Map and William of Malmesbury refer to the depth of the future earl’s education, a base of knowledge he later drew upon with his adoption of a classically inspired title and mode of address. Likewise, Richard was placed by his father within the household of Bishop Robert of Lincoln, one of the Anglo-Norman realm’s pre-eminent secular bishops, an environment which provided him with both an excellent education and almost peerless access to the royal court.15 Henry subsequently inducted both bastards into the Anglo-Norman royal court where they took their place amongst the king’s companions and lieutenants. While the exact date remains somewhat uncertain, the king arranged the engagement of his eldest illegitimate child to the young heiress Mabel Fitzhamon around the early 1110s. 16 Mabel came from an outstanding Anglo-Norman pedigree whose family had grown wealthy and powerful as a result of their extensive engagement with royal service. Her mother, Sybil, was the daughter of one of the Conqueror’s most powerful and trusted lieutenants, Roger de Montgomery, while her father Robert Fitzhamon was one of the principal Anglo-Norman lords of the Welsh Marches and one of the foremost architects of the Norman expansion into Wales.17 The core of Mabel’s family lands in Gloucestershire, the springboard for their Welsh conquests, had been gifted to her father by King William Rufus and was derived in part from the inheritance the king received from his mother, Queen Matilda of Flanders. Henry’s scheme to utilise his royal prerogatives over the guardianship of the Anglo-Norman realm’s widows and orphans to engineer the marriage of the heiress to a royal proxy was therefore, at least in part, an attempt to reclaim and re-assert control over what could be construed as his family domains. More than that, though, it placed a royal family member, with whom Henry shared a strong personal affinity and who was heavily incentivized to co-operate with the royal centre, at the heart of the Welsh Marches. The king was fully cognizant of the importance for this opportunity to not only provide a position of relative power and authority for his first born but also to project royal authority amongst the powerful but often truculent Marcher lords. Indeed, Henry arranged for all three of Mabel’s younger sisters to be placed in convents so as not to dilute this lucrative inheritance with

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40  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England competing claims that could diminish royal control over the region. Robert’s union with Mabel transformed him into one of the AngloNorman realm’s most significant magnates, situated in a place of preeminence amongst the Anglo-Norman Marcher lords. His position amongst those lords was assured by his union with Mabel, whose considerable aristocratic lineage intimately anchored Robert and their children within regional aristocratic networks. With lands straddling the politically and culturally permeable Welsh border, Robert was in a strong position to protect the interests of his legitimate family within these localities, acting as both a figurehead and de facto leader amongst the often independently-minded Marcher lords, able to intervene directly in the plastic and often turbulent arena of Anglo-Welsh politics.18 Robert of Torigni, the Bec-educated abbot of Mont St Michel in Normandy, emphasized the importance and wealth of Robert’s Norman holdings – also acquired through his wife’s inheritance. These holdings included the town of Torigni, whose location on the border of the Cotentin not only attracted merchants but also compelled Robert to undertake an extensive programme of building and fortification to secure his newly acquired holdings and Anglo-Norman military interests.19 Despite his relative youth, Richard accompanied his father on a number of military campaigns including Henry’s attempts in 1119 to extricate Normandy from its historical and theoretical status as a French vassal.20 Richard evidently played an active role in the fighting; Orderic Vitalis stating that the royal bastard only narrowly avoided being taken captive because of the intervention of his friend and mentor Ralph the Red.21 Richard’s participation in his father’s military efforts articulates his acceptance as a member of this family by both Henry and the wider Anglo-Norman aristocratic community. Indeed, Ralph the Red, a vassal of the viscount of Bréteuil may have been accompanying Richard during the campaign as a result of the king’s intentions to wed his illegitimate son to the daughter of Ralph Gael who had succeeded to the lordship of Bréteuil after it was stripped from Richard’s brother-in-law, Eustace de Pacy.22 Amicia Gael was her father’s only child and upon his death, her husband would inherit not only the strategically important Bréteuil but considerable estates elsewhere in eastern Normandy as well as in Brittany.23 By granting Richard the lordship of Bréteuil through his marriage to Amice, Henry was once more bringing the vital territory into secure alignment with his own interests, placing it in the hands of

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  41 a proxy of established, if limited, military experience who could be relied upon to loyally defend both the lordship and wider royal interests within the volatile region. While Richard died before this marriage occurred, it is notable that Henry was willing to invest his illegitimate son with such temporal power and responsibility, suggesting the existence of considerable ties of affinity and trust between father and son. It seems then that Henry I intended to utilise his two eldest illegitimate sons to further the family political interests by establishing them as powerful magnates in politically sensitive localities so that they could function as bulwarks of royal power within these regions and act as deputies for their legitimate family members in administrative and military capacities. That these favoured illegitimate royal family members, connected to Henry through personal affinity and the considerable awards of royal service, were embedded into these regions through marriage is of the foremost significance to both royal bastards’ position within a family identity and the way the royal centre sought to cultivate support within regional aristocratic networks.

Marriage and the Extension of Political Affinity As we have seen, familial identity and affinity were crucial factors in the establishment of an aristocrat’s social and political contexts, defining to a significant extent their place and interactions within the networks of power in which they existed. These factors derived from the family’s role as a receptacle of wealth. While personal disputes were far from uncommon, a sense of identity and inclusivity in a shared dynastic enterprise necessarily required, and was incentivized by, a stake within the collective fortunes and inheritance portfolio of that family. Marriage was not only the principal mechanism through which these family networks could maintain themselves but also the means through which they could cultivate and grow other connections and so expand their political and landed interests within wider networks of aristocratic power through a process of consolidation and synthesis. The perpetuation and relative inclusivity of the eleventh and twelfth century aristocratic family, which was composed of an overlapping mesh of landed interests and marriage ties, greatly benefited from the adoption of regulated and legally recognized lines of inheritance. These were formed in reaction to Church reforms and the colonization of the institution of marriage. The growing

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42  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England conception of marriage’s increased permeance promoted and highlighted the importance of maternal lineage as a point of connectivity within aristocratic familial networks. The exploitation of and interaction with these extended networks of affinity, principally through the medium of marriage and as part of a coherent and expansive dynastic strategy, was just as crucial to the success of a twelfth century king of England as it was for the echelons of the lesser aristocracy. The monarch’s pre-eminence amongst his fellow magnates and the successful application of temporal power and authority was based in large part upon the creation of a shared consensus amongst the aristocracy and the broad alignment of their interests with his own; an entanglement of fortunes that could be readily facilitated through intermarriage. This principal of political solidarity through the establishment of personal accords was made both necessary and more challenging by the politically fragmented nature of the growing Anglo-Norman hegemony.The effective control and exercise of overlordship of this conglomeration of disparate territories was predicated upon a portfolio of diverse personal dynastic ties and obligations rather than a singular cultural nucleus or unified legal framework.24 As a result, the cultivation of a dynastic strategy in addition to the construction of familial affinities was, and would continue to be, of particular importance to twelfth century kings of England. Their landed interests were so diverse and numerous and the personal consensus they needed to fashion amongst the magnates and aristocracy were so broad as to preclude the pursuit of or alignment with any one aristocratic affinity or familial interest at the expense of the maintenance of a relationship with another. To most aristocratic affinities in the twelfth century, the inclusion of a member of the royal family and thus a link to the status and power of the throne was highly valued regardless of the legitimacy of the royal family member in question. However, there were instances during Henry’s reign of dissident or disaffected aristocrats mobilizing the evolving social stigma of illegitimacy to extricate themselves from proposed marriages to the king’s illegitimate daughters. The most notable of these rejections came from Hugh, Lord of Châteauneuf-en-Thymerais and Earl William de Warenne of Surrey. Both matches floundered upon mitigating factors beyond simple snobbery.25 Not least of which was the proposed grooms’ antipathy towards the king’s political and dynastic scheming. Thymerais had long been a point of contention and significant border friction

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  43 between Normandy and the Île-de-France with both claiming they were owed vassalage by the locality. It seems likely therefore, that Hugh rejected the proposed alignment with Anglo-Norman royal and ducal interests as antithetical to his own interests and sympathies. Further, the proposed marriage was roundly condemned on the grounds of consanguinity by, the canon law steeped, Bishop Ivo of Chartres, who claimed that Hugh and his prospective bride were related in the sixth degree.26 Whereas, William de Warenne had participated in an Anglo-Norman aristocratic revolt against Henry’s reign in England in favour of his elder brother Robert, then Duke of Normandy.27 While he would eventually prove himself as a military commander in Henry’s service and re-emerge as one of the Anglo-Norman court’s principal figures, the imposition of a bride upon him to guarantee his loyalty may have been viewed as too much of a capitulation and a dynastically limiting factor. Decisively, Anslem, the archbishop of Canterbury, also challenged the validity of the proposed marriage on the grounds of their close degree of consanguinity.28 While the utilization of male illegitimate family members in the pursuit of dynastic security and greater political cohesion required finesse and the exertion of royal prerogatives and legal powers, it was, overall, a relatively simple matter to incorporate illegitimate royal daughters and half-sisters into a beneficial dynastic strategy through their marriages to either vassals or neighbouring lords. The king’s rights and duty of protection over widows and heiresses included a supervisory role over any possible future marriages. As we have seen, Henry I called upon this formidable suite of royal powers to secure advantageous marriages for Robert and Richard. Unions which not only brought more land and local affinities into an alignment with royal interest but also imbued his favoured illegitimate sons with the resources necessary to form formidable bulwarks of political and military support. In practice the exercise of these prerogatives, particularly in the case of widows who were often imbedded within their own networks and affinities, was often a process of negotiation. Henry I had specifically included in his coronation oath that widows of magnates and his chief vassals would be allowed to retain their dowries and would not be compelled to remarry or enter a nunnery on the condition that those widows with children yet to attain their majority remain chaste. In effect though, retention of independence and freedom was a privilege that had to be paid for; for example, following the death of her third husband, Lucy Bolingbroke, a

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44  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England probable descendant of the Anglo-Saxon nobility of Mercia, paid £500 for the right to remain unmarried and administer her family lands in Lincolnshire. Unsurprisingly, given the immense wealth and power it brought the king, this practice persisted throughout the twelfth century and beyond. In 1103, Henry I arranged the marriages of several of his illegitimate daughters to Anglo-Norman magnates whose support and resulting alignment with his own interests aided him in consolidating his power in the then disputed Duchy of Normandy, securing the Norman border with France. The network of marriages which Henry created through the systematic marriage of his bastard daughters to his vassals and neighbours throughout his reign was of central importance to the ongoing stability of the Anglo-Norman realm. Such dynastic connections were at their most advantageous when the newly united families were both engaged and responsive. Many of Henry  I’s illegitimate daughters flourished in this role, coming to occupying positions of significant influence within the royal family identity and the ever-mobile court of the Anglo-Norman realm. Rather than tokens on a dynastic gameboard that were simply exchanged by their male relatives, these women had an active role in the modulation of these relationships and exerted a defining influence upon their strength and continuity. The first and perhaps most fascinating of these marriages was between the king’s daughter Juliana and Eustace de Pacy. Juliana was born sometime around the early 1090s, one of the eldest of the seven illegitimate royal daughters identified by Robert of Torigni.29 Frustratingly, the identity of Juliana’s mother is unknown and while her similarity in age to Richard of Lincoln suggests they may have shared a mother, Henry’s lifestyle and the political cleavage between England and Normandy, meant that even before his accession to the throne, Henry was capable of maintaining multiple liaisons across different localities.30 Uniquely Eustace, the only living son of William of Bréteuil was himself illegitimate. William’s death earlier that year had sparked a conflict over inheritance amongst his relatives, which had begun to draw in neighbouring lords and magnates, destabilising the region.31 Orderic Vitalis, who would be well informed on the matter given St Evroults proximity to Bréteuil, says that William had designated the son of his favourite sister Emma, William de Gael, as his heir but that the young Breton’s claim was opposed by another nephew, the Burgundian, Reynold de Grancie.32 Meanwhile following his father’s

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  45 death, Eustace had seized control of and fortified his father’s holding.33 He did so with the support of his father’s most powerful tenants such as William Alis and Ralph the Red, Lord of Pont-Echanfré.34 Eustace was probably abetted in this endeavour by the essential foreignness of his rival claimants, whereas he was, despite his illegitimacy, a known quantity intimately embedded in local networks and able to cooperate with local powerbrokers. If so, it seems that Henry I shared some of their concerns. Rather than let such a strategically important area fall under the auspices of a family primarily operating outside of the Anglo-Norman hegemony, he threw his support behind Eustace.35 The marriage between Juliana and Eustace, signifying as it did the creation of a close political affinity, swiftly brought an end to the inheritance dispute. However, the ever opportunistic and canny Henry determined to secure all possible advantages, installed a royal garrison at Ivry castle. Thus, directly entrenching himself within the area to an extent beyond that already entailed by Eustace’s new position as a royal proxy and kinsman.36 Orderic recounts that over the next decade Eustace made several entreaties to his father-in-law to recover the castle and it was as a result of these ongoing negotiations that the couple were given the son of the castle’s castellan and local lord, Ralph Harenec, as a hostage in 1118.37Eustace blinded this hostage soon afterwards for an unknown reason. Orderic interestingly cites the pernicious influence of his intimates, particularly Amauri de Montfort, for both this act and Eustace’s original grievance, possibly in an attempt to remit the extent of the transgressions of the king’s son-in-law and daughter. Henry in response delivered the couple’s daughters to the sorely aggrieved Ralph Harenec, for similar mutilation.38 Such harsh treatment of Henry I’s own grandchildren represents a clear breakdown of royal familial affinity; the conflict’s origins in a territorial dispute and the resistance of the imposition and penetration of royal authority displays the potential limitations of dynastic marriages and the confluence of aristocratic interests. While such connections could be mutually beneficial for both royal bastards and their spouse’s family, the equilibrium of such affinities was heavily weighted in favour of the royal bastard’s legitimate royal relatives. That Henry had guardianship or at least ready access to two of his grandchildren through an illegitimate child is interesting, although given the context of tension with their father, it seems likely they were given to him as part of an exchange of hostages; there are after all no other known examples of the children of Henry’s

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46  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England royal bastards being placed in the king’s care in this way. Following these mutual mutilations, Eustace adopted a position of active military resistance and fortified his castles, leaving Juliana in the fortress at Bréteuil.39 Probably because of his familial connection to the rebellion, Henry intervened personally, travelling to Bréteuil and securing the loyalty of the burgesses before attempting to negotiate with his daughter directly. That Juliana’s sense of familial affinity and membership in a shared dynastic enterprise was severely depleted can be seen in Orderic’s account of her attempt to kill her father with a crossbow from the battlements.40 Although it is possible that rather than a genuine attempt at murder, as Orderic depicts it, the incident could have been an embellished account of a simple symbolic act of defiance. Indeed, Orderic’s eye for scandal and salacious gossip is shown when he makes specific reference to the way Juliana’s hurried escape from the castle temporarily left her legs indecently exposed.41 Juliana and Eustace’s conflict with Henry I exposes the limitations of familial links between royal bastards and their legitimate family members and its potential weakness in the face of political and personal conflict. Later in Book Twelve of his Ecclesiastical History, however, Orderic describes how the repentant couple were reconciled with an obstinate and unforgiving Henry through the intervention of both Eustace’s friends within the Norman court and crucially that of Juliana’s halfbrother, Richard of Lincoln.42 Richard and his fellow petitioners evidently succeeded in mollifying his father and while the majority of the Bréteuil affinity was given to Ralph de Gael, Eustace retained the lordship of Pacy and was given a yearly stipend of three hundred silver marks to recompense him for the loss; thus facilitating the king’s engagement in a well-established pattern of reconciliation and compromise with rebellious or truculent Norman aristocrats.43 This intercession by one of Henry I’s illegitimate children on behalf of another suggests a recognition of a mutual identity and the existence of an active and networked familial affinity despite their diaspora and disparate levels of political engagement. The second of these highly strategic dynastic marriages arranged by Henry I in the opening years of his reign was between the eldest of the illegitimate Matilda’s, of whom there were naturally several, and his Norman vassal Count Rotrou of Perche. Much like Bréteuil, Perche guarded the border between Normandy and the lands directly held and controlled by the King of France. This alone would make Rotrou a

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  47 valuable and useful ally. Yet the conjunction of political interests between Count and King that led to the induction of Rotrou into the peripheries of the royal family through his marriage to Matilda ran deeper than mere geographic expediency. Rotrou was a perennial enemy of Robert of Bellême, one of the principal architects of resistance within the Anglo-Norman aristocracy to Henry’s claims to kingship. In fact, Rotrou was a kinsman of Robert’s who contested his claim to elements of their family’s portfolio of landed interests, specifically the lordships of Domfort and Bellême.44 In supporting Rotrou’s claim to these lands and through the creation of a familial link between the two of them, Henry I was alienating territory and resources from his enemies while enhancing his own powerbase. Matilda brought to her marriage two valuable manors in Wiltshire, Aldbourne and Wanborough; the wealth this land represented was both a further incentive for her husband to form an alignment with Henry and a means of providing the count with domains in England, ensuring that he had a vested interest in maintaining the integrity of the union between England and Normandy.45 Interestingly, Matilda is referred to simply as the count’s wife in her husband’s charters while the title of countess was retained by his mother, Beatrix.46 This apparent diminishment of status maybe a result of Matilda’s illegitimacy and the growing social stigma attached to it, although publicly slighting Henry I’s family would strike many as a potentially foolhardy move. Matilda certainly spent much of her time travelling with her father’s court which may indicate the marriage was somewhat strained. On the other hand, it is equally possible that Matilda was representing her husband’s interests, lobbying for him in the heart of royal authority, while her mother-in-law oversaw domestic affairs. Echoing the circumstances surrounding Matilda and Rotrou’s marriage sometime in the early 1110s, Henry arranged for his illegitimate daughter Mabel to marry another enemy of Robert of Bellême, William Gouet III of Montmirail.47 Robert was fomenting rebellion in southern Normandy, aided by the ambitious and expansionist Count Fulk of Anjou, which made the formation of a close alliance with a powerful lord within that region, with a deep enmity for their shared foe, a natural and sensible advancement of Henry  I’s dynastic strategy to retain and expand his authority on the peripheries of the Anglo-Norman hegemony. Henry  I also brokered dynastic marriages between his illegitimate children and independent or semi-autonomous foreign rulers; familial relationships which served to secure the borders of the Anglo-Norman

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48  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England hegemony through the creation of a shared affinity and the expansion of family identity. For neighbouring and autonomous magnates, the acceptance of an Anglo-Norman illegitimate royal daughter as a bride was in some ways tantamount to acknowledging Henry’s pre-eminence and overlordship. It was a display of political theatre at once grand and intimate, rearranging the surrounding hegemonies into a new familial inspired formation that recasts Henry in an unassailable paternal role and which drew his sons-in-law deeper into the political and familial interests of the Anglo-Norman realm.48 The most prestigious of these unions was between the king’s daughter, Sybil, and King Alexander of Scotland. 49 Given their shared name, Sybil is often identified as the daughter of Sybil Corbet, although the extensive age gap between this Sybil and Reginald, the only explicitly confirmed child of the royal mistress with the king, casts some doubt upon this. There is some debate on the exact date of the marriage of this royal mistress’ which occurred sometime between 1107, following Alexander’s accession to the throne, and 1114 when he accompanied his father-in-law to northern Wales in a successful campaign to curb the growing power of Gruffudd Ap Cynan, the ruler of Gwynedd and a stalwart opponent of Norman overlordship.50 It is notable that Henry and Alexander were already connected dynastically through Henry’s marriage to Alexander’s somewhat estranged sister, Matilda of Scotland. Henry was therefore already an active and well-connected participant within the royal Scottish familial affinity, intervening in internal Scottish and family affairs to promote the interests and claims of Alexander’s younger brother, the culturally Anglo-Normanaligned, David.51 Alexander’s marriage to Sybil could have been intended by Henry to strengthen the already active and politically transmissive ties between the two monarchs with perhaps the transmutation from brother-in-law to father-in-law meant to emphasize Henry’s seniority and role as arbitrator in the matter of the parameters of the monarchs’ relationship. In addition to, or perhaps as a result of proving childless, William of Malmesbury suggests that the marriage was not a particularly happy one, going so far as to say that upon Sybil’s sudden death at Loch Tay, Alexander was not particularly grief-stricken.52 William attributes this martial rift to Sybil’s perceived crudeness and lack of sophistication.53 Assuming William’s portrayal of Sybil and her marriage is not merely stylistic affectation, her alleged lack of education and decorum could

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  49 suggest a lack of interest in her upbringing by Henry  I which could potentially speak to a lack of affinity and affection between the king and his daughter. It also seems strange that William of Malmesbury, who seems to stand alone in his criticism of the queen, would retain such an egregious condemnation of the half-sister of his later patron, Robert of Gloucester, an Anglo-Norman royal bastard to whom William lavishly attributes virtues.54 William’s re-editing of his Histories and their dedication to the earl of Gloucester was finished around 1127, only five years after Sybil’s death and while such a narrow chronological gap may have been enough to alleviate any potential offence on Robert’s part, it remains a strong indicator that he and Sybil, while deeply immersed in their half royal identity, were not themselves close. Whatever the state of her relationships with her father and eldest halfbrother, there exists a strong indication that Sybil had a firm sense of familial affinity with at least one member of her family and perhaps to a degree with royal identity and the Anglo-Norman royal family. Two charters dating to the reign of her husband include within their witness lists an individual described as William, the queen’s brother, suggesting that when she relocated to the Scottish court, she was either accompanied or at least visited by a brother who became a notable presence there. The first of these charters which is of an unusual format and register is the foundation charter of the priory at Scone in 1120 which additionally bestows an exclusion from all royal taxes and duties that could be levied by the king.55 The foundation charter is explicitly issued jointly in the names of King Alexander and Queen Sybil, while the second charter bestows significant judicial rights and privileges upon the priory, suggesting that the royal couple, who may have co-operated more closely than William of Malmesbury credits, took a special interest in Scone, though both were buried at the more established Dunfermline abbey alongside Alexander’s parents and elder brother.56 The identity of this William who seems to have operated, however temporarily, within his sister’s sphere of influence, remains difficult to determine. Sybil’s most prestigious half-brother, William Ætheling, King Henry’s legitimate son and heir is an unlikely candidate, given the positioning of the Queen’s brother in the witness list below that of the Scottish earls in attendance and Alexander’s own relatives.57 A figure of William Ætheling’s contemporary prominence would no doubt have been afforded a more prestigious position within the witness list, while the charters’ description as the queen’s brother

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50  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England would seem overly perfunctory, particularly given the possibility that he had already been installed as duke of Normandy. There also exists the inconvenient matter of William’s impending death crossing the Channel in November 1120. That year, William had travelled to Normandy for his formal investiture as duke as part of his father’s ongoing negotiations with the French king. While it is possible that he subsequently made the journey to Scotland and his brother-in-law’s court only to return to Normandy in November, it seems more likely that he remained there to secure his position and accept the homage of the duchy’s nobility.58 Further, there exists some evidence to suggest that the second charter witnessed by Sybil’s brother dates to 1124, long after the Ætheling’s death which, if correct, conclusively rules him out as a candidate. It could be that the William identified within the Scone charters was William de Tracy. Born in the early 1090s, very little is known about William save that his father established him in the Barony of Bradninch in Devonshire which William held some claim to through his mother’s family and it is entirely possible that he spent some time in the 1110s and early 1120s within the Scottish court.59 The possibility also exists that Sybil’s brother referred to in the charters was either an otherwise unknown illegitimate son of Henry I or even that he was not a royal bastard at all but the child of Sybil’s unknown mother and her possible husband. While the exact identity of this William remains uncertain, if he was a child of Henry I, his attendance upon his sister in the Scottish court would suggest a substantial active affinity and familial links amongst even illegitimate members of the Anglo-Norman royal family. Roger of Howden explicitly describes Uhtred, Lord of Galloway before his death at the hands of his traitorous half-brother, as a cousin of Henry II, opening the possibility that Uhtred’s mother was another illegitimate daughter of Henry I.60 Henry, as we have already seen, was well connected and active within Scottish aristocratic networks and was engaged in the monitoring and consolidation of the Anglo-Scottish affinities which were being constructed and expanded by his Scottish royal relatives. Galloway was a semi-autonomous region, increasingly exposed to Norman cultural and political influence and was, at least until the reign of King David, largely beyond the Scottish crown’s ability to project its authority within.61 It seems plausible then that Fergus of Galloway, who was notably proactive in the extension of his authority throughout Galloway and later in the resistance and negotiation with encroaching Scottish royal authority was

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  51 married to one of Henry  I’s many illegitimate daughters. The political climate within Galloway and Uhtred’s age suggests that such a marriage portably would have occurred sometime around the late 1110s or early 1120s, possibly following the early death of the king’s daughter, Queen Sybil of Scotland. Sometime prior to 1113, one of the king’s bastard daughters, wearingly also named Matilda, was married to Duke Conan III of Brittany. This union forced King Louis VI to give formal, if begrudging, recognition of the Anglo-Normans long sought-after dominance over Brittany.62 The marriage of one of Henry’s illegitimate daughters to the duke was likely intended by Henry to reinforce his influence over the duchy whose aristocratic affinities and family networks had long been entangled across the two duchies blurred and permeable borders. However, the imposition of these family ties and the presence of one of Henry’s illegitimate daughters within the Breton ducal court appears to have had a limited impact upon the absorption of Brittany into the Anglo-Norman hegemony as Duke Conan seems to have been anxious to minimise this influence and perpetuate his own autonomy within Brittany itself. A personal and politically incisive manifestation of this rear-guard action was that the duke’s mother, Ermengarde, herself a daughter of the formidable Fulk Rechin of Anjou, appeared in the witness lists of his charters almost systemically and was afforded a position of prominence conspicuously above that of his illegitimate Anglo-Norman wife.63 To further support his strategy of defending the Norman periphery and growing his influence and system of political and familial alliances in the surrounding territories, Henry I married his illegitimate daughter, Constance, to Roscelin de Beaumont, the viscount of Beaumont-surSarthe. Roscelin had a strong hereditary claim to the Angevin dominated county of Maine and was a valuable asset in curtailing the impact of Angevin aggression until Henry  I’s own rapprochement with Fulk in 1125, achieved through the marriage of Henry’s heir and sole surviving legitimate child, Matilda, to Fulk’s eldest son Geoffrey le Bel.64 Yet another of Henry’s illegitimate daughters to marry outside of the Anglo-Norman hegemony was Aline, whose date of birth and the identity of her mother are unknown, although her marriage to Matthew of Montmorency in 1126 suggests perhaps that she was born after her father’s coronation sometime in the latter half of the 1100s opening decade. Matthew was a powerful magnate in the Île-de-France; deeply attached to its local and

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52  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England national aristocratic networks, holding land in Montmorency, Marly, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine and Attichy, and would later go on to be appointed the Constable of France under Louis VII.65 The timing of the wedding suggests that it may have been undertaken to further stabilise the region and capitalise on the extended period of relative peace between Henry I and Louis VI. Although, the possibility exists that the match was a result of or heavily informed by the interests of his daughter’s maternal networks which like the identity of her mother are unknown to us.

The Sinking of the White Ship The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 had far reaching repercussions for the Anglo-Norman hegemony, sparking a succession crisis and sowing the seeds of three decades of dynastic strife between the Conqueror’s grandchildren.66 The disaster which naturally provoked much commentary from contemporary chronicles, illuminates the extent to which royal bastards were interwoven into the fabric of the AngloNorman court during the reign of Henry I, as well as the sense of affinity and family identity they shared with their legitimate family members. In late November 1120, the Anglo-Norman royal court was in the process of crossing over from Normandy to England via the port of Barfleur, a relatively routine but logistically tiresome task given the considerable, although often fluctuating size of the court.67 During this crossing, a day after Henry had himself embarked for England, the ship carrying his heir, William Ætheling, was sunk after striking a rock shortly after leaving harbour.68 Perhaps, as Orderic Vitalis suggests this was the result of the liberal distribution of wine to the ship’s crew, although Henry of Huntingdon in his own account blames the disaster upon the illicit sexual behaviour of the court’s servants.69 The ship’s sinking led to the death of the Ætheling, as well as almost everyone else on board including much of the crème of the Anglo-Norman aristocratic youth. The only survivor of the shipwreck was a cook who stayed afloat, Titanic style, by clinging on to a portion of the wreckage. William Ætheling, as his father’s sole legitimate son had grown up in the firm expectation of inheriting the Crown. The descriptor of ‘Ætheling’ was as an Anglo-Saxon derived title meaning crown prince, fitting since William was through his mother Matilda of Scotland, a descendant of the house of Wessex and a great grandson of Edmund Ironsides.70 Henry

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  53 of Huntingdon describes the Ætheling, who he had met in person, as a supremely confident and splendid figure in magnificent attire who despite his lack of personal territories or access to substantial independent means, nevertheless featured as a central figure within the court71. Henry of Huntingdon would certainly be well informed in this matter, given that he had grown up in the household of Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, who as a former royal clerk of William the Conqueror and member of the inner circles of both William Rufus and Henry I was thus intimately connected to the Anglo Norman court.72 Despite the percolation of the binary categorisation of legitimacy throughout secular society, illegitimate royal family members were a recognized and largely accepted presence within the Anglo-Norman royal court. The court, constructed around the king and his household, formed the mobile nucleus of royal government and authority.73 As the principal means of access to the king, it was a focal point for the networks of aristocratic families and interests who could derive significant political and material advantage from a conscious and conspicuous alignment with him. Noble families could flourish and construct formidable powerbases from engagement in royal service and office holding, one of the foremost examples being the Mandeville’s and their traditional custodianship of the Tower of London.74 The court was itinerant, travelling widely between the various royal centres or in response to developing political situations. This strategy not only preventing the exhaustion of local resources by the deliberately conspicuous and excess consumption of the court but also facilitated the projection and dissemination of royal authority throughout the often-disparate localities of the Anglo-Norman hegemony.75 Its membership was therefore fluid, changing as members came to create, re-affirm or mobilize connections within their networks of power and authority. Within this rotating often overlapping royal sphere, the younger generation of the Anglo-Norman nobility formed a distinct sub-stratum which naturally crystallised and revolved around William Ætheling whose affinity and friendship would reap a huge amount of political utility and patronage upon his assumption of the throne. William of Malmesbury neatly explains the ambitions and demographic of the prince’s retinue when he describes the White Ship as holding not only the best of the court’s knights and chaplains but also an array of noble youth who had flocked to join the prince, ‘expecting no small gain in reputation if they could show the king’s son some sport or do him some service’.76

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54  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England The White Ship, at the time of its sinking, contained several of the upper echelon of Anglo-Norman aristocratic youth who had formed their own lively and distinctive group within both the royal court and the AngloNorman hegemony. Indeed, Orderic recounts that several members of the court, such as the nobles Rabel de Tancarville and William de Roumare, as well as a delegation of monks seeking passage to England decided not to embark upon the ship because of the overcrowding and the exuberant drinking of the youthful clique77. Amongst the clique’s members on the White Ship were Earl Richard of Chester, his wife Louise (the king’s niece), his brother Othuel, the Prince’s tutor (Geoffery, the Archdeacon of Hereford), Gilbert, viscount of Exmes and two of the Ætheling’s illegitimate half siblings, Matilda, countess of Perche, and Richard of Lincoln78. That two royal bastards accompanied their legitimate brother, while following their father’s court and were accepted members of his inner circle and the wider sub-strata of Anglo-Norman aristocratic youth, is a strong indicator of the existence and vibrancy of a shared sense of family identity and of a personal affinity between William Ætheling and at least some of his illegitimate family members. The account of the White Ship disaster and Matilda’s death presented within the Gesta Regum Anglorum, whose author William of Malmesbury may well have known the countess personally as she held lands nearby Malmesbury abbey, provides another powerful example of familial affinity between Anglo-Norman royal bastards and their legitimate family members.79 According to William, the Ætheling initially avoided the disaster by escaping on a boat but upon hearing the screams and pleas of his half-sister returned to the wreckage in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue her.80 The nature of the disaster with its singular witness means that the account of William Ætheling’s rescue attempt are almost certainly an invention by William of Malmesbury. Albeit one which must have appeared plausible and gratifying to its recipients since it was written a mere five years after the tragedy. That William of Malmesbury expected his readers to accept that the Ætheling’s death trying to save his sister was a noble act and that the prince’s dedication to his half-sister would not appear strange to their contemporaries, suggests that she was a recognized and accepted member of the royal family. The acceptance of Richard and Matilda on the White Ship as members of the exclusive entourage of their legitimate half-brother articulates the extent to which Henry I’s illegitimate children were allowed to participate

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Family, Affinity and Hegemony  55 within royal family identity. Illegitimate royal family members adhered to the Itinerant pattern of the royal court travelling there to renew and strengthen personal and political ties through the furthering of their shared familial interests. This was particularly true of those royal bastards who had been anchored within regional aristocratic affinities and existing familial and political identities. Henry I used his illegitimate sons and daughters extensively in the pursuit of his dynastic strategy, brokering marriages with prominent aristocrats, both within and without the Anglo-Norman hegemony, as a means of forging personal and political connections for protection of territorial interests and the stabilisation of his rule.81 Additionally, several of his illegitimate sons, whose marriages to AngloNorman heiresses brought significant territory closer into royal affinity, would come to serve the king as administrative and military lieutenants; roles which necessitated close contact with the king and the mechanisms of royal governance and administration. Royal illegitimate children then, were a regular fixture at Henry I’s court and an important point of connectivity between the king, his supporters and the wider aristocracy. It seems that Henry  I’s illegitimate daughters were left primarily within their maternal networks as adolescents and were only introduced and amalgamated into the political and courtly spheres when they were required to further their father’s interests. In contrast to this, several royal illegitimate sons were educated either within the court or closely connected spheres. As we have seen, one of Henry’s eldest illegitimate children, Richard, was raised in the household of royal chancellor and Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Bloet.82 Likewise it seems that Henry made substantial provision for the education of Robert of Gloucester who as an adult displayed a notable enthusiasm for the classics. The degree to which royal bastards were permitted to integrate into a royal family identity was highly variable and dependent upon a range of personal and circumstantial factors, many of which could change sustainably over time. While the presence and participation of royal illegitimate children, many of whom were raised to positions of authority and were well connected within wider aristocratic society, was an accepted and acknowledged aspect of courtly life throughout the twelfth century, many other illegitimate royal children subsisted primarily within their maternal networks.83 Of course, even these maternal connections were mobilised and exploited as part of Henry’s attempts to consolidate authority and cultivate connections amongst the aristocracy.84

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56  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Returning full circle to Orderic Vitalis’ account of the death of Richard, illegitimate son of the then imprisoned former Duke of Normandy, specific note is made of the fact that he was a much-admired young man.85 The presence and apparent popularity of King Henry’s illegitimate nephew in the royal court is an important and powerful example of the inclusivity and depth of twelfth century aristocratic families, regardless of the caveated legal status of bastards. In his permutation of the Gesta Normannorum Ducum, Robert Torigni, the abbot of Mont-St-Michel, names and briefly outlines the lives of the king’s acknowledged and contemporarily identified illegitimate children. The abbot’s decision to incorporate this list, which made mention of seven daughters and six sons, in his expansion of the Gesta Normannorum Ducum to encompass the reign and life of Henry, suggests that he and his contemporaries viewed the king’s host of illegitimate children as acknowledged participants in a royal family identity and to a greater or lesser extent fellow participants in aristocratic courtly culture. This sense of family identity and inclusiveness, not to mention the great political utility royal bastards represented to their legitimate family members, can be further seen in the impact the sinking of the White Ship had upon the life of another of Henry I’s illegitimate children, the future Robert of Gloucester who would emerge from the aftermath of the tragedy as one of the Anglo-Norman realm’s greatest magnates and his father’s right-hand man.

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Saint Jerome in His Study painted by Niccolò Antonio Colantonio; a Father of the Church, St Jerome questioned the compatibility of marriage with salvation. (Public Domain)

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Capriccio with the vision of St. Augustine in a ruined arcade, Ascanio Lucianos. Another Father of the Church, St Augustine’s a formative influence on Christian conceptions of marriage. (Public Domain)

Miniature from illuminated Chronicle of Matthew Paris, from BL MS Cotton Claudius D. vi, f.9. (Public Domain)

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Seal of Queen Matilda of Scotland, Walter de Gray Birch, History of Scottish Seals. (Public Domain)

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Chroniques de Saint-Denis, British Library, Royal 16 G VI f. 271, Henry I and courtiers receive French Envoy. (Public Domain)

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Depiction of King Henri I of England, Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings, MS Royal 14 B V. (Public Domain)

Sinking of the White Ship. Cotton Claudius D. ii, fol. 45v; The White Ship disaster claimed the lives of Henry I’s heir and two of his illegitimate children. (Public Domain)

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Robert Consul and Mabel his wife, Book of Tewkesbury Abbey, Bodleian Library Manuscript, Oxford, folio 15 recto. The eldest illegitimate son of Henry I, Robert styled himself with the classical title of Consul. (Public Domain)

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Water Gate to Bristol Castle, Bristol Past and Present, ed. JF Nicholls and John Taylor. The principal stronghold of Robert of Gloucester King Stephen was briefly imprisoned in Bristol Castle following his capture at the Battle of Lincoln. (Public Domain)

St James Priory Church, Bristol Records Office, PicBox/4/BCh/22; The Burial Place of Robert of Gloucester. (Public Domain)

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The Great Seal of Empress Matilda, Die Siegel der deutschen Kaiser und Könige v.1,By Otto Posse. The sole legitimate Daughter of Henry I, Matilda was her father’s chosen successor. (Public Domain)

The Great Seal of King Stephen, Pictorial History of England, by George Lillie Craik. A nephew of Henry I, Stephen claimed the throne upon his uncle’s death in 1135 by persuading the English prelates to nullify the nobility oaths of support for Matilda. (Public Domain)

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Enamel effigy of Geoffrey Plantagenet from his tomb at Le Mans; Count Geoffrey le Bel of Anjou was the second husband of Empress Matilda and the father of Henry II and Hamelin de Warenne. (Public Domain)

Launceston Castle, Anthony Devis; Reginald of Cornwall was besieged in Launceston Castle, his last foothold in the county, by King Stephen and Alan of Richmond in 1141. (Public Domain)

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Reading Abbey Gateway, by Paul Sandby. The burial place of Earl Reginald of Cornwall. (Public Domain)

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Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, BL, Royal 16 G VI f. 343v. The son of Empress Matilda and Geoffrey of Anjou, Henry II married the former queen of France, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. (Public Domain)

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King Henry II of England and his children, BL, Royal 14 B VI; Unlike his royal grandfather and namesake Henry II had numerous legitimate children.

Conisbrough Castle, by S. Hooper, Antiquities of England and Wales, Vol 6, ed. Francis Grose; Hamelin de Warenne, the illegitimate half-brother of Henry II, rebuilt the keep of Conisbrough Castle. (Public Domain)

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Palermo in mourning for the death of William II, Liber ad honorem Augusti, Peter of Eboli; Hamelin escorted his niece Joan to her wedding to King William II of Sicily. (Public Domain)

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Richard I’s Coronation, Chetham MS Ms 6712 (A.6.89), fol.141r. Henry II’s legitimate children staged several rebellions against him, often in concert with the French monarchy. (Public Domain)

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Die schöne Melusine, Julius Hübner; the Plantagenet Counts of Anjou traditionally claimed descent from a demon trickster named Melusine. (Public Domain)

Main door of Lincoln Cathedral, by Anuradha Dullewe Wijeyeratne; Henry II’s eldest illegitimate son was bishop-elect of Lincoln from 1173-1182. (Public Domain)

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Life of Christ, Liden Saint Louis Psalter, 17 recto, this illuminated manuscript was commissioned by Geoffrey during his time as Archbishop of York. (Public Domain)

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The Countess of Salisbury, a play written by Hall Hartson based on the lives of Henry II’s illegitimate son William Longespée and his wife Ela of Salisbury. (Public Domain)

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Chapter 3

Crisis and Opportunity

I

t is fair to say that since his coronation in 1100 Henry I had been exceptionally busy. He was, in a sense, making up for lost time. After his elder brothers successfully conspired to quash his aspirations for independence and autonomy, Henry spent the better part of a decade flitting between Robert and William Rufus’ courts in search of advantage, his fortunes rising and falling in accordance with their whims. Whatever his exact feelings about his enforced reliance on his brothers’ hospitality, Henry did not hesitate to seize upon the opportunity presented to him by William Rufus’sudden and unexpected death in a hunting accident.1 Acting with commendable alacrity and clear thinking, Henry moved to secure the resource which would lend him the most credibility and legitimacy in the struggle to come, the royal treasury at Winchester. Courting the favour of the Church and the bitterly divided Anglo-Norman aristocracy with mollifying gestures and rhetoric, Henry was crowned without delay by Bishop Maurice of London since the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc, was in exile sheltering in the domain of Henry’s brother and primary rival, Duke Robert.2 Henry’s audacious actions in having himself crowned before properly securing the support of the nobility, and despite the dubious nature of his claim to pre-eminence, was significant because there existed no formally established or universally accepted mechanism for deposing a king. While far from guaranteeing success, Henry’s coronation meant that his claim to the throne now had to be reckoned with and confronted rather than merely swept aside or ignored. With the battle lines still being drawn and the political situation in tumult, Henry manoeuvred to further enhance his strategic position and legitimacy through his marriage to Matilda of Scotland. Matilda was the daughter of Malcolm III and sister of the current Scottish king, Edgar, who had recently triumphed over his own dynastic rival, opening up the possibility of an alliance.3 Perhaps more important to Henry’s political and dynastic aspirations than even this advantageous rapprochement, Matilda was, through her mother Margaret of Wessex,

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58  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England a direct descendant of the royal family of pre-conquest England.4 The couple’s children, William and Matilda, would have the prestige and security of an impeccable royal pedigree. William Ætheling, the king’s chosen heir, bearing the traditional Anglo-Saxon title, could claim descent from both the Conqueror and the house of Wessex, formalizing, through a blood connection, Henry I’s extensive efforts to project continuity with the reign of Edward the Confessor.5 Over the twenty years that separated Henry’s opportunistic accession to the English throne and the sinking of the White Ship, the edifice of Anglo-Norman royal power rose high and proud, weathering a storm of crises and challenges. The king was frequently assailed by dissent from the often truculent and rapacious Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Many of the great magnates and cross-channel affinities, first established in the Conquest, were predisposed to support Duke Robert’s attempts to wrest England from his younger brother, seeing as they did a potential advantage in re-uniting the politically disparate halves of their domains. Even after completing the arduous process of defeating Robert’s numerous advocates, the king was forced to contend with sporadic aristocratic rebellions.6 For the aristocracy of eleventh- and twelfth-century Western Europe, armed rebellion was, while inherently risky, not necessarily the Rubicon it may seem. Insurrection and the fortification of an aristocrat’s holdings against their lord was in essence a particularly assertive and pugnacious way of signalling dissatisfaction with either the implicit or explicit conditions and parameters of that relationship. Such hostilities often had a markedly Clausewitzian character in which rebellious vassals attempted to articulate their resolve and gain further leverage for renegotiations. King Henry I and his contemporaries then had to work to build support amongst the nobility through the cultivation of personal affinity and the distribution of largesse, all the while remaining on guard against various attempts to overthrow them, shrug off royal suzerainty or simply extort them. Relatively early in his reign, Henry faced another significant challenge when he came into conflict with the Church over the issues of Investiture. Mirroring a series of clashes between the Holy Roman Emperors and the Papacy, the Investiture Crisis was essentially born from anxiety over sovereignty and the ramifications of the bishops’ dual role as clergymen and landholding vassals. It is possible that Henry was particularly sensitive to, and careful around, the subject of sovereignty and royal power because of the circumstances surrounding the Conquest and the resultant expansion

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Crisis and Opportunity  59 of the Anglo-Norman polity to encompass both Duchy and Kingdom. In Normandy, the Duke, while maintaining certain rights and privileges, was to an extent the first amongst equals, while in England, military conquest had allowed the Norman kings to superimpose the wealth of a vast royal demesne upon the framework of Anglo-Saxon law and bureaucracy, giving them a formidable array of powers.7 Many of the great magnates of the Anglo-Norman realm, the descendants of the Conqueror’s companions and his allies, held lands in both Normandy and England. This political and governmental cleavage presented some challenges when the titles were held by quarrelling brothers, as had been the case since the Conqueror’s death in 1087, but provoked somewhat sharper questions about royal authority, legal remit and personal obligations when Henry I invaded the Duchy in 1103. Indeed, the dispute over Investiture was only resolved, and further crisis averted, by a compromise reached in 1107 after Duke Robert was safely imprisoned and the king had consolidated his control over Normandy.8 While wrestling Normandy away from his brother and compelling its fractious nobility to recognize him as duke was an enormous triumph for Henry, it was a prize that brought with it the promise of future conflict. Quite apart from the substantial challenges of reconciling the Norman nobility to his rule or integrating the administration of his disparate territories, the re-unification of the Anglo-Norman domains burdened Henry with the complicated and arduous task of dealing with the duchy’s neighbours. The most aggressive and dangerous of these were Anjou and Île-de-France, the personal demesne of the king of France. While French royal authority had been at a low ebb and unevenly projected in the century or so since the duchy of Normandy had crystallized as a political entity around the ducal family, it was nominally a part of France and, in theory, its duke, was a vassal of the French king. Even the family’s own foundation myth, as presented by Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his Historia Normannorum and echoed within the Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, depicts Henry’s ancestor, Rollo, as receiving the duchy as a result of his alliance with King Robert of France.9 While a sovereign king in England, in Normandy Henry’s traditional legal status as a mere vassal of the newly resurgent French monarchy, under Louis VI, represented a severe threat to his autonomy and the coherency of the Anglo-Norman hegemony. King Louis, who had spent much of his reign consolidating power within the Île-de-France and

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60  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England bringing to heel the region’s nobility, began to press for Henry to formally pay him homage for his continental domains. This interminable legal and diplomatic wrangling formed the backdrop to a series of escalating border clashes and wars. Louis was supported initially in these efforts by Norman dissidents, Henry’s dynastic rivals, and by Count Fulk V of Anjou. Located on Normandy’s southern border, Anjou had been growing in power and influence for several generations and was now aggressively expanding, having succeeded in annexing the neighbouring county of Maine from Normandy. Meanwhile, in addition to cultivating support within the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and enhancing royal authority through the adaptation of the far-reaching governmental system of Anglo-Saxon England, Henry I was also engaged in attempting to exert his overlordship within the British Isles. Henry elected to solve the Gordian knot, represented by his continental rivals, in the traditional manner with one fell stroke. He did so by deploying his heir and only legitimate son, William Ætheling, in defence of their shared dynastic and political interests. In 1115 Henry, supremely unwilling to entertain acknowledging or accepting any form of personal submission to the king of France, suggested that his son, William, pay homage to Louis as the Duke of Normandy.10 Louis firmly rejected this compromise, recognizing it as an obfuscating attempt to play for time, appeasing him while preserving Henry’s royal dignity and freedom to recant or act against him. William’s marriage to Fulk’s daughter Matilda in 1119 was accompanied by the defection of the Angevins from the French cause, lured away by such an advantageous and prestigious dynastic link, which quickly compelled the French king to review the earlier proposal, formally accepting William’s homage in 1120. While the extent to which William would have been permitted to exercise authority within the duchy is highly debatable, he was on the morning of 25 November 1120 the unquestioned and virtually unassailable heir to the Anglo-Norman realm whose personal relationships and obligations upheld the security of the duchy. William was the central figure of a court in miniature, composed of the youthful elite of Anglo-Norman society, the magnates of the future, eager to bask in and profit from the reflected glory of the king-to-be.11 When the White Ship foundered, this future and the security of the Anglo-Norman realm sank with it. The sinking of the White Ship, resulting as it did in the death of his beloved heir and two of his most favoured illegitimate children, was a

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Crisis and Opportunity  61 political and personal tragedy for Henry  I. The heir to the throne was dead, with no immediately apparent or universally acceptable replacement available. This triggered a cascade of crises which arguably only ceased with the accession of Henry II in 1154. The absence of an heir represented a potentially serious threat to the authority and power of the king. With the succession uncertain, there was blood in the water, the complex web of loyalties and affinities that held the Anglo-Norman aristocracy together vacillated and shifted as its members manoeuvred for advantage. Dynastic instability created the conditions for an erosion of aristocratic consensus and was often interpreted by contemporaries as a sign of political, and therefore military, fragility. While the Ætheling’s personal influence upon the creeping advancement of Norman power into Wales was minuscule to non-existent, his death triggered a series of uprising in southern Wales. William’s premature and sudden death also severed the king’s only dynastic link with Count Fulk, once more exposing southern Normandy to Angevin aggression. King Henry did himself no favours by refusing to return the bride’s dowry, a strategically vital and heavily fortified swathe of Maine, thereby poisoning any remaining goodwill between the two families. Although Duke Robert was safely imprisoned in England, his son, William Clito, remained at large and, in the chaos and instability that followed the Ætheling’s death, emerged as a severe threat to Henry  I.12 As the Conqueror’s only remaining patrilineal grandson, he could now persuasively claim to be his hated uncle’s heir and his cause found a significant degree of support amongst disaffected or opportunistic elements within the Norman aristocracy. Worse still, he enjoyed the committed and engaged backing of both King Louis of France and Fulk, a pact sealed through William Clito’s marriage to another of Fulk’s daughters, Sybilla, in 1123. As we have seen in the previous chapter, in defiance of the inherent precariousness of their position, by the time of the White Ship disaster in 1120, several of Henry  I’s illegitimate children were acknowledged and accepted fixtures of the royal court, attaining positions of some prominence within wider Anglo-Norman aristocratic networks. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the sheer number of the king’s illegitimate progeny and the phenomenal workload that securing and governing the AngloNorman realm entailed, paternal affection and material support was unevenly distributed across Henry’s offspring. Inevitably, legitimacy was an issue with some influence over the distribution of parental affection. The Anglo-Norman aristocracy of the twelfth century lived in a chimeric

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62  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England world in which the personal flowed seamlessly into the political, the integrity of dynastic connections translated directly into temporal power and influence. The expectation of inheritance and the existence of a mutual vested interest in a shared dynastic enterprise heavily predisposed nobles to co-operate and closely affiliate with their legitimate children. While illegitimate children could and often were active participants in familial identity, this membership was highly caveated and conditional, their ineligibility for inheritance conspiring to move them to the peripheries.13 The extent of Henry I’s paternal feeling towards his legitimate daughter, Matilda, are hard to ascertain or separate from her dynastic utility, since she was packed off in 1110, at the tender age of eight, to be raised in the customs and manners of the court of her future husband, Emperor Henry V.14 William Ætheling, the heir presumptive since his birth in 1103, was a supremely confident even glamorous young man who, despite his lack of personal territories or access to substantial independent means, was a central figure of the court, entrusted with considerable power and authority, acting as his father’s proxy with increasing frequency. Henry of Huntingdon, a protégé of royal counsellor Bishop Robert Bloet of Lincoln comments rather waspishly, and with the benefit of considerable hindsight, that he had long maintained that William was a prince so spoiled and pampered by his father that it was inevitable he would meet a tragic end.15 Here Henry is making a moral point about the materially and spiritually corrosive nature of hubris in a section of his work in which he muses about the vagaries and fortunes of life, yet the foreboding instructional commentaries of this court intimate suggest that the king was warm and generous to William. For Henry  I, at least, age and birth order seem to have played an important part in the allocation of paternal attention and the variable inclusivity of royal familial identity for his illegitimate children. Although they continued to co-operate closely and co-ordinate with one another, the king and queen had no further children following the birth of William, perhaps a deliberate strategy on the couple’s part to avoid the internecine rivalry and violence which had so marred Henry’s life. Indeed, Matilda, while an active partner in royal identity and administration, seems to have operated primarily within English royal centres rather than sharing Henry’s itinerant lifestyle.16 Whatever the reason behind this dearth of legitimate children, Henry continued to father numerous royal bastards following his ascension to the throne, unperturbed by his regal dignity and

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Crisis and Opportunity  63 status. Yet those illegitimate royal children who came to occupy positions of prominence within the royal court and participate in Henry’s political and dynastic activities were all born in his youth, during his time in the wilderness. While somewhat facile, it might be possible to advance the notion that the king’s interactions and support of his eldest children were the result of the sheer novelty of parenthood on an ambitious young man, an experience which may well have started to lose its impact after the sixth or seventh child. While it would not do to entirely dismiss the often quite genuine bonds of affinity and affection that existed between twelfthcentury kings of England and their illegitimate children and relatives, such relationships retained a significant, inescapable political dimension. Henry’s eldest illegitimate children, for instance, were empowered to interact with royal governance and the aristocracy on their family’s behalf, in part simply because they were old enough to do so. Henry provided his eldest two illegitimate sons, Robert and the illfated Richard, with an unusually extensive and thorough education. The exact details of Robert’s education and upbringing are lost beyond William of Malmesbury’s attestation and the circumstantial evidence that he studied at either the cathedral of Bayeux or the Benedictine house in neighbouring Caen.17 Richard was placed within the household of one of the king’s most trusted advisors, the Bishop of Lincoln, raised and educated within sight of the royal household. As discussed in the previous chapter, the king also arranged that the two brothers enter prestigious and advantageous marriages to some of the Anglo-Norman realm’s wealthiest heiresses. Robert entered into a long engagement with the orphaned Mabel Fitzhamon, the heiress of Glamorgan and daughter of the famed Marcher Lord, Robert Fitzhamon.18 Richard, meanwhile, was betrothed to Amice, daughter of Raoul de Gael, lord of Gael and Montfort in Brittany.19 In addition to his father’s substantial lordships in Brittany, Raoul inherited a claim on the lordship of Bréteuil in Normandy which by 1119 he had managed to secure following the rebellion of his cousin Eustace de Bréteuil, the husband of Henry I’s illegitimate daughter, Juliana. Henry arranged these marriages for his eldest illegitimate sons to provide for their future and material needs but in doing so he also granted them the means to lend him meaningful political and military support while, at the same time, bringing new territory under the control of his family and projecting his authority and influence into regional aristocratic affinities. As well as being means of exerting increased control over sections of the nobility,

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64  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England the two were to be Henry’s companions and lieutenants, executing the filial duties that William was too young or simply too precious to engage with. For instance, Richard took part in the latter portion of his father’s sprawling and extended war against Louis VI in 1119, seemingly serving as a member of his father’s immediate military household. Orderic Vitalis places him in the company of Ralph of Pont-Echanfré, a former crusader and one of Henry I’s most trusted military retainers whose adventuring career and its moral ramifications were a source of considerable interest to Orderic.20 Ralph, no doubt charged with keeping the young royal bastard safe, acquitted himself admirably by saving Richard from certain capture during the fighting around les Andelys. Such are the fortunes of war though and despite the scare, Richard remained an active participant of his father’s military retinue throughout the campaign, Orderic stating that he was present alongside Henry I at the siege of Evreux and took part in the decisive Battle of Brémule.21 Both Robert and Richard then were empowered and included within royal family identity by Henry, in part in order to elicit their support for him and their half-brother with whom they both shared a broad familial and personal affinity as participants in the expanding youthful clique of the Anglo-Norman court. As we have seen, upon coming to power, Henry arranged the marriages of his eldest illegitimate daughters to influential magnates and princes within and around the Anglo-Norman hegemony. While the planned marriage between the king’s legitimate daughter and the most powerful and illustrious monarch in Europe lent Henry further prestige and status, the political alliances and alignment of interests created by these strategically selected nuptials helped to secure Henry’s grip on power and facilitate his hegemonic ambitions. Henry I compensated for his paucity of legitimate family members of a suitable age to participate in the advancement of their shared dynastic interests by drafting in suitable substitutes from his reserve of illegitimate children, as needed.22 It was only natural then that, when faced with instability and crisis triggered by the death of his chosen heir, the king once more turned to his illegitimate family members for help. Throughout the twelfth century and beyond, favoured or capable illegitimate royal family members were, as the result of various political, dynastic and contextual factors, empowered and integrated into royal governance by their legitimate patrons with the goal of strengthening and advancing royal dynastic interest. This strategy of empowering members of the wider family group with limited prospects of legal inheritance had

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Crisis and Opportunity  65 substantial precedent and was in keeping with larger aristocratic trends regarding the distribution and retention of families’ resources. In order to perform effectively in this role, royal bastards were appointed to positions within the aristocracy and royal government which bestowed upon them the agency and resources necessary to engage effectively in royal service and advance their family’s dynastic interests. In practice, royal bastards did this in several varied ways, such as bringing regional and dynastic affinities into closer alignment with the royal centre through their mutual association, participation in the organs and mechanism of royal governance or through direct service as envoys or military commanders. It is important to stress that neither these forms of royal co-operation nor the administrative and political mechanism through which illegitimate royal family members were empowered were necessarily unique to them. But while they were far from the only beneficiaries of royal favour, the personal affinity royal bastards shared with their legitimate family, as well as the implications of their legal status, made them particularly reliable allies. The increasing legal and social restrictions imposed upon them by their illegitimacy meant they were to an extent beholden to the good will of their legitimate family for advancement. This dependence strongly predisposed illegitimate royal family members towards co-operation with their family, since beyond whatever connections their maternal families provided, their material prospects relied upon their continued loyalty and usefulness. As we shall see, illegitimate royal family members during this period were often elevated to positions of prominence at times of instability and political upheaval. Such crisis often provided the opportunity for a renegotiation or redefinition of relationships as the balance of power between English kings and their illegitimate relatives changed. Robert would, as result of the sinking of the White Ship and the death of his legitimate half-brother, rise to become the second man of the realm. Invested with considerable vice-regal powers, Robert would strengthen and stabilize his father’s reign, acting amongst other things as a military commander, a bulwark amongst the aristocracy, regional governor, and royal proxy.

Overlord of the Welsh Marches Following the Ætheling’s death, Henry I sought to mitigate and defuse the looming dynastic crisis in several inherently practical and sensible ways.

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66  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England A widower, since Matilda of Scotland’s death in 1118, Henry married the young and exceptionally beautiful Adeliza of Louvain in 1121.23 Adeliza, who charmed even the usually acerbic Henry of Huntingdon, was the daughter of Duke Godfrey of Lower Lorraine, a vassal and ally of the king’s son-in-law, Emperor Henry V. Henry’s marriage to Adeliza certainly served to strengthen his German alliance but this was nothing more than a potentially valuable addition to the marriage’s primary goal, the production of further legitimate sons for Henry. Following her husband’s death in 1125, the king also recalled his only remaining legitimate child, Empress Matilda. This was undoubtedly something of a culture shock to Matilda who had departed her father’s court as an eightyear-old. Yet her commitment to familial duty was rewarded when the king, who was increasingly reconciled to his second marriage’s infertility, formally recognized Matilda as his heir and began the arduous process of compelling the Anglo-Norman aristocracy to acknowledge her status. Foremost, and perhaps most urgent amongst these acts of political triage was the elevation of his eldest illegitimate son to the earldom of Gloucester. A new creation specifically intended to invest Robert with the prestige and resources necessary to support his father, the earldom was composed of the lands brought to Robert by his marriage to Mabel, bolstered by substantial donations from the royal demesne. Mabel’s father, Robert Fitzhamon, reputed to be a distant relative of the Conqueror, was an Anglo-Norman warlord and adventurer of the old school. While Robert’s own father Hamio, a royal seneschal and intimate, had very substantial landholdings within England, it appears that the majority of these were inherited by Robert’s brother, leaving him with a comparatively modest patrimony in Normandy. Despite this, he had successfully constructed a large powerbase and nurtured an accompanying affinity amongst the Norman elite of the Welsh Marches through his conspicuous support of the ever-generous King William Rufus during the rebellion of 1088. Robert built upon this gift by besting Rhys ap Tewdwr and making extensive territorial acquisitions of his own in southern Wales which he consolidated into the honour of Glamorgan, centred on Cardiff castle.24 It remains unclear at exactly what point the future Earl Robert and Mabel, who was only a child at the time of her father’s death in 1107, were betrothed. At the very least this union seems to have been formalized by 1114, the year in which King Henry issued a charter confirming that Tewkesbury Abbey was to retain all the

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Crisis and Opportunity  67 same rights and exemptions under the lordship of his son, Robert, that it had enjoyed under the tenure of its previous benefactor.25 The abbey at Tewkesbury had been re-founded and renovated on a grand scale in 1092 by Mabel’s father. The implication of the king’s charter then, and the reason behind the monks of Tewkesbury’s desire to establish their privileges at this junction, was that Robert had recently or was just about to acquire a stake in the abbey and lordship of its surrounding lands. This time frame for Robert’s marriage and his accompanying assumption of authority over Mabel’s inheritance is broadly supported by Robert’s appearance amongst the witness lists of his father’s charters from 1113 onwards. This suggests that he first began to become politically active and engaged around this period, making it a natural fit for his father to begin looking for a means to provide for Robert and establish him as a participant in the wider Anglo-Norman aristocratic networks. Robert’s charter to the monks of Rochester, in which he confirms the use of land at Great Marlow, originally granted to them by his father-in-law Robert Fitzhamon identifies him only as Robert, the son of King Henry.26 Whilst the date of the charter is unknown, the absence of Robert’s highly prized and, as we shall see, idiosyncratic comital title strongly suggests that it was issued before the creation of the earldom in 1121. Their marriage can therefore comfortably be said to predate the creation of the earldom, which absorbed Mabel’s inheritance, with Robert already exercising authority over Mabel’s estates and actively involved in their regulation and administration. The primary challenges in any attempt to examine the extent and composition of Earl Robert of Gloucester’s domains is the relatively small pool of charter and financial evidence that survive from his tenure as earl. This scarcity of evidence and the fragmentary survival of the Pipe Rolls from this period is, in part, exacerbated by the process of bureaucratic experimentation as the royal centre sought to refine and develop the hybridized and somewhat slap-dash post-conquest administrative system. During the earl’s lifetime, both central and regional administrative practices were characterized by a relative lack of standardization in the formulation of financial records. Instead, their format and composition were determined by the different scribes employed by often itinerant courts and households, a scatter-shot and diffuse approach which limited their survival. As a trusted royal councillor and ally of his father, operating primarily on the turbulent Welsh Marches, Robert was afforded a

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68  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England great deal of political and financial autonomy. These privileges, while a testament to his closeness with Henry  I and engagement in royal governance, conspire to obscure the extent of his domains and regional influence. This dislocation from the royal centre would only become more pronounced during the civil war and armed uprising which blighted much of King Stephen’s reign. Such difficulties are hardly unique though and the surviving charter evidence from Gloucester and southern Wales is augmented by the great body of evidence left by Robert’s immediate successors and further elucidated through references in chronicler sources to the earl’s landed interests, spheres of influence and associates. Combining and re-sifting the evidence from these scattered sources allows us to broadly sketch the boundaries of Robert’s domains and through them begin to appreciate the measure of power and authority that Henry had invested in his clearly highly trusted and valued illegitimate son. In 1166 the earldom, now held by Robert’s son William, contained 274.5 Knight’s Fees which were further supplemented by its associated honour of Glamorgan which was likewise assessed for a further 47.5 Fees.27 The first half of Henry II’s reign was a period of relative stability within England, at least in terms of the great magnates and their estates. A recurring theme within royal rhetoric and strategy at this time was a restoration of continuity with the reign of Henry  I which suggest that William’s dual honours were likely a close approximation, in terms of size and boundaries, to what they had been under Earl Robert. When compared to other magnates in the 1120s it is clear that, in attempting to stabilise his rule and establish Robert as a bulwark within the Welsh Marchers, Henry  I turned his eldest illegitimate son into a magnate with few peers. It is of some significance and interest that by 1166, a generation removed from the establishment of the earldom, the exchequer was making a positive distinction between Gloucester and Glamorgan. As we shall see, Robert, far more entrenched and secure in royal favour and familial identity than his son ever was, paid very little attention to such niceties, exercising his vice-regal privileges equally throughout his English and Welsh holdings. Robert’s single greatest financial and military asset within England was Bristol and its castle. At the time of the earldom’s creation, the city was numbered amongst the greatest in England, behind only York and London in terms of wealth and populace.28 If the rents and incomes derived from the city remained congruent with those collected by the earl’s father-

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Crisis and Opportunity  69 in-law, they constituted the single largest source of income within the earldom. As the primary administrative centre of the earldom and focus of Robert’s political affinity, the defence and retention of Bristol Castle during the civil war that followed was of paramount importance. During his extended absences from the citadel, he delegated its defence to family members engaged in the support of their shared interests, his eldest son William and Philip Gai, a possible cousin.29 Robert also employed this strategy in his other principal English stronghold, Gloucester Castle, installing an illegitimate son of his own, Robert FitzRobert, as castellan. The younger Robert seems to have thrived because of the office and its accompanying incomes and, in 1147, married a daughter of Earl Baldwin de Redvers of Devon.30 Following Earl Robert’s death and the accession of Henry II to the throne in 1154, control of Bristol Castle became a matter of some contention between Earl William and his royal cousin who not only garrisoned the castle but furnished the city with an extensive charter of rights.31 In Wales Robert significantly strengthened and expanded the honour of Glamorgan in the 1120s, waging several expansionary campaigns against the Welsh Afan family and its allies.32 The earl re-organized these acquisitions into the lordship of Neath which was held on a tenurial basis by Mabel’s uncle, Richard de Grenville. Richard and his role are further identified in the witness lists of a charter Robert issued within Glamorgan some time before 1143, in which he is styled as a constable of the Earl of Gloucester.33 This appointment invested Richard with considerable control and authority over the earl’s most vulnerable frontier, securing his status as one of Robert’s primary tenants within Wales. It further demonstrates that Robert, in many ways a royally sponsored interloper, cooperated closely with his wife’s family and was able effectively to mobilize and integrate with the existing regional and familial aristocratic affinities. The town at Neath, where Richard de Grenville founded a monastery in 1130, prospered to the extent that Robert’s successor, William, endowed the burgesses with a charter of liberties based upon those his father had implemented in Cardiff and Newport.34 An important factor in Robert’s successful expansion into the culturally and politically permeable Welsh frontier was his establishment of a concordat with the Church in southern Wales which greatly aided the consolidation of his administration within the area. Despite a significant degree of intermarriage, contemporaries strongly perceived the

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70  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England delineation between the ethno-linguistic groups active in Wales. Robert’s establishment of a working relationship with the regional church hierarchy was of such great value because most of its membership were of native Welsh extraction. In 1126 Robert reached a formalized agreement with the energetic Anglo-Welsh Bishop Urban of Llandaff, whose occupation of the dioceses had been recognized by Archbishop Lanfranc in 1107 as part of a wider accommodation. In this settlement, Bishop and Earl agreed to co-operate with one another in the defence of their mutually recognized rights, a necessary step of which was a working acknowledgment of the parameters of their overlapping legal and territorial claims.35 Countess Mabel’s father held a hereditary claim, through his own grandfather, Hamon de Creully, to the Norman lordships of Creully, Mézy, Torigny, and Évrecy, although the extent to which he was able to exercise authority within these lordships is difficult to ascertain. Robert can be positively identified as holding the honours of Évrecy and of nearby St Scholasse-sur-Sarthe, containing a cumulative ten knight’s fees, which suggests that the countess’ family had been able to retain control of these territories.36 On the other hand, Robert, who was frequently in Normandy on his father’s business, may well have taken the initiative in pursuing his wife’s hereditary claims. In 1128 Robert reached a concordat with Abbot Roger of Fécamp abbey in which he offered to confer upon the abbey significant rights and patronage. Robert’s wielding of considerable influence within the areas, and his personal investment in the maintenance of smooth relations with the abbey, suggests that he may have been gifted or otherwise recovered land around the nearby honour of Creully.37 Several years after Robert’s death, his nephew Henry II, confirmed by charter an agreement between the earl and the abbey of Saint-Evroul pertaining to the control of the church at Sap and the distribution of its considerable income.38 This charter not only testifies to the extension of Robert’s landed interests in Normandy to the lands around Saint-Evroul and its environs, but also strongly emphasizes, within its text, Robert’s relationship and affinity with the Anglo-Norman family. Indeed, Robert’s leveraging of his wealth and pseudo royal status to secure a continuing stake in the abbey and the surrounding region demonstrates the reciprocal and often selfreinforcing nature of his relationship with the royal centre. The elevated royal bastard could, and likely did, use his personal association with the king as well as the wealth and authority derived from his participation in

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Crisis and Opportunity  71 royal governance to promote and secure his wife’s dynastic claims. But, in doing so, he created a powerbase and staging post within Normandy which better enabled him to participate in the projection of royal power within the Duchy and its defence against rival claimants and neighbours, a neat system of mutually reinforcing interests between father and son. Robert seems to have been supremely confident in the management and dispensation of the land and property brought to him by his marriage, making no distinction, either theoretical or practical, between it and the grants he received from the royal demesne. The earl’s charters generally never make any mention of his wife’s rights or contain the intimation that he is acting on her behalf to preserve and manage her familial interests. Instead, the authority and, to a lesser extent, the legality of his charters, be they grants, confirmations or agreements, rest upon his status as the son of Henry I and position as earl of Gloucester, an earldom which, after all, was created specifically to enhance his power and dignity. While Countess Mabel is almost always afforded precedence within those witness lists in which she appears, it seems that the main criteria for her inclusion in the witnessing and ratification of her husband’s charters was availability rather than content.39 The countess seems simply to have witnessed those charters that were issued when she happened to be present rather than specifically those pertaining to her inheritance. The primary exception to this can be found in the foundation charter of the Cistercian Margam abbey issued by Robert in 1147 which makes specific mention of the countess’ consent to the foundation and an acknowledgement that the lands assigned for the support of the abbey are drawn from her inheritance in southern Wales.40 It is unclear exactly why this charter, which otherwise conforms to Robert’s usually adopted title and style of address, differs in this regard. It seems likely that this rare acknowledgement of the countess’ rights comes from a desire for the clarity and permanency of the charter on the part of the nascent monastic community itself. The foundation of the abbey, which the monks naturally hoped to be unimpeachable and irrevocable, necessitated the assertion of a legal position which was in practice usually dispensed with as a result of the circumstances of their marriage and Robert’s engagement with royal family identity. It is also possible that since the charter was issued shortly before the earl’s death, at a time of compromise and reconciliation with King Stephen, Robert now lacked the royal favour and political clout that had previously allowed him to sweep aside such legal niceties.

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72  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Interestingly, following the earl’s death and the succession of their son, William, to the earldom, Mabel can be found issuing a number of charters alongside her son and was even given priority over William in the address clause of their restitutions to Bishop Jocelin of Salisbury, issued shortly after Robert’s death in either 1147 or 1148.41 This practice of emphasising Mabel’s rights and the co-operation between mother and son, likely arises from the thorny legal issues related to William’s succession to the honour of Glamorgan and an earldom composed, in no small part, of Mabel’s own inheritance at a time where legal practice and the law courts were becoming increasingly prevalent and sophisticated, particularly in matters of inheritance. Indeed, as part of the settlement between the two, it seems that Mabel took over the management of the family’s lands within Normandy.42 This concern, while reflecting advancing cultural norms and changing inheritance patterns within the shifting networks of aristocratic family interests, also displays the benefits and leeway that could be afforded Anglo-Norman royal bastards as a result of their participation in royal familial identity. A crucial intersection between Robert’s position as an Anglo-Norman magnate and royal family member are the almost vice-regal powers seceded to him within his earldom and associated territories. These rights and privileges provided him with streams of revenue and patronage which allowed him to bind the region’s nobility into a closer political alignment with him and his royal relatives. As we shall see in due course, this process and Robert’s use of the trappings of royal authority were accentuated and expanded by the outbreak of warfare in 1138 and Robert’s subsequent dislocation from a centralized and active royal administration. The foremost example of the use of executive power ceded to him as a result of his status as the king’s illegitimate son was his control over the sheriffs of the earldom of Gloucester. Both William of Malmesbury and John of Worcester state within their respective chronicles that when Henry I created the earldom of Gloucester, he subordinated the sheriffs of the county to his newly elevated son.43 This investment of authority and royal privilege was, in the shifting world of Anglo-Norman politics, far more than simply an administrative or clerical distinction. John of Worcester was an English chronicler writing at the behest of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, whose diocese included the earldom of Gloucester, and therefore could hardly help but have been well informed upon the composition and form of the earl’s regional administration. Likewise, the

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Crisis and Opportunity  73 Earl was an active and enthusiastic patron of William of Malmesbury who dedicated the revised edition of his Histories to Robert. Both sources then were close to the earl and the inner workings of his political affinity and would have been aware of the importance and wider implications of such an award from the king. The, at least, nominal subordination of Miles, one of the hereditary sheriffs of Gloucester, before his elevation to the earldom of Hereford in 1141, can be seen in Earl Robert’s confirmation of a grant to St Peter’s abbey made on behalf of Miles’s grandmother, Adeliza.44 While the exact date that the charter was issued is unknown, Miles’ description in the witness list and his identification as constable of Gloucester means it cannot have been issued before 1126 when Miles succeeded his father to the office. Robert’s confirmation of a donation made by Miles’ family heavily implies political oversight and superiority, while the wording of the charter, in which Robert retains his rights and customs due from the donated lands, shows that his lordship over the county’s sheriffs and their lands extended to a legal and proprietary reality.45 Robert also exercised considerable control over the cities of Cardiff and Tewkesbury, the burgesses of which both received a charter of rights and freedoms from the earl which was closely based on those granted to Hereford by William FitzOsbern.46 The earl, however, fastidiously maintained control of the appointments of the towns’ officials and used them to exert influence over the distribution of land and revenues arising from them. Robert’s policy of expansion and consolidation within Wales can be seen as a natural extension of his duties as an Anglo-Norman Marcher Lord, amongst whom he was the preeminent. At the same time, the earl was careful to present himself as a participant within the royal family. William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum Anglorum pointedly emphasising both Robert’s ancestry as well as his status as a dutiful and capable son. This suggests that Robert’s understanding of his own dignity and temporal standing were heavily intertwined with, and sourced from, his familial identity, at once a spur towards and a potential complication in the construction and mobilization of affinity with other participants in this identity. Clashes between competing and combative interests within expanded family networks were not only a concern for members of the royal family, illegitimate or otherwise, and were, perhaps, a natural and inevitable result of the dense and overlapping web of competing noble landed interests. However, the general bias towards familial solidarity

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74  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England within aristocratic culture, and the connectivity and relative permanence of bonds generated by familial and political affinity, meant that this system of interconnected dynastic and regional networks tended to facilitate the consolidation and synthesis of competing interests between dynastically connected regional and political parties. The interests of the AngloNorman and Angevin royal families, and the households and networks that they embedded and elevated illegitimate family members within, can be seen as largely complementary. As these often large and powerful regional affinities became connected to royal interests and policy, through their new lord’s personal connection to the king, the stability of these networks and the power and authority of illegitimate royal children integrated within them was further enhanced through the distribution of the profits and prestige gained from royal largesse.

The King’s Right Hand Beyond the important function of maintaining the integrity of the Welsh Marches and keeping their ambitious and energetic nobility in check, Robert, as previously alluded to, served his father as a proxy and lieutenant in a martial, administrative and diplomatic capacity. In 1123, relatively soon after his creation as a cross-channel magnate, Robert became heavily engaged in quelling an uprising in Normandy launched in conjunction with an incursion into southern Normandy by Count Fulk of Anjou.47 Fulk was fighting to advance the claims of his son-in-law, Robert’s cousin William Clito, whose hereditary rights to the duchy were supported by a number of dissident Norman aristocrats, such as the Count of Evreux, Amaury de Montfort, Waleran of Meulan, his brother-in-law Hugh de Montfort and William Lovel. Robert was entrusted by his father, alongside Earl Ranulf of Chester, with the joint leadership of a large royalist army tasked with supressing rebel activity in the Cotentin. Later that year, the king summoned Robert and his lieutenant Nigel d’Aubigny to join him in the reduction of Montfort-sur-Rilse, the principal stronghold of Hugh de Montfort.48 While not listed by Orderic Vitalis as being amongst the royalist commanders at the Battle of Bourgthéroulde in 1124, it is possible that Robert was liaising with the king or was simply prosecuting the war elsewhere in a mode of warfare where decisive battles were rare and theatres fluid.49 It is significant, indeed, that both Symeon of Durham and William Malmesbury, the first edition of whose

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Crisis and Opportunity  75 Gesta Regum Anglorum would be written only a year after the campaign, emphasize Henry’s trust in and reliance upon Robert’s military abilities in their accounts of the rebellion.50 Robert also served his father as one of the king’s key counsellors and officials in the operation of Anglo-Norman governance which included his membership and association with the Court of the Exchequer, a body integral to the continued function of royal governance and projection of the king’s authority. Flexible in its composition and remit, drawing recruits from a pool of capable royal advisers and administrative officials, the Court was extended considerable autonomy in the maintenance and oversight of the king’s finances. This flexibility and devolution of power was possibly a result of the itinerant nature of the royal court and the king’s long periods of absence from the English royal centres. Members of this body and their financial interests and obligations often appeared clustered together within the annual Pipe Rolls which they oversaw, perhaps as a means of organizing and accounting for the substantial pardons and remissions from taxation which they both dispensed and personally greatly benefited from.51 Robert of Gloucester’s frequent appearance within these Pipe Roll clusters of vested administrative interest, was substantially higher than any of his colleagues or contemporaries, a prominence which significantly extended to those years in which he accompanied the king to Rouen, suggesting a strong and permanent association with the management of the Exchequer. Robert was, therefore, one of the core members of the powerful and influential administrative body responsible for the maintenance of royal finances and in large part the distribution of royal largesse. In addition to this position, Robert was entrusted in 1128 to carry out an audit of the royal treasury, acting as a direct deputy to the king, alongside his long-term associate Brian FitzCount, whose strategically vital castle at Wallingford would come to play an important role in the maintenance of Empress Matilda’s dynastic claims in England.52 The duo also performed the same function in 1129 when they audited the Durham treasury.53 The earl also represented his father in several notable ecclesiastical councils in the 1120s whose consequences directly impacted the administrative and political geometry of the Anglo-Norman world. In 1125 the earl witnessed two legatine courts established by Pope Calixitus  II in an attempt to resolve the longstanding ambiguity and animosity surrounding the archbishoprics of Canterbury and York.54 The long-running tradition of dispute and rancour between the British Isles’

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76  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England two archbishoprics had once more flared up when Archbishop William de Corbeil’s refused to consecrate or recognize Thurstan of York until his primacy was acknowledged. In 1127 Robert represented his father at an ecclesiastical council held by Archbishop William which attempted to further disseminate and enforce the policies and theological positions of the growing Church reform movement by reiterating the ban on simony and the prohibition of marriage for those under holy orders or occupying positions within a cathedral. 55 Robert’s inclusion in the council’s witnesses, on behalf of his father, leads to the strange occurrence of an elevated and empowered royal bastard engaged in service to their shared royal dynastic interests by rubber-stamping elements of the theological reforms and innovations which had so strongly delineated his illegitimate status. In 1138 Robert attended another council held by the archbishop of Canterbury which considered the amalgamations of the Welsh dioceses of Llandaff and St David, an enterprise on which the earl would have had a considerable personal interest and influence over, directly impacting as it did the administration and projection of authority within southern Wales.56 Robert’s engagement within royal service and subsequent importance within the royal court can be further attested to in his high placement amongst the lay witnesses to his father’s acta and was in 1130 even granted primacy over his legitimate cousin, Count Stephen, and the other magnates of the Anglo-Norman realm. Robert was heavily engaged in service to his father, through the maintenance and execution of royal government, to the extent that he may have formed something of a rivalry with the Chancellor, Bishop Roger of Salisbury, upon whose royal authority he may have encroached. In 1126 Earl Robert replaced Roger as the gaoler of his uncle and possible namesake, Robert of Normandy. This duty is testament to the trust Henry I held in the loyalty and capability of his illegitimate son, given the duke’s blatantly superior claim to the Anglo-Norman hegemony and potential as a figurehead for aristocratic dissent.57 In addition to his uncle, Robert further received from the Chancellor custodianship of two castles and their peripheries within Kent, granting Robert substantial influence over the region.58 A further suggestion of their relative roles and status within the implementation of royal governance can possibly be detected in the obscure circumstances in which the archbishopric ceded the lordship of Kidwelly, in the Welsh Marches, to one of Robert’s tenants in the region, Maurice de Londres.59

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Crisis and Opportunity  77 Robert, perhaps unsurprisingly, given his familial circumstances and the extensive patronage he received, prominently proclaimed his royal heritage. His royal connection and engagement in royal service was one of his primary means of self-identification. Charters issued by the earl with assiduous consistency describe him as Robert, son of the king. Robert was an active participant in royal family identity and despite, or rather because of his illegitimacy, went to considerable lengths to emphasize his personal dignity through the adoption of the trappings of royal authority. It would seem that Robert’s strong ties of familial affinity not only led to his participation in a shared dynastic enterprise but also contributed to a keen appreciation of his own status and importance, articulated through the unique adoption of an apparently self-appointed title. Rather than describing himself with the Latin word ‘comes’ to represent his comital rank as was done by the other earls and counts of the Anglo-Norman hegemony, Robert adopted the more ancient and classical style of ‘consul’. Although still linked explicitly to his control of the earldom of Gloucester, ‘consul’ was a grander title than that of a mere ‘comes’, holding almost imperial connotations of executive power and implied a degree of viceregal status. This unique use of the title, an affectation later dropped by his son, displays not only Robert’s strong affinity with his legitimate royal family members but also his own ambitions for personal autonomy and authority over the aristocratic and regional networks over which he presided.

The Potential Heir The death of William Ætheling allowed Robert to transcend the role originally envisaged for him as he came to fill the vacuum left in royal political and dynastic strategy by his half-brother’s death. Robert rose to become second man of the Anglo-Norman kingdom by, dutifully if not selflessly, taking on the role and responsibilities that would otherwise have been invested upon a legitimate son. Yet despite all the power and responsibility entrusted to Robert, not to mention his own considerable efforts to emphasize his royal heritage, he was not his father’s chosen heir. When it became clear to Henry I that his marriage to Adeliza of Louvain was increasingly unlikely to result in the birth of a legitimate son, the king resolved to ensure he was succeeded by his remaining legitimate child, Matilda.60 Despite the severe oaths of loyalty to Matilda which King Henry compelled his magnates to take, his death and the opportunism

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78  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England of some of his relatives would spark a succession crisis which, alongside plunging the Anglo-Norman realm into decades of war, would highlight both the limitations and advantages of the position of royal bastards within aristocratic society. On the face of it, the idea that Robert could have been a viable candidate to succeed his father seems eminently plausible, with much to recommend it. Robert, while illegitimate, was widely and publicly acknowledged as the eldest child of Henry I from whom he had received a great deal of personal attention and favour. Indeed, Robert was quick to reinforce this connection and stress his royal heritage, habitually referring to himself as the son of the king and using grander stylized forms of address and title than his fellow earls and barons which used imperial, almost viceregal, connotations. In the preceding decades, illegitimate children had inherited in tumultuous political circumstances with the backing of a prominent patron: for instance, as we have seen, Eustace of Bréteuil, the husband of Juliana, another of Henry I’s bastards, who was himself illegitimate but was able to inherit his father’s lands over the claims of his two legitimate cousins as a result of his pre-existing personal connections with the lordship’s chief tenants and his strong military position.61 As the Earl of Gloucester and one of the primary architects of the expansion of Anglo-Norman power into Wales, Robert was the centre and patron of a vast conglomeration of lands and dynastic interests. His personal wealth and his wide array of dedicated allies and followers made him a power to be reckoned with, whose support was crucial for any candidate. As a member of the king’s inner circle of councillors and his father’s right-hand man, Robert was not only exceptionally well connected but afforded a tremendous amount of prestige and was increasingly, as the reign progressed, awarded the position of primacy in the witness lists of his father’s charters. Furthermore, he was male. Meanwhile the Empress Matilda’s case was, despite her father’s endorsement, hampered by her gender in the minds of the Anglo-Norman magnates who found the prospect of a reigning queen a perturbing and contentious issue. Further, Matilda’s father had, in 1128, married her to Geoffrey le Bel, heir to the county of Anjou.62 Henry, never one to limit his arsenal, had successfully lobbied the Pope to dissolve the marriage between William Clito and his Angevin bride on the grounds of consanguinity. The dissolution of this union effectively nullified Counts Fulk’s investment in William, with the Angevins once more finding themselves in the market

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Crisis and Opportunity  79 for an alliance.63 The marriage made good strategic sense, precluding further Angevin aggression towards Normandy and providing them with a strong continental ally in their struggle with the kings of France. It had one significant drawback from Matilda’s point of view though, which was that much of the Norman aristocracy loathed the Angevins with whom they shared a long-running rivalry. The horror that many of the powerbrokers of the Anglo-Norman world felt at the prospect of an Angevin count ruling them was one of the great impediments to the acceptance of Matilda’s claim. It is perhaps strange then, that only one chronicle, the anonymously authored Gesta Stephani, gives any real indication of contemporary discussion concerning Robert’s claim to the throne. The chronicle records that Robert was urged by certain influential but unidentified persons amongst the Anglo-Norman community to put forward his claim as his father’s successor. The chronicle, which is generally pro-royalist and supportive of Robert’s eventual rival, King Stephen, depicts Robert demurring these offers of support, instead favouring the candidacy of Matilda’s infant son.64 William of Malmesbury, writing under Robert’s patronage, emphasizes Robert’s royal descent but makes no mention of any dissuasion of his candidacy for the throne. Perhaps it was excluded as a potentially embarrassing or divisive factor given that, having vacillated in the early months of the succession crisis, Robert had soon emerged as a formidable ally of his half-sister’s claim, becoming the military figurehead of the Angevin faction within England.65 Alternatively the Gesta Stephani’s conspicuous mention of Robert’s support of the future Henry II, even at the inception of the succession crisis, could, depending upon the date of its compilation which is unclear, be an example of revisionism inspired or extrapolated from their later co-operation. The powerful but somewhat nebulous Church reform movement’s definition of the necessary prerequisites and binary nature of marriage that had been developing over the eleventh and twelfth centuries increasingly became accepted by the aristocracy.66 This adoption formalized and regulated a pre-existing pattern of inheritance which selected heirs based on the material and political advantages that could be derived from their maternal lineage. The importance of those connections and access to expanded landed interests afforded by potential heirs can be seen in Henry I’s eventual nomination of his daughter. It is usually assumed, with some justification, that Henry selected Matilda over Robert for this role

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80  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England solely on the grounds that she was his only surviving legitimate child. Yet Henry was clearly wary of the difficulties surrounding the likelihood of widespread acceptance of a female heir and expended considerable energy and influence in extracting from his magnates a Church-ratified oath of loyalty to Matilda. Matilda’s original acceptance and recognition by the Anglo-Norman magnates during her father’s lifetime demonstrates that she was viewed, at least by the majority, as a valid, if not necessarily desirable, heir. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the validity of her parent’s marriage and her own legitimacy was not entirely free from ambiguity. Her mother, Matilda of Scotland, had spent much of her life in a nunnery and it appears that there existed some degree of uncertainty amongst contemporaries about whether she had taken vows prior to Henry’s proposal to her. Henry I secured Matilda, and the heightened legitimacy inherent in her valuable lineage, in much the same way he moved to secure the royal treasury as an asset that would enhance his position in the transition of power and authority.67 Indeed, during the protracted warfare and inheritance dispute that gradually took hold following Stephen’s succession to the English throne and the Duchy of Normandy, the king’s faction seized upon the potential ambiguity of the Empress’ mother’s status as a nun for propaganda purposes. The Papal Curia, however, equivocated on the matter, possibly recognizing the dangers of becoming entangled in such a fundamentally politically and divisive issue with only limited means of enforcement. Despite this potential liability, Matilda’s maternal connections and dynastic associations were of the utmost importance in Henry I’s decision to recognize her as his successor. Matilda, her husband, and their children not only benefitted from a close familial association with the Scottish royal house but also a connection to the ancient royal dynasty of Wessex and England from whom Matilda’s maternal grandmother, the later canonized Margaret, was descended. In addition to Matilda’s status as Henry’s last living legitimate child, her viability as an heir was therefore significantly enhanced by her royal heritage and status as the only remaining issue from his union with Matilda of Scotland and the ancient dynasty of Wessex.68 The appearance of continuity with the old Anglo-Saxon regime within the administration and running of England was of particular interest to Henry I. Upon his coronation Henry released a declaration strongly emphasizing a commitment to rule according to the laws and customs of his predecessor, Edward the Confessor. In doing

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Crisis and Opportunity  81 so, he implicitly renounced many of the newly-developed or Normanderived regal and ducal rights. Of course, as has been the case with politicians and manifestos throughout time, he later made great use of these royal prerogatives throughout his reign. Familial identity and affinity were crucial factors in the establishment of an aristocrat’s social and political contexts, defining to a significant extent their place and interactions within the networks of power in which they existed.These factors derived from the family’s role as a receptacle of wealth. While personal disputes were far from uncommon, this sense of identity and inclusivity in a shared dynastic enterprise necessarily required, and was incentivized by, a stake within the collective fortunes and inheritance portfolio of that family. Marriage was not only the principal mechanism through which these family networks could maintain themselves but also the means through which they could cultivate and grow other connections and so expand their political and landed interests within wider networks of aristocratic power through a process of consolidation and synthesis. The perpetuation and relative inclusivity of the eleventh- and twelfthcentury aristocratic family benefitted from the adoption of regulated and legally recognized lines of inheritance formed in reaction to Church reforms which promoted the importance of maternal lineage as a point of connectivity within aristocratic familial networks. This emphasis and its enthusiastic adoption by elements of the nobility worked to further clarify and delineate the differences between legitimate and illicit unions and through this distinction contributed to the social and legal relegation of illegitimate children. Somewhat circuitously, it was this relegation and the subsequent dependency on the goodwill of their legitimate family members that in part made illegitimate royal family members such a useful and reliable resource. The evolving legal and social prejudices of the twelfth century and the increasingly unequivocal alienation of bastards from any prospects of inheritance meant that those with ambitions outside of what could be provided for by their varying maternal networks, depended upon the patronage of their legitimate family members. As will become apparent as we progress through the century this dependency heavily incentivized illegitimate family members to co-operate with their father’s and legitimate siblings above and beyond the level that would typically be engendered by their shared family identity. While legitimate royal children could politically orientate themselves around the pursuit and protection of their inheritable prospects, royal bastards had a more

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82  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England diffuse connection to a family’s shared inheritable interests, access to which was heavily mediated by their patrons. Robert and a number of his half-sisters were inducted into the king’s dynastic and political strategy to capitalize upon various emerging opportunities or forestall developing crisis. Yet even before the White Ship disaster and Robert’s rise to prominence, he was already an acknowledged and seemingly valued member of the royal court for whom the king had made considerable provisions. Robert was the king’s eldest son and had spent a considerable time in the king’s company, occupying a conspicuously filial role and it seems likely that this shared affection and family affinity played an equally important role in re-assuring Henry of Robert’s commitment and loyalty. The insertion of favoured royal bastards such as Robert as de facto heads of established political affinities invested those individuals with an increased capacity to support and advance the royal family’s own agenda. It also furnished those royal bastards with a preexisting range of regional interests in which to operate. Robert and other empowered royal bastards throughout the remainder of the century were not necessarily mere servitors of their legitimate family members. Their close co-operation with the monarch was rooted in their participation in royal family identity and the co-ordinated defence of their mutual interests but, as we shall see, illegitimate royal children were in the right circumstances more than capable of aggressively pursuing their own political agendas for the furtherance of their own position and landed interests. Robert’s policy of expansion and consolidation within Wales can be seen as a natural extension of his duties as an Anglo-Norman Marcher lord, amongst whom he was the pre-eminent member. At the same time, the earl was careful to present himself as a participant within royal family identity, with William of Malmesbury taking considerable pains to emphasize both Robert’s ancestry and status as a dutiful and capable son.69 Clashes between the pursuit of competing and combative interests within expanded family networks were not only a concern for members of the royal family, illegitimate or otherwise, and were perhaps a natural and inevitable result of the dense and overlapping web of competing noble landed interests. However, the general bias towards familial solidarity within aristocratic culture and the connectivity and relative permanence of bonds generated by familial and political affinity meant that this system of interconnected dynastic and regional networks tended to facilitate the consolidation and synthesis of competing interests.70

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Crisis and Opportunity  83 Robert’s personal affinity with his father and above all the political and dynastic crisis generated by the death of his legitimate half-brother allowed Robert to bend, but not break, these principles. Robert was Henry’s confidant, deputy and right hand but never his heir. Yet when Henry I’s death in 1135 sparked a far more severe and immediate crisis in the form of decades of civil war and rebellion, Robert and his illegitimate siblings found themselves presented with fresh opportunity to leverage their dynastic connections.

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Chapter 4

The Anarchy

A

s it transpired, Henry  I was right to be concerned about the sanctity and security of the succession. As we have seen, on the face of it, his chosen heir Matilda had an abundance of traits which recommended her for the role. She was Henry’s sole surviving legitimate progeny, a concern which was becoming increasingly important amongst the nobility of western Christendom during this period. Like her father, Matilda had been born ‘in the purple’. She was also exceedingly well connected dynastically. In her veins the blood of the English kings of the house of Wessex mingled with that of the Norman dukes, a pedigree of royal lineage which would be passed onto her children and through them become an entrenched part of the family’s history and selfconceptualization. No longer solely the descendants of mere conquerors, the ascendancy of Matilda’s line could be presented to subjects and chroniclers alike as something akin to a restoration. A corollary of this important vector of descent was that Matilda was a niece of King David of Scotland. This relationship was a considerable boon in light of both her father’s claims to a tacitly exercised overlordship of the British Isles and the rapid re-organization and normalization of David’s court. Later events, most notably the sprawling, often squalid, dynastic warfare that followed Henry’s death, revealed Matilda to be iron-willed and pugnacious. Personal characteristics detectable to the historian which we can infer may well have been perceived by her family members and intimates upon her return to the Anglo-Norman realm in 1125. Finally, it was the former empress’ rather humbler second marriage to the heir of the Count of Anjou that secured the southern borders of Normandy. This alliance prevented the duchy from being surrounded by enemies as well as enabling further expansion into the fractured aristocratic polities of central and southern France. Stacked against all of this was the matter of her sex and gender. Matilda was a woman, a formidable impediment to an unimpeded succession which, it transpired, was further compounded by her marriage ties to

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The Anarchy  85 the rulers of Anjou. The marriage had been politically vital to Henry I, forcibly breaking apart the hostile Angevin, French and Flemish axis with which he had been confronted and allowing him to arrest and reverse the erosion of his continental possessions. Yet in the end it was a second albatross hung about his daughter’s neck. A significant portion of the Norman aristocracy and the powerful cross-channel magnates perceived the Angevins as their natural and historic enemies, having long vied with them for hegemony of the region. Fear and resentment of the Angevins was laced within the chauvinistic scepticism and occasional hysteria surrounding the idea of a female ruler, all of which was underpinned by the assumption that Matilda’s husband, Geoffrey, would rule through her. These reservations were harnessed and channelled by a royal kinsmen and vigorously self-promoting rival candidate, Stephen of Blois. A fellow grandchild of the Conqueror, Stephen was the son of Adela of Normandy and Stephen Henry, Count of Blois and Chartres. Stephen Henry’s dual name was oddly reflective of occasional bouts of indecision on his part. Despite being firmly ensconced within the leadership of the First Crusade, the count chose to abandon the Crusade when it was temporarily stymied during the Siege of Antioch and returned home prematurely. He was subsequently persuaded to return to the Holy Lands by his wife who perhaps feared the dire spiritual ramifications of leaving his crusader oaths unfulfilled or simply felt his conduct was not befitting a son-in-law of the Conqueror. Returning to the Holy Lands in 1101, Stephen Henry died in 1102 having become embroiled in the battle of Ramala, after bad weather delayed his planned second withdrawal. Despite this rather lacklustre legacy, the young Stephen was taken under the wing of his uncle, Henry I. Stephen, who much like the king during his own youth, was a landless younger son with only limited prospects of inheritance, soon emerged as a favourite of Henry. Alongside Earl Robert, he was part of a small clique of ambitious and highly trusted young aristocrats whom the king frequently called upon to act as deputies and proxies. In compensation for these contributions and in recognition of his close personal and familial ties with the king, Stephen was heavily patronized by his uncle. In 1113 he was granted the County of Mortain, a title and territory long associated with the Norman ducal family, the Honour of Eye and substantial lands in Lancaster. Still richer rewards were to follow when in 1125 the king arranged for Stephen to marry Countess Matilda of Boulogne. Matilda was a member

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86  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England of a legendary crusading family whose uncle served as the first king of the newly constituted kingdom of Jerusalem, while the county of Boulogne contained important urban and commercial centres, making the match a prestigious and highly lucrative one for Stephen. A little noted and strangely often overlooked aspect of the marriage and the countess’ heritage is that her mother, Mary, was the daughter of King Malcolm of Scotland and Margaret of Wessex. This, of course, means that she was not only Empress Matilda’s maternal cousin but was also possessed of the same highly valuable familial connection to the original royal dynasty of England. While contemporary sources do not dwell upon this connection, it is easy to imagine that such royal ties added a much-needed gloss to her husband’s claim to the throne, enhancing as it did the viability of their children as royal heirs. When Henry died in 1135 Stephen ably demonstrated just how much he had learned from his uncle. Wasting no time, Stephen crossed to England from Boulogne while many of the most prominent powerbrokers were still mired within the conflict in Anjou. Once there, he allowed the mob and burghers of London to acclaim him as king before striking out for Winchester to secure the royal treasury. Stephen’s main impediment to securing a coronation was now the sacred oath that he and his fellow Anglo-Norman magnates had sworn to accept and support his cousin Matilda’s status as the rightful heir. This issue was resolved by the invaluable intervention of his younger brother, Bishop Henry of Winchester. Henry persuaded his brother bishops to release the nobles from their oaths and to transfer their own support to his earthly kinsman, in exchange for which the new king agreed to grant the Church a plethora of new rights and fiscal incentives. With the thorny problem of the oath removed and frantic negotiations with the Church completed, Stephen was formally crowned and anointed by Archbishop William of Canterbury on 22 December, a mere three weeks after his uncle’s death. This presented his enemies with something of a fait accompli since there did not exist a widely accepted legal mechanism for the removal of an anointed king. Riding the momentum of his coup, Stephen made great strides to consolidate his power and grip on the throne while potential rivals and dissidents were still wrong-footed or befuddled. The king adroitly and successfully negotiated for the recognition and support of the AngloNorman nobility, including Robert of Gloucester. He also diplomatically

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The Anarchy  87 defused a potentially ruinous invasion by the King of Scotland and weathered a series of sporadic minor uprisings. Less promising was his inability effectively to curb the aggressive strikes of the outraged Angevins across the Norman border in 1136 or the swelling uprising in Wales that had broken out in early 1137.

Robert and Matilda Robert’s position at the political and social pinnacle of Anglo-Norman society had been based not only upon his wealth and extensive landed interests but also his access to the king and association with royal service. A political dissociation from the royal court and the prestige and connections it brought directly threatened Robert’s ability to attract parties to his affinity as well as potentially damaging the earl’s status and highly cultivated sense of royal identity. Consequently, when word spread of Stephen’s surprising and highly successful grab for the throne, Robert, alongside a significant portion of the Norman nobility, was engaged heavily in negotiations with another prospective candidate. This royal hopeful was none other than Stephen’s elder brother, the powerful and influential Count Theobald of Blois, Chartres and Champagne.1 Robert had evidently decided to ignore his father’s wishes regarding the succession, abandoning his previously publicly professed support for Matilda. In fairness his position was complicated considerably by the recent conflict with the Angevins and the unfortunate fact that Henry I had died while at war with the husband of his chosen heir. Instead, Robert gravitated towards Theobald in a spirited attempt to parley his extant role in the royal government and status as a powerbroker into an advantageous position within his cousin’s inner circle. While Theobald was not, strictly speaking, the eldest of the king’s nephews, he was certainly the most senior politically. The eldest of Princess Adela’s sons, Count William of Sully, was, for reasons of either temperament or incapacity, regarded by his family and contemporaries as unsuitable for life on the political stage. His county, which he held through his wife, was administered primarily by his mother while most of the family’s landed interests had passed to Theobald upon Stephen Henry’s death on crusade in 1102. Robert and his fellow Norman aristocrats therefore had significant justification in viewing Theobald as Henry I’s natural successor. Theobald evidently agreed and was shocked and dismayed when word of the now

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88  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England King Stephen’s connivances reached the negotiators. Theobald, who it seems had somewhat prevaricated in the interests of securing the best deal possible from the gathered ranks of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, made an abortive declaration of kingship but found that his previously solicitous allies and supporters had at this juncture very little appetite for war with Stephen or a return to internecine bloodshed. Not only were Robert and Stephen cousins but they were also both protégés of Henry I. Both were fixtures of the royal court, deeply engaged in royal service and both had narrowly avoided boarding the White Ship on the day of its sinking because of illness and the excesses of the previous night. It is tempting to view their eventual conflict in the context of an earlier rivalry that developed as the two jostled for the king’s regard. The existence of an adolescent rivalry between the two men is, however, impossible to substantiate and perhaps a little too neat. After all, they had operated in close proximity to one another for a considerable period and had broken bread together many times. As we have seen, Anglo-Norman aristocratic families tended towards being broad and self-consciously inclusive and were perfectly capable of accommodating the blending of affection, obligation and rivalry between members. Whatever the exact nature of Robert and Stephen’s relationship, in the opening months of 1136 they both erred towards co-operation. The simple fact of the matter for Robert was that by fair means or foul Stephen was king and either had to be fought or brought to some accommodation. From the new king’s point of view, Robert was one of the most powerful noblemen in the Anglo-Norman realm and a totemic symbol of continuity with Henry  I’s reign whose conspicuous support would go a long way to establishing Stephen’s rule. Robert could be found in attendance at Stephen’s Easter court, around which time he formally surrendered his custody of the royal castle at Falaise, demonstrating that he and the new king had come to an understanding2. Indeed, Henry of Huntingdon states that, in exchange for giving homage to his cousin, Robert was granted all he demanded, suggesting a reciprocal and negotiated arrangement between the two.3 However, the next two years saw the erosion of Robert’s influence and political capital within the realm. Robert had not only been Henry I’s righthand man and stalwart ally but his beloved son. His position and immense prestige within Anglo-Norman aristocratic society was predicated upon the closeness of this bond. Such a connection and conflation of political fortunes could not feasibly be replicated with Stephen, a young ambitious ruler

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The Anarchy  89 with his own circle of favoured allies and intimates. As Stephen’s grip on power became more secure and his vectors of support delineated, he found himself considerably less reliant on Robert’s support than he had during the tumult and frantic political manoeuvring that had marked his accession to the throne. Much of the Earl’s powerbase lay athwart the Welsh Marches and it is probable that, in addition to his growing perception that he was being isolated from the king’s inner circle, Robert’s disaffection with Stephen came from the king’s failure to intervene decisively in the Welsh uprisings. By 1138 Robert was convinced that his best path personally and politically lay in aligning with the dynastic claims of his half-sister, despite the political divisiveness of her Angevin family. Robert’s decision to support Matilda in her bid for the throne was also in part the result of their shared familial identity, the obligations and conflation of interests inherent to this connection forming a solid basis for their cooperation. Their status and association as children of Henry I mirrored their positions as the joint leaders of the Angevin cause in England. While the earl may also have been influenced by a desire to adhere, albeit belatedly, to his father’s wishes, the nature of their alliance and Robert’s position at the summit of the Angevin party was predicated upon Matilda’s reliance on his established power base within England and military acumen. At the same time, co-operation with Matilda and the quest to restore her to the throne played into Robert’s own sense of royal identity and subsequent desire to re-affirm his position through integration with the royal centre and association with his legitimate family. While a powerful magnate whose affinities and associations formed the mainstay of the Angevin war effort within England, Robert’s initial military service on behalf of his legitimate royal family member and fellow participant in royal family identity was less than encouraging. Travelling to Empress Matilda’s court in the summer of 1138, Robert’s declaration in defence of his half-sister’s rights was accompanied by a mobilization of his followers within England and a co-ordinated invasion of Normandy in the company of his brother-in-law, Geoffrey of Anjou.4 Both facets of this cross-channel enterprise met with disaster. The earl’s embattled adherents in England were forced out of his lands in Kent. Meanwhile Geoffrey’s offensive was stymied, and Robert’s Norman holdings were successfully ravaged by his old rival Count Waleran of Meulan.5 Such are the tribulations and vagaries of war.

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90  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England While it is somewhat unclear what steps Robert took for the preservation of their now conjoined interest in the interim, in mid-1139 the earl accompanied Empress Matilda to England, leaving the campaign for their ancestral duchy in the hands of her husband. The siblings initially took refuge with their stepmother, Queen Adeliza, Henry I’s widowed second wife,6 a state of affairs that probably greatly vexed Adeliza’s new husband, Earl William d’Aubigny of Arundel who was strongly aligned with King Stephen.7 Interestingly, Robert left Empress Matilda at Arundel Castle, content to allow Stephen to besiege it while he departed to gather his own forces. An act, which alongside his handling of the Angevin war effort within England over the succeeding years, and habit of concentrating mainly on the defence of his territories in the west country, suggests that while Robert adopted the Empress’ cause, effectively blending his political interests and fortunes with those of his half-sister, he was more than willing to act unilaterally in the pursuit of their shared goal.8 Upon re-establishing himself within his powerbase and consolidating his forces, Robert then sacked the city of Worcester in retaliation for the Beaumont family’s destruction of his Norman estates.9 Throughout the remainder of his life, Robert was, as his sister’s primary supporter and military mainstay, extremely willing to adopt the trappings of royal power. Robert even experimented with the minting of coinage made to his own specifications and which bore his own image, a clear and bold assumption of royal prerogatives and identity.10 It remains unclear if he received permission for this self-aggrandising project from his sister, the existence of which would suggest either an extremely close affinity and partnership between the siblings or that Empress Matilda, who on occasion had trouble controlling the Anglo-Norman magnates she was appealing to for support, was unable to intervene. Robert acted as his half-sister’s envoy in preliminary but ultimately inconclusive negotiations with Stephen’s supporters at Bath, meeting Archbishop Theobald of Bec, the king’s younger brother Bishop Henry of Winchester and Queen Matilda. Robert subsequently made an abortive attempt to capture the city and complete the growing Angevin domination of the south-west of England before participating in a largescale and successful raid on royalist Nottingham in conjunction with Ralf Pagnell, the castellan of Dudley and Earl Roger of Warwick, a cousin of his Beaumont rivals.11 Robert was also instrumental in orchestrating the Angevins’ greatest victory in the conflict and military highwater

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The Anarchy  91 mark when acting in co-operation with the powerful and independent Ranulf of Chester, who exercised near-hegemonic power in the north of England, and supported by several of his Welsh tributaries, they cornered and decisively routed Stephen’s army at Lincoln, capturing the king. 12 As Matilda’s close relative and most powerful supporter, Robert was naturally present at Empress Matilda’s failed coronation ceremony and subsequent humiliating flight from London. In the debacle’s aftermath, he took command of Angevin forces during the siege of Winchester. It was during this sudden reversal of fortunes that Robert was captured by royalist forces while covering the Empress’ retreat and directing the rearguard of the Angevin army.13 Robert’s singular importance as a military proxy for Matilda and position as joint leader of the Angevin cause in England proved to be a double-edged sword for his half-sister. Without Robert’s prestige amongst the aristocracy, the resources of his own extensive affinities and his energetic, if perhaps unimaginative, military leadership, Matilda was unable to effectively counter Stephen’s resurgent supporters. In galling contrast to Stephen’s wife, Queen Matilda, who had been able to effectively marshal her husband forces in his absence, the Empress was swiftly compelled to exchange the imprisoned king for her half-brother, a resounding if strategically unfortunate affirmation of Robert’s importance within the Angevin faction. Following his release, Robert continued to defend their shared political and territorial interests, operating from both his powerbase in the Welsh Marches and the Empress’ newly established court at Oxford. In 1142 Robert once again acted as his sister’s envoy, travelling to Normandy and participated in his brother-in-law Geoffrey of Anjou’s successful campaign to further pacify the south of the duchy.14 However, as advantageous as this was, he failed in his original intention to entice the count to travel to England and support his wife’s campaign there. Worse still, in Robert’s long absence, Stephen had besieged Oxford from which Empress Matilda was forced to flee after a newly returned Robert proved unable to break the siege.15 In 1143, in one of the conflict’s last decisive battles, Robert effectively checked the Angevins’ decline in England by soundly defeating Stephen and his allies at Wilton, capturing the castle and ransacking the town.16 An incident, occurring shortly before his sudden illness and death in 1147, which highlights Robert’s conception of himself as a member of the Anglo-Norman royal family and carefully cultivated association with

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92  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England leadership of the Angevin party, was the arrival in England of Matilda’s son Henry. Eager to participate in the claiming of his patrimony and establish himself, the teenage Henry travelled to England with a company of mercenaries in a bold and poorly-thought-out scheme. Upon Henry’s arrival within England, Matilda and Robert closed ranks, refusing to accept or co-operate with the young adventurer, who the siblings likely viewed as an unwanted complication and potential usurper whose own claim to the throne could divide Angevin loyalties and support. It seems that both Empress Matilda and Earl Robert still hoped that Matilda could claim the throne in her own right as the daughter and chosen successor of Henry I. Presumably she would then rule in concert with Robert, whose political and dynastical interests cleaved so closely to her own, restoring his position as the kingdom’s chief subject. Henry on the other hand was an unknown quantity, raised primarily by his father in Anjou and possessing a rival claim without the complications introduced by Matilda’s gender. As a result, when the politically isolated and overwhelmed Henry failed to make any headway in England and was subsequently taken hostage by his disgruntled escort, whom he was unable to pay, both his mother and uncle refused to give him aid. Henry was instead ransomed and returned to Normandy by a more unlikely relative, King Stephen.17 Stephen seems to have been perpetually mindful of his obligations to family members and the duty of care inherent to kingship. Previously, he generously, if unwisely, allowed Empress Matilda to make the unimpeded journey from Arundel to Robert’s stronghold at Bristol following their initial invasion of England. Despite this less than harmonious incident, the extent of Robert’s long-running contribution to the Angevin faction, as well as the lasting affinity he shared with his legitimate family members, can be demonstrated by Henry II’s continued donations to Saint James’ Abbey where the earl was buried.18

Reginald of Cornwall Reginald de Dunstanville was the other illegitimate member of the AngloNorman royal family who came to occupy a position of prominence within aristocratic society as a result of his devoted and conspicuous support of Empress Matilda. The son of Henry  I and Sibyl Corbet, an extended member of the rather modestly placed Dunstanville family, Reginald was born sometimes around the early 1110s well after his father’s accession

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The Anarchy  93 to the throne. In Robert of Torigni’s discussion of the king’s host of illegitimate children, he attests that in 1130 Reginald, alongside his paternal half-brothers Gilbert and Robert, were landless youths.19 By the time of the king’s death in 1135 very little had changed for Reginald whose father it seems had elected not to actively patronize or promote his career, perhaps, because he was still judged to be too young to engage in an active military and administrative role. In a sense though, Reginald was surplus to requirements during his father’s reign. Henry I allowed his eldest illegitimate children to participate in royal family identity and dynastic strategy specifically because their age made them useful to him. Henry’s rather liberal sowing of wild oats during his extended adolescence and time in the political wilderness meant that by the time he became king in 1100 some of his illegitimate children were approaching an age where they could actively participate in the protection and advancement of his interests. As discussed in Chapter 2, the eldest of Henry’s illegitimate daughters made several dynastic matches with neighbouring princes across the first decade of the king’s reign, allowing him to turn potential rivals and dissidents into firm allies and shore up support at a critical juncture in his reign. Likewise, the king’s eldest illegitimate sons were able to participate in the royal court or serve as lieutenants and proxies at a point where Henry’s legitimate children were purely hypothetical. Perhaps the novelty of parenthood had worn off for a king with a dozen children and a court full of highly connected and independently powerful aristocrats eager to reap the rewards of royal service. Reginald was, however, relatively well connected within Anglo-Norman aristocratic society through his maternal family and his mother’s new husband, the king’s chamberlain Herbert, a union brokered by the king himself.20 Reginald remained closely associated with his maternal family throughout his life; they were in turn able to profit considerably from their dynastic proximity to the royal centre. The young royal bastard’s rise to the great heights of political and economic prominence he had attained by the conclusion of King Stephen’s reign is firmly sourced in his assiduous support for his half-sister, Empress Matilda. In contrast to the close co-operation and relative parity of authority reached between Robert and Matilda, Reginald’s position within the Angevin faction derived from his potential political utility and enthusiastic engagement in service on behalf of his senior family members.

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94  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England In fact, Reginald’s loyalty and association with Matilda pre-dated her alliance with Earl Robert of Gloucester by some years. Reginald departed Winchester sometime after Easter 1135, emerging later that year as part of the Empress’ now mobilizing and enlarged household at Argentan.21 While not positively identified within the chronicles, it is probable that prior to seeking service with Matilda Reginald was present during his friend and ally, Baldwin de Redvers’ seizure of Exeter and subsequent piratical campaign. After all, the two men co-operated closely throughout the conflict and both appear within Matilda’s emergent court shortly after the negotiated surrender of the city.22 It is interesting but ultimately fruitless to speculate if Robert’s insistence, alongside many of the other magnates, that Stephen lift the siege and come to a concordat with the rebels may have been motivated by concern for Reginald, in addition to the danger posed by the concurrent uprising in Wales. Reginald’s easy acceptance into Matilda’s party may suggest that despite her long period abroad in Germany and his relative obscurity during their father’s lifetime, there existed a feeling of mutual solidarity and shared familial identity between Henry I’s legitimate and illegitimate children. Reginald quickly became involved in the Angevins’ military efforts to destabilize Stephen’s hold over Normandy, and he can be found at the end of 1136 in the company of Stephen de Mandeville and Baldwin de Redvers raiding the Cotentin.23 In addition to disrupting Stephen’s attempts to establish control over Normandy, the three had something of a vested interest within the area as Baldwin’s brother, William de Vernon, owned a substantial concentration of land within the region centring on the castle of Nehou. Contemporary chroniclers are often prone to histrionically exaggerating the degree of devastation and disruption created by the war between Stephen and Matilda until it assumes nearapocalyptic proportions. However, Orderic Vitalis and the anonymous author of the Gesta Stephani credit this campaign as being particularly rapacious and thorough in its pillaging compared to the standards of the broader conflict, suggesting that Reginald, while surely committed to his half-sister’s cause, was also capable of mobilizing his familial connections for his personal enrichment.24 The trio’s reign of terror persisted throughout 1137 and 1138 as they continued repeatedly to ravage the lands of Stephen’s supporters within the hotly contested region.25 Reginald may have accompanied Robert and Matilda as part of their retinue on their expedition to England in 1139; he was almost certainly in

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The Anarchy  95 England by 1140 when his elder half-siblings raised him to the earldom of Cornwall. In 1140 the earldom was more remit than promotion or appointment. While Robert of Gloucester was master of a powerful and extensive aristocratic affinity in the southwest of England, the Angevins didn’t control Cornwall – far from it in fact. Instead, Reginald was effectively being licensed to pacify the region and construct a new Angevin-aligned aristocratic affinity within it. By consolidating his own power and authority within the earldom, assigned to him by the Angevin party’s leadership, Reginald was advancing their shared dynastic interests. Correspondingly, as a now active and empowered member of the Angevin faction who shared a strong personal affinity with both Angevin leaders in England, Reginald would be invested even more heavily in their success and incentivized to further service on behalf of the empress. It seems probable that Reginald was placed in Cornwall by his elder siblings because of its immediate strategic value. In Angevin hands it completed their domination of south-western England while correspondingly, if it fell under the control of Stephen’s supporters, it potentially threatened the heartland of Angevin territory within England. However, it is also important to consider that Cornwall had a significant connection with the Anglo-Norman royal family. A stronghold of regional culture and identity distinct from that of the rest of pre-conquest England, following the Norman invasion, Cornwall first fell under the control of a Breton noble named Brian. Alongside other Breton aristocrats and adventurers, including his kinsmen Alan the Black and Alan the Red, he played a prominent role in the Conquest, profiting greatly from the initial distribution of spoils and captured territory. Brian was heavily involved in the repression of English brush-fire revolts within the region throughout 1069 and led the battle against Harold Godwinson’s sons who were perhaps understandably disinclined to come to terms with the new king. Despite his considerable success in these endeavours, Brian returned to Brittany sometime in the very early 1170s, abandoning his English domains, including his substantial holdings in Cornwall. These territories were quickly bestowed upon Count Robert of Mortain, William the Conqueror’s maternal half-brother, functioning as the epicentre for his vast but otherwise scattered English territories. In 1049, long before the conquest of England was conceived, William had installed his half-brother as the Count of Mortain, a strategically important county in southern Normandy that guarded its borders with Brittany and Bellême that had

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96  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England long been associated with cadet branches of the ducal family. Robert, alongside his brother, Bishop Odo, were highly-trusted confederates of the Conqueror, but this lucrative supporting role within the familial interests was challenged and undermined after the Conqueror’s death by the necessity of aligning with one of his quarrelling sons. During the rebellion, or rather more accurately the succession dispute of 1088, Count Robert and Odo sided with the Conqueror’s eldest son, Duke Robert Curthose, against his younger brother, King William Rufus. When this rebellion was soundly defeated by William Rufus, Count Robert was admonished but ultimately forgiven by his royal nephew while Odo, who had an unfortunate record of dipping into royal funds, was exiled from England. When Robert died in 1095 he was succeeded by his son William whose belligerent attempts to claim the Kentish domains of the now deceased Odo opened a wedge between him and his cousin Henry I. The king’s most generous and concerted attempt to mollify his truculent cousin was to suggest a marriage between Robert and Henry’s sister-in-law, Mary of Scotland. Robert rejected this advantageous match and Mary went on to marry Count Eustace of Boulogne, a union which would eventually produce Queen Matilda, the future wife of King Stephen. This rejection was followed by a series of escalating tit-for-tat slights launched between the two cousins which eventually saw William defecting, much as his father had done, to the court of Robert Curthose. This triggered the confiscation of his Cornish powerbase by Henry, a situation which was rendered permanent by his resounding victory at the battle of Tinchebray in 1106. William was captured and briefly imprisoned alongside Duke Robert before being permitted to remove himself from secular life and become a monk. When viewed in this light, Reginald’s mission to reconstitute the earldom of Cornwall under the Angevin banner can be seen as an attempt by Henry I’s children to reclaim the royal demesne and restore their family’s now frayed influence over the region. Reginald’s position in Cornwall was anchored by his swiftly arranged marriage to Mabel, the daughter of William Fitz Richard of Cardin.26 William Fitz Richard was a close relative of the powerful Clare family and one of the county’s leading magnates who had previously served as King Stephen’s principal lieutenant within the region.27 It is likely that in the closely contested and fractured dynastic conflict, William Fitz Richard’s defection came not only from the perceived flagging of the

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The Anarchy  97 royalist cause but from a recognition that the marriage of his heir into the Anglo-Norman royal family and the inner circle of the Angevin cause would represent a closer and therefore more materially and politically advantageous relationship for William than was provided by his former ties of allegiance and political affinity with Stephen. Earl Reginald quickly began a campaign to consolidate power on the peninsula, aided by his father-in-law and his extensive contacts and influence within the region’s aristocratic networks of power. These initial attempts to establish authority within the county were highly energetic but ultimately counterproductive. As previously noted, the majority of English bishops erred towards supporting Stephen, having cleared the way for his coronation in exchange for an extremely generous grant of additional financial privileges. Reginald’s attempts to construct a powerbase within Cornwall and exert elements of viceregal authority soon saw him excommunicated by the Bishop of Exeter over his pugnacious attempts to impose a levy upon the Cornish churches.28 During the Anarchy England’s bishops wielded excommunication like a sword to deter local aristocrats seeking to broaden their own powerbases from impinging upon Church rights and property. Aristocrats during this period had been able successfully to weather the stigma of excommunication for considerable periods of time but it was nevertheless a severe blow to the moral authority of a fledging political affinity hoping to attract allies and supporters. It is important also to consider the psychological effect of being placed in such severe spiritual danger during a time of war and the impact of such stress upon Reginald’s efforts to secure and pacify the region. Reginald and his mired faction were then dealt a dolorous blow when King Stephen and Earl Alan of Richmond moved to intervene directly in Cornwall. A nephew of Brian the Breton, Alan was already deeply engaged in the royalist cause. Seeking to further court this important ally and capitalize upon his somewhat dubious hereditary claim to the earldom, Stephen pre-emptively bestowed the title of earl of Cornwall upon Alan. Together they shattered Reginald’s already shaky grip on the earldom, trapping him and his followers in Launceston castle while Alan decisively took control of the earldom’s administration.29 In February 1141 Reginald’s salvation from the ignominy of defeat came with the highwater mark of the Angevin war effort in England, the battle of Lincoln. In addition to the capture of King Stephen by the Angevins, his regional proxy Alan was taken prisoner by his northerly rival, Ranulf of Chester.

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98  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England In the resulting power vacuum, Reginald was able to stage a spectacular recovery, securing his position of pre-eminence within Cornwall with the aid of his friend Baldwin de Redvers, earl of Devon. Definitively claiming the county for his half-sister, Cornwall was transformed from enemy territory into a major bulwark of the Angevin faction, control of which was not meaningfully challenged for the remainder of the conflict.30 Indeed, Reginald was so secure in Cornwall that he was able to participate in and contribute to the wider Angevin war effort. Befitting his dual position as family member and prominent supporter, Reginald accompanied Empress Matilda to London and her planned coronation, presumably playing some part in the hasty retreat to Oxford. According to John of Worcester, Reginald was present for another defining makeor-break moment for the Angevin war effort, the siege of and eventual humiliating flight from Winchester.31 While Robert of Gloucester led the rearguard, Reginald and the ever-reliable Brian Fitz Count were entrusted with escorting Empress Matilda to safety, whisking her away from the clutches of the royalist counter-attack.32 In a manner similar to Robert, Reginald often acted as a envoy and representative of his half-sister with whose interests he was so closely aligned. In 1146 while en route to negotiate with Stephen and travelling under the promise of safe passage, Reginald was captured by Robert’s youngest son Philip of Cricklade who had allied himself with his kinsman, the king. However, such a breach of accepted diplomatic and aristocratic codes was potentially extremely damaging to both Philip and the king’s reputations and the young castellan was quickly compelled to release his uncle from captivity.33 Reginald continued to function as a leading member of the Angevin faction even after magnate apathy and exhaustion cooled the war into a stalemate. His bastion in the southwest was able to contribute to keeping his half-sister’s claim alive even after her retreat to Normandy and the death of Robert of Gloucester.34 As part of this process, Reginald took direct possession of the earldom’s royal demesne and castles as well as taking control over the functioning of royal institutions and offices within its borders; the assumption of these executive viceregal powers in the absence of an effective royal centre laid the foundation of his later prominence in the reconstituted and renewed Angevin faction. In 1149 the Angevin cause saw the first glimmers of this renewal as Matilda’s eldest son, Henry, arrived at Devizes taking shelter within Reginald’s powerbase in Wiltshire. The young royal hopeful summoned to himself a number

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The Anarchy  99 of powerful Angevin-aligned magnates, including the earls of Cornwall, Gloucester and Hereford.35 Reginald, as a son of Henry I and one of the remaining veterans of the Angevin cause became highly influential during this period, which saw the renewing of ties and the cultivation of a fresh affinity between the new Angevin candidate and his mother’s previously directionless supporters. Interestingly, in the witness lists of charters issued by Prince Henry at this juncture, Reginald was still placed behind Earl William of Gloucester which probably indicates a period of transition and re-orientation within the Angevin affinity following the recent death of Earl Robert.36 As it transpired, the two cousins, future king and earl did not get on particularly well, a minor rift which saw Reginald replace the earl of Gloucester as the major domo of the Angevin party within England. In 1152 the earl was despatched by his English allies and fellow Angevin adherents to his nephew’s court in Normandy, inviting him to return to England and revive their flagging fortunes. When Henry, who had recently been installed as Duke of Normandy arrived in 1153, Reginald completed the transition of his loyalty and dynastic aspirations from mother to son.37 Henry’s small army landed in his uncle’s domain before striking north for Malmesbury and the Angevin heartland where they were joined by the earls of Gloucester, Hereford, Lincoln and Salisbury. During this initial period of consolidation within England, Reginald may have been in attendance during Henry’s meeting at Devizes in Wiltshire with Earl Ranulf of Chester, to whom the duke made lavish promises in exchange for his support. Reginald accompanied his royal nephew throughout the largely bloodless campaign, acting as one of Henry’s principal advisers as he moved throughout western England, forming relationships with the various aristocratic affinities and cultivating his authority and prestige through the confirming of writs and acting as an adjudicator in disputes. Reginald, alongside his nephew, Earl William of Gloucester, and Earl Patrick of Salisbury, supported the duke through a series of negotiations with a powerful royalist-aligned ecclesiastical bloc composed of Archbishop Theobald, and the bishops of Bath and Chichester as well as the king’s brother, Henry of Winchester.38

A Kingdom within A Kingdom Reginald’s exertion of control over his culturally and geographically welldefined earldom through direct military action and coercion in relative

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100  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England isolation from any royal oversight means that evidence for the composition of the earldom and Reginald’s level of authority within it is extremely difficult to gauge prior to the reign of Henry II. This obscurity is further complicated because of Reginald’s close alliance and affinity with Henry II and his status as the senior remaining male member of the Anglo-Norman royal household. Within the earldom of Cornwall, Reginald was permitted extraordinary viceregal powers and privileges, farming his domains, using sheriffs he controlled with virtual independence from the Exchequer and the other organs of the increasingly sophisticated royal government. An unparalleled level of autonomy which frustratingly resulted in a scarcity of usually reliable financial sources relating to the earldom.39 This means that much of the evidence for the composition and form of Reginald’s own domains and political affinity comes from his own charters and those royal financial records pertaining to the earldom after the earl’s death in 1175 and the county’s re-absorption into the royal demesne. The Pipe Rolls for Cornwall and Devon well into the reign of King John make continued mention of lands formerly held by the King Henry’s uncle, Reginald. While holding no official post within his nephew’s government, beyond his role as frequent royal confidant and perhaps the connotations inherent to his rank of earl, William of Canterbury describes Reginald and Earl Robert Beaumont as the two most powerful magnates in the England during the opening decades of Henry II’s reign.40 William was the deacon of Christ Church priory who wrote a hagiography of Thomas Becket whom he had previously served, his connection to the archbishop and former chancellor making him a reliable source on contemporary perceptions of the magnates and royal court. Perhaps, unsurprisingly given his relationship with Becket, William was a notable critic of Henry II, although it seems unlikely that this would lead him to misrepresent the influence and power of members of the king’s inner circle. Indeed, William recounts that he was personally acquainted with Reginald and his household having previously tried to insinuate himself into his service as a means of gaining access to the royal court.41 In addition to the prestige and influence created by his participation in royal familial identity and long-running support for his nephew, Reginald was in the foremost ranks of the aristocracy in terms of wealth and temporal power; the earldom of Cornwall containing within it 215 knight’s fees which placed it within the top five richest honours in England.42 From 1162 until the time of his death, Reginald also exercised control of the earldom of Devon which

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The Anarchy  101 he held in guardianship for his grandson which brought a further 131 knight’s fees under the earl’s oversight.43 Reginald took care to emphasize his royal heritage and affinity within his own charters and consistently styled himself as the son of King Henry.44 Interestingly, on occasion in the witness list of nonroyal charters originating from within his own regional and familial affinities, he is described simply as Earl Reginald which is perhaps an acknowledgement that his comital title and role within wider familial affinities were more relevant in certain situations than his royal parentage. One example of this practice is in witnessing his brother-inlaw, Richard FitzWilliam’s, donation to Launceston Priory, sometime in the late 1150s or early 1160s, of the rents derived from the lands of Tregeare and mill of Castle Milford for the benefit of the soul of Reginald’s late wife, Countess Mabel.45 Although, of course, since Reginald was only witnessing his brother-in-law’s gift, alongside his son-in-law, Richard of Devon, the charter was presumably drawn up by a scribe outside of his household and may not have been formulated exactly in keeping with the earl’s preferences. Within his own charters, in contrast to his elder half-brother Earl Robert, Reginald represented his title of earl of Cornwall with the widely used permutation ‘comes’ rather than adopt a unique or prestigious style to reflect his royal affinity.46 He did, however, emulate Robert in his willingness to issue charters based on his royal heritage and comital status without feeling the need to include the consent of his wife or exert her rights. This is clearly, in part at least, a result of the circumstances around which Reginald gained the earldom, which was reconstituted for him as result of his potential utility to a shared royal dynastic enterprise. The Gesta Stephani claims that Earl Reginald’s wife suffered from a rapid deterioration in her mental health over the course of the 1140s which could further explain her obscurity within the charter records as well as her apparent alienation from the governance and maintenance of her husband’s affinity.47 Of course, while its authorship remains a subject of historiographical debate, the broader consensus being that it originates from a cathedral chapter in southern England, the narrative presented within the Gesta Stephani displays a strong favouritism for King Stephen and his royalist party. The Gesta Stephani’s revelations about Mabel’s mental health are in part a rhetorical device and are presented as one of many manifestations of misfortune that afflicted Reginald following his

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102  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England excommunication, in retribution for the great level of violence he was alleged to employ in his campaign to secure the earldom of Cornwall.48 It is possible then, that the chronicle’s claims about Mabel’s condition which were likely formulated at a time in which Reginald, as a stalwart of the Angevin cause in England, remained one of the king’s foremost opponents, are either an invention or heavily exaggerated. It remains unclear if Reginald’s marriage to Mabel brought him any lands outside the reasonably modest lordship of Cardin and even whether this transfer was carried out during her father’s lifetime. It seems likely that most of the earl’s lands within Cornwall were gained during his attempts to seize control of the county and expel Stephen’s supporters or through the application of royally sourced rights and administrative privileges within the earldom. During his guardianship of his grandsons, Earl Baldwin and William, Reginald took great care to emphasize within charters pertaining to the confirmation or gift of land within Devon that he was acting on Baldwin’s behalf.49 Maintained and raised within their grandfather’s household, following the death of their father in 1162, as the young earl and his brother grew older, Reginald began to include them in the witness lists of his own charters and the distribution of landed interests in Cornwall to members of his maternal aristocratic affinity in the early 1170s.50 This guardianship and Reginald’s lengthy period of control over Devon, in which he was able to wield considerable authority, allowed Reginald to build the two counties and their overlapping and conjoined aristocratic and ecclesiastical networks into a formidable powerbase in the southwest of England. Indeed, its power and internal cohesion may have contributed to Henry  II’s intercession in the distribution of Reginald’s inheritance following the earl’s death. This situation emerged as a result of the longrunning and actively cultivated affinity between Reginald and the de Redvers family. Reginald’s arrival in his half-sister’s powerbase in Anjou in 1136 coincided with that of Baldwin, following his banishment from England by Stephen in the wake of his failed regionally centred rebellion.51 It is possible then that Reginald accompanied Baldwin and they had an existing affiliation, both having strong familial interest and ties within the region. As previously discussed, Orderic Vitalis notes that the two co-operated closely and engaged in active military service on Empress Matilda’s behalf, ravaging royalist-aligned lands within the Cotentin together up to 1138.52 If Orderic’s claims about the rapaciousness of this

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The Anarchy  103 campaign and the duo’s apparent focus on looting are to be believed, it would suggest that Reginald and Baldwin were already working together for their mutual benefit and advancement, while operating under the larger umbrella of the Angevin network. Following their elevations to the earldoms of Cornwall and Devon as a result of their connection and utility to the Angevin cause, the two magnates continued to co-operate with one another and co-ordinate their activities to further secure and advance their hold over southwest England. This political affinity was reinforced and the two families’ interest further entangled when Baldwin’s eldest son and principal heir, Richard, married one of Reginald’s daughters, Denise, following the death of his first wife Emma, the sister of one of his Devonshire vassals, Robert de Pont de l’Arche, sometime in the early to mid-1150s.53 While Reginald was a longtime associate and ally of the de Redvers family, his guardianship of his grandson, the young earl, and his, at least partial, assumption of control over committal governance and affairs, potentially excluded other politically active and engaged members of the de Redvers family. While there were no formalized rules or structure for the appointment of guardians of minors outside its status as a royal right, Richard’s younger brother, William de Redvers, sometimes identified as William de Vernon, could perhaps under normal circumstances have been expected to assume this position since it kept the family’s lands and interests firmly attached to the stem of the family. In fact, William can be found alongside his nephews in the witness lists of the charter in which Reginald confirms a gift of land to his maternal cousin, William de Botrell, which suggests a significant level of co-operation or perhaps even temporary absorption of members of the de Redver family and its associates into Reginald’s affinity and administrative apparatus.54 The extent to which Reginald’s dominance of the region and guardianship of the area was a result of his connections and natural affinities with Devon and the de Redvers or if it was enabled by his affinity and influence with the king remains unclear. In addition to the royal favour he received as a result of his service and participation in a royal dynastic enterprise through the creation and maintenance of his local administration and networks of power, Reginald made considerable use of his wider familial affinities and connections, the mobilization of which allowed him to exert considerable influence throughout his domains. Reginald’s intervention, on behalf of his halfbrother and fellow royal bastard, Robert FitzEdith with their royal

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104  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England nephew, Henry II, in arranging his marriage to the heiress of Oakhampton, Matilda d’Avranches, suggests that he remained aware and engaged with their shared familial identity and that Robert may have previously operated within his half-brother’s affinity. The succession of a close ally and family member to the quite considerable honour of Oakhampton in Devon, which contained ninety-four knight’s fees, can only have increased Reginald’s influence and ability to project authority within the area, drawing the county and its interconnected aristocratic networks and landed interests further into the earl’s political affinity.55 Additionally, in 1146, Reginald’s sister, Rohose, likely his maternal half-sister since no mention is made of any possible royal heritage, married Henry de Pomeroy who held land within both Cornwall and Devon, further spreading Reginald’s familial and political connections throughout his earldom and its surrounding regions.56 Following her husband’s death in the early 1170s Reginald gifted his sister with the manor of Roseworthy in Cornwall in order to contribute to her maintenance. Amongst the witnesses of this gift are Reginald’s halfbrothers, Herbert and William Fitz Herbert, suggesting the continuation and active nature of familial ties between Reginald and his maternal halfsiblings.57 As discussed previously, Reginald’s mother Sybil was almost certainly a member of the Dunstanville family, a toponym which Orderic Vitalis applies to Reginald. Although Reginald never adopted the use of the toponym himself in either the dispensing, re-issuing, or witnessing of charters, its use by a source as well informed as Orderic Vitalis, who provides reliable details regarding the structure and composition of the royal household, shows that his affiliation with the Dunstanvilles was well known within aristocratic circles and already extant by the time of his promotion to earl. Whatever the exact nature of their relationship, Reginald’s association with the Dunstanville family was clearly a familial one and its members frequently appear within the witness lists of his charters or engaged within his service. One of the primary examples of this was the clerk, Hugh de Dunstanville, a long-serving member of his household who was made protector of the earl’s still minor grandchildren after his death, later transitioning into the household of Earl Baldwin III of Devon and who can be found witnessing a notification alongside the two brothers of the sale of land to Breamore Priory by Robert, son of Liger and his wife Adeliz in the early 1180s. The connection with Earl Reginald introduced

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The Anarchy  105 the Dunstanville family into the wider Angevin-aligned affinity during the civil war and Alan de Dunstanville witnessed a charter given by Empress Matilda in 1141, alongside the earl.58 Robert de Dunstanville himself a frequent witness of the earl’s own charters appears to have also accompanied his kinsmen to the Angevin court as part of his retinue and witnessed acts by both the empress and of the future Henry  II. Following the king’s accession to the throne in 1154, he is described as a royal steward, suggesting that he was able to parley his connection to Reginald into a career within the royal household. A lucrative career in the royal household, receiving from the mid-1150s onwards the revenues of Heytesbury, Wiltshire and from about 1160 he received the revenues of Colyton in Devon.59 Yet another member of the extended Dunstanville clan was Richard de Dunstanville, a clerk and scribe in the service of Bishop Robert of Exeter who had strong connections to the cathedral at Canterbury.60 The Diocese of Exeter extended over and had its financial and landed interests interlinked with both the earldoms of Cornwall and neighbouring Devon, making co-operation between earl and bishop an important prerequisite for both of them to effectively exercise authority within their respective spheres. Richard was perfectly placed to mediate between the earl and bishop, if necessary, possibly intervening on his extended family’s behalf. Indeed, his presence and acceptance within the bishop’s retinue suggests that the two had a functional working relationship despite the difficulties between Reginald and Robert’s predecessor. Robert was succeeded to the bishopric by one of his protégés and former archdeacons, Bartholomew Iscanus, in 1161. Similarly, Reginald seems to have forged an effective relationship with this wide-ranging bishop who appears in the position of precedents in the witness lists of several of the earl’s charters.61 Reginald was a patron of Launceston Priory which had grown out from the church of St Stephen in the town, although there seems to be no apparent paternal or maternal familial connection to the Augustinian house. The priory was located within the vicinity of one of the earl’s principal castles in which he was temporarily confined during his struggle to claim the earldom. In the mid-1150s Reginald gave alms and part of the Chapel of Launceston to the developing priory, issuing his own charter as well as obtaining a confirmation from his royal nephew.62 Reginald’s patronage of the institution continued throughout his life and, in 1174, he gifted the priory

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106  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England the manors of Caradon and Rillionton as well as ownership of a mill near the earl’s castle at Dunheved. There does, however, seem to have been some tension between the priory and the earl. As part of this grant in 1174 Reginald also agreed to pay the canons of St Stephen a portion of the rents and dues of the castle in recompense for the tower of the church which he had apparently destroyed, perhaps as part of a construction programme at the castle or because of military concerns raised by the presence of the tower so near to the castle.63 Whatever the possible cause of this dispute and the role of the tower within it, shortly after the earl’s death, Henry  II, in re-integrating Reginald’s powerbase and political affinities into the royal demesne, was compelled to write separately to both his Cornish bailiffs and the canons urging them to keep the peace and refrain from violence with one another.64 Within the earldom of Cornwall, Reginald wielded considerable viceregal authority and the accompanying financial mechanism which he used in the advancement of his regional familial interests through the construction and maintenance of political affinities and relationships. In the early 1160s Reginald bestowed a number of privileges upon the burgesses of the expanding town of Truro which was originally fortified and issued a charter by the future Justiciar of England, Richard de Lucy, in 1138 who was then allied with Reginald’s rival Earl Alan of Richmond.65 Earl Reginald granted the townsfolk freedom from the jurisdiction of both the hundred and county court as well as exemption from tolls in the markets and fairs of the county. The address clause of this charter refers to both English and Cornishmen, suggesting that Reginald acknowledged the existence of overlapping regional and national identities present within his earldom, although there is no evidence that this distinction held any weight or role within the law.66

Illegitimate Royal Family Members, Earldoms and Vice-regal Authority Robert of Gloucester and Reginald of Cornwall are by far the most conspicuous and active illegitimate royal family members during the Anarchy, both rising to positions of leadership amongst their half-sister’s supporters. Naturally given their multiplicity and average age, many of Henry  I’s other illegitimate children lived into and sometimes through the Anarchy. Several of these royal bastards lived and operated within the

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The Anarchy  107 orbit of their more powerful and prominent relatives without claiming a place within the Empress’ inner circle or rising to the exalted rank of earl. This can be seen in the case of Robert FitzEdith.67 Robert was one of those illegitimate sons of Henry I who was identified by Robert of Torigni in the early 1140s as still being a youth, though such a classification from a chronicler steeped in Norman aristocratic culture may only have been meant to indicate that Robert was unmarried and without land of his own rather than a description of his actual age.68 Although the appearance in the Pipe Roll of 1130 of land in Devonshire held in trust for him suggests that Robert was born relatively late into his father’s reign.69 During the dynastic disputes and internecine warfare of Stephen’s reign, Robert maintained a strong sense of family identity and affinity, supporting the claim of his half-sister, the Empress Matilda, alongside other royal illegitimate family members such as Robert of Gloucester and Reginald of Cornwall and he can be found attesting several charters alongside them.70 It is this continued connection that likely led Reginald to prevail upon Henry II to arrange Robert’s elevation to the lordship of Oakhampton through marriage to Matilda, the widow of William of Courcy.71 Despite his clear affinity with the other members of the royal family and the substantial wealth brought to him by his marriage, Robert seems to have maintained a low political profile after his involvement in pressing Empress Matilda’s dynastic claims. Rather than engaging with courtly life or attempting to cultivate his own regional connections and networks, he instead functioned as a satellite of his halfbrother, Reginald, who had constructed a formidable powerbase in the southwest of England.72 Robert and the handful of royal bastards like him were occasionally patronized by their royal family members and implanted within existing regional affinities. However, the considerable smaller scale on which this took place limited their scope for autonomous action and the construction of a hegemonic powerbase within their local aristocratic networks. It further means that the composition of their households and position within Anglo-Norman society is difficult to ascertain outside those rare occasions where they were illuminated through interaction with relatives whose greater importance and level of activity has led to a corresponding presence in the surviving sources, particularly in the form of charter evidence as well as in financial and tax records which are necessary for the partial reconstruction of their households, wider

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108  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England networks of patronage and their continuity of royal affinity. The higher social status and contemporary prominence of the earls, as well as the extensive spread of their landed interests and connections meant that they issued more charters than their lesser contemporaries. On top of these broader interests, the illegitimate royal earls and their peers witnessed and ratified the agreements and charters made by other aristocrats within their political networks and the geographic boundaries of their earldom. This practice, particularly in those cases in which the agreement or deal somehow involved or touched upon monastic interests or grants and was therefore more likely to be retained, further contributed to the greater survival of charter sources issued by or pertaining to earls during this period. The position of earl, while undergoing a degree of revision and re-definition during the twelfth century, not only indicated an enhanced status and influence within social and political networks but could in some limited respects be considered an office within the evolving system of royal government.73 Indeed, it was the mechanisms of this office as well as the implications of increased autonomy which informed the basis for much of its accompanying authority and prestige, potentially affording the holder certain legal and financial privileges such as the right to convene their own courts as well as entitling them to a portion of all fees and taxation levelled within the boundaries of their earldom. Occasionally, however, the title was used by some sources derived from England, particularly in the early part of the twelfth century, as a courtesy title bestowed upon particularly puissant or prestigious aristocrats in the cross-channel world of the Anglo-Norman and later Angevin hegemonies, in order to emphasize their power and status rather than to denote the holdings of a legal and administrative office.74 This early fluidity of title probably originates from the Norman adoption of the English office and initial conflation with the continental title of Count in the immediate aftermath of the Conquest and came to be used interchangeably as many of the artefacts of the administrative system of pre-Conquest England were discarded or diluted. A generation or two removed from the Conquest, substantial administrative advancements, based at least partially upon the existing Shire and Hundred court system, as well as the diffraction of landholdings and inheritance amongst the families of cross-channel magnates, created a situation in which there were titled and enfeoffed members of the Anglo-Norman nobility whose title and nucleus of their

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The Anarchy  109 territory were sourced in Normandy, but who nevertheless maintained extensive landed and familial interests within the British Isles.75 In addition to the rare luxury of having adequate material, another compelling reason to focus upon the households of those illegitimate royal family members raised to earldoms was the variable engagement with, and access to, executive viceregal powers throughout the twelfth century. It was these powers and the wealth generated from them that reinforced and promoted the earls’ roles as focal points and patrons in the web of family and regional aristocratic affinities. It was the earls’ status, at least nominally, as the king’s most powerful and influential secular subjects which made securing and retaining their support and the orientation of the political networks in which they operated a prominent royal concern. The necessity, or else extreme utility, of committal backing and the construction of an aristocratic consensus is, of course, one of the primary reasons that twelfth-century monarchs elevated favoured illegitimate family members to the rank of earl, embedding them within existing regional affinities. Royal authority over the earls and their co-operation was maintained and incentivized to a large degree through the use of the increasingly sophisticated financial mechanisms of the royal government, particularly within England and its Exchequer, which provided kings with the means systematically to reward magnates based upon their degree of affinity and level of engagement with royal service.76 Of course the exact form and function of these gifts, as well as the manner and extent to which executive power was invested and devolved varied throughout the twelfth century as a result of changing political circumstances and the development of the administrative and financial framework of governance. At the time of Henry  I’s death, England supported seven earldoms, two of which, Leicester and Gloucestershire, were created by the king in 1107 and 1121 or 1122 respectively.77 The earldom of Leicester was granted to Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and one of William the Conqueror’s original companions.78 The grant of the earldom, alongside a considerable award of land within the Midlands, was probably a reward for the venerable magnate’s support of Henry throughout his early reign and the king’s recent forcible assumption of his elder brother’s position within the duchy of Normandy.79 This grant also served another political purpose, besides demonstrating the king’s largesse and ability to reward loyalty. By giving Robert and his family extensive landed interests in England, he was ensuring that it remained in the powerful Beaumont

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110  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England clan’s best interests to maintain and promote the political connectivity and indivisibility of the two halves of the recently restored Anglo-Norman realm. As we have seen, the earldom of Gloucester was created for the king’s eldest illegitimate son in the aftermath of the White Ship disaster and the death of the heir apparent in order to help support and stabilize the king’s regime at a point of dynastic crisis.80 By investing Robert with lands within Wales and on its border, Henry I was ensuring that not only would the other Marcher lords and adventurers look to an individual who possessed an exceptionally strong royal familial affinity for support and leadership but that his son’s newly acquired political and territorial interests in maintaining the integrity of the border and advancing the piecemeal pacification of Wales aligned closely with his own.81 In the creation of both these earldoms, Henry I conferred significant lands and a portion of the royal demesne upon a political ally at a time of potential upheaval and instability in order to reinforce his political dominance and hegemony. Under Henry I the exact nature and scope of the executive powers and privileges afforded to the Anglo-Norman earls seems to have differed significantly between individuals. Rather than a clearly defined office with systematically applied rights and responsibilities, comital status was a social and honorific rank which provided magnates with the scope and perhaps aspirations to pursue a suite of available and attainable privileges.82 Access to these powers and privileges varied depending upon their political and territorial circumstances as well as their relationship with the king and the mechanisms of royal government. The 1130 Pipe Roll explicitly makes mention of Earl Robert of Gloucester’s receipt of a portion of the income, what is known as the third penny, generated by the Shire court; although later evidence suggests that the same right may at least have been sporadically claimed and enforced by the earls of Leicester, Surrey and Warwick.83 The earl of Northampton claimed entitlement to a share of the revenue of the boroughs in Bedford and Cambridge, while the earl of Surrey did the same in the towns of Guilford and Southwark.84 It seems that in the early twelfth century, while the households of earls and their cultivated and constructed dynastic and regional affinities were important reservoirs of political power, they played only a small role in the running and maintenance of the local system of shire administration and its connection with the wider royal government. While the king’s writs and instructions to local government officials occasionally included the

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The Anarchy  111 local earl, this practice was far from universally adhered to and a lack of standardization in the form such addresses took makes it hard to gauge whether this was a mere courtesy sporadically applied or if an earl once referenced held some obligation or responsibility to see that the king’s instructions were resolved satisfactorily. Throughout Henry  I’s reign the earls who consistently enjoyed and applied the greatest array of these legal and financial privileges were those of Chester, whose land holdings were remarkably consolidated and dense when compared to other Anglo-Norman earls and magnates whose lands were often scattered and fragmented as a result of a deliberate process of distribution undertaken by earlier Anglo-Norman kings in the aftermath of the Conquest.85 The earls of Chester, with the exception of those lands that fell under the purview of the Church and Monastic networks, controlled the entirety of the shire which gave them an unprecedented level of influence and control over the local apparatus of governance and administration, including access to revenue streams in the same manner as the third pennies and the right, or at least ability, to appoint their own sheriffs.86 The appointment and control of sheriffs is of particular importance given the status of sheriffs as royal officials and their role as a vital component in a financial system in which the burden of taxation tended to fall heaviest on the poorer and less well-connected sections of society. The royal administration, principally in the form of the developing Exchequer, issued sheriffs with quotas and audits they were expected to meet through the farming of taxation in their assigned shire.87 The system could be potentially extremely lucrative for office holders, drawn primarily from local aristocracy and functionaries, who were able to exercise a high degree of independence in the manner in which this money was raised, although those sheriffs who failed to meet their goals were habitually replaced. This discretion, which provided the means of creating and cultivating significant political capital and affinity, as well as their status as potential sources of significant income, meant that the devolution or perhaps usurpation of royal authority over an earldom’s sheriffs was a highly advantageous and desirable outcome for any earl, regardless of their potential connection to royal family identity. There has been significant and long-running historiographical debate on how appropriate a descriptor ‘The Anarchy’ is for the period of dynastic conflict and warfare that existed within Stephen’s reign and the extent

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112  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England to which the dispute resulted in the disruption of the administration and the breakdown of royal authority. What can be seen, however, is that Stephen’s reign saw a marked increase in the number of magnates claiming and receiving royal recognition of comital status. While Stephen only created two earldoms, those of Richmond and Northampton in 1136, shortly after his assumption of the throne, these endeavours were greatly escalated upon the outbreak of hostilities within England .88 The earldom of Richmond was created for Alan the Black, a magnate of Breton extraction and a relative of the Norman ducal house, who already held the lordship of Richmond, having inherited it from his father Count Stephen of Tréguier earlier that year.89 It is possible then that Alan’s elevation to the rank of earl was a recognition by Stephen of his prominence within the aristocratic networks of north Yorkshire and an existing engagement with the region’s administration and military integrity. The greater social kudos of the honorific, as well as its implied and possibly practically recognized independence from the Yorkshire sheriffs, not only served to strengthen Alan’s sense of connection and loyalty towards the king but also entrenched the earl more thoroughly in the north of England, helping to secure the border with Scotland. This joint agenda of cultivating affinity and support within England, alongside the securing of his border with Scotland also appears in Stephen’s re-foundation of the earldom of Northampton. Stephen gifted the earldom to Simon de Sensis II who possessed a hereditary claim to the earldom through his mother alongside one, on the somewhat overlapping and conflated earldom of Huntingdon, which was held by his half-brother, Prince Henry of Scotland.90 By granting Simon, who was married to Isabel de Beaumont, the daughter of one of Stephen’s principal supporters, Earl Robert of Leicester, the title of earl, Stephen was not only gaining the further gratitude and support of the Beaumont family and their associates but also imposing a limit upon Scottish influence within the Midlands by positioning a supporter with an alternative claim within the region. This was of a particular concern to Stephen since David I was Empress Matilda’s maternal uncle and could reasonably be expected to support her claim to the throne.91 Both royalist and Angevin factions within England used the gifting and confirmation of earldoms to attract magnates to their cause and cultivate the allegiance and influence of their existing supporters, a practice capitalizing upon, but also complicated by, the fluid loyalty and

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The Anarchy  113 opportunism of many magnates during the conflict. Possibly the most egregious and commonly cited example of this trend of transitory and conditional loyalty is the career of Geoffrey de Mandeville who received charters investing him with the earldom of Essex from both King Stephen and the Empress Matilda.92 Through this strategy of negotiation, and by playing the rival royal claimants against each other, Geoffrey was able to temporarily secure and exercise an extraordinary number of privileges and powers awarded to him in two separate grants by the empress’ conferring upon him rights to the third penny from courts in Essex, the Justicaryship of the county, restoring to him his family’s hereditary custodianship of the Tower as well as the shrievalty of Essex, London and Hertfordshire.93 Generally speaking, of the two royal claimants it was Matilda who was more willing to devolve executive power and authority to her supporters.94 This strategy was perhaps informed by the relationship she shared with her confederate and illegitimate half-brother, Robert of Gloucester. While Robert supported her claim and was integral to the Angevin faction’s military efforts, he also displayed a high degree of personal autonomy as well as an active engagement with the trappings of royal identity and authority. Indeed, the elevation of their half-brother Reginald to the earldom of Cornwall, following his assumption of the Angevin party’s interests within the region, seems to have been implemented initially by Robert rather than Empress Matilda. Additionally, Matilda who was opposed by an anointed king already established in the realm for a number of years and with the political practicality of her claim complicated to an extent by her sex and Norman antagonism to her Angevin connections, perhaps felt the need to make greater concessions to attract supporters and stabilize her faction.95 In 1141 the highwater mark of her political and military success within England, in addition to recognizing Geoffrey de Mandeville as earl of Essex, the empress also raised a long-term Angevin associate, Miles of Gloucester, the hereditary constable and sheriff, to the earldom of Hereford.96 Miles was granted the third penny in Hereford, derived both from court pleas and borough incomes as well as lands from the royal demesne within the county, including Hereford castle itself. In both cases then, it seems clear that Matilda envisaged that the earls would function as military and administrative deputies within their earldoms, delegating to them duties and authority otherwise held by the royal government. In the same year, Matilda also recognized or granted the title of earl to Hugh Bigod, William de Mohun, Aubrey de Vere and

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114  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Baldwin de Redvers. Aubrey de Vere, the brother-in-law and close ally of Geoffrey de Mandeville, was initially promised in his rather complicated and conditional charter from Empress Matilda, the third penny of the earldom of Cambridge which it states is the right of all earls, suggesting at this time that the majority of earls associated with the Angevin faction had some recognized right to these incomes, although evidence for actual implementation of this right is sparse.97 In contrast to the strategy adopted by Matilda, it seems clear that at least some of the earldoms that Stephen created and distributed were intended purely as an honorific courtesy title rather than implying a military and administrative function. In 1140, during negotiations with Earl Ranulf II of Chester and the powerful affinity he had constructed, Stephen awarded Ranulf ’s maternal half-brother, William de Roumare, the title earl of Lincoln.98 Crucially, William did not receive control of Lincoln castle, either through custodianship or direct ownership which their party later seized from the king by force.99 Given this retention of the region’s military assets by Stephen, the political context of these negotiations and William’s personal focus on defending his family lands within Normandy, it seems likely that William was gifted the comital title as part of royal strategy attempting to mollify Ranulf ’s affinity without meaningfully expanding their control over the region. Interestingly William d’Aubigny, one of Stephen’s supporters, and the husband of Henry I’s widow Queen Adeliza, also made intermittent use of the style earl of Lincoln even though he seems to have had no clear landed interests in the county. William seems to have experimented with the exact configuration of his title, styling himself variously as the earl of either Aubigny, Sussex, Chichester or Arundel.100 While these were all areas in which he held land, either directly or through his wife, his vacillation on the formulation of his title suggests that he regarded the additional prestige of a comital title to be an asset rather than its potential to facilitate an integration with the apparatus of regional financial and military administration. This process of empowerment and investment of royal authority in earls and magnates as a means of constructing a powerbase and aristocratic consensus, which for Matilda’s faction included illegitimate royal family members, was variable in scope and in practice often only temporary. The creation of earls by the Anglo-Norman royal claimants, like many contemporary political and governmental practises, was fluid. The

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The Anarchy  115 exact form and intended function of each grant being determined on an individual basis depending upon the political needs and objectives of the grantee. This was similarly the case with the variable distribution of administrative and financial privileges amongst the earls.101 The political circumstances and need of the royal household to construct a functional consensus amongst the magnates meant that several earls were invested with powers and integrated into royal governance to an extent comparable with those of the royal illegitimate family members elevated to earldoms within the twelfth century. While many royal bastards were engaged with their maternal familial and regional networks, they rarely extended to the upper echelons of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin aristocracy which, alongside their illegitimate status, meant that their advancement came largely as a result of their participation in royal family identity. This meant that while many recipients of the title of earl and potential deputies and partners in royal governance could bring significant military resources and aristocratic support to their patrons through their networks of familial and regional affinities, the elevation of illegitimate family members required a potentially greater investment of royal resources to advance royal interests. On the other hand, the permanence of their entangled political and familial interests meant that both Robert and Reginald, as well as the subsequent illegitimate royal earls, were also the natural confederates and deputies of their royal family members during periods of crisis and political upheaval. The creation or granting of earldoms was one of the most potent methods through which twelfthcentury English monarchs or, in the case of Matilda, prospective monarchs, attempted to cultivate the support of individual aristocrats and their surrounding affinities. Yet as we will continue to see into the reign of Henry II and his sons, it is those royal bastards raised to committal status, and already invested in the success of their legitimate family members, who were permitted substantive access to viceregal powers and privileges. Reginald possessed a strong sense of familial identity and shared affinity with his half-siblings, appearing in the empress’ court as she began military efforts to assert her claim and can be found amongst her retinue or that of Robert of Gloucester on several occasions. These personal connections and shared familial interests with the nucleus of the Angevin cause and war effort were of paramount importance in Reginald’s assumption to the position as earl. This was the case with all elevated royal illegitimate children, their utility and importance being derived from the

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116  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England close conflation of political interest and the illegitimate family members’ reliance upon a patron for advancement, meant it was almost in their best interests to support and co-operate with their legitimate family members. In a similar manner to Henry  I’s promotion of Robert of Gloucester, Reginald’s utility to his family and resources within the region was further enhanced by marriage into a prominent local family. Reginald’s marriage to Mabel Fitz Richard, the daughter of former royalist supporter William Fitz Richard, the Lord of Cardin in central Cornwall, provided him with connections within the region’s aristocratic affinities and the foundations of a powerbase.102 It remains unclear the extent to which Earl Robert and later the empress invested Reginald with administrative and legal powers and privileges or how they envisaged the new earl’s role within the county beyond its military pacification and securement for the Angevin cause. Reginald’s apparent excommunication by Bishop Robert Warelwast of Exeter in 1140 and alleged lack of local popularity seems to have arisen from his attempts to extract money from the diocese and its affiliated monastic institutions.103 The avarice and rapaciousness of Anglo-Norman magnates during this period of unrest and aristocratic factionalism were common themes in contemporary ecclesiastical writing, often levelled in support of those bishops who excommunicated magnates, on identical grounds, as one of their remaining mechanisms with which to register protests and deter the exclusion of lands from the Church.104 This practice and its effect upon the formulation of the available sources make it difficult to determine the extent and form of Reginald’s encroachment upon the Church and if in doing so he was exercising rights and privileges awarded to him as a royal deputy. Whatever his half-sibling’s original intentions when granting him the earldom, following Matilda’s withdrawal from England and a reduction in the tempo of the dynastic conflict, Reginald was, in a manner similar to Robert of Gloucester, able to maintain the internal integrity of his earldom which he then ruled autonomously. The affinity and sense of shared familial enterprise generated by Reginald’s support and informal guardianship of his legitimate nephew, Duke Henry, during his initial military and diplomatic forays into England meant that the earl was able to retain a large measure of this independence and extensive suite of viceregal powers following the accession of Henry II to the English throne. The degree of this autonomy and separation from their legitimate royal family members and patrons, of course, fell on a continuum and did not

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The Anarchy  117 necessarily, or even typically, imply a clash or cross purpose with royal interests. Both Robert of Gloucester and Reginald of Cornwall, who had obtained their powerbases through marriages brokered by their royal relatives, were active supporters of their half-sister, the Empress Matilda, upholding her claim during the dynastic disputes of Stephen’s reign. They also both pursued aggressive policies of expansion and consolidation within southern Wales and the southwest of England respectively through diplomatic, dynastic and military means.105 While many of their fellow earls and magnates tried to take advantage of the succession dispute by constructing similar powerbases, few were quite so open or at ease about their adoption of royal authority as Robert and none were able to preserve and maintain such authority into the following reign as Reginald would. While these two illegitimate earls were only able to obtain this level of autonomy because of the disruption brought about by the warfare and factionalism that marked the succession crisis, Reginald’s prominence in the coming reign lay in both his personal connection to Henry and his unambiguous status as the senior male member of the royal dynasty. 106

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Chapter 5

Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II

T

he future Henry II’s first attempt to exercise meaningful power and authority in England was not particularly auspicious. In fact, as we have seen, it was something of a disaster. In 1147 the fourteen-year-old Henry struck out for England accompanied by a modest force of mercenaries. The eldest son of Count Geoffrey of Anjou and Empress Matilda, the ambiguously styled but undoubtably royal Lady of England, Henry’s previous foray into England, three or four years earlier, had been purely tokenistic. His father had despatched Henry in, perhaps, a deliberately sardonic and unhelpful response to calls for aid made by Matilda’s supporters. With the dynastic war in England at its peak in terms of aristocratic commitment and frenetic military activity, Matilda’s faction had little need for a second figurehead. Politically redundant, the young Henry was placed in the care of his mother’s family and spent an uneventful year under the tutorage of his cousin Roger before returning to his father’s court. In contrast, it seems that Henry’s expedition in 1147 was wholly unsupervised and unsanctioned. The invasion, which the fourteen-yearold probably hoped would see him restored to his grandfather’s lost throne, stumbled into Wiltshire in the south of England before quickly losing traction. Having raised considerable alarm in the region but achieving nothing of any military or strategic value, Henry quickly found himself a virtual prisoner of his own troops who were extremely disgruntled to discover he had no means of paying them. With his less than sympathetic parents ignoring his entreaties for aid, Henry was rescued by the man he had come to England to overthrow, King Stephen. Whatever Henry’s surely layered feelings on the way Stephen paid off his captors and arranged for his safe return to Normandy, they did not deter him for long. In 1149 Henry once again returned to England, this time with an ambitious scheme to forge an alliance between himself, his kinsman King David of Scotland and Earl Ranulf of Chester. While this plan was ultimately unravelled by Stephen’s energetic and personal intervention,

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  119 it went some way to establishing Henry amidst the powerbrokers and political networks of the British Isles. Henry’s prestige and credibility was further bolstered the following year when his parents formally installed him as Duke of Normandy, ceding their own claims in the process. By this point, the dynastic war in England had, outside of regional flare-ups brought about by the persistent rivalries of specific families and affinities, largely burned itself out. While factionalism was still rife and much of the south and west of England remained an Angevin stronghold, both sides had fought each other to a stalemate and there was now precious little fighting or military activity. Even those aristocrats who had capitalized upon the disruption and divided loyalties of the war to prey upon their neighbours or claim a greater degree of autonomy were primarily focused upon consolidating their territorial gains. Indeed, this war weariness and the flagging commitment of the aristocracy to either royal claimant is one of the reasons that Henry’s expedition to England in 1147 proved to be such a dud. Of course, the fact that it was severely undermanned, underfunded and led by a fourteenyear-old boy of little or no accomplishment cannot have done much to shake England’s aristocracy from its apathy or tempt the diehard Angevin supporters from their carefully-prepared bastions. In a sense Matilda and Robert’s rejection of Henry was motivated by their current weakness and the fear that Henry, as a legitimate male heir, could supplant the halfsiblings’ chimeric leadership of the Angevin party. The sudden death of Henry’s father in 1151 provoked a brief dispute between Geoffrey’s sons which ultimately resulted in the young duke taking control of the greatly enlarged county of Anjou.1 It seems that even at a young age, Henry, whose sons would fight several wars with him over the distribution and control of the family’s accumulated territories, was unwilling to share power and not overly sentimental when it came to family. Henry’s considerable continental domains afforded him the status and resources to pursue his dynastic claims in England, but they also brought their share of impositions and demands upon his energy. Normandy and Anjou were as much social and cultural conglomerates as they were political entities, and the duke was not an autocrat. Instead, he was the head of a loose coalition of overlapping familial networks and regional affinities, the members of which had to be placated and incentivized towards co-operation. In addition to this, Henry had to come to some arrangement with his neighbour and overlord, the increasingly warry and

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120  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England guarded King Louis VII of France. Both endeavors were complicated significantly by the spectacular political coup that was Henry’s marriage to Louis’ ex-wife, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. Despite the increasingly volatile and contentious political situation on the continent, Henry was able to build upon the contact he had made in 1149 with the members of the Angevin party in England. While this visit had not resulted in any immediate shift in the balance of power in England, it did mark the beginning of active co-operation between Henry and his illegitimate uncle, Earl Reginald of Cornwall. With this extension of familial affinity, Reginald transferred his ambitions for an Angevin victory and the pre-eminence of his own family to a new generation. With the support and assistance of Reginald, Henry was able to win over his mother’s still influential but dispirited supporters, renewing the Angevin cause in England while displacing her as the faction’s primary royal claimant. In 1152, the earl was despatched by his fellow Angevin adherents to his nephew’s court with the aim of persuading the duke to invade England and revive their flagging fortunes.2 When Henry returned to England in 1153 in a bid to secure his grandfather’s throne, Earl Reginald was already in his retinue. Henry’s modest army landed in his uncle’s domain before striking north for Malmesbury and the Angevin heartland where they were joined by the earls of Gloucester, Hereford, Lincoln and Salisbury. While Reginald is not explicitly identified by his familial relationship to Henry in the witness lists of charters issued by the duke at this time, he is afforded primacy over his fellow earls, suggesting that he was increasingly held in a position of high esteem.3 Having secured the loyalty of the Angevin diehards and completing the transferral of loyalty and dynastic aspirations from mother to son, Henry seemed poised to make a decisive bid for the throne. Rapidly consolidating his hold in England and courting allies for the fighting that was surely to follow, Henry and his followers met once again with Earl Ranulf of Chester at Devizes in Wiltshire, where the duke made lavish promises in exchange for Ranulf ’s support. Reginald accompanied his nephew throughout the largely bloodless opening stages of this campaign, acting as one of Henry’s principal advisers as he moved throughout western England, forming relationships with the various aristocratic affinities and cultivating his authority by the confirmation of writs and adjudicating disputes. Reginald, alongside Earl William of Gloucester and Earl Patrick of Salisbury, also supported the duke through a series of negotiations with

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  121 a powerful royalist-aligned ecclesiastical bloc composed of Archbishop Theobald, the bishops of Bath and Chichester and the king’s brother, Henry of Winchester.4 The conclusion of hostilities, limited as they were, came rather suddenly following the abortive stand-off at Wallingford. When King Stephen first heard about Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, he had moved quickly to place Wallingford Castle, the Angevins’ most strategically vital redoubt, under siege. Having judged that he had raised all he could from the diehards of the Angevin affinity and his new supporters, Henry had moved to relieve the castle. Heavy skirmishing ensued which led Stephen to gather a large royalist host and move to confront Henry at the ford. It seems probable that duke and king were hoping to force a decisive clash, but the noble familial groups and affinities that formed the spine of both armies strenuously objected to the resumption of open hostilities. With neither royal claimant able to force the confrontation in the face of such concentrated aristocratic opposition, both sides agreed on a truce. The rough outline of an agreement hammered out during the long stand-off at Wallingford was then refined as peace talks continued at Winchester. This settlement created an equilibrium between the two factions in which Duke Henry was ultimately recognized as King Stephen’s successor to the throne, displacing the king’s surviving son, William. With the duke’s return to Normandy in 1154, it was Reginald whom he designated as his representative and spokesperson in England, responsible for making sure that the agreement and interests within the country were maintained in his absence.5

Royal Bastards and the Mechanisms of Royal Authority Henry II’s early reign is often framed as a period in which royal authority was renewed and restored following the disruption of Stephen’s war-torn reign. Henry went to considerable efforts to encourage and project this idea throughout his early royal writs, emphasizing heavily the continuity between his reign and that of his maternal grandfather Henry I. Victorian historians, inclined by training and temperament to accept this viewpoint, began referring to the period of Stephen’s reign as the ‘The Anarchy’. The use of this term can, if not properly framed, reinforce the erroneous notion that Stephen’s reign was an aberration and that Stephen’s accession to the throne was a break in the continuity of Anglo-Norman royal governance.

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122  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England However, during the long largely peaceful nadir of the dynastic conflict which Henry’s earlier expeditions to England had sought to shake up, Stephen had already succeeded in exerting a considerable measure of royal authority over much of England. As we have seen, during the height of the dynastic conflict, the rival royal claimants stretched and expanded the methods through which they constructed or courted support from aristocratic affinities. Yet the core mechanisms through which this was achieved, the distribution of largesse and seceding of certain viceregal privileges, remained largely unaltered. While the granting of titles, rights and exemptions had continued to remain an effective system for cultivating royal authority throughout the war, several former royal monopolies had been severely undermined as England’s aristocratic families had sought to shore up or expand their powerbases. These ruptured monopolies were central to the enforcement and projection of Anglo-Norman royal government, including such important resources as forestry rights, which were an important source of royal income and prestige, the issuing of coinage and licensing the construction of castles. However, their restoration had already begun before Henry  II came to the throne in 1154. Recovering royal control over privileges usurped or too hastily awarded during the war was an inescapably political and personal process. The question of which of the many castles that had sprung up during the extended dynastic conflict had been constructed illegally and which had been lawfully sanctioned was largely defined by the very factionalism the Treaty of Winchester had sort to defuse. The same was true regarding the granting of earldoms, financial or legal privileges and land. As King Stephen and his followers sort to re-establish royal authority throughout England by re-asserting control over these monopolies, they almost inevitably targeted Henry’s followers, since the King naturally regarded his own earlier grants as valid and vital for maintaining support amongst the aristocracy. Henry and Reginald protested strongly against this inequality of enforcement but ultimately acquiesced, electing to bide their time. In twelfth-century England, as with the rest of Europe, royal authority was ultimately and inextricably the same as the monarch’s personal power. The kings of twelfth-century England had a large suite of legal rights and powers to call upon which were administered by an increasingly sophisticated system, but they were deployed selectively in accordance with the kings’ dynastic and political interests.

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  123 Henry  II’s accession was far from inevitable. England’s bishops seem to have desired a peaceful resolution to the war in 1153, having approached Henry shortly after his arrival in England and positioned themselves as facilitators at Wallingford and Winchester. However, even these intercessors remained largely loyal to Stephen and were committed to keeping him on the throne. Meanwhile, it seems that the refusal of the assembled aristocracies to fight at Wallingford was an expression of their war weariness and desire for stability rather than the product of any particular regard for Henry or his claim. After all, his allies also refused to commit to battle. In fact, Henry was extremely fortunate that Stephen was predeceased by his eldest son, Eustace, whom he had attempted to have crowned as co-king in his lifetime, in imitation of the French monarchy. Had Eustace lived, his deep personal antipathy for Henry, his position within the royalist faction and ambiguous regal status would have been major impediments to the duke’s succession. Likewise, from Henry’s point of view, at least Stephen died obligingly quickly after recognizing him as heir and before the king’s attempts to exert royal authority had provoked Henry or one of his more prominent allies into recommencing hostilities. It seems probable that Henry had hoped for a decisive victory at Wallingford. He had, after all, in the early stages of the 1135 made extensive grants to his allies of land he intended to confiscate from Stephen’s followers. This approach was precluded by circumstances with Henry instead coming to the throne as the result of painstaking negotiation and the fortuitously early death of his principal rivals. Essential to this process was Henry’s willingness to placate and co-operate with Stephen’s followers.6 One of the primary reasons why Earl Robert of Leicester’s prominence within Henry’s inner circle in 1153 was so significant was that the earl had previously been a key supporter of King Stephen and a rival of Robert of Gloucester. His twin brother, Count Waleran of Meulan, had made the transition far earlier, capitulating to the Angevins in exchange for the return of the family’s extensive territories in Normandy in 1141. The successful exertion of royal authority was as much the product of negotiation and rapprochement with the aristocracy of England as the Treaty of Winchester and his assumption of the throne had been. Despite royal rhetoric and the king’s desire to present himself as his grandfather’s legitimate heir, there was no systematic or blanket return to the territorial and political status of Henry  I’s reign. Instead, the retention of castles, territorial gains, rights and titles gifted or taken during the ‘Anarchy’ were

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124  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England negotiated by the king on a case-by-case basis.7 In this manner, Henry was able to establish his authority within England through the creation of personal and largely mutually beneficial relationships with its major aristocrats regardless of their former loyalties. This process was equally important for those allies and family members who had facilitated Henry’s transition into power. Capitalizing upon opportunities as they arose naturally, Henry installed royal garrisons in key castles throughout the country, regardless of their previous allegiance. These included fortifications held by the families of some of his mother’s most prominent supporters. Crucially he extended this policy, even to those with close ties of kinship to the royal family, such as in the case of his cousin, Earl William of Gloucester whose ownership of Bristol castle the king had initially confirmed. Earl Reginald’s position within the royal family and the considerable viceregal powers and authority afforded to him within his powerbase were anomalous. In some ways they were a relic of the ‘Anarchy’ and the empress’ attempts to mobilize an extended royal familial identity. But like many relics, it continued to hold value and importance to the next generation. Just as Reginald’s support helped Henry emerge as the Angevin party’s candidate for the throne of England, he continued to be a significant presence at the royal court throughout the early years of his nephew’s reign. Reginald’s presence within the court and participation in royal service during this post-bellum period is attested to through his frequent appearances within the witness lists of royallyissued acta in which he is inevitably afforded a position of prominence over his fellow earls.8 Alongside Robert of Leicester and Richard de Lucy, who jointly held the position of Chief Justiciar, Reginald was part of a formidable inner circle of royal councilors and advisors.9 This support for Henry continued throughout the earl’s life, although his active engagement with royal governance lessened considerably with time as Reginald took over the guardianship of the earldom of Devon and focused on the cultivation of his own political affinities within the southwest of England. While not actively engaged as a royal official or office holder, outside his retention of executive powers and authority within his earldom, Reginald’s shadow and status as a senior member of the royal family seems to have loomed large. In 1164 Reginald acted as an intermediary at the Council of Northampton between Henry and his redoubtable archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. His ability to assume such a position speaks highly of his status within England,

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  125 although his notable display of sympathy for the archbishop’s plight may not have overly pleased the king.10 It appears that by the late 1160s and early 1170s, in contrast to the early years of the reign, Reginald attended the royal court infrequently. A royal charter issued in Chester by the king in 1172, confirming a transaction between Jourdain de Barneville and the abbey of Saint-Hélier of Jersey, however, still saw the earl occupying the position of primacy amongst the secular figures of the witness list, suggesting that Reginald’s status as a participant within royal family identity and personal affinity with the king precluded the degradation of his position within the royal court through distance or separation.11 Even towards the end of his life and in a relatively advanced stage of the reign, King Henry still placed a great deal of weight upon the advice of his uncle, Gervase of Canterbury stating that Reginald and Richard de Lucy were the only two whose advice the king solicited on the appointment of Richard of Dover as archbishop. While perhaps an exaggeration, depicting a suspiciously streamlined process for the appointment of an archbishop, Gervase’s characterization of events nonetheless points to Reginald’s continued prestige and influence which were ultimately derived from his acknowledged status as the senior participant within a royal family identity and continuing personal affinity with Henry II. Despite a minor dislocation from the royal centre, during the rebellion of 1173, the illegitimate royal earl once more became heavily engaged in royal military service on behalf of his nephew. While the king and most of his forces were engaged in Normandy, Reginald, alongside his longterm ally and fellow royal confidant, Richard de Lucy, moved against the rebels in England. The most prominent adherent of the rebellious royal scion, Henry the Young King, in the country was none other than Robert de Beaumont, the ambitious son of their former colleague. Together Reginald and Richard sacked the city of Leicester and placed its castle under siege.12 Robert’s attempts to relieve the castle, alongside his ally and fellow rebel Earl Hugh Bigod of Norfolk, ended prematurely when he was captured following a disastrous ambush at Bury St Edmunds which shattered the rebel army. In exchange for this habitual support for Henry  II, and out of recognition of his position as a senior member of the royal family, Reginald was afforded a great deal of political and financial autonomy within his expanded earldom. These liberties were a particularly generous

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126  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England and pronounced form of a more widely implemented and general policy for cultivating aristocratic support.13 One of the most fundamental ways in which twelfth-century English kings maintained and exercised their fiscal and political authority over members of the nobility was through the distribution of royal offices. In a similar manner, kings used the increasingly sophisticated administrative apparatus of the royal household and exchequer to politicize tax and the various feudal duties as a means of rewarding service and encouraging aristocrats to align themselves more closely with the royal centre and its interests.14 By 1166 there were nineteen earls in England. These titles had for the most part been obtained during the ‘Anarchy’ as the two royal claimants vied to attract aristocratic support and were subsequently retained through the reaching of personal accommodations with Henry II. While representing only a small fraction of the total number of landholding aristocrats and barons within the Angevin hegemony; between them the earls controlled over 34 per cent of all knight’s fees within England.15 These nominally represented the amount of land sufficient to support a knight while maintaining his dignity and household; however, the knight’s fee is a problematic and inexact unit for the measurement of wealth. The knight’s fee lacked standardization and included huge potential variance in size depending upon the region, productivity of cultivated land and wastage. This is further compounded by administrative innovations and the knight’s fees’ role in the frequently overlapping eligibility for military service and its function in the calculation of assessed tax which led to its frequent fractionalization.16It is, however, sufficient for conveying the relative size and importance of fiefs as they functioned within aristocratic networks. In such a top-heavy political configuration, in which the earls and the uppermost echelons of the aristocracy held such a high proportion of the kingdom’s land and power, their co-operation, or at least acquiescence, was of paramount importance to the continuation of royal governance and the pursuit of the king’s dynastic and political interests. While seeking to increase royal income to defend and maintain his vast landed interests and increase the productivity of the progressively more sophisticated Exchequer, Henry  II left the private fortunes and financial interests of the earls relatively untouched.17 The burden of the newly refined system of taxation and royal levies fell largely upon less influential and politically puissant strata of society. To Henry, the loyalty of this top tier of magnates

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  127 and their active engagement with his domestic and foreign policies were far more important than the additional income that could be derived from leaning on them. The king made use of several financial mechanism and levies such as scutage throughout his reign to provide him with a means, not only of raising additional capital but, to communicate favour and reward personal affinity. Scutage was an intermittently levied tax on the holders of knight’s fees, ostensibly as an alternative military service in which they paid the king a sum of money per knight’s fee held to excuse the notional knight it supported from participation in the king’s current campaigns, although it was occasionally called at times of relative peace as a way of raising capital quickly.18 Henry II’s thirty-five-year reign saw the levying of only seven rounds of scutage, each of which omitted a number of the earls and tenants-inchief on the grounds of their participation in royal service.19 William of Gloucester, whose relationship with the king was marred by occasional periods of mutual distrust and tension, was over twenty-eight years assessed for £557 worth of Scutage but during this time still only ended up paying £294, just over half of the original debt.20 The demographic which possibly benefitted from this policy most dramatically were those illegitimate royal family members who had been raised to earldoms. Reginald, whose administration within his earldom was functionally separate from the royal centre, was assessed for £370 worth of scutage under two levies. None of this considerable sum was ever formally pardoned, yet it seems that the earl made no attempt to pay the debt off with neither the Exchequer nor king ever making any attempt to compel him to do so.21 This apparent indifference to the collection of outstanding debts on the part of Henry II did not extend as fully to those with whom he shared less developed personal and political connections. Although seemingly content to indulge and ratify Reginald’s status during his lifetime, when the earl and his only legitimate son Nicholas both died in 1175, Henry  II seized upon the chance to fold Cornwall back into the royal demesne. It is easy to imagine that this decision was not welcomed by the earl’s daughters and grandchildren. Reginald’s daughters had married into several prominent families throughout the Angevin hegemony. His eldest daughter, Denise, had married the earl of Devon, Richard de Redvers, formalizing the longstanding affinity and alliance that had existed between Reginald and Richard’s father, Baldwin. Following Richard’s death in 1162, Reginald had become the guardian

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128  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England of the couple’s two sons, imaginatively named Baldwin and Richard, effectively taking control of the earldom of Devon. While Baldwin and eventually Richard inherited the earldom and their patrimony, neither were able to secure even a portion of their maternally sourced inheritable interests. Maud was married to Robert de Beaumont, the Count of Meulan and son of Waleran de Beaumont. In some ways this was a strange connection for Reginald to seek to establish. While Waleran was the brother of the still highly influential Earl Robert of Leicester, his close alignment with the French king had provoked the ire of Henry II and the confiscation of the earldom of Worcestershire in 1155. Ursula and Joan both married prominent members of the Cornish aristocracy, establishing and strengthening the regional associations and connections which enabled Reginald to exercise authority within the earldom. The earl’s remaining daughter, Sarah, was married to Viscount Ademar of Limoges in 1159. Upon finding out that he and his wife were to be excluded from the inheritance of Reginald’s extensive English holdings, to which it seems he may have been promised special access, Ademar promptly rebelled, further destabilizing the Angevins’ tenuous grasp on the peripheries of Aquitaine. Reginald also had several illegitimate children, one of whom, Henry, was appointed high sheriff of Cornwall by King John and licensed to farm the earldom for tax on the king’s behalf. That Henry was able effectively to discharge this duty, speaks to the family’s continuing influence in the region and connection to local aristocratic networks. In fact, Henry seems to have begun styling himself earl of Cornwall, just as his father did, although it is unclear if this title was awarded or acknowledged by the royal centre. Henry  II’s policy of cultivating support through the extension of financial privileges to the realm’s leading magnates was not only seen in the raising of scutage but also in the application of a range of other fees and dues. The trend continued to be one of lower rates of repayment, often in conjunction with frequent pardons, for the king’s closest political allies; for instance, Henry II’s half-brother Earl Hamelin of Surrey was pardoned in 1180 for his outstanding debt of £20 incurred from forest pleas in Normandy.22 The inclusion of royal illegitimate earls amongst the most prominent beneficiaries of Henry  II’s incentivizing strategy of extending financial latitude and leniency to his leading supporters suggests a recognition that their support needed to be rewarded and their

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  129 prestige and authority within their earldoms’ networks of power needed to be maintained. In this sense, once embedded within regional and familial aristocratic groups, through royal appointment and the creation of ties of affinity through marriage, illegitimate royals were treated in a manner very similar to other leading magnates, their differentiation being one of degree. Rulership in twelfth-century Europe was predicated almost entirely upon familial connections and personal relationships. By 1154 Henry was the master of a large, but patchwork, domain bound together by hereditary right, dynastic connections and the co-operation of numerous regional aristocratic affinities. As king of the English, Henry II, like his maternal grandfather, could claim a plethora of legal powers such as a duty of care over orphans and widows, the custodianship of vacant bishoprics and the appointment of sheriffs, to name but a few. When William de Beaumont, the third earl of Warwick, died on crusade in 1184 his wife Matilda de Percy came to an arrangement with the king in which she would pay the sum of 700 marks in yearly instalments to retain ownership of her dowry and for the right to remain unmarried.23 More than that, aided by England’s pre-existing and extensive administrative system, he was able to exercise a fine level of control upon whom the burden of taxation fell most heavily. Control of these legal and financial mechanism not only greatly enriched Henry but gave him the means to incentivize loyalty and further co-operation through displays of largesse and the distribution of rewards. Royal status and the considerable revenue extracted from England contributed to the fortification of Henry’s position within his continental territories. However, his authority within these regions, unanchored by executive powers and the apparatus of royal government, was highly variable and contingent upon a wide variety of factors. The sheer extent of the Angevin domains and Henry’s commitment to the preservation and expansion of his hegemonic empire meant that, outside of sporadic personal interventions, the king’s power in any given region was contingent upon that of his local proxies and allies. Anglo-Norman and Angevin monarchs throughout this period, including Henry  II, chose to embed members of their illegitimate family within the governmental apparatus and aristocratic networks of England because it was the region in which they could most easily and effectively be empowered. These auxiliary members of the royal family could then use these powerbases to

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130  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England support the wider interests of their legitimate family. Henry accepted and ratified Reginald’s prominent position with the aristocracy of England on roughly these terms. In contrast, the king deliberately engineered the rise of his half-brother Hamelin, using his royal powers to embed a loyal family member in the upper echelons of aristocracy at a time of significant political tension and uncertainty.

Hamelin de Warenne Something of an anomaly amongst the illegitimate earls of the period, Hamelin of Anjou was not a king’s son or grandson; rather he was the son of Count Geoffrey of Anjou. His link to the royal dynasty came from his status as the half-brother of Henry II. The identity of Hamelin’s mother as well as the details of his early life and upbringing remain unknown, although it can be presumed from the commencement of his career in 1164, relatively deep into his brother’s reign, that he was born some time in the late 1130s or 1140s during which time his father was successfully prosecuting a series of campaigns to subdue Normandy in support of his wife’s claims to the Anglo-Norman realm and his own family’s longstanding dynastic objectives.24 While the details of Hamelin’s early life remain unknown, his father’s early death in 1151, more than a decade prior to Hamelin’s emergence in earnest upon the political scene, makes it possible that he was either supported within the household of one of his royal half-brothers or otherwise operated within the same circles as them socially. Certainly, another of Count Geoffrey’s illegitimate children, Emma, was a member of Queen Eleanor’s household prior to her marriage to Prince Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd in 1174. The extent of Hamelin’s engagement with royal familial identity and the degree of his personal association with his royal half-brother remain difficult to gauge. Instead, while we are unable to entirely discount the notion that the two half-brothers shared a strong personal affinity, it seems that their political co-operation and Hamelin’s elevation within the aristocracy were motivated primarily by political and contextual concerns. The sudden death of his younger legitimate brother William, at a time of considerable political upheaval generated by Henry’s feud with Archbishop Becket, led the king to induct Hamelin more fully into royal family identity, increasing both his motivation and means to defend his family’s dynastic and political interests. Aside from the probably

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  131 considerable personal effect of William’s death, it also opened something of a vacuum in the king’s dynastic strategy. The king’s other legitimate brother, Count Geoffrey of Nantes, had died in 1158 and had in any case been deeply resentful of Henry’s monopolization of their father’s territories. At the Council of Northampton, Hamelin issued a strong condemnation of the archbishop, accusing him of causing William’s death through the great hurt engendered by Becket’s allegedly malicious and politically motivated blocking of William’s marriage to the countess of Surrey, Isabel de Warenne, on the grounds of consanguinity and his refusal to seek a dispensation.25 As a reward for his support at the Council and to further consolidate support amongst the aristocracy, in 1164 the king brokered a marriage between Hamelin and his late half-brother’s intended.26 Isabel was already a widow, having previously been married to King Stephen’s youngest son, William of Blois. Hamelin’s marriage to Isabel made him a man of considerable wealth and power with estates on both sides of the channel. The family’s strong strategic position in Normandy, based around the castles of Mortemer and Bellencombre, was no doubt one of the primary reasons Henry II had been so eager to place his proxies in a position of control over de Warenne lands.27 Despite Hamelin’s frequent co-operation with the king and engagement in service on behalf of their shared dynastic and political interests, he can only be found in the witness lists of ten royal charters, a modest contribution which suggests that, despite their familial closeness, he was not a member of the king’s inner circle and was only infrequently at Court. Rather, Hamelin spent much of his time managing his wife’s estates in Yorkshire, including the magnificent rebuilding of Conisbrough Castle.28 In a similar manner to Reginald, Hamelin’s familial connection to the king is neither named nor alluded to within royal charters but, as can be seen in several charters issued by the king sometime around the late 1160s, Hamelin was afforded a position of primacy in the witness lists over earls who lacked familial ties to the royal family.29 In the king’s confirmation of the Norman possessions of the abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée, Hamelin is even listed first amongst the secular witnesses ahead of close royal advisor Earl Robert of Leicester.30 In 1173, with the king still reeling from the dramatic political fallout of Becket’s murder and heavily engaged with directing the invasion of Ireland and the exertion of royal authority over the participants and their

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132  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England newly established territories, he appointed Hamelin to the position of viscount of Touraine, giving him responsibility over a crucial border region and potentially dangerous political fault line.31 It is possible that Hamelin gained control of this important lordship as a result of his presence at the king’s side earlier that year during the Treaty of Fontevraud in which Henry took the submission of the troublesome Count Raymond of Toulouse, greatly increasing royal authority and power within the region. Henry also nominated Hamelin as the proposed custodian and guardian of the castles of Chinon and Loudun which the king intended to bestow upon his youngest son, Prince John.32 However, this guardianship never took place as a result of the rebellion of the Young King who, already disenfranchised and dissatisfied by his alienation from the resources and mechanisms of governance, went into open rebellion against his father, partially in protest of this redistribution of the royal demesne.33 In 1176 Hamelin was further engaged in family service when he escorted his royal niece Joan to Sicily, witnessing her marriage to King William II. In a potential contrast to his unwavering but detached and distant support shown during the lifetime of his half-brother, Earl Hamelin gained entry quickly into the confidences of his nephew, Richard I. This close affinity and alignment can be seen in Hamlin’s frequent accompaniment of the king at the beginning of his reign and extensive engagement with the royal court, attesting to at least thirteen charters within a matter of months as the king and his advisors sought to put the Angevin realm in order.34 The earl continued this royal alignment following the king’s departure on crusade and attempted to preserve royal interests and authority within England, aligning with the king’s chosen deputy, Chancellor William de Longchamp, against Bishop Hugh de Puiset of Durham and Prince John’s attempts to expand their authority.35 Hamelin’s prestige within the aristocracy and his personal and political affinity with his royal nephew can be seen when, alongside the earl of Arundel, William d’Aubigny, he was placed in charge of the collection and protection of the vast sums of money being raised to ransom King Richard from Duke Leopold of Austria.36 Following Richard’s liberation and return to England, he remained close with his illegitimate uncle who continued to play a prominent role in the theatre of government, serving as a sword-bearer during the king’s second coronation in 1194 alongside King William of Scotland.37 Hamelin was also present at the Council of Nottingham in which those who had supported John’s ambitions or

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  133 otherwise sought to take advantage of the king’s absence were punished. Following Richard’s death while on campaign, much of Hamelin’s political capital and dynastic investment was spent and, while present at John’s coronation, he returned to the management of his own estates, eschewing further engagement with the various crises which beset the Angevin hegemony.38 Hamelin remained an acknowledged but, in many ways, distant presence within the context of a wider royal identity. Instead of immersing himself in royal familial identity, he cultivated a strong affinity and reciprocal relationship with his most direct legitimate patrons and family members, most notably Henry II and Richard I. The erosion of Hamelin’s prominence within the aristocratic networks of the Angevin hegemony and participation within a shared royal dynastic enterprise following the death of Richard I was the direct result of this preference and a lack of personal affinity with John, with whose ambitions he had previously clashed. While alienated from the king’s inner circle and a reconfigured familial identity, the earl can still be found amongst the witness list of his nephew’s treaty with William of Scotland in 1200, probably as a result of his engagement through marriage with the aristocratic networks of northern England.39 The extension of royal patronage to Hamelin during a time of political crisis conforms to the pattern set in the evaluation of the previous two royal earls who had both been promoted during times of considerable instability. Henry II’s eminently cost-effective method of placing Hamelin in a position where he had the power and resources to intervene effectively in support of the king was to abuse his position as the guardian of widows to arrange Hamelin’s marriage to a wealthy heiress. Isabel de Warenne was the only child of William de Warenne and his wife Adela. The family was exceptionally well connected, her father William was the maternal halfbrother of Robert of Leicester and Waleran of Meulan and was the brotherin-law of Prince Henry, earl of Huntingdon, heir to the Scottish throne. William had been a supporter of King Stephen and died while on Crusade in 1148 when Isabel was around nine. Isabel’s great grandfather, also called William, had been created earl of Surrey by William Rufus; the family had held significant concentrations of land in the county since the immediate aftermath of the Conquest and were deeply rooted within the region. Perhaps because of the tangential nature of his royal connection and lack of direct engagement with royal identity, Hamelin integrated more

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134  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England fully with the aristocratic family and wider affinity within which he was placed. Hamelin’s charters rarely make references to his royal connection and extensive familial ties; in Hamelin’s gift to Lewes Priory, made some time before 1202, of all the tithes derived from eels within Yorkshire for the souls of his relatives, his brother’s royal status is mentioned only as a means of identification. A clause of this gift was the abbey’s commitment to undertake prayers for the souls of the earl’s family, a list that included not only King Henry II and their father Count Geoffrey of Anjou but also his father-in-law, William de Warenne and his wife’s ancestors. While Hamelin was aware of his own familial connections and certainly benefitted considerably from his involvement in and support of the regime, he was heavily integrated into the de Warenne family and keenly felt the obligation or perhaps political necessity to honour and care for them in the same way. Indeed, Hamelin seems to have adopted the de Warenne name as his own, referring to himself in his charters as Hamelin, earl of Warenne. This styling excludes not only the royal connections, which made Hamelin’s marriage and elevation possible, but also the toponym of Surrey, a strategy which stressed Hamelin’s concordat with his adopted family while also building upon the conflation between the family and its long-held comital title to further spread their influence and authority through the region’s aristocratic networks. Throughout his charters Hamelin often stressed carefully the status of his wife, the hereditary countess, as his co-ruler and that he acted with her consent in the defence of her family’s interests. In the day-to-day maintenance of the earldom and its wider networks, Hamelin seems to have been comfortable acting under his own authority, such as in his gift to Matthew de Horbury of forty-two acres of forested land within the earldom or his thrice-yearly gift of fish to the abbey of St Mary of York from his lands in nearby Sandtoft. The worth of such gifts and accommodations dispensed by the earl under his own authority vary considerably and it is possible that they were awarded by the earl on an ad hoc basis, in the countess’ absence, in response to petitions by his tenants. Hamelin and Isabel on several occasions issued joint charters, although in many of these cases Hamelin, as the earl and an illegitimate member of the extended royal family, was given precedence over his wife, such as in their grant to Lewes Priory. As their son William, the future earl de Warenne, began to come of age, his assent to the distribution and management of his inheritance was also included into the address

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  135 clause of his parents jointly-issued charters, such as their gift sometime in the 1180s of the income from the mills of Conisbrough Castle for the maintenance of the castle’s chapel. The necessity to include William, and an at least notional reference to his assent, within the administration and redistribution of the family’s interests perhaps reflects the increasingly well-defined and legally-entrenched inheritance practices of the latter half of the twelfth century. In a similar manner to Robert and Reginald, Hamelin’s position as an intimate of the king complicates the task of gauging the extent of his newfound wealth since he was amongst a small number of royal favourites and supporters who were excused from participation in either of Henry  II’s great surveys, the Cartae Baronum and the Infeudationes Militum. The Domesday evaluations of the family’s lands in England amounted to some £1,140, which places them among the wealthiest and most powerful magnate families within England. While this figure is drawn significantly before Hamelin’s tenure as earl, the relative stability of the de Warenne family’s successive inheritance and its internal political coherency suggests that the de Warenne landed interests were not greatly altered during this period. By the second half of the twelfth century over 140 knight’s fees had been subinfeudated by the de Warenne family to its allies and supporters and was one of the principal ways through which they cultivated support within their earldom. What is readily apparent, is that timing was a factor of paramount importance when considering the political engagement and extension of patronage to illegitimate royal family members. Hamelin was raised to an earldom and a position of prominence within the overlapping aristocratic networks of the expansive Angevin domains as a result of Henry  II’s escalating dispute with the archbishop of Canterbury and the political and dynastic isolation brought about by the early deaths of the king’s two legitimate brothers. Hamelin’s rise to prominence and marriage to Isabel also followed on from Reginald’s gradual withdrawal from engagement with royal governance. While Hamelin, it transpired, did not come to occupy the position of right-hand man, partner or senior councillor that royal bastards raised to earldoms previously had, he had nevertheless filled a temporary gap in royal dynastic strategy. Hamelin provided support for Henry and acted as a royal deputy at a time in which the king’s children, legitimate or otherwise, were too young to engage meaningfully in such pursuits.

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136  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England

The Dynastic Strategy and Family of Henry II Unlike his Anglo-Norman grandfather, Henry  II was well provisioned with potential heirs and legitimate children. Indeed, their frequent competition both with one another and their father for access to the resources of their hegemonic domains had a destabilizing effect upon the family’s landed interests and ability to project authority across the empire. As his legitimate sons came of age, Henry  II began to integrate them into his dynastic and political strategy, establishing them in the role of royal deputies and junior partners in a shared dynastic enterprise. Henry’s eldest son William, who died tragically in 1156 during his infancy, had already been granted the title of Count of Poitiers. It is possible that, as well as a signifier of status, the title, which was seceded to him by his mother Duchess Eleanor, reflected future plans for his involvement in the governance of Aquitaine. The king’s next eldest son, Henry, was crowned as king of England in his father’s lifetime during the 1170s and was nominally afforded the status of co-ruler. It appears that, in addition to England, Normandy, Anjou and Maine, Henry II may have envisaged the Young King as inheriting rule of the entire Angevin hegemony in one form or another and that the extension of this royal dignity was an attempt to smooth this transition and preserve a core of central royal authority around which his other sons could operate as partners in a shared dynastic enterprise.40 Aquitaine was earmarked for Richard who did homage for the duchy to the French king and under the protective wing of Queen Eleanor began to establish control over ducal governance in 1172. Geoffrey, the next oldest of the king’s sons, was engaged to Duchess Constance of Brittany whose father was forced to abdicate by Henry in order to allow Geoffrey to take control of the duchy when the marriage took place in 1181. However, as it transpired, Henry II was supremely reluctant to actually share power. Despite his status as co-king, the younger Henry was starved of any real authority or the resources necessary to construct a powerbase and reward his followers with kingly largesse. Henry also went back and forth on the subject of recognizing Richard’s rule of Aquitaine and further destabilized these fragile arrangements in his attempts to carve out a suitable inheritance for his youngest and highly favoured son, John. This friction and disputes between members of the royal family over the exact distribution of the family’s landed interests and resources resulted in significant familial tension and no small number of actual wars.41

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  137 Henry  II’s three legitimate daughters were Matilda, Eleanor and Joan, all of whom made highly prestigious matches with foreign rulers; respectively, the Duke of Saxony, the King of Castile and the King of Sicily.42 The union between Eleanor and King Alfonso VII and the creation of an affinity and reliance between the Angevin royal family and the Spanish kingdom of Castile would potentially deter aggression from the neighbouring kingdoms of Aragon and Navara, both of which shared borders with the politically and culturally fractured southern Aquitaine. Likewise establishing the influence of the Angevin royal family within German politics created the possibility of canvassing support against France, a dynastic move which would later pay further dividends with the accession, albeit contested, of Henry  II’s grandson Otto IV as first king of the Romans before being confirmed in 1209 as the Holy Roman Emperor. Henry  II’s youngest legitimate daughter, Joan, married King William II of Sicily in 1176 and was escorted to her new home by her illegitimate paternal uncle, Hamelin de Warenne. The kings of Sicily were distantly connected to the Norman ducal house and, while perhaps one of medieval Europe’s smallest kingdoms, its position on the Mediterranean at an economic and cultural confluence meant that it possessed both significant strategic importance and a vibrantly complex courtly culture. It is possible that this symbolic re-unification of two Norman-derived cultures, perhaps accompanied with the tacit assertion and recognition of the seniority of the Norman ducal house and its descendants, appealed to Henry II and his dynastic aspirations. Additionally, Henry had, since the murder of Archbishop Becket in 1170, been committed, at least in theory, to undertaking a crusade to the holy land as a form of penance. Sicily’s location and participation in Mediterranean trade made it an appealing staging post for any large-scale military excursion to the Holy Lands. Indeed, Henry’s son, Richard I, and Philip II of France used Sicily for that very purpose in 1190, coming to a mutual understanding with the illegitimate King Tancred who had seized the throne following the death of Joan’s husband. Henry II was also a close relative of the kings of Jerusalem and the establishment of cordial relations with Sicily would have been an important precursor to any attempts to project power and expand Angevin royal interests within the region. Overall, Henry II’s deployment of his legitimate daughters tallies closely with that of Henry I, who after all had both a legitimate and illegitimate daughter married to anointed kings. The most significant difference was that, while Henry I married many of his

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138  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England illegitimate daughters to neighbouring princes or powerful vassals on the periphery of the Anglo-Norman realm as a way of extending his influence and securing his borders, the marriages of Henry II’s daughters attest to an expanded geo-political horizon. For all its fault lines and potential brittleness, the Angevin ‘empire’ was not wholly different in character or construction from its contemporary polities, with the high profile and farflung marriages of Henry II’s legitimate daughters reflecting its status as one of the great powers of twelfth-century Europe. Perhaps in part, due to his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine at a relatively young age, Henry  II had far fewer illegitimate children than his grandfather, though, given Henry  I’s fecundity, this is a rather low bar to clear. The king nevertheless participated in several extra-marital relationships with partners sourced from the lower ranks of the nobility. As was the case with Henry I’s mistresses, the defining role of the family in twelfth-century aristocratic society and the enormous importance of maternal heritage and connections within such networks means that the king’s selection of extra-marital romantic partners has an inescapable political dimension, whatever his actual motivation or guiding impulse. It is, for obvious reasons, particularly important to the study of illegitimate royal children during this period and the extent of their participation within familial identity and engagement in royal service, to examine the lives and familial backgrounds of Henry II’s known paramours. Perhaps Henry  II’s most well-known mistress was Rosamund de Clifford, whose life sparked considerable interest amongst later literary traditions. Rosamund was the daughter of Marcher Lord Walter de Clifford and his wife Margaret, herself a member of the powerful and well established Tosny family. Walter was an aristocrat of middling power and importance, holding the lordship of Clifford and other lands within Herefordshire, in addition to considerable land elsewhere in the Welsh marches, most notably around Bronllys. While the circumstances surrounding the family’s acquisition of Clifford are somewhat unclear, it is possible that the claim was derived from his marriage into the Tosny family who were traditionally associated with the lordship.43 Unlike many of Henry  I’s mistresses, following the conclusion of her relationship with the king, sometime around 1174, Rosamund was not provided with either a suitable marriage within the royal periphery or, it seems, afforded lands or a pension. Rosamund instead entered the nunnery at Godstow; the circumstances surrounding the culmination

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  139 of her relationship with the king or his involvement in Rosamund’s retreat from secular life remain unclear and are complicated by her early death and the layer of romance and fiction later grafted onto her life.44 The Clifford family’s long association and patronage of Godstow abbey, however, imply a continued adherence to and participation within her familial identity and affinities that had not been greatly recontextualized or altered by her royal associations. Rosamund has sometimes, within the broader historiography and literary tradition, been associated with Henry’s eldest illegitimate child Geoffrey, possibly as a result of perceptions regarding the supposedly high level of affection with which Henry regarded them both. While the exact dates of birth for either Geoffrey or Rosamund remain elusive, it seems that they were close enough in age to make it improbable that they were mother and son. Gerald of Wales, the royal chaplain and court intimate who served as a clerk during Geoffrey’s tenure as Chancellor, comments that the highly favoured royal bastard was barely twenty at the time of his nomination to the bishopric of Lincoln in 1173,45 a factor which, alongside Geoffrey’s illegitimacy and his long absence from the bishopric as he studied abroad, may have stoked the Cathedral canons apparent enmity towards him. When discussing Rosamund and her relationship with the king, Gerald not only demurs to draw a connection, familial or otherwise, between Rosamund and Geoffrey but also describes her as still being a girl in 1174.46 Rosamund’s apparent youth during this period then suggests that Geoffrey was the product of a royal liaison undertaken prior to the start of her relationship with Henry. In a bizarre parallel between grandfather and grandson, Henry II also had a relationship with a woman named Nest. Like Henry I’s mistress, this Nest was also descended from the native Welsh nobility and married into an influential Cambro-Norman dynasty. Nest was the daughter of Iorwerth ab Owain, a Welsh noble operating within Norman-dominated Gwent and his wife Angharad whose father Uthred had been bishop of Llandaff.47 A member of a Welsh dynasty engaged in a policy of broad co-operation with the Norman Marcher lords some time prior to the commencement of her affair with King Henry II, Nest was married to Ralph Bloet probably in order to protect her family’s interest through a strengthening of their ties with the rapacious Normans. Ralph was one of Iorwerth ab Owain’s neighbours and the most prominent aristocrat within Striguil, a position which his family had achieved through a close

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140  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England association with the earls of Pembroke, the de Clares. Ralph participated in Richard de Clare’s highly successful expedition to Ireland which culminated in the conquest of Leinster and, upon the earl’s death in 1176, was appointed guardian of the lordship of Striguil and castellan of Chepstow Castle on behalf of Richard’s young son Gilbert.48 In 1175 the king travelled to Gloucester to re-assert authority over the Welsh Marches in the aftermath of his legitimate sons’ rebellion. As part of the king’s efforts to manage and mediate with the aristocratic networks of the Welsh Marches, Nest’s father was restored to the lordship of Caerleon and it is likely that her affair with Henry began during this royal tour, although Iorwerth and the king had previously met in 1172 during a royal expedition to Wales and it is possible that Nest may have accompanied her father.49 Henry’s son with Nest, Morgan, subsisted primarily within his maternal network and was raised within Ralph’s household alongside the couple’s legitimate children prior to his assumption of the position of provost of Beverley sometime prior to 1212. The relationship between Henry II and Nest does not seem to have had any immediate political utility or consequence for either party aside, of course, from Morgan’s birth, suggesting the affair did not create a permanent association between the king and the Bloet family. Possibly because Morgan’s birth, relatively late in in Henry’s life, meant there was no need or benefit to making provisions for his career prior to the king’s death in 1189. However, King John, who was to an extent associated with the region through his marriage to his cousin, countess Isabella of Gloucester, actively cultivated an affinity with Morgan and his legitimate maternal family. John attempted to promote his half-brother’s career in the Church, leading to his appointment as provost of Beverley and then, in 1213, nominated him to the bishopric of Durham, although Morgan’s candidacy was complicated and ultimately rejected by Innocent III because of his illegitimacy.50 Morgan’s legitimate half-brothers Thomas, Roland and William were all accepted as prominent members of the king’s household. Nest herself, widowed in 1199, enjoyed substantial royal support and favour during her successful legal challenges to claim land from both her brother Hywel ab Iorwerth, and brother-in-law Robert Bloet. John’s continued association with his half-brother Morgan and the extension of that connection to Morgan’s maternal familial network suggests a strong perception of the continuity of royal familial identity and personal affinity on the part of the king.

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  141 Ida de Tosny was another of Henry II’s mistresses and the mother of his son, William Longespée, who would, through the patronage of his royal half-brothers, ascend to considerable political prominence and the earldom of Salisbury.51 It is interesting to note that, following Rosamund Clifford, Ida was the second member of the extended de Tosny family with whom the king pursued a relationship, perhaps suggesting the existence of an established and long-running affinity between the king and this aristocratic bloc. Ida was the daughter of Ralph de Tosny, a powerful cross-channel magnate who retained a diverse collection of landed interests within eastern Normandy and a nucleus of English lands, centred primarily upon Herefordshire.52 Her mother, Margaret, was the youngest daughter of the king’s councilor and Chief Justiciar, Earl Robert de Beaumont of Leicester. Like her great-aunt and Henry I’s most aristocratic and well-connected mistress, Isabel de Beaumont, Ida was a royal ward raised within or in close proximity to the royal court. The allegation, which Gerald of Wales characterizes as being widely believed and repeated by contemporaries, that Henry II also engaged in a relationship with his ward and his son Richard’s intended, Princess Alys of France, would if true also fit within this pattern.53 In 1181 Henry arranged for Ida, still in royal wardship, to marry Earl Roger Bigod of Norfolk whose father, Hugh, had supported the rebellion of Henry the Young King in 1173 alongside his new wife’s maternal uncle. As part of the marriage, Henry gifted Roger with three manors at Acle, Halvergate and Walsham, all of which had previously been confiscated from his family in the aftermath of the failed rebellion.54 Ida’s royallybrokered marriage to Roger then can be seen not only as a means for King Henry to discharge his duty to make suitable provisions for the maintenance of his ward and his child with her, but also an attempt to reconcile an aristocratic family to the royal centre by the exploitation and renewal of an existing association. Interestingly, in 1188, Henry granted the Lordship of Appleby in Lincoln to his and Ida’s son, William Longespée.55 Henry II’s criteria for the selection of mistresses seems to have been based primarily upon access and personal attraction rather than a deliberate attempt to cultivate pseudo-familial bonds with sections of the aristocracy. We are also a far cry from any equivalent echo of William of Malmesbury’s claim that Henry I fathered so many illegitimate children out of a sense of dynastic duty and concern for the good of the realm. In fact, Henry seems,

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142  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England if anything, less concerned with the provision of his former partners and children that resulted from these unions. The granting of a lordship to young William Longespée in 1188 was notable precisely because Henry had refrained from directly integrating his other illegitimate children into aristocratic networks through the direct or indirect awarding of lands and titles. The extensive and powerful maternal and adopted aristocratic networks within which William operated surely played an important role in Henry II’s recognition of William and his establishment firmly within the secular aristocratic sphere. Instead, Henry sought to provide for his other, perhaps less well connected and highly born, illegitimate children by placing them within the Church. Henry  II’s illegitimate daughter, Matilda, was appointed the abbess of the wealthy and influential Barking abbey sometime after 1173, an appointment perhaps made more significant by the fact that her predecessor was Mary Becket, the sister of the slain archbishop, who had been offered the position by way of recompense for her brother’s death.56 Contemporary perception was that having a person or institution engaged in full-time prayer on behalf of members of the family was of enormous spiritual benefit. Monastic networks functioned across the breadth of Europe, often through robust communications systems and mother-anddaughter houses and contained within them significant wealth and access to large political and aristocratic networks. The promotion of Matilda to abbess provided the wider family with a member engaged with their wellbeing within the spiritual sphere but also brought to their affinity limited access to the wealth and prestige of one of the nation’s great nunneries, while allowing Henry II to further co-opt and shape another element of the growing cult around Becket. Indeed, when Matilda died in 1202, she was succeeded as abbess by her niece, Matilda, an illegitimate daughter of King John.57 It is perhaps not a coincidence that the identity of the respective mothers of Matilda and Geoffrey, the two children whom Henry embedded most firmly within the Church, remain unclear to historians, a gap in the evidence and surviving primary sources which may suggest comparative contemporary obscurity. Geoffrey was Henry’s eldest illegitimate child and the king’s constant companion. As a child he even played a role in Henry’s coronation ceremony while as an adult he served his father in several administrative and military capacities throughout his reign. Yet Henry demurred from procuring a marriage to a prospective

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Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II  143 heiress and accompanying landed interests for his son. Instead Henry sought to provide Geoffrey a career in the Church, appointing him to the archdeaconship of Lincoln in 1171 and then, in 1173, to the bishopric itself, although, despite his journey to Rome and acquiring of a papal dispensation, his assumption of the office was complicated by his youth and continued refusal to be ordained.58 Despite such complications and the resistance that they generated from the cathedral canons of Lincoln, Henry persisted, and in addition to the chancellorship, Geoffrey collected a number of ecclesiastical offices and archdeaconships which he held in perpetuity. Henry’s promotion of Geoffrey within the Church not only served to provide for and enrich his illegitimate son but also alienated Geoffrey further from the prospect of inheriting the throne or competing with his legitimate half-brothers. It also provided Geoffrey with the means of supporting his legitimate family members and their shared dynastic interests through the highly connective and pervasive ecclesiastical sphere, a concern which may have been particularly relevant for Henry II, given his experience of the Becket affair and its lingering after-effects. While Geoffrey resisted becoming ordained, a necessary step in being formally invested in the position, he took over the management and income of the diocese. In a royal charter confirming the gift of the church at Bonnington to Savigny abbey, which was issued sometime in the 1170s before his formal repudiation of the position, Geoffrey can be found at the head of the witness list identified as the bishop-elect of Lincoln.59 Whatever the exact method through which illegitimate royal family members were patronized and empowered, either within the aristocracy or Church, the cardinal point remains that the relationship between twelfthcentury kings of England and their most prominent illegitimate relatives was deeply personal. Hamelin may have been promoted in response to a crisis but his status as an auxiliary family member was predicated upon his bond with the king. The often-significant political character and strategic ramifications of these relationships were underpinned and dependent on a shared personal affinity and mutually advantageous participation in royal family identity. Of course, as demonstrated by Henry II’s concordat with the earls and the ever-evolving settlements he made with members of the aristocracy as their network of landed interests shifted and changed, all such relationships with the king were personal rather than systematic. Henry extracted what he could when he could while still taking care to reward to incentivize co-operation with the royal centre. It is appropriate

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144  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England then that those politically-engaged royal bastards who had been permitted access to the family identity were rewarded for their service in a manner differentiated from their aristocratic colleagues only by degrees, just as their personal connection to their patronage was. Henry II’s oldest and most highly-favoured illegitimate son, Geoffrey, was not embedded in a regional aristocratic network, yet he was deeply engaged in royal service and was provided with more than ample sources of revenue to see to his material support. He occupied an enviable position at the heart of royal administration and the king’s inner circle, all of which was the result of a strong reciprocal personal affinity and Geoffrey’s conspicuous loyalty to his father. But, as we shall see during the reigns of Henry II’s legitimate sons, such bonds were not necessarily transferrable within the overall umbrella of royal family identity.

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Chapter 6

The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings

I

llegitimate members of the royal family of twelfth-century England formed a reserve of potentially useful allies and subordinates for their legitimate family members. Monarchs empowered and elevated their illegitimate relatives as the needs of the royal political and dynastic situation dictated, capitalizing on their talents and loyalty as a means of safeguarding and promoting royal interests. Several royal bastards held a variety of positions and offices in the increasingly elaborate apparatus of royal governance throughout the twelfth century, both within the developing royal household and at the regional level. Those royal bastards who benefitted from an acknowledged personal affinity with a member of their legitimate family, or were otherwise permitted to participate within royal family identity, were the most active in royal service engaging in diplomatic, administrative, and military activity on behalf of their family and legitimate patron. In addition to this, the presence of royal bastards, particularly those embedded in existing regional and familial affinities through royally-brokered marriages, within wider aristocratic networks of power served a useful political purpose by bringing aristocratic families further into alignment with the rulers’ dynastic interests and promote magnate support for the king’s rule. The mechanisms Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings used to deploy and enhance the capabilities of their illegitimate family members were not unique to royal bastards and were used to reward and incentivize co-operation throughout the aristocracy in an attempt to reinforce the kings’ power and authority. While illegitimate royal family members often lacked significant personal resources, their pre-existing engagement with a shared familial identity and subsequent stake in royal fortunes made them natural royal proxies. Through holding royal offices and engaging in diverse forms of service to their legitimate family members, politically active and engaged royal bastards were not only defending and advancing

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146  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England royal familial interests but were also justifying their inclusion and increasing their political investment within family identity. The variable degrees of affinity which twelfth-century Anglo-Norman and Angevin monarchs experienced with their illegitimate relatives, as well as the extent of these relationships’ reciprocal natures, depended upon an assortment of factors. The dynastic and political context, such as the nature of the familial relationship as well as the age and birth order of illegitimate children and the nature of a royal bastard’s maternal connections, were certainly important contributors to the formation and maintenance of bonds of affinity. The family’s political situation and the monarch’s immediate dynastic and operational needs also played a role in determining the degree to which these familial sourced personal connections translated into an active engagement with the royal family’s political interests and, crucially, the form that this participation would take. Both Henry  I and Henry  II displayed a marked favouritism for their eldest illegitimate sons, upon whom they would invest their paternal affection and participate with in the male-dominated aspects of courtly and aristocratic culture. This scope for social proximity allowed these kings and their eldest sons to interact in a way that was not necessarily viable or desirable with their illegitimate daughters and possibly without the restrictions that courtly life and dynastic necessity imposed upon legitimate male children. It is equally clear that more ephemeral and personal factors, the extent and intricacies of which are often difficult to ascertain from a historical perspective, also played a role in the formation of personal and political affinities with the family. As previously discussed, rebellion for Anglo-Norman and Angevin aristocrats, manifested in the form of targeted and limited warfare, was to an extent a form of protest. It functioned as a natural extension of politics and negotiations, representing an extreme but, on some level, still acceptable method for the resolution of disputes.1 In addition to the use of warfare and rebellion as a tool in the defence of aristocratic rights and interests, albeit one that carried with it substantial risks, dynastic disputes and internecine warfare between members of the royal family were also reasonably common during this period. These conflicts took the form of either direct competition for the throne or, in a manner not dissimilar to the conflicts of their aristocratic colleagues, arising from disputes surrounding the distribution of familial landed interests. Robert, the Conqueror’s eldest son, rebelled against the king before engaging in

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  147 a protracted series of conflicts with his brothers for control of the AngloNorman hegemony during which time, at one point each brother formed an alliance with another against their remaining sibling.2 In contrast, Anglo-Norman and Angevin illegitimate family members tended to display a relatively consistent and high degree of loyalty to their legitimate patrons and remained active within royal service during intermittent periods of instability and the aggressive renegotiation of status and position which characterized aristocratic politics. This general adherence was the result of a mutually cultivated personal affinity informed by the natural confluence of political and dynastic interests, stemming from participation in a shared familial identity. While empowered and politically active, royal bastards pursued their own interests and agendas as circumstances dictated; the social and legal limitations of illegitimacy made them largely reliant upon the support and patronage of their legitimate relatives which had a role in informing and contextualizing their position within the court and wider aristocratic networks of power.

Geoffrey Plantagenet We now come almost full circle to the incident with which we began the introduction, an incident which occurred in 1174, deep within the reign of Henry  II, in which the king exclaimed that the illegitimate bishopelect Geoffrey was his only true son and that the others were bastards. It was in many ways an extraordinary thing to say. By 1174 the process through which the social stigma attached to illegitimacy had been formally codified and enshrined in law was at an advanced stage. The increasing exactitude with which the precepts and consequences of illegitimacy were defined was accompanied by the increasing sophistication of the English courts which were rapidly emerging as the default arbiters of inheritance disputes. These developing legal practices drew shut the avenues and loopholes through which illegitimate individuals were previously able to inherit in the rare circumstances where they had been able to gain the support of regional powerbrokers. Henry’s reported exclamation then was just that, a spontaneous upswelling of affection and relief rather than, as Geoffrey had perhaps dreamed, a reversal of the established order and a fresh plan for the succession. It was, within the political culture of the late twelfth century, very difficult to envisage that Henry would attempt to deprive his legitimate children of what contemporaries would have seen

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148  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England as their inalienable rights to inheritance. It simply cut too deeply against the grain of accepted aristocratic practices and threatened to destabilize and obscure the carefully delineated lines of inheritance and connection which had persuaded the aristocracy to adopt the Church’s reformed definition of marriage in the first place. Indeed, the king never seems to have made such an attempt, content to support his illegitimate son’s career and status within the church, despite the pseudo-ecclesiastical limbo Geoffrey purposefully stranded himself in. Henry’s denunciation of his legitimate children and lionization of Geoffrey as his truest and most loyal son was the product of dramatic but highly specific circumstances. As sacrosanct as the principal of inheritance was becoming during this period, in practice the exact distribution of heritable interests between legitimate family members was frequently the source of extensive negotiation and conflict. By 1174 Henry II was mired in the midst of the Great Revolt instigated by his wife, Queen Eleanor, and their three oldest legitimate sons. This betrayal was compounded by an upswelling of support from regional aristocrats eager to renegotiate their relationship with the royal centre and Henry’s opportunistic foreign rivals who were more than happy to see the Angevin Empire begin to split at the seams. While virtually every participant in the revolt had their own axes to grind, both literally and figuratively, at its core the revolt had its genesis in Henry II’s refusal to share power meaningfully. Family members were invited to act as participants in royal political and dynastic strategy but in practice they were relegated to roles more akin to that of servitors than junior partners. It is perhaps for this reason that Reginald and Hamelin, the most prominent members of the previous generation of illegitimate royal family members, both went through stages in their political careers where they elected to immerse themselves in local aristocratic networks, avoiding the royal court. Henry, the Young King, had been raised to the status of co-ruler in England and Normandy, but was denied access to real power or the financial resources necessary to attract and reward followers of his own. Denied the opportunity to engage meaningfully with the role and mechanisms of kingship, the younger Henry attempted to build his reputation through chivalric exploits and excellence by attending tournaments throughout Europe, a lifestyle which brought him into close contact with powerbrokers and prominent nobles within and without the Angevin hegemony.

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  149 Henry’s legitimate son Geoffrey, like his royal grandfather and namesake – the king seemed to have little compunction in re-using the family’s traditional naming stock – had similar grounds for dissatisfaction. Despite the removal of her father, Duke Conan, and Geoffrey’s longstanding engagement with Duchess Constance of Brittany, Henry prevaricated on when the marriage would be allowed to go forward, all the while liberally making use of ducal authority in his self-appointed capacity as Constance’s guardian. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was in many ways the architect of the rebellion, was probably disenfranchised by Henry’s lack of interest in a political partner and his propensity for treating Aquitaine, her duchy, as his own. She certainly went to considerable lengths both before and after the rebellion to have her favourite son, Richard, recognized as her primary heir and later supported him in the attempted establishment of an independent ducal administration. In contrast to his legitimate half siblings, when the Great Revolt of 1173 broke out, bishop-elect Geoffrey remained loyal to his father. Henry’s effusive affirmation of paternal pride and surely purely rhetorical declaration of legitimacy was the result of a spectacularly successful campaign Geoffrey led to counter the opportunistic invasion of northern England by King William I of Scotland. While the king was engaged on the continent, Geoffrey rallied the royalist elements in the region and reduced a number of castles belonging to the prominent rebel Roger de Mowbray.3 The Scottish threat to Angevin control of England was swiftly neutralized as part of this campaign when one of Geoffrey’s allies, Ranulf De Glanville, ambushed and captured King William. Henry and his allies, amongst whom Geoffrey, Reginald and Hamelin must all be counted within the leading ranks, successfully weathered the storm of rebellion and placed Queen Eleanor in a sort of gilded cage. In contrast Henry treated the wayward princes relatively leniently but failed completely to placate them or address their concerns. The result was that any changes in the family’s circumstances, the administration of its hegemony or the distribution of family assets led to outbursts of mutual recriminations, sabre-rattling and worse. Geoffrey persisted in his loyalty to his father throughout the intermittent rebellions and intra-dynastic clashes which blighted the remainder of Henry  II’s reign as the princes reacted to perceived threats to their status and inheritance prospects. Of course, in a sense, a display of conspicuous loyalty and devotion to his royal father was Geoffrey’s only practical course of action.

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150  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Walter Map in his work the De Nugis Curialium identifies Geoffrey’s mother as a prostitute called Ykenai who took advantage of the king’s credulity in order to get him to recognize Geoffrey as his son, implying a dubious paternity.4 Walter was a cleric and intimate of the court of Henry II, engaging in diplomatic service at a high level on behalf of the king, most notably acting as a royal envoy to King Louis VII of France and Pope Alexander III. Walter was, therefore, well informed on the composition and interpersonal dynamics of both the court and royal family, being personally acquainted with the king, to an assessment of whose character he devotes a large segment of De Nugis Curialium’s fifth book, and Geoffrey whom he served under briefly in the diocese of Lincoln. However, in his account of the royal court, Walter openly professes to harbour a great deal of personal antagonism towards Geoffrey whose presence he occasionally makes use of as a shorthand for the corruption and iniquities of Henry II’s reign. Additionally, Walter’s works contains strong satirical elements throughout, beginning De Nugis Curialium with a comparison between the royal court and hell, in which he recasts the royal family and members of their inner circle as participants in the infernal hierarchy. Walter’s exaggerated somewhat irreverent style and content then, when taken into consideration with his apparent personal dislike of the future archbishop, suggests that his account of Geoffrey’s maternity is probably a rhetorical device meant to antagonize the royal bastard and parody contemporary perceptions of the louche morals and strictures of the Angevin royal court. Geoffrey had a half-brother, Peter, who served as Archdeacon of Lincoln, a position he managed to retain under Geoffrey’s immediate successors to the diocese, Walter de Coutances and Hugh of Avalon. Given Peter’s lack of career progression in the Church, his apparently dire need for the support and protection of Bishop Hugh and his lack of positive identification as a son of Henry II in any extant sources, it seems probable that Peter was Geoffrey’s maternal half-brother. Certainly, the impression Peter’s scant presence within the surviving sources gives is that he owed his position at Lincoln to Geoffrey’s patronage and was otherwise relatively isolated within the larger context of aristocratic familial networks and alliances. Whatever the exact truth regarding the identity of Geoffrey’s mother and the extent to which it was common knowledge within the court, it seems clear that he had only limited access to maternally sourced family networks and resources. Instead, Geoffrey was raised within the

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  151 royal court itself, sharing in the king’s itinerant lifestyle. It is worth emphasizing that Henry II deliberately chose to integrate Geoffrey into the royal court, ensuring that they would be in regular, perhaps habitual, contact with one another. This increased accessibility combined with Geoffrey’s status as Henry’s first born led to the development of a close bond between father and son which meant that he was able to participate meaningfully in the activities and trials of courtly life alongside his father long before any of the king’s legitimate children. As already noted, Henry II expended a not inconsiderable amount of goodwill and political capital in providing for Geoffrey’s maintenance and future, yet he chose to do so by placing him in a fast-tracked ecclesiastical career. In 1171 Henry had Geoffrey appointed as Archdeacon of Lincoln as well as granting him a smattering of other clerical and administrative offices within the Church. The archdeaconship was primarily a way of signalling to England’s prelates and other interested parties that Henry intended the still young Geoffrey to become, in the fullness of time, Bishop of Lincoln, a see which had been deliberately kept vacant by Henry since the death of its previous incumbent Robert de Chesney in 1166. There is no evidence that Geoffrey discharged the duties of his various offices; instead he siphoned their incomes and remained a central fixture of the royal court. In 1173 he was, on his father’s instructions, elected Bishop of Lincoln. Due to his illegitimacy and age – bishops normally had to be at least thirty – making Geoffrey almost a decade too young for the post, his candidacy was rejected by the cathedral canons of Lincoln, but following the conclusion of the great revolt in 1174 the prospective bishop travelled to Rome to acquire a papal dispensation. This was a process which involved expending relatively large sums of money to pay the fees of the Curia, the Papal administration and court system. The method through which bishops were elected and the exact terms on which they occupied their dual role as princes of the Church and secular vassals was a source of significant tension and conflict between European monarchs and the increasingly powerful and proscriptive Papacy throughout the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. By 1170 these tensions had largely given way to a process of ad hoc negotiations and broad compromises, a state of affairs spurred on by the backlash a chastened Henry faced from the murder of his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Henry II was, if he was suitably committed, able to push through the candidacy of favoured individuals, even those, like Geoffrey,

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152  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England who would normally be ineligible for such prominent ecclesiastical positions. However, doing so carried a very real material and political cost and an equilibrium had to be struck between the promotion of royal, papal and internal candidates for bishoprics. In 1174 Henry  II was the master of the one of the largest polities in Europe. Following the disastrous conclusion of the Beckett affair, the king had said and done all the right things to communicate his remorse to and signal his willingness to adhere to papal policy, including pledging to undertake a crusade to the Holy Lands. He therefore had plenty of political capital with both his own bishops and the Papacy. In contrast, in 1213, John was unable to secure a papal dispensation for his illegitimate half-brother, Morgan, the bishop-elect of Durham, because of the overall fraught political context and his earlier clashes with the Papacy. The best Pope Innocent III was able to do for Morgan was to agree to ratify his election as bishop on the condition that he obfuscate his illegitimacy. It is interesting that, given the option to swear to being his stepfather Ralph Bloet’s legitimate son, Morgan chose to give up his claim to the bishopric rather than repudiate his royal heritage. While encouraging potential bishops to commit perjury may not seem like a particularly Papal act, Innocent reportedly felt considerable sympathy for Morgan and, while unwilling to further loosen the prohibition against ordaining illegitimate individuals, perhaps felt such things were a matter for confession. Like many aristocratic family networks, dukes of Normandy often sought to establish their illegitimate or otherwise surplus male relatives within the Church to gain access to the resources and patronage that those positions could provide. Robert of Gloucester’s own illegitimate son, Richard, was appointed to the bishopric of Bayeux in 1135, a post previously held by William the Conqueror’s maternal half-brother Odo.5 The establishment of control or at least influence over the archbishopric of Rouen was likewise an important concern for the Angevin’s Norman predecessors who, in the past, had gone to considerable efforts to ensure that the position was occupied by family members, such as Robert the Dane and his successor Mauger who were the sons of Dukes Richard I and II respectively. King Stephen’s bid for the throne would almost certainly have ended in dismal failure had he not enjoyed the dedicated support of his younger brother, Bishop Henry of Winchester, who was able to persuade the other English bishops to support Stephen and free

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  153 the magnates from the oaths they had sworn to uphold Empress Matilda’s claim to the throne. In addition to the support bishops were able to provide their legitimate family members in important ecclesiastical matters, such as the brokering and licensing of marriages, bishops also controlled considerable financial and landed resources which were interlaced with those of a region’s aristocratic families. By placing Geoffrey in the bishopric of Lincoln, Henry II was providing his illegitimate son with a generous income and means to support himself while also placing an intimate ally amongst the bishops of England, ready to support Henry in any future conflicts with the Church or disputes over his dynastic strategy. This was particularly important because Henry, who ruthlessly determined to increase the power and scope of the Angevin hegemony, tended to play fast and loose with marriage contracts such as when he repeatedly delayed the marriages of his legitimate sons Richard and Geoffrey for political reasons while taking personal custody of their brides’ doweries. The strangest thing about Geoffrey’s ecclesiastical career during his father’s reign was that in a sense it never actually happened. Geoffrey’s election, or rather appointment, as bishop of Lincoln in 1173 faced two sources of resistance. The first of these were the cathedral canons of Lincoln who had been left largely to their own devices since 1166 and the death of Robert de Chesney, after which the king had siphoned off much of the diocese’s income for his own purposes. All too familiar with the encumbrance of direct royal oversight, the cathedral canons opposed Geoffrey’s candidacy on the grounds of his age, illegitimacy and status as a layman. While any one of this trifecta of factors would have prevented Geoffrey from assuming office under normal circumstances, with the backing of the king they proved to be scant obstacles. As we have seen, the matters of his age and illegitimacy were taken care of by a trip to Rome and the obtaining of a Papal dispensation. The third of these barriers, the fact that Geoffrey was not a priest, should on the face of it have been by far the easiest to correct. Such reckoning, however, did not consider the second source of resistance to Geoffrey’s ecclesiastical career: Geoffrey himself. Geoffrey consistently and vehemently refused to become ordained, a necessary step in fully assuming the responsibilities and duties of the position. The exact reasons and motivations behind this refusal are frustratingly opaque. Maybe Geoffrey simply saw entering Holy Orders

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154  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England as an unwelcome degree of separation from the chivalric ideals and martial ethos of twelfth-century aristocratic culture, although he would surely know from personal experience the permeability of such distinctions and the latitude afforded to bishops in their interactions with the laity. It is also possible that Geoffrey, looking at the model set by previous generations of particularly prominent and favoured illegitimate family members, was holding out for an earldom or some other form of integration with aristocratic networks. Most tantalizing of all, it is tempting to speculate, despite the enormous impediment of his illegitimacy, that Geoffrey may not have wanted to alienate himself even further from the throne, considering the obvious regard in which his father held him and the mercurial tempestuous loyalties of the king’s legitimate sons. Whatever the case, Geoffrey did not reject the proffered bishopric outright and went through the motions expected of him as a bishop-elect. He marked his election with the gift of two new bells for the Cathedral’s tower and in 1175 studied at Tours to absorb the learning and knowledge requisite to the position. Essentially Geoffrey squatted in the office, accepting the title and its related incomes while prevaricating on the matter of entering Holy Orders or being formally invested as bishop. In a royal charter confirming the gift of the church at Bonnington to Savigny abbey, which was issued sometime in the mid-1170s, Geoffrey can be found at the head of the witness list, identified as the bishop-elect of Lincoln.6 Geoffrey, or at least his deputies, seem initially to have managed the finances of the diocese reasonably competently, but this extended period of ambiguity, combined with his absence from Lincoln and failure to discharge the office’s ecclesiastical responsibilities, inevitably catalyzed further opposition. Equivocation continued as the norm in the diocese of Lincoln until 1182 when Geoffrey, now thirty, was issued an ultimatum by Pope Lucius III: either enter Holy Orders and accept proper investiture as Bishop of Lincoln or vacate the position for someone who would. Cornered, Geoffrey chose to give up the bishopric rather than become a priest, leaving Henry II with the problem of what to do with his valued but supremely stubborn son. Even before he had formally given up his claim to the bishopric, Geoffrey was appointed Royal Chancellor while the previous incumbent Ralph de Warneville was raised to the bishopric of Lisieux.7 At the same time, he was endowed with considerable financial resources drawn from both the royal demesne and offices within vacant ecclesiastical dioceses that he

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  155 held in plurality. In addition to the Chancellorship, Geoffrey inherited from Ralph the positions of treasurer of York and the arch-diaconate of Rouen as well as receiving the custodianship of the castles of Bauge and Langeais in southern Anjou which all in all amounted to a considerable yearly income, somewhere in the region of five hundred marks.8 Strangely, given his closeness to his father and his earlier engagement in royal service, Geoffrey’s role as chancellor, nominally responsible for the operation of royal governance and its increasingly diversified and invasive administrative apparatus, seems to have been limited. The chancellor appears to have been in the king’s company fairly frequently, witnessing court documents at various stages throughout the 1180s, in which he is identified either alternatively or concurrently as the king’s son and chancellor.9 Within these charters he is listed foremost amongst the secular witnesses, a testament to both the authority of his position and the influence of his personal affinity with the king. However, his employment of Walter de Coutances to act as the keeper of the seal and discharge many of the formal legal and ceremonial duties of the Chancellor suggest that Geoffrey was not expected to bear the onerous workload and responsibilities of the office and hints at an absence from the royal court.10 It is possible, however, that Geoffrey was engaged in royal service elsewhere representing his father’s tangled interests abroad. During this period, near the height of Henry II’s temporal power and influence, he received overtures from magnates within both Italy and the crusader states, to which he had dynastic claim, suggesting the possibility that the king or one of his sons could claim thrones within the respective regions. It is possible then that Geoffrey was engaged in some way in negotiating these potential suits on behalf of his father and familial dynastic interests. Indeed, the contemporary Angevin court functionary and diplomat, Peter of Blois, records that Geoffrey’s own candidacy had been discussed and that as a result of his well-known admirable qualities, or possibly more likely his strong affinity with a powerful monarch who continuously flirted with the notion of crusade, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius, experimented with the notion of offering Geoffrey the throne of the holy city.11 Peter of Blois was an intimate of the Angevin court who had held the position of chief letter writer to the archbishop of Canterbury before his dogged work as a royal advocate and propagandist on behalf of Henry II saw him rewarded with a series of diplomatic appointments. Peter and

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156  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Geoffrey were almost certainly personally acquainted because of their shared membership and service to the royal court. What is more, Peter, dedicating his work on the life of the Anglo-Saxon St Wilfred to the royal bastard, suggested the two were connected through ties of sponsorship or patronage. Peter then is an exceptionally well-informed source regarding the dynastic and hegemonic ambitions of Henry  II and his family, although it is possible he exaggerated the extent or seriousness of these discussions in order to inflate perceptions of the Chancellor’s importance and the Plantagenet family’s international kudos as a result of his personal connection with Geoffrey and general adherence to Henry II.12 The idea that Geoffrey may have acted as his father’s envoy in Jerusalem and that the king maintained an interest in the region is given further credence by Geoffrey’s role in witnessing a royal charter issued in 1181 in which the king donated forty marks of silver to the then-expanding Lepers of Saint Lazarus who were based in Jerusalem.13 Geoffrey’s promotion to a position of great authority and control over the developing mechanisms of royal government was a purely reactive measure on the part of the king, resulting from his explicit rejection of Henry II’s attempts to insinuate him within the ecclesiastical hierarchy. It is of considerable significance that Geoffrey seems to have been absent from the royal court for much of this time as Chancellor and perhaps only cursorily engaged with the position’s duties. Instead, his appointment invested him with a considerable income and the increased status and recognition afforded by an official and senior appointment within the royal government which allowed Geoffrey to operate more effectively as a proxy of his father as well as helping to retain his loyalty and engagement in royal service. In that regard, Geoffrey’s appointment as Chancellor was an unmistakeable success with the royal bastard operating as a close and valued member of his father’s inner circle for the remainder of the reign.

The Persecuted Archbishop Walter Map’s characterization of royal family members as occupying near-satanic roles or personae was far from an isolated piece of rhetorical whimsy. After all, Walter was a royal functionary and an intimate of the royal household. Instead, it represented a satirical and deliberately cultivated heightening of the family’s contemporary reputation. As effective and necessary as the Angevins’ method of exerting control over

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  157 their vast hegemony was, combining sporadic direct intervention with the incentivization and deputization of regional powerbrokers, it almost inevitably generated both winners and losers. For the regional nobility of those areas within Henry’s expansive sphere of interests in which central authority was considerably less developed than it was in England or Normandy, such ruthlessly pragmatic practices could lead to impositions of new financial burdens and curtailing of autonomy. At the same time, those aristocrats willing and able to act as conduits in the dissemination of royal authority were often rewarded with the means to further solidify their powerbases and influence over such regional networks. While Henry II spared his most powerful followers, such as the English earls, from the worst burdens of taxation, he was seldom shy in using his raft of royal privileges and powers to extract payment from his vassals, renegotiating these relationships from a position of strength whenever changing circumstances enabled him to do so. This cupidity, alongside the dramatic and often ruthless expansion of the Angevin hegemony under Henry  II, and the belligerence with which his legitimate sons vied for a share of the family’s domains left an impression upon contemporaries who took to referring to the Angevins as the ‘Devil’s Brood’. Through Empress Matilda and her connection to the royal Saxon bloodline, Henry and his sons could, if they were so inclined, claim descent from the Germanic god Wōden who, alongside his fellow pagan deities, was characterized by contemporary Christians as a demon. However, the Angevins who, even before their melding with the Norman ducal family, had a reputation for aggressive expansionism, claimed descent from a far more recent other-worldly source. Family tradition held that sometime in the late-tenth century a count of Anjou had an exceptionally beautiful wife, Melusine, whom he had met during his youthful rangings across distant lands. When, after years of marriage and the birth of four sons, the count deigned to notice that his wife never attended Mass, he laid a trap for her in the Church. Her other-worldly nature revealed at last, Melusine flew from the Church, taking her youngest children with her but leaving behind the eldest two. According to Gerald of Wales, Richard had a fondness for the tale and would often have it recounted to guests and visitors, evidently enjoying the mystique it lent to his family and the comparisons it invited to the Angevins’ reputation and conduct. In contrast to his legitimate half siblings who were perfectly ready, if not outrightly eager, to fight their father and one another to secure

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158  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England a greater stake of the family hegemony, Geoffrey’s interests were best served by cleaving to his father. As a royal bastard he had no extant claim to protect or expand; as immersed in the royal court as he was, he was nevertheless entirely dependent upon the support and patronage of his father. He therefore had everything to lose and very little, if anything, to gain from participating in one of these revolts. Henry II’s legitimate sons were unwilling to share with each other, let alone uphold the tarnished claims of a bastard half-brother who had monopolized their father’s time and affection. Richard’s final rebellion against his father in 1188 was primarily motivated by Henry’s desire to hand Aquitaine to his youngest legitimate son, John, and Richard’s refusal to cede the duchy, to which he somewhat understandably felt a special entitlement. Richard’s rebellion against Henry  II, launched in tandem with the co-ordinated invasion of Normandy by his ally King Philip II of France, put Geoffrey, along with much of the aristocracy of the Angevin hegemony, in a difficult situation. He was tied by bonds of genuine affection and mutual self-interest to his ageing but still pugnacious and dynamic father. But in supporting Henry he was courting the enmity of the king’s heirs and inevitable successors. Geoffrey’s life, his rise and fall, were shaped by his genuine devotion to his father and the heedless ruthless cupidity of his half-brothers. True to form, Geoffrey stayed loyal to his father. Indeed, he served as one of the king’s principal military commanders and was delegated control of around a quarter of the royalist forces in Normandy. When the fighting proved to be inconclusive, Henry was compelled to come to terms with Richard and Philip, a source of stress and humiliation which may have brought on or exacerbated his final illness in 1189. Geoffrey remained by the side of the rapidly declining king and on his death escorted his body to Fontevraud Abbey. He was the only one of Henry’s children to attend the funeral. One of Henry’s last requests, made before witnesses, was that Geoffrey be made either bishop of Winchester or archbishop of York. Given Geoffrey’s previous hostility to embracing an ecclesiastical career, Henry’s insistence that Geoffrey be provided with a high-ranking and prestigious ecclesiastical position is worth dwelling on. One of the most fiercely guarded rights of the medieval English clergy was their nominal immunity from secular prosecution and the idea that ordained individuals should only ever be tried by their fellow Churchmen. Henry II had himself tried to overturn this right,

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  159 a decision which had seen him become further embroiled in conflict with Archbishop Thomas Becket. The abrupt and scandalous end of that rivalry only saw the idea that clerics were removed from secular jurisdiction become even more deeply entrenched. This degree of legal shielding was further enhanced by the cultural stigma regarding the persecution of priests and the Church hierarchy’s tendency to close ranks in the defence of its properties and privileges. It seems probable then that the dying Henry  II wanted a bishopric for the ever-loyal Geoffrey, not only to reward him for his leal service and provide for him financially but as a way to protect him from the ill will of the legitimate siblings he had so recently fought against and who may have perceived him as a rival for the throne. If true, it was a hope that was ultimately proven to be in vain. After a swift bout of negotiations, the freshly-crowned Richard decided to honour his father’s wishes regarding Geoffrey and support his candidacy for the archbishopric of York. The new king initially wished for Geoffrey’s elevation to be contingent upon the prospective archbishop’s agreement to stay out of England for a period of three years, but he was eventually persuaded against such stringent measures. This stipulation could be a sign that Richard regarded his elder half-brother as a threat to his rule and that shunting Geoffrey aside into Holy Orders was a convenient way of further isolating him from any claim to the throne. However, it could just as easily be a manifestation of personal animosity. Certainly, Richard took a belligerent stance towards Geoffrey early on, leveraging the confusion and delays caused by the York canons’ nomination of their own candidate to appoint relatives of his allies and associates to the key administrative positions of the diocese. These appointments helped Richard cultivate further support through a display of largesse while granting him greater access to and influence over the archbishopric’s considerable resources. Of course, it also limited Geoffrey’s ability to properly establish himself within the diocese and Geoffrey’s unwillingness to recognize these royally sponsored appointments led to a quickly escalating conflict between the half-brothers which resulted in the temporary confiscation of Geoffrey’s lands and a levelling of substantial fines against the archbishop. Richard’s unusually harsh line with Geoffrey and determination to implant his own men within the archdiocese stand in marked contrast to his parallel efforts in soliciting the support of Henry  II’s other diehard supporters amongst the aristocracy.

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160  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England In 1190 Archbishop Geoffrey, who evidently shared the same temper and pugnacious streak as the legitimate members of the Devil’s Brood, excommunicated two of Richard’s appointees, Henry Marshal and Buchard du Puiset. This rash course of action only deepened Geoffrey’s developing rivalry with Buchard’s brother and royal favourite, Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham and co-justiciar of England. In response, the outraged king increased substantially Geoffrey’s earlier fine. He then confiscated the archbishop’s lands and attempted to have him exiled from England when he was unable to pay immediately. The rift between king and archbishop was only healed by the Papacy’s ratification of Geoffrey’s election and the payment of the lesser sum of 800 marks following the intervention of the papal legate. The Archbishopric of Canterbury was technically vacant since the archbishop-elect, Reginald Fitz Jocelin, was in the same boat as Geoffrey and had yet to be fully consecrated. Therefore, following Richard’s departure on Crusade, Geoffrey travelled to Tours in 1191 to be consecrated by Archbishop Barthelemy de Vendôme. Immediately upon his return to England, Geoffrey was arrested on trumped-up charges by England’s second co-justiciar and royal chancellor, William Longchamp. The arrest of the archbishop provoked an enormous outcry in England which led to Geoffrey’s swift release and further catalyzed the removal of Longchamp. The now-excommunicated Chancellor was already on shaky ground politically, having become embroiled in a number of high-profile feuds and had previously attempted to have his fellow justiciar, Hugh de Puiset arrested on an equally flimsy pretext. Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, the patron and employer of Geoffrey’s half-brother Peter, had the men who forcibly removed the archbishop from sanctuary in Dover Priory excommunicated. Despite the common enemy they had in Longchamp, Geoffrey’s own feud with Hugh de Puiset only intensified as the reign continued due to Geoffrey’s efforts to enforce the archbishopric of York’s traditional primacy and oversight over Durham. With the support of the Papacy, Geoffrey, who had gone as far as to excommunicate Hugh, was eventually successful in imposing a measure of authority over Durham. It was, however, perhaps not the most politic of fights to have picked and burned through much of Geoffrey’s meagre reserves of political capital and good will with the Papacy. Far less successful were Geoffrey’s bold and ambitious attempts to refute the primacy of Canterbury over York, a struggle which

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  161 saw him become increasingly politically isolated in England. Meanwhile, Geoffrey had failed to reconcile or reach an accommodation with the officials Richard had earlier appointed within the administration of the archdiocese who now brought several allegations regarding his conduct to the Papal court. Richard’s appointment of Archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury as justiciar in 1194 worsened matters considerably for Geoffrey and Hubert quickly began to bring charges against him to short-circuit his attempted break from Canterbury. True to form, Richard, always hungry for ready cash, overturned Hubert’s confiscation of Geoffrey’s estates in exchange for a substantial cash payment. However, the half-brothers’ relationship took a turn for the worse in 1195 when, for unknown, reasons Richard refused to allow Geoffrey to travel to Rome to answer the charges brought against him there. Geoffrey initially obtained an extension to the Papal summons, but Richard remained intransigent, trapping the archbishop between being stripped of his position by the Pope or having his lands confiscated yet again by the English king. In such circumstances Geoffrey really only had one choice. He fled England and travelled to Rome where he successfully refuted the charges brought against him. Richard’s refusal to allow Geoffrey back into England compelled him to stay in Rome to solicit Papal support and enact a reconciliation. Just such an agreement was eventually brokered by Innocent III in 1199 in which the king finally agreed to return the archbishopric to Geoffrey, but Richard was killed while besieging a castle in Limousin before Geoffrey could return to England. When John succeeded to the throne, he appears happy to have abided by this agreement and recognized Geoffrey’s position as Archbishop of York. This was far from a given, considering Geoffrey’s opposition to John during the 1193 rebellion. Despite the initially cordial relationship between the half-brothers, they would soon become caught in an escalating series of conflicts centred around the taxation of Church lands in England. While they were reconciled with one another on numerous occasions, the clash between John’s cupidity and Geoffrey’s stubborn refusal to compromise inevitably drove them back into conflict. Geoffrey fled to Normandy in 1207 after excommunicating several of the king’s tax collectors. Despite for once enjoying the full support of the Papacy, no further reconciliation between the king and his illegitimate half-brother was to be had and Geoffrey died, still in exile, in 1212.

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162  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Geoffrey was a highly-favoured and valued member of Henry  II’s family and inner circle of confidants. However, his refusal to allow himself to become distanced from this position and steered into an ecclesiastical career meant that he never came to occupy a position of more than moderate importance within the royal administration. Even when serving as royal chancellor, its seems that Geoffrey shed the position’s most burdensome duties and that the office was principally a signifier of Geoffrey’s elevated status and justification for his continued presence at the heart of royal government. Henry evidently trusted Geoffrey and his capabilities as a military commander but granted him little else in the way of autonomy. While the relegation of illegitimate individuals from inheritance had become deeply enshrined in both law and common practice by the late eleventh century, it is possible that Henry’s turbulent relationship with his legitimate sons led Geoffrey to harbouring some ambitions for the throne. Following the death of his father and instillation as Archbishop of York, his younger half-brothers’ attempt to leverage their new connection to the archbishopric for financial gain placed Geoffrey in a precarious position. This was exacerbated by Geoffrey’s own bullishness and refusal to relinquish an iota of his new-found authority or domains which quickly burned through his remaining reserves of familial goodwill.

William Longespée In marked contrast to his eldest half-brother, the far younger William Longespée languished in relative obscurity during their father’s lifetime. A lifetime of loyalty to Henry and service within the king’s household had called upon Geoffrey to assist in the often-violent checking of his legitimate half-siblings’ ambitions. This history of conflict was possibly compounded by personal antipathy resulting from Henry II’s favouritism toward Geoffrey. William on the other hand was a far less challenging presence within the extended royal family and one that was, initially at least, far more willing to accept the compromises and impositions inherent in the role of royal functionary and junior partner. The son of Henry II and the aristocratic Ida de Tosny, William was born sometime around 1167. William’s birth seems not to have meaningfully damaged Ida’s marriage prospects as she later married Earl Roger Bigod of Norfolk. As touched upon earlier, the persistent financial and political advantages of marriage meant that the formation of blended families was a common occurrence

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  163 amongst the aristocracy. Indeed, the conscious adoption of stricter more clearly-delineated rules regarding inheritance and the outright prohibition against bastards inheriting were, in part, a way to deal with the aristocratic family’s tendency towards complexity and inclusivity. Ida’s marriage, and William’s readily accepted presence within the earl’s household, provided a secondary family association for William to operate in, which he would retain deep into his political career.14 William’s name was sourced from the traditional naming stock of the Norman dukes and had most recently been used by Henry  II’s eldest legitimate child, Count William of Poitiers, who had died in infancy. Another William in the family’s recent history was Henry’s younger brother whose death had cleared the way for the sudden rise of the illegitimate Hamelin de Warenne. The epithet of Longespée, which was widely known and used by his contemporaries and eventually passed onto his son, is similarly drawn from the history of the Norman ducal family and was borne by the semi-mythical second duke.15 Longespée also occasionally saw some use as an alternate epithet for William Rufus, the Conqueror’s second son and immediate successor to the throne of England. Its adoption probably represents an assertion of his AngloNoman royal heritage. The adoption of personal heraldry was gaining increased traction amongst the European nobility during William’s lifetime. Interestingly he chose to adopt the pioneering arms of his paternal grandfather, Geoffrey of Anjou. This may well have been an attempt to emphasize his Angevin heritage while symbolically removing himself from the overtly royal elements of family identity. However, it should also be recognized that heraldry was still in the early stages of its development and that there simply wasn’t a huge amount of heraldic material to draw from. This process of evolution can be seen in the coat of arms depicted on the Great Seal of King Richard which changes between the seal’s first and second iteration. William’s half-royal parentage was readily acknowledged, likely aided by his broader aristocratic affinities, a recognition which almost certainly played a large role in Henry  II’s unusual gift to him of the lordship of Appleby in Lincolnshire in 1188.16 Upon Henry  II’s death, the young bastard made the transition to his half-brother Richard’s reign with little fanfare or overt signs and acknowledgements of a shared familial affinity which remain detectable within the historical record. However, when Earl William FitzPatrick of Salisbury died in 1196, Richard took the opportunity to arrange a marriage

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164  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England between William and the earl’s young daughter and primary heir Ela. Richard I’s elevation of his illegitimate half-brother to the earldom of Salisbury, through this royally-brokered marriage was first and foremost an act of political opportunism. Despite William FitzPatrick’s initial support for Prince John, during the series of the crises sparked by the king’s absence, following Richard’s return to England the earl and many of his contemporaries had gravitated back towards the restored centre of royal government, re-aligning themselves with the king. By marrying his half-brother to the earl’s heir, Richard was further drawing the region’s constituent aristocratic networks closer to himself. By elevating Longespée to an earldom with its accompanying resources and status within aristocratic society, Richard was also creating a potentially useful lieutenant, who was tied to him through a shared familial identity, bolstered by gratitude for his advancement. In addition, it is possible that by co-opting William further into royal affinity and service, Richard was also hoping to draw William’s extensive maternal connections further into alignment with the re-emergent royal centre. While Richard’s sponsorship of William certainly involved, and was even predicated upon acknowledgement of their shared family identity, it was once again not undertaken for the sake of providing for a family member. William’s elevation to the earldom of Salisbury was first and foremost a means of expanding the authority of a regime whose stability and consensus amongst the aristocracy had been damaged by the king’s imprisonment. Following the assumption and establishment of authority over his relatively modest earldom and the traditional political affinities of his wife’s family, William seems to have closely adhered to his royal halfbrother by actively participating in royal service as a member of the court. William can be found amongst the witness lists of a number of royal charters issued from his brother’s new fortress and base of operations within Normandy, the Château Gaillard.17 At the time Richard was heavily engaged in resisting and reversing Capetian expansion into Normandy. As a frequent member of his brother’s entourage and participant in a shared familial identity, William took an active part in these revanchist campaigns, most notably accompanying Richard when the king defeated Philip and the French host at Gisors in 1198.18 While William was initially promoted and patronized by Richard, he only reached the heights of his political career under the reign of his younger half-brother, John, to whom he was very close. The Pipe Rolls

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  165 of John’s reign reveal the frequent payment back and forth of gambling debts incurred between the two, suggesting a lengthy association and strong friendship between the half-brothers. The Pipe Rolls also reveal that William received not only considerable loans from the king but was also the frequent recipient of gifts in the form of small cash payments and wine.19 It is tempting to speculate that such a connection with a family member may have held personal significance to John who had been raised largely in isolation from his legitimate brothers.20 William’s strong personal affinity with John was reflected in their political relationship, with William soon emerging as one of the king’s principal enforcers. Even when anchored by strong ties of personal affinity and familial identity, such relationships were characterized by a reciprocal and mutually beneficial nature and, while royal bastards may have been defined primarily by their royal affinities, if such links ebbed or were stripped of their utility, as magnates and aristocrats they were capable of acting within their own interests autonomously from a wider familial identity. John’s advancement of his half-brother’s career and preference for William in the entrusting or delegating of military and administrative offices and position was underpinned by a strong political motivation. John may have been particularly amenable to the idea of a dauntless and supremely trustworthy lieutenant tied to him through both fraternal affection and the close conflation of dynastic interests, precisely because his reign was increasingly beset by internal dissent and foreign aggression. Earl William was one of his brother’s foremost military lieutenants and supporters at a time of great difficulty for the shrunken royal dynasty, often in conjunction with other royally-aligned aristocrats and members of his extended affinity. In 1202, in conjunction with his cousin, Earl William de Warenne the earl of Surrey and de Warenne’s father-in-law, the famed Earl William Marshal, Longespée led a force to hamper and harass the army of King Philip Augustus.21 During this period William was also active in attempting to protect his family’s interests on the Angevin hegemony’s frontiers within the British Isles, being appointed to a position of oversight and authority within the Welsh Marches in 1208 as well as accompanying the king on his expedition to Ireland. William was also heavily involved in supporting the king’s efforts to combat French expansion into Normandy, most notably in his routing of the French fleet in 1213, relieving their ally Count Ferrand and curtailing a French invasion of England, leading to John appointing him to the position

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166  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England of Marshal of England.22 William was then captured at the disastrous Battle of Bouvines, in which King Philip routed the allied army, although the Histoire de Guillaume le Marchal depicts the earl as advising against seeking a decisive battle as well as stating that his nephew, Emperor Otto, would have been killed or captured if it were not for William’s heroic intervention.23 The Histoire de Guillaume le Marchal takes care to emphasis the role and capability of Longespée and elaborates mitigating factors to his defeats, such as his capture at the Battle of Bouvines. This favouritism is to an extent unsurprising since the work, which commemorates the extraordinary life and deeds of William Marshal, was commissioned by its subject’s son, Earl William Marshal II, who was a close ally and lifelong friend of Longespée. Indeed, the two shared a close familial connection since William Longespée’s maternal half-brother, Hugh, was married to a sister of William Marshall. As a trusted confidant with a strong personal affinity with the king, impeccable aristocratic connections, and an acknowledged place within royal family identity, William was an ideal envoy for John representing his interests throughout the British Isles and Europe at the highest diplomatic level. In 1202 the young earl travelled to the court of King Sancho VII of Navarre, the elder brother of Richard’s widow, Queen Berengaria, successfully concluding a treating with him, theoretically securing the southern borders of the duchy of Aquitaine which Sancho had himself ravaged intermittently during Richard’s imprisonment. Alongside Earl William Marshal of Pembroke, then the most powerful and influential of the Marcher lords, with whose family he shared a strong affinity, William negotiated with Llewelyn of Gwynedd and effective master of Wales, brokering a meeting with King John at Worcester in 1204. William was also a member of an embassy John despatched to King William of Scotland in 1205 before again acting as royal intermediary the next year when he escorted the Scottish king to a meeting with John in York. Possibly one of the most notable of Earl William’s diplomatic achievements on behalf of his legitimate family members came in 1209 when he travelled to Germany to canvas support amongst the aristocracy on behalf of his nephew and key Plantagenet ally, King Otto, the son of his half-sister Duchess Matilda of Saxony, who was subsequently accepted as Holy Roman Emperor.24 Faced with increasingly severe incursions from France and the possibility of an invasion of England, John also despatched William as his envoy to Count Ferrand of Flanders to court Flemish support.

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  167

The Rewards of Royal Service William Longespée was like his uncle and fellow illegitimate royal family member, Hamelin de Warrene, raised to his earldom through a marriage brokered by a royal half-brother in order to increase their authority and influence within the aristocracy at a time of political tension and instability. At the time of their father’s death in 1189, Richard was in a state of open revolt against the king whom he had recently directly confronted in a rapid series of military engagements.25 While the presumptive and widely acknowledged heir to the Angevin hegemony as the eldest surviving legitimate son of Henry II, Richard’s belligerent stance towards his father and, through him, the powerful clique of loyalist earls and magnates, presented a potential source of instability and complication. It is interesting to note that Richard’s elevation of his illegitimate halfbrother to an earldom, a position in which he would be able to lend the king considerable political and material support, did not come in the immediate aftermath of his rise to regal status and authority. Instead, Richard’s most substantial patronage and support of William, in the form of the brokering of his marriage to Countess Ela of Salisbury, came in 1196 following the death of her father, Earl William of Salisbury. This was a period in which the king was heavily committed to resisting French military incursions into Normandy and still working to repair the disruption and political fault lines that had emerged as a result of his long absence and imprisonment. The now adult William’s career and the circumstances surrounding his elevation to a position of power, namely being granted a marriage to a countess in royal wardship immediately after her succession at a time of political instability, strongly displays the opportunism and pragmatism which directed Anglo-Norman and Angevin monarchs’ deployment of their illegitimate family members. Richard’s brokering of a marriage between his illegitimate but aristocratic half-brother and the countess at a time when the authority and power of royal government was facing substantial challenges provided the king with a grateful and well-connected earl whose loyalty and sense of active investment in the regime was anchored by substantial personal and familial affinity. William was the son of King Henry  II and possibly the most aristocratic and well-connected of his mistresses, Ida de Tosny, who was herself the daughter of Ralph de Tosny, a significant magnate with

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168  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England extensive holdings in Normandy and his wife Margaret, a member of the expansive and powerful Beaumont family. Sometime after the conclusion of their relationship and the birth of William, the king either permitted or perhaps even arranged for Ida to marry Earl Roger Bigod of Norfolk, with Henry providing a dowry for his former mistress in the form of the return of three manors previously confiscated from Roger’s father.26 Earl Roger and Ida had a number of children, the eldest of whom, Hugh, married a daughter of the earl of Pembroke, William Marshal. This meant that in addition to his participation in royal familial identity and the cultivation of close ties of affinity with his royal half-brothers, William was intimately connected to powerful and influential members of aristocratic familial networks through his maternally sourced networks and connections which were far more extensive than those enjoyed by the majority of illegitimate royal family members. William’s bride, Countess Ela, was the sole heir of Earl William FitzPatrick who had, despite supporting Prince John in his struggles with Richard’s Chancellor and royal deputy, William Longchamp, quickly associated himself with the royalist party following the king’s return, accompanying him on campaign in Normandy and participating in the king’s second coronation as part of a strategy to re-establish royal legitimacy and authority.27 The family’s title was derived from the support of Ela’s grandfather Patrick, the constable of Salisbury, for Empress Matilda and the Angevin faction during her long-running dynastic conflict with King Stephen. This elevation in status coincided with the formation of a close and longlasting affinity with their former rival John FitzGilbert whose marriage to Patrick’s sister Sibyl resulted in the birth of the couple’s eldest son, William Marshal, around 1146. Whether as part of a conscious policy to uphold and cultivate his wife’s familial affinities and connections, or simply as a result of their similar age, shared military service and presence within the royal court, William Longespée was closely associated and allied with Marshal’s eldest son. Indeed, Longespée participated in a number of military expeditions on behalf of his legitimate royal family alongside members of the Marshal family and the Historie de Guillaume le Mareschal, commissioned by the younger William Marshal to celebrate and record the life of his father, also takes care to emphasis the royal bastard’s military capabilities and leadership role.28 The earldom of Salisbury, a designation which both Ela’s father and grandfather used interchangeably with that of Wiltshire, was reasonably

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  169 modest when compared to the other English earldoms, containing only fifty-six knight’s fees.29 Additionally, the family’s landed interests and holdings did not include any castles outside their traditional custodianship of the royal fortress at Salisbury, a vital royal association which was likely reinforced and renewed by William’s own royal affinity. William’s marriage to Countess Ela provided him with title, status and the foundation of a powerbase while the earl’s finances and political influence were enhanced through his engagement in military and administrative service on behalf of his royal half-brother, John, and the assumption of a number of offices within royal governance. As we have seen, a mutually beneficial aspect of this service and William’s engagement in the preservation and advancement of royal interests was the king’s practice of occasionally placing lands in which he had some political or financial interests under his illegitimate brother’s custodianship for safe keeping. William served as the castellan of the royal castle of Salisbury, a significant royal centre located within his own earldom, throughout much of his career. As William’s importance within his brother’s government grew, he was entrusted with further responsibilities; from 1205 he administered the Honour of Eye and its castle while in 1212 he was made custodian of Dover Castle, an important royal bastion and England’s primary line of defence against the anticipated French invasion. William was also used as a proxy by his royal half-brother in his often-fraught relationship with the Church. A feud, which as the unfortunate archbishop Geoffrey could testify to, often manifested in the king’s confiscation of Church lands. In addition to William’s appointment in 1210 as the custodian of the Honour of Eye, John appointed him as supervisor of the extensive lands attached to the diocese of Ely as a retaliatory measure against a clergy who displayed a strong adherence to the papacy during the king’s dispute with Pope Innocent III.30 In 1212, with the papal interdict officially at least still in place, William was additionally granted control of the archbishopric of Canterbury and its vast estates, following a breakdown in negotiations and the king’s continued refusal to recognize the election of Stephen Langton as archbishop.31However, these custodianships, while potentially lucrative for the earl and providing him opportunity to support royal familial interests and strengthen his own political association with the king, were for the most part only temporary and in some cases complicated by their connection to the Church.

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170  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England It seems unsurprising then that Earl William made little effort to enmesh the landed interests brought by these royally nominated guardianships into the territories he held through marriage. On the other hand, throughout his career William retained an abiding interest in gaining control of the town of Trowbridge and its affiliated lands which lay within his earldom. As a result of this attempt to consolidate authority over the region’s aristocratic affinities and capitalize upon its financial resources, William formed a rivalry with the town’s lord, the extremely well-connected Earl Henry de Bohun of Hereford. Henry, who was the hereditary Constable of England, was awarded the earldom of Hereford, previously held by his paternal grandmother Margaret, upon John’s accession to the throne in 1199.32 John’s favouritism for his half-brother and sympathy toward his bid for hegemony within Salisbury may have threatened Henry and contributed, alongside increased tension amongst the aristocracy, to his joining the rebellion against the king in 1213 at which point William was able to annex the lordship of Trowbridge from his rebellious rival and integrate it into his own administrative framework. Indeed, Henry de Bohun’s later status as a supporter of Prince Louis of France and the clash of interests generated by their competing claims was a possible influence in William’s decision to re-join the royalist faction following the death of his brother in 1216. During his tenure as earl of Salisbury, William worked to maintain and strengthen his adopted affinity’s already substantive connections with various ecclesiastical and monastic institutions. William patronized heavily the Augustinian house of Bradenstoke Priory located within his earldom which had a longstanding and intimate connection with his wife’s family.33 The priory was founded in 1142 under the sponsorship of Ela’s great grandfather, Walter FitzEdward, who later joined the community following the death of his wife and his retirement from secular affairs. In 1222 William founded a Carthusian Charter House in Hatherop in Gloucestershire, granting them land in Chelwart and the forest at Bradene.34 Upon his death in 1226, Hatherop was endowed richly and provided with the means to begin an extensive construction programme by gifting them with the income generated from the wardship of his daughter-in-law, a large reserve of livestock for the support for the monks including 1,000 ewes, forty rams, fifty-eight oxen and twenty bulls.35 He further lavished upon them several more personal gifts and luxuries, including his collection of relics, the finest set of vestments from his

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  171 private chapel, a jewel-adorned golden chalice, a golden pyx set with pearls and two silver phials. The monks, however, deemed the site unsuitable to their needs, appealing to the earl’s widow that they be allowed to settle on a more remote site, better in keeping with their eremitical tradition which she duly granted, moving the foundation to Hinton in Somerset but otherwise leaving her husband’s endowments unaltered. William’s location of the Carthusian Charter House, well within his sphere of influence in a readily accessible location, might indicate his ambition to exert direct authority over the site as both he and his fatherin-law had done with Bradenstoke. While the extensive nature of his posthumous endowments suggests a sense of genuine piety, and a desire for monastic intercession in the afterlife and may have been a prominent motivating factor in the foundation of the house, the symbiotic overlap between sincere religious obligation and political expression was one that sat easily within twelfth-century aristocratic culture. Indeed, it is interesting to note that in founding the charter house and patronizing the ascetic Carthusian movement, William was emulating his father Henry II’s foundation of Witham, the first English Carthusian house. While Henry was an enthusiastic patron of the growing ascetic movement, supporting both Gilbertine and Grandmontine foundations, the king was initially reluctant to expend significant resources on the foundation which lost two abbots in quick succession.36 Witham only began to flourish under its third abbot, the future bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Avalon, who succeeded in winning the king’s support, an official charter of foundation being issued in 1180 as well as a substantial income derived from Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Berkshire. However, despite Henry’s strong, likely proprietary, interests in the Charter House and his close relationship with Hugh, there were considerable delays in construction due to lack of funds and the influx of capital into the site was gradually reduced, including the eventual cancellation of pensions to the site in 1188, leaving the Carthusians an influential and generally highly regarded but ultimately minor order.37 It is of considerable significance to the continuity of familial identity and the connections between the adopted household and political affinities of royal bastards and their legitimate relatives that the Carthusian order only began to expand in England following the foundation of a second Charter House by the illegitimate son of their original patron. By emulating his father’s support for the Carthusians, William was not only cultivating and broadening potentially lucrative and influential monastic connections

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172  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England with his own political affinity but also aligning himself strongly with a royal familial identity. Shortly after his accession to the throne in 1199, John endowed his half-brother Earl William Longespée with the shrievalty of Wiltshire, an appointment the earl would hold on and off again from his brother in 1199–1202, 1203–1207 and finally in 1213–1226.38 A royal favourite, William evidently shared a strong personal sense of affinity with his halfbrother with whom he would often gamble and carouse, and was also heavily engaged in military royal service and served as the castellan of several key royal castles, such as Dover and Salisbury. The earl strongly maintained that his wife, Countess Ela, and by extension he, held a hereditary claim to the position of sheriff of Wiltshire which had been held at various points by his wife’s father and grandfather.39 The king, however, while periodically bestowing the office upon William, steadfastly refused to recognize this claim to control the shrievalty of the relatively small earldom by default. John’s reluctance to grant William and his family the office of sheriff of Wiltshire in perpetuity may be a further reflection of advancing royal policy and administrative practice in separating the great magnates and aristocrats from the mechanisms of royal government and connotations of viceregal authority.40 Indeed, later in his career, the earl’s attempts to exercise power and authority over Devon and Somerset, which had been promised to him by Henry III’s Council of Regents in exchange for his support, was stymied in large part due to the interference of the region’s sheriffs who were entrenched in the localities and unwilling to relinquish their positions. Possessed of a cultivated awareness of his participation in a royal family identity and serving as one of the king’s principal military lieutenants, in a sense, William was engaging in a limited way in a viceregal executive role in acting as a proxy and enforcer for the king.41 While John and William seem to have possessed an intimate familial affinity, the gifts the king bestowed upon his half-brother were generally either of a relatively modest personal nature or as a direct result of his engagement in royal service, such as his custody of Church lands in Ely and his acquirement of the barony of Trowbridge in his earldom which had to be confiscated from the rebellious Earl Henry de Bohun.42 By retaining ultimate control over the office of sheriff and potentially limiting or removing William’s access to the valuable resources and authority the position represented, John was possibly not only preserving his royal prerogatives but working

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  173 to ensure the continued dependence of his illegitimate half-brother on royal favour and active engagement in the preservation of their shared dynastic interests. William Longespée, while playing only a marginal or supporting role during the reigns of Henry  II and Richard I, was heavily engaged in royal service both as a military commander and through appointment to various royal offices during the reign of his half-brother John I.43 William’s loyalty and faithfulness to the king originated from their shared familial identity and strong personal affinity, a bond which made him a useful and appealing lieutenant to a king whose reign would be marked by increasingly ingrained internal dissent. This affinity and alignment of political interests were subsequently reinforced by the material benefits and increased political status afforded to William because of his position within the apparatus of royal governance. William’s career nicely demonstrates the mutual advantages of the integration of royal bastards as junior partners in a shared dynastic enterprise. Ultimately though, it showcased the limitations of these bonds and methods of exercising authority. As aristocratic opposition to John and the tattered remnants of the powerful hegemony that he had inherited intensified within England, William became increasingly involved in the attempted repression of rebel activity. After all, even an embattled king was a powerful and influential patron and there still existed no widely recognized politically or religiously acceptable mechanism for the overthrow of an anointed monarch. However, in 1216 Prince Louis of France launched an invasion of England in nominal support of elements of the rebel aristocracy that triggered the functional collapse of royalist resistance. William, likely concluding that John’s position within England was now all but irretrievable, defected to the rebels, decisively acting to protect his own landed interests, and to disentangle himself from the familial affinity and connection from which those interests were originally derived.44 William subsequently changed sides again following the death of King John and the formation of a power bloc around his young successor Henry  III, acting as one of the senior royal commanders at the Battle of Lincoln in a coalition led by his associate William Marshal.45 The earl was, upon the establishment of peace, able to negotiate the granting of substantial new lands in return for his support and recognition of Henry III’s regents. However, it is unclear to what extent his interactions

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174  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England with this group were influenced by his heritage and participation within royal familial identity. Following his abandonment of John, William operated in a manner similar to any other magnate in regard to the royal centre. The earl continued to participate in royal service and received several appointments to shrievalties during the king’s minority. However, he was no longer a member of the court’s inner circle and his occasionally contentious relationship with Henry  III’s regents in regard to the enforcement of his rights and their grants to him suggests that William’s role in the governance of England and commitment to royal service and the protection of family interests rested upon the existence of a personal stake in their success, an alignment which was created and anchored by personal ties and a reciprocal family identity. The degree to which Anglo-Norman and Angevin illegitimate royal family members were permitted to participate in family identity was often heavily dependent upon the acceptance and acknowledgement of their legitimate family members. Those royal bastards who possessed strong ties of affinity with their legitimate relatives or were further integrated into royal family identity because of political and dynastic contextual factors were deployed and empowered by their legitimate patrons as a means of strengthening and advancing royal dynastic interest. As part of this objective, they were appointed to positions or offices within the aristocracy and royal government which bestowed upon them the agency and resources necessary to engage effectively in royal service and advance their family’s dynastic interests. Illegitimate royal family members served these dynastic interests in a number of ways including bringing regional and dynastic affinities closer into alignment with the royal centre through their mutual association and participation in the organs and mechanism of royal governance and office-holding as well as direct service as a royal proxy, either as an envoy or military commander. Neither these forms of service nor the administrative and political mechanism through which royal bastards were empowered were unique to them and were widely deployed by kings as a means of rewarding service and to cultivate support within the aristocracy and apparatus of royal government. However, while not unique amongst the beneficiaries of royal favour, the great utility royal bastards represented to their legitimate family members and their consistently high level of support and loyalty toward their patrons was a direct result of their participation in a shared dynastic enterprise.

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The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings  175 Royal bastards were of particular use to their legitimate patrons and allies as lieutenants and functionaries specifically because of their status as illegitimate members of the royal family. The increasing legal and social restrictions imposed upon them by their illegitimacy meant they were to an extent dependent upon the goodwill and personal affinity of their legitimate patron for advancement. The nature of their participation in a shared family identity meant that by engaging in royal service they were not only advancing the mutual dynastic interests in which they were invested as family members but also justifying and strengthening their inclusion and intimate royal association. However, as both Geoffrey and William demonstrated in their highly variable relationships with their legitimate family members, royal bastards were not merely unthinking servitors of royal authority. They were, in times of crisis or in cases where they judged that their interests diverged from their patrons, perfectly capable of decisive and independent action. Such breaks were rare, however, since threats to royal authority tended to work in the favour of royal bastards, reminding monarchs of the need for trustworthy lieutenants. Similarly, the wealth and power of English kings during this period meant that the rewards for co-operation with them usually outweighed the losses in authority or autonomy entailed by occasional conflicts of interest. Longespée successfully made such a decisive break from his royal patron because he did so when John was at the very nadir of his authority. To muddle a metaphor, he reaped the rewards of royal service and his personal connection with the king before cashing out and jumping ship when this association became a liability. In contrast, Geoffrey attempted to prevent the leveraging of his appointment as archbishop of York into greater financial access to the archdiocese by his royal half-brother only to be ground down by the conflict.

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Conclusion

A

s we have seen, family and orientation around a familial affinity was of paramount importance to the aristocracy of twelfth-century England and the formation of their political aspirations and sense of personal identity. Familial identity provided a crucial conceptual and social framework within which an aristocrat’s identity was formulated as well as providing the contextual boundaries for their participation in aristocratic networks and affinities.1 The position of an individual’s family relative to these networks of affinity were no less influential for illegitimate members of aristocratic families, royal or otherwise. However, their engagement within these formative identities were complicated by the increasingly codified ramifications of their illegitimacy and the central importance that the retention and mediation of inheritance played within family identity. While shared family political and landed interest were important in orientating an individual within aristocratic networks and fostering a sense of familial affinity, the familial identity built around them was not necessarily monolithic or exclusive, co-existing alongside several other dynastic connections and regional or political affinities. Throughout the twelfth century individual illegitimate royal family members were invested with substantial power and authority by their legitimate family members so that they could better protect and advance their shared dynastic interests. As a result of this strategy, several royal bastards came to occupy prominent positions amongst the aristocratic networks and regional affinities into which they were integrated. These empowered and deputized individuals engaged extensively in royal service and operated as proxies for the king in both military and administrative capacities. Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings positioned their illegitimate relatives within these roles and capitalized upon the existence of these fringe family members in a manner unavailable to other aristocratic families through the use of royal prerogatives and privileges. In functioning as points of connection between the royal family and  prominent aristocratic affinities and participating in royal service,

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Conclusion 177 twelfth-century illegitimate male royal family members occupied a supporting role that, under different dynastic circumstances, could have been occupied by younger legitimate sons. Henry I’s paucity of additional legitimate heirs and the perceived need to fulfil this supporting role is almost certainly the reason the king provided his two eldest illegitimate sons, Robert and Richard, with extensive educations and lucrative engagements to heiresses while overlooking many of their younger brothers.2 Bereft of a legitimate male heir and mired in a dynastic and diplomatic crisis following the death of his heir, William Ætheling, Henry I turned to his eldest illegitimate son, Robert, raising him to the specifically created earldom of Gloucester. Henry I’s promotion of his eldest illegitimate son at a time of political crisis endowed Robert with both increased means and motivation to align himself with his legitimate family in the protection of their shared dynastic interests. However, the king clearly did not view Robert as a potential heir, regardless of his inclusion within a familial identity and central involvement in the prosecution of royal government. The wider political connections and crucially dynastic prestige afforded by either a potential child of Queen Adeliza, a descendant of Charlemagne, or Empress Matilda, whose mother was a member of the royal house of Wessex, made their candidacy for the throne a far more attractive and viable prospect to Henry I.3 While his royal connections provided Robert a position of prominence within contemporary aristocratic networks and authority through his status as a royal enforcer and intermediary, his illegitimacy relegated him to a position of custodianship within royal family identity. In contrast to his maternal grandfather, Henry  II not only had comparatively fewer illegitimate children but was forced to contend with the aspirations and tensions of his legitimate sons, which he attempted to resolve by integrating them as junior members within a shared dynastic enterprise. However, prior to his sons becoming politically active, the king raised his illegitimate half-brother, Hamelin, to the earldom of Surrey, through marriage to the earldom’s widowed heiress, Isabel de Warenne.4 Hamelin’s empowerment and participation within royal familial political identity came at a time of political instability for the king. Hamelin was effectively substituting for a deceased legitimate relative, stepping into the role envisaged for William within the royal dynastic strategy by supporting his legitimate half-brother and drawing the aristocratic affinities of his earldom into alignment with royal interests. Henry II later

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178  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England received considerable support from his eldest illegitimate son, Geoffrey, an acknowledged and prominent participant within the royal court and the beneficiary of a considerable personal affinity with his father.5 Initially earmarked by his father for a career in the Church, this plan was made untenable because of complications arising from Geoffrey’s illegitimate status and reluctance to engage in the role. Rather than being discarded, however, Geoffrey was promoted directly within the apparatus of royal government, being awarded the position of Chancellor while emerging in a less formal capacity as one of his father’s most prominent military deputies and proxies. Although the lives and careers of the illegitimate children of Kings Richard and John fall largely beyond the scope of this study, their reigns are of great interest as they represent a re-contextualizing of the role played by existing illegitimate family members within royal governance. Geoffrey had initially come to a settlement with Richard, shortly after the latter’s succession to the throne, as a result of which he was awarded the archbishopric of York.6 However, the newly-created archbishop’s robust defence of his position’s rights and reluctance to operate as a royal appendage, eventually brought him into conflict with both his royal halfbrothers. Following his return to England after a lengthy absence, Richard further promoted his illegitimate half-brother, William Longespée, who had been too young to participate within aristocratic society or meaningfully support his legitimate family members during their father’s reign, to the earldom of Salisbury. William subsequently became a central figure in the royal government of his other royal half-brother, John, primarily as a result of his competence, friendship and personal affinity, serving as one of the king’s principal deputies and military commanders.7 The notable exception to this pattern of familial support and close cooperation across the divide of legitimacy, as discussed in the introduction, was King Stephen who made only limited use of his eldest illegitimate son, Gervase. Yet Stephen’s principal rival, Empress Matilda, benefitted from a strong association and political affinity with several of her illegitimate halfbrothers, most notably Robert of Gloucester and Reginald of Cornwall, who constituted much of the committed core of the Angevin party’s powerbase within England. Matilda was ultimately unsuccessful in either securing her own coronation or displacing Stephen.8 It is, however, of the foremost importance to understanding the circumstances of twelfthcentury illegitimate royal family members and their participation within

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Conclusion 179 royal governance, to appreciate that they experienced and exercised the greatest level of political authority and autonomy when their legitimate family members and allies were weakest and most embattled. The position of illegitimate royal daughters within aristocratic society as well as the dynastic and political strategies of their legitimate royal family members is like that of their illegitimate male siblings in that it was heavily dependent upon the political and dynastic context of their legitimate relatives. The primary difference between the two groups of auxiliary family members were the differing, and in the daughters’ case, severely limiting roles in which they were envisaged contributing to the protection and advancement of familial interest within dynastic society. During the reign of Henry I, illegitimate royal daughters were permitted to participate within royal family identity and were active within the royal court. That several of Henry I’s illegitimate daughters formed matches as, or even more, prestigious than Matilda’s marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou suggests that, while Matilda was his heir legitimate, his illegitimate daughters occupied a very similar position within a family dynastic strategy which was by necessity influenced heavily by the contemporary political context. Henry II, in contrast, had a greater supply of legitimate children and far fewer illegitimate daughters. As a result, his legitimate daughters participated within the royal dynastic strategy through prestigious and politically advantageous marriages to other European rulers and princes. Henry II’s acknowledged illegitimate daughters then occupied a position similar to his illegitimate sons on the periphery of royal dynastic policy and aristocratic society. Through the survey and examination of their lives and careers it is apparent that many Anglo-Norman and Angevin illegitimate royal family members served as close allies to their legitimate family members and were intimately involved in royal governance in a wide range of capacities throughout the entirety of this period. The inclusion of royal bastards within royal familial identity was highly conditional and throughout this period there existed a great deal of variance in the extent to which illegitimate royal family members were permitted to participate in, and subsequently benefit from, inclusion in the familial enterprise. As a categorization then, royal bastardy was descriptive rather than prescriptive in that it denoted an individual’s close familial connection to the king and their illegitimate status but did not imply a set function or role within the royal household or wider aristocratic networks. As the

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180  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England twelfth century progressed, the cultural and legal bias against illegitimate individuals became increasingly formalized throughout secular society, but this wider cultural trend did not prevent English kings during this time from manoeuvring their illegitimate family members into advantageous positions or integrating them into existing aristocratic affinities.9 Rather than outweighing the disadvantages and stigma of their illegitimacy, the potential value of illegitimate family members to their legitimate patrons, which was derived from their close familial alignment and personal affinity, was actually enhanced by it. To an extent the position and role of twelfth-century illegitimate royal family members within aristocratic networks and courtly society was fluid, predicated upon the vagaries of royal patronage which was deployed in reaction to the varying political and dynastic circumstances of their legitimate family. This is not to say, however, that those illegitimate royal family members who were permitted to participate within royal family identity and were integrated into aristocratic networks for the benefit of their legitimate family members simply functioned as royal servitors or appendages of a larger dynastic strategy. Royal bastards in the twelfth century, particularly those who had been empowered by their relatives to contribute to a shared dynastic enterprise, could and indeed did pursue their own interests and construct their own powerbases, either in alignment with their relatives or separately from them. In extremis, certain illegitimate royal family members even abandoned their personal and political royal affinities to better secure their own position within aristocratic society. The extensive co-operation between empowered royal bastards and their legitimate patrons throughout the twelfth century is simply the result of the mutually beneficial nature of a close political alignment between family members. This relationship was, of course, inherently balanced in favour of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings but ultimately so were all of their political relationships, including those shared with their principal supporters within the aristocracy and other legitimate members of the royal family. The twelfth century was a period of broad and far-reaching, even dramatic, demographic and social change. In a very direct sense, the codification of illegitimacy as a legal status and the relegation of illegitimate royal family members to the periphery of family identity was a by-product of the systematic re-shaping of aristocratic families and inheritance patterns. These developing trends were granted greater import

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Conclusion 181 and, if you will excuse the pun, legitimacy by its synergetic coalescence with the precepts of reforming movements within a Church which was becoming increasingly insistent, monolithic and hierarchal. Yet, as a result of the formal categorization of royal bastards by the sway and push of these vast society reshaping forces, their now highly-variable careers and status were shaped in part by more elusive and highly personal factors. We have seen through our survey of the lives of the illegitimate family members of twelfth-century England certain patterns in their deployment and use by their royal relatives. But the manner in which these patterns formed has been ad hoc, shaped by the specific demands of the immediate political circumstances and more diffuse matters of familial affinity and personal affection. There existed no real model for the integration of royal bastards or a prearranged and charted route to power for them. The monarchs of twelfthcentury England had no dedicated procedure or administrative process for the empowerment and elevation of favoured illegitimate members of their family. Royal bastards were patronized, incentivized towards cooperation and to an extent controlled through the use of largesse and a broad range of royal legal privileges and prerogatives in much the same manner as other magnates and members of the aristocracy. The difference is simply a matter of degree, lying entirely in the extent to which the basic rewards of royal service were conferred upon them. However, in these scant degrees of difference, in the favouritism, greater devolution of viceregal status and political latitude extended to royal bastards by the royal claimants of twelfth-century England, it is possible to detect the form and parameters of familial affinity. In this narrow space we find loyalty, affection, jealously and love, the very stuff from which family and twelfth-century politics alike were wrought. Looking at it, we cannot help but be aware of the often-elusive human element of history. Juliana attempting to kill her father while outraged and grief-stricken over his judicial mutilation of her children. Robert of Gloucester transferring his loyalty from father to cousin to half-sister in an attempt to maintain his foothold at the heart of royal identity. Geoffrey sitting by the sick bed of Henry II, fretfully considering a future without the father around whom his life revolved. We consider the countless hours of friendship and camaraderie that lay behind King John and William Longespées’ frequent exchanging of gambling debts. The study of the royal bastards of twelfth-century England, nestled in the shadow of the

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182  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England throne, can tell us much about the changing shape of aristocratic society and the mechanisms of royal governance at a crucial turning point in their history. But it also reminds us that the twelfth century in all its tumult and glorious complexity belonged to the bastards every bit as much as it did to their anointed kin.

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Notes Gerald of Wales, Opera Gesta Stephani William of Jumièges, GND William of Malmesbury, GRA

Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum Keefe, The Pipe Roll Evidence Keefe, Feudal Assessment ODNB

Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History PR

RRAN

Giraldi Cambrensis, Opera, eds. J.S. Brewer, J.F. Dimock and G.F. Warner, 8 vols (London, 1861– 1891), cited by volume number

Gesta Stephani, ed. and trans. K.R. Potter and R.H.C. Davis (Oxford 1976)

The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, ed. and trans. E.M.C. van Houts, (Oxford,1992–1995)

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings), ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols (Oxford, 1998) Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford, 1996)

Thomas K. Keefe, ‘King Henry II and the Earls: The Pipe Roll Evidence’, Albion, Volume 13 (1981) p. 191–222 Thomas K. Keefe, Feudal Assessment and the Political Community under Henry II (Berkeley, 1983) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 Vols, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford, 1968–1980) The Great Rolls of the Pipe of the Reigns of Henry the second, 30 vols, (Pipe Roll Society, 1884–1925)

Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, ed. H.W.C Davis, H.A. Cronne and R.H.C. Davis, 4 vol (Oxford, 1913–1969)

Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Henry II and Richard I, Volume 4, ed. Richard Howlett Richard I (London, 1884)

John of Worcester, The Chronicles

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John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, Vol. III, ed. and trans. P. McGurk, (Oxford, 1998)

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184  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Introduction   1.  Peter Latimer, ‘How to Suppress a Rebellion: England 1173–1175’, Rulership and Rebellion in the Anglo-Norman World 1066–1216, eds. Paul Dalton David Luscombe, (Farnham, 2015); John D. Hosler, Henry  II a Medieval Solider at War 1147–1189, (Boston, 2007), p. 185.   2. Gerald of Wales, Opera, IV, p. 368.   3. Martin Aurell, The Plantagenet Empire 1154–1224, trans. David Crouch (London, 2007), p.31; David Luscombe, ‘John of Salisbury and the Courtiers Trifle’. Rulership and Rebellion in the Anglo-Norman World 1066–1216, eds. Paul Dalton and David Luscombe (Farnham, 2015); Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, eds. and trans. C.N.L Brooke & R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), p. 478.   4. Robert B. Patterson, The Earl, The Kings, and The Chronicler: Robert Earl of Gloucester and the Reigns of Henry I and Stephen (Oxford, 2018); William of Malmesbury, GRA, I, p.11; Marion M. Archibald, ‘The Lion Coinage of Robert Earl of Gloucester and William Earl of Gloucester’, British Numismatics Society, 71 (2000), p. 76.   5.  The Complete Peerage, ed. Geoffrey H. White. Appendix D, Volume XI, (London, 1949).   6. Conor McCarthy, Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice, (Woodbridge, 2004); James A. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), p. 179; Elisabeth van Houts, Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900–1300, (Oxford, 2019).   7. Catherine Hanley, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (New Haven, 2019); Patterson, The Earl, The Kings, and the Chronicler.    8. Kathleen Thompson, ‘Affairs of State: The Illegitimate Children of Henry I’, Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), p. 152.   9.  Alice Curteis and Chris Given-Wilson, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984).  10. Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics In Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 2020).  11. Sara McDougall, Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy 800–1230 (Oxford, 2017).  12. Emma Mason, Westminster Abbey and its People 1050–1216, (Woodbridge,1996), p. 37. Chapter 1: Henry I and the Changing Shape of Family   1. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 116.   2. Ibid.   3.  Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History; William of Jumièges, GND, Vol. I; William of Poitiers, The Gesta Guillelmi, eds. and trans. Elisabeth van Hout and R.H.C. Davis (Oxford, 1998).    4. Elisabeth Van Houts, ‘Orderic and his Father, Odelerius’ in Charles C. Rozier, Daniel roach, Giles E.M. Gasper, Elisabeth Van Houts, eds., Orderic Vitalis: Life, Works and Interpretations, (Woodbridge,20016), p. 17; Chibnall, The World of Orderic Vitalis, p. 1.   5. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Vol I, p. 382.   6. Gregory of Nyssa, 17, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, ed. and trans. Anna M. Silvas, (Leiden,2007), p. 115.   7. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, p. 84.   8. St Augustine, On Marriage and Sexuality, trans. Elizabeth Clark (Washington D.C., 1997), p. 14.   9. Jerome, Epistolae 22,19, Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris,1841–65), vol 22 col. 406.  10. Laura Wertheimer, The Ecclesiastical Construction of Illegitimacy in the Middle Ages (Santa Barbara, 2000), p. 40.  11. Suger of Saint Denis, The deeds of Louis the Fat, trans. Richard Cusimano and John Moorland (Washington D.C. 1992), p. 40.

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Notes 185  12. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, p. 140.  13. Ibid.  14. Steven Vanderputten, Imagining Religious Leadership In the Middle Ages: Richard of SaintVanne and the Politics of Reform, (Ithaca, 2005); John Howe, Church Reform and Social Change In Eleventh-Century Italy, (Philadelphia, 1997); Diane Reilly, ‘Reims, Liege, And Institutional Reform In the Central Middle Ages: Flavius Josephus As A Father of The Church,’ in Steven Vanderputten, Tjamke Snijder, and Jay Diehl, eds., Medieval Liege at the Crossroads of Europe: Monastic Society and Culture 1000–1300 (Turnhout,2017), p. 109; Gerd Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from Tenth to the early Twelfth Century, trans. Timothy Reuter, (Cambridge,1993), p. 91.  15. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, p. 180.  16. N.J.G. Pounds, A History of The English Parish: The Culture of Religion From Augustine to Victoria, (Cambridge, 2000), p. 41.   17. John Howe, ‘The Nobility’s Reform of the Medieval Church’, The American Historical Review, 93 (1988), p.  317; Pauline Stafford, ‘Queens, Nunneries and Reforming Churchmen: Gender Religious Status and Reform in Tenth and Eleventh Century England,’ in Pauline Stafford, ed., Gender, Family and the Legitimation of Power: England from the Ninth to Early Twelfth Century (Liverpool,2006); Georges Duby, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, trans. Barbara Bay, (Chicago, 1983).  18. Jennifer D. Thibodeaux, ‘The Defence of Clerical Marriage: Religious Identity and Masculinity in the Writing of Anglo-Norman Clerics’, in P. H. Calum & Kathrine J. Lewis, eds., Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2013); Leidulf Melve, ‘The Public Debate on Clerical Marriage in the Late Eleventh Century,’ The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 61 (2010), p. 668.  19. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p.7.  20. Christof Roker, Canon Law and the Letters of Ivo of Chartres, (Cambridge, 2007), p. 148.  21. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society, p. 219.  22. Ibid.  23. Laura Wertheimer, The Ecclesiastical Construction of Illegitimacy, p. 92; S. Kuttner and R. Somerville, People Urban II: Collectio Britannica and the Council of Melfi (Oxford, 1996).   24. Kuttner and Somerville, People Urban II.  25. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 126.   26. Ralph de Diceto, Opera Historica, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols, Volume 2, (Rolls Series, 1876), p. 171.  27. Ibid, p. 386.   28. Kathleen G. Cushing, Reform and the Papacy in the Eleventh Century: Spirituality and Social Change (Manchester, 2005), p. 55.  29. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 64.  30. Amy Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire 1000–1200 (Ithaca, 2010), p. 120.  31. Ibid, p. 234.   32. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 249.  33. Paul Webster, King John and Religion, (Woodbridge, 2015), p. 96.   34. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 249.  35.  Kathleen Thompson, ‘Dowry and Inheritance Patterns: Some Examples from the Descendants of King Henry I of England’, Medieval Prosopography, 17 (1996), p. 49.  36. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, VI, p. 98.   37. William of Malmesbury, GRA, Vol I, p. 744.  38. Ibid, Vol I, p. 726.

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186  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England   39. Wertheimer, The Ecclesiastical Construction of Illegitimacy, p. 92.   40. William of Malmesbury, GRA, Vol I, p. 799.  41.  David Crouch, ‘Robert of Gloucester’s Mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire’, Historical Research, 72 (1999), p. 323.  42. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p. 248.   43. Crouch, ‘Robert of Gloucester’s Mother’, p. 339.  44. S.E. Gleason, An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Ages: The Bishopric of Bayeux, 1066– 1204 (Cambridge, 1936), p. 25.   45. William of Malmesbury, GRA, I, p. 799.   46. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 595.  47. Historia Ecclesia Abbendonensis: The History of the church of Abingdon, Volume II ed. and trans by John Hudson, (Oxford, 2007), p. 180.   48. Crouch, ‘Robert of Gloucester’s Mother’, p. 329.  49. Historia Ecclesia Abbendonensis, p. 180.  50. Ibid, p. 53.   51. White, The Complete Peerage.   52. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 146.   53. Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards, p. 72.  54. Annales Cambriae, p. 47.   55. M.T. Flanagan, ‘Meiler fitz Henry (d. 1220)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).  56. Ibid.  57. I.W. Rowlands, ‘The Making of the March: Aspects of the Norman Settlement in Dyfed’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980), pp. 142–57.  58. Eynsham Cartulary, I, ed. H.E. Salter (Oxford, 1907), no 65.   59. W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevens (London, 1817, repr. 1846), p. 251.   60. Crouch, ‘Robert of Gloucester’s Mother’.  61. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, pp. IV, 182; VI, p. 379.  62. Charters of the Redvers Family and The Earldom of Devon 1090–1217, ed. Robert Beaman, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, Vol. 37 (Exeter, 1994), pp 184, 187–8; Cartulary of Launceston Priory (Lambeth Palace MS. 719)., ed. P.L. Hull, (Exeter,1987), p. 188.  63. Curia Regis Rolls of the Reigns of Richard I and John, Preserved in the Public Record Office, Vol. IV. (Stationary House, 1927), p. 186.  64. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, 184, 187–188; Cartulary of Launceston Priory (Lambeth Palace MS), p.23.   65. Calendar of Charter Rolls (London, 1903–1927), II, pp.152–3.   66. Thompson, Affairs of State, p.149.   67. Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 22.  68. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, pp. 184, 187–188; Cartulary of Launceston Priory, p. 719.  69. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, Vol 2, p. 249.  70. Ibid.  71. Nicholas Vincent, Becket’s Murderers, (Canterbury, 2004), p. 14.  72. Ibid.  73. David Crouch, The Beaumont Twins: The Roots and Branches of Power in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1986), p. 6.   74. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 133. Chapter 2: Family, Affinity and Hegemony    1. William of Malmesbury, GRA.    2. William of Jumièges, GND, p. 249.

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Notes 187   3. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 143.   4. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History.   5. Ibid, Volume V Books IX & X, p., X, p. 259.   6. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p. 93.   7. Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin; Theodore Evergates, The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100–1300, (Philadelphia,2007), p.84; Constance Brittain Bouchard, Those of My Blood: Constructing Noble Families In Medieval Francia, (Philadelphia, 2001).    8. Leonine V. Hicks, ‘The Concept of the Frontier in Norman Chronicles: A Comparative Approach’, A. Jotischky and K. Stringer eds., Norman expansion: Connections, Continuities, and Contrasts, c. 1050–1200 (Aldershot, 2013), p.143.   9. William of Jumièges, GND; Emily Albu Hanawalt, ‘Dudo of Saint-Quentin: The Heroic Past imagined’, The Haskins Society Journal, 6 (1995), p. 111.  10. C. Warren Hollister, Henry I (New Haven, 2003), p. 32.  11. David Crouch, ‘Robert of Gloucester’s Mother a, pp. 323–33; Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX & X, p. X, p. 298, p. 440.  12. Hollister, Henry I, p. 49; Gleason, An Ecclesiastical Barony, p. 25.   13. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 147.  14. Patterson, The Earl, The kings and The Chroniclers, p. 12.  15. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 594.  16. David Crouch, ‘Robert, First Earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, 2006).  17. I.J Sanders, English Baronies: A Study of their Origins and Descent 1086–1327 (Oxford, 1960), p. 6.  18. Hollister, Henry I, p. 209.  19. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, Vol 2, p. 249.  20. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX & X, p. 482.  21. Ibid, Volume V Books IX & X, p. 471.   22. Ibid, Volume IV, p. 49.   23. Ibid, Volume IV, p. 49.  24. John Gillingham, The Angevin Empire, (Bloomsbury,2002), p. 4.   25. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 144.   26. Ivo of Chartres, Epistola cclix, in Receuil des Historiens des Gaule et de la France, new edit. Leopold Delisle, vol. XV (Paris, 1878), pp. 167–8 at p. 167.   27. Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards, p. 71.   28. Anselm of Canterbury, Sancti Anselmi Canuariensis Archiepiscopi, Opera Omnia, ed. F.S. Schmitt (Edinburgh,1946–51) epistle 424; Letters of St Anselm of Canterbury, trans Walter Fohlich, (Kalamazoo, 1991), p. 424.  29. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 51.  30. Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225 (Oxford, 2000), p. 133.  31. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX & X, p. X, p. 345.   32. Ibid, Vol. III, p. 345.   33. Ibid, Volume V Books IX & X, p. X, p. 345.  34. Ibid., p. 345.  35. Ibid.  36. Ibid, p. 465.  37. Ibid.   38. Ibid.; C. Warren Hollister, ‘Royal Acts of Mutilation: The Case against Henry  I’,  in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter, 1978), pp. 330–340 p.330.  39. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX & X p. 466.

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188  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England  40. Ibid, p. 467.  41. Ibid, p. 468.   42. Ibid, Volume II Books III & IV, p. 19.  43. Ibid, p.  19; C. Warren Hollister, ‘The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry  I and William of Warenne’, in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques Vol. 3, No. 1 (Summer/1976), pp. 83–91.   44. Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards, p. 68.  45. Kathleen Thompson, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of Perche, (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 56.  46. Cartulaire de l’abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité de Tiron, ed. Lucien Merlet, LXXIV, LXXXVIII; (Chartres, 1883), no. CVI.   47. Thompson, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France, p. 38.   48. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 134.  49. Ibid, p. 144.   50. Judith Green, ‘David I and Henry I’, Scottish Historical Review, 75 (1996), pp. 9 & 14.  51. Ibid, p. 19.   52. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 484.  53. Ibid, p. 484.  54. Ibid, GRA, p. 799.  55. Early Scottish Charters Prior to 1153, ed. and trans. Sir Archibald C Lawrie, (1905) No. XXVI, p. 281.  56. Early Scottish Charters Prior to 1153, No. XLIX, p. 297.  57. Ibid, p.281.  58. Hollister, Henry I, p. 274.   59. Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards, p. 65.   60. R.D. Oram, ‘A family business? Colonisation and Settlement in Twelfth- and ThirteenthCentury Galloway, Scottish Historical Review, 72 (1993), p. 115.  61. Ibid, p. 115.  62. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, II, p. 352, VI, p. 180.   63. Matilda: François Comte, L’Abbaye Toussaint d’Angers des origines à 1330: étude historique et cartulaire (Angers, 1985), no. 61.  64. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, VI, p.  444; Given-Wilson and Curteis, The Royal Bastards, p. 70.   65. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 144.  66. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p.466; Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History Volume II Books III & IV, p. 39; John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p. 146.  67. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, p. 133.   68. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 761.  69. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume II Books III & IV, p. 39; Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p.466.   70. Lois L. Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (New York, 2003).  71. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p.593.  72. Ibid, p. 595.  73. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, p. 28.  74. C. Warren Hollister, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World (London, 1986), p. 117.  75. Kenji Yoshitake, The Place of Government in Transition: Winchester, Westminster and London in the Mid-Twelfth Century (Ashgate, 2016); Rulership and Rebellion in the AngloNorman World 1066–1216, eds. Paul Dalton, David Luscombe (Farnham, 2015), p. 61.   76. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 761.

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Notes 189  77. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume II Books II & IV, p. IV p. 35.  78. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, Vol. III, p. 146.   79. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 53.   80. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 761.   81. Thompson, Affairs of State p. 129.  82. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. iii.   83. Thompson, Affairs of State, p. 144.  84. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 126.  85. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX and X, pp., X & 282. Chapter 3: Crisis and Opportunity   1. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p.  93. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX & X, p. 259.    2. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V, Book X, p. 294; Hollister, Henry I, p. 106.   3. Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland, p. 7.   4. Ibid, p. 9.   5. David Crouch, ‘Athelings, Duces and Comites in Insular Societies, 800–1300’, in J. Peltzer, ed., Rank and Order, 3, The Formation of Aristocratic Elites in Western and Central Europe, 500–1500 (Ostfildern, 2015), pp . 117–30.   6. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume III Books V and VI, p. 300.   7. Garnett, George, Conquered England: Kingship, Succession and Tenure 1066–1166 (Oxford, 2007); Ashe, Laura, ‘The Anomalous King of Conquered England’, in Lynette Mitchell and Charles Melville, eds., Every Inch a King: Comparative Studies of Kings and Kingship in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Leiden, 2012) pp.1–23; Ann Williams, ‘Henry I and the English’, Donald F. Fleming, Janet M. Pope, eds., Henry I and the Anglo-Norman World: Studies in Memory of C Warren Hollister, (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 27–38. at p. 33.   8. ‘St Anselm and the English investiture controversy reconsidered’ Sally. N. Vaughn, Journal of Medieval History Volume 6, March 1980, p.  61; anselmi opera ed. Francis s. Schimttt. (1946), p. 430.    9. William of Jumièges, GND, Vol I, pp. 30; Hanawalt, ‘Dudo of Saint-Quentin’, p.111.  10. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX & X, p. 482.   11. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 761.  12. Hollister, Henry I, p. 204.  13. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 155.  14. Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English, (Oxford, 1991), p. 24.   15. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, pp. iii. & 595.  16. Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland, p. 73.   17. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 294; Patterson., The Earl, The Kings, and the Chronicler.  18. Crouch, ‘Robert, First Earl of Gloucester’, p.  64; Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, VI, p. 428.  19. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, VI, p. 294.  20. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p.  xix; Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V Books IX and X, pp. x & 298.   21. The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, Volume V Books IX & X, pp. x & 298.   22. Thompson, ‘Affairs of State’, p. 129.   23. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 293.  24. Lynn Nelson, The Normans in South Wales 1070–1171 (Houston, 2012), p. 94.   25. RRAN, Volume II, No. 1069.

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190  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England  26. Earldom of Gloucester Charters: The Charters and Scribes of the Earls and Countesses of Gloucester to A.D. 1217, ed. Robert B. Patterson (Oxford, 1973), No.166.  27. Keefe, Feudal Assessment, p. 97.  28. Earldom of Gloucester Charters, p. 4.  29. John of Worcester, The Chronicle, p. 248.  30. Nelson, The Normans in South Wales, p. 94.  31. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, (1901), Volume I, p. 31.  32. Earldom of Gloucester Charters, No. 43.  33. Ibid, No. 283.  34. Ibid, No. 46.   35. Ibid, No. 5.   36. Lewis C. Lloyd, The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, (Baltimore, 1951), p. 88.  37. Earldom of Gloucester Charters, No. 70.  38. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book I, CCXIV p. 350.  39. Earldom of Gloucester Charters, No.84.  40. Ibid, No.199.  41. Ibid, No.171.  42. Ibid.  43. John of Worcester, The Chronicle, p.  988.  44. Earldom of Gloucester Charters, No. 83.   45. Ibid, No. 83.   46. Ibid, No. 163.  47. Patterson, The Earl, The Kings, and the Chronicler, p. 34.  48. Ibid, p. 34.   49. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 51.   50. Symeon of Durham, Libellus de Exordio qtque Proscursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis Ecclesice, ed. David Rollason (Oxford, 2000), p. 312.   51. Stephanie Mooers Christelow, ‘The Fiscal Management of England under Henry I’, in Donald F. Fleming and Janet M. Pope, eds., Henry I and the Anglo-Norman World: Studies in Memory of C Warren Hollister (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 170.  52. Ibid, p. 171.  53. Ibid, p. 172.  54. Patterson, The Earl, The Kings, and the Chronicler, p. 37.  55. Ibid, p. 37.   56. John Reuben Davies, The Book of Llandaff and the Norman Church in Wales (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 54.   57. William M. Aird, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, 1050–1134 (Woodbridge, 2008), p. 277.  58. Ibid, p. 277.   59. RRAN, No. 1042.   60. Diceto, Opera Historica, p. 246; Roger of Howden, Chronica magistri Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols (London, 1868–1871), Volume 1, Volume 1, p. 187.   61. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 51; Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V, X, p. 345.  62. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V, X, p. 63.  63. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume V, X, VI, p. 166.   64. Gesta Stephani, p. 12.   65. William of Malmesbury, GRA, I, p. 438.

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Notes 191   66. John Howe, ‘The Nobility’s Reform of the Medieval Church’, The American Historical Review, 93 (1988), pp.317–339 Ruth Mazo Karra, ‘Marriage, Concubinage, and the Law,’ in Ruth Mazo Karras, Joel Kaye, E. Ann Matte, eds., Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe, (Philadelphia, 2008), p.117.   67. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 124.  68. Ibid, p. 127.   69. William of Malmesbury, GRA; Marion M. Archibald ‘The Lion Coinage of Robert Earl of Gloucester, p. 76.  70. Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin, p. 208. Chapter 4: The Anarchy    1. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 51.    2. Crouch, ‘Robert, First Earl of Gloucester’.   3. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 702.    4. Crouch, ‘Robert, First Earl of Gloucester’.   5. Ibid.   6. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p.722.    7. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 42.   8. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p.722.   9. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p. 272.   10. Archibald ‘The Lion Coinage of Robert Earl of Gloucester’, p. 76.   11. Crouch, ‘Robert, First Earl of Gloucester’.   12. William of Jumièges, GND, p. 141.  13. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p. 298.   14. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 71.  15. Ibid, p. 75.  16. Gesta Stephani, p.144.  17. Ibid, p. 206.  18. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle (Paris, 1916), Book II, DCLXX, p. 284.   19. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 49.  20. A Calendar, ed. P.L. Hull, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, New Series, Vol. 30, (1987), p. 188; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi ed. W. Stubbs, (London, 1867), Vol I, p. 172.  21. David Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen 1135–1154 (London, 2000), p. 49.  22. Gesta Stephani, p. 16.  23. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, IV, p.182; VI, p. 510.  24. Gesta Stephani, p. 14.  25. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume III Books V and VI, p. 510.   26. William of Malmesbury, GRA, Volume II, p. 562.  27. Crouch,King Stephen, p. 115.  28. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, p .64.  29. Gesta Stephani, p. 100.  30. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 724.  31. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, p. 272; Gesta Stephani, p. 102.  32. John of Worcester, The Chronicles, Vol. III, p. 179.  33. Crouch, King Stephen, p. 217.  34. Ibid, p. 240.  35. RRAN, Volume III, no. 795, p. 666.  36. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book I, VI, p. 10.

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192  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England   37. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 200.  38. RRAN, III, no. 796.  39. Keefe, Feudal Assessment, p. 99.  40. Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, eds. James C. Robertson & J. B. Shepard, (London, 1876), p. 16.  41. Frank Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, 1986), p. 230.   42. Keefe Pipe Roll Evidence, p. 195.  43. Ibid.   44. PR, XII, p. 129.   45. PR, XXI p. 93.  46. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, Vol. 37, Appendix II, p. 11.  47. Gesta Stephani, p. 102.  48. Ibid.  49. PR, XII, p. 129.  50. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, Vol. 37, Appendix II 15a, 15b.  51. Gesta Stephani, p. 32.  52. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume III Books V &VI, VI, p.510.  53. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, Vol. 37, p. 12.   54. Ibid, Appendix II 15b.  55. Keefe, Feudal Assessment, p. 35.   56. Judith Green, ‘Family Matters: Family and the Formation of the Empress’s Party in South-West England’, in Katharine Keats-Rohan, ed., Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: The Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 147–64 at p. 147.  57. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, Vol. 37 Appendix II, No. 15a.  58. Kathleen Thompson,’ de Dunstanvilles’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).  59. Ibid.  60. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, Vol. 37, No. 46, No. 47.   61. Ibid, Appendix II 15a 15b.  62. Cartulary of Launceston Priory (Lambeth Palace MS. 719)., ed. P.L. Hull, (Exeter,1987), ff.16v-17r, No. 27.   63. Ibid, No. 539.   64. Ibid, Nos. 541, 542.   65. Cornwall Records Office, Brtru/1.  66. Ibid.   67. Williams, ‘Henry I and the English’, pp. 27–38. at p. 33.   68. William of Jumièges, GND, 2, p. 51.  69. PR, p. 152.  70. RRAN, Volume III, Nos. 43, 274, 275, 277, 393,400, 618, 634 & 699.  71. Sanders, English Baronies, p. 69.  72. Beaman, Charters of the Redvers Family, p. 9.  73. R.H.C. Davis, King Stephen 1135–1154 (London, 1990), pp. 125–8.  74. David Crouch, The English Aristocracy 1070–1272: A Social Transformation (New Haven, 2011), p. 41.  75. Ibid, p. 43.   76. Keefe, Pipe Roll Evidence, p. 193.   77. Graeme J. White, ‘Earls and Earldoms during King Stephen’s Reign’, in Diana E.S. Dunn, ed., War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (Liverpool, 2000), p. 78.  78. Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, p. 598.

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Notes 193  79. Crouch, The Beaumont Twins; C. Warren Hollister, Henry I, (New Haven, 2003), p. 173.   80. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 294.  81. R.R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415 (Oxford, 1987), p. 41.   82. White, ‘Earls and Earldoms’, p. 75.  83. Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 77.  84. Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. vii.  85. George Garnett, Conquered England: Kingship, Succession and Tenure 1066–1166 (Oxford, 2007), p. 67.  86. Geoffrey Barraclough, The Charter of The Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester 1071–1237, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (Liverpool,1988), p. 57.  87. Hollister, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World, p. 233; Judith A. Green, The Government of England Under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986), p. 38.   88. White, ‘Earls and Earldoms’, p. 84.  89. RRAN, Volume III, Nos. 204, 949.  90. Crouch, English Aristocracy, p. 41.  91. Richard Oram, David I: The King Who Made Scotland (Stroud, 2004), p. 121.  92. Hollister, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World, p. 117.  93. Ibid, p. 126.   94. White, ‘Earls and Earldoms’, p. 85.  95. Marjorie Chibnall, ‘The Charters of the Empress Matilda’, in George Garnett and John Hudson, eds., Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, , (Cambridge,1994) p. 276; Hanley, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior, p. 131.  96. RRAN Volume III, No. 393.   97. Ibid, Nos. 274, 275, 393.   98. White, ‘Earls and Earldoms’, p. 84.  99. Ibid. 100. Waltham Chronicle, eds. L Watkiss and M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1994), p. 76. 101. Nicholas Vincent, ‘Did Henry  II Have a Policy Toward the Earls?’, in Chris GivenWilson, Anna Kettle and Len Scales War, Government and Aristocracy within the British Isles: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich (Woodbridge, 2008). p. 17. 102. Thompson, ‘Affairs of State’, p. 150. 103. Gesta Stephani, p. 116. 104. David Crouch, King Stephen, p. 306. 105. Gesta Stephani, p. 150. 106. Keefe, ‘The Pipe Roll Evidence’, p. 195. Chapter 5: Royal Bastards in the Reign of Henry II    1. William of Malmesbury, GRA, p. 200.   2.  Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, p. 64.   3. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book I, LXV, p. 72   4.  RRAN, III, no. 796.   5. Ibid, no. 709.   6. Garnett, Conquered England, p. 299.    7. Vincent, ‘Did Henry II Have a Policy Toward the Earls?’, p. 5.   8.  Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book I, XLV,p. 144, LII, p. 153, LXXVI p. 180, CXVI, p. 220 CCXXVII p. 367 CCXII, p.461,

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194  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England   9. Gervase of Canterbury, Opera Historica, 2 vols, ed. William Stubbs, Vol 1 (London, 1879), pp. 151–71.  10. Materials for the History of Archbishop Thomas Becket, ed. James Craigie Robertson, 7 vols Vol. II (London, 1885), p. 389.  11. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book I, CCCXII, p. 461.   12. Ralph de Diceto, The Historical Works, p. 209.  13. Crouch, English Aristocracy, p. 74.   14. Keefe, Pipe Roll Evidence’, p. 203.   15. Keefe, Pipe Roll Evidence, p. 203.  16. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, p. 164.   17. Keefe, Pipe Roll Evidence, p. 203.   18. Nick Barret, ‘Finance and Economy in the Reign of Henry II’, in Christopher HarperBill, and Nicholas Vincent, eds., Henry  II: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, 2007), pp.242–56. at p. 254.  19. Keefe, Feudal Assessment, p. 117.   20. Barret, ‘Finance and Economy in the Reign of Henry II’, p. 254.   21. Keefe, Pipe Roll Evidence, p. 199.  22. Keefe, Feudal Assessment.   23. RaGena C. DeAragon, ‘Dowager Countesses 1069–1230’, Anglo-Norman Studies, XVII (1998), p. 96.  24. Crouch, King Stephen, p. 161.  25. Materials for the History of Archbishop Thomas Becket, p. 389.  26. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, Vol 4, p. 221.  27. Early Yorkshire Charters, Volume 8 of 30, The Honour of Warenne, eds. William Farrer and Charles Travis Clay (Cambridge, 2013), Volume 8, p. 15.   28. ‘Calendar of Royal Documents: Henry II (nos. 122–39)’, in Westminster Abbey Charters, 1066 - c.1214, ed. Emma Mason, London Record Society, 25 (1988), pp. 68–75.  29. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book I, CCCCXXVI, p. 556.  30. Ibid, p. 557.   31. Ralph de Diceto, The Historical Works, p. 145.   32. William of Jumièges, GND, 4, p. 145.  33. Matthew Strickland, Henry the Young King 1155–1183, (New Haven, 2016), p. 133.  34. The Itinerary of King Richard I: With Studies on Certain Matters of Interest Connected with His Reign, ed. Lionel Landon, (Pipe Roll Society, 1935).   35. Ralph de Diceto, Opera Historica, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols, Volume 2, (Rolls Series, 1876), p. 171.  36. The Itinerary of King Richard I.  37. Ibid.  38. Howden, Chronica magistri, p. 87.   39. Ibid, Volume 8, p. 87.  40. Strickland, The Young King, p. 69.  41. Ibid, p. 69.   42. Sean Duffy, ‘Henry II and England’s Insular Neighbours,’ Henry II: New Interpretations, Nicholas Vincent, Christopher Harper-Bill, eds., (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 1.   43. ‘Charters of the Earldom of Hereford, 1095–1201’, Camden Miscellany, XXII, ed. D. Walker (Cambridge,1964), p. 45.  44. The English Register of Godstow Nunnery, Early English Text Society, ed. A. Clark (London,1911), p. 129.

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Notes 195   45. Joshua Bryon Smith, Walter Map and the Matter of Britain (Pennsylvania,2017), p. 4.  46. Gerald of Wales, Opera.   47. John Reuben Davies, The Book of Llandaff and the Norman Church in Wales (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 53.  48. David Crouch, William Marshal: Court, Career and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire: 1147–1219 (Harlow,1990), p. 139.   49. David Crouch, ‘Bloet, Nest (d. 1224/5)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2008).  50. Durham Annals and Documents of the Thirteenth century, ed. F. Barlow, (Durham, 1945), p. 155.   51. P. C. Reed, ‘Countess Ida, Mother of William Longespée, Illegitimate Son of Henry II’, American Genealogist, 77 (2002), p. 279.  52. Sanders, English Baronies, p. 117.  53. Gerald of Wales, Opera, I, p. 130.  54. Marc Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century, (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 3.   55. Reed, ‘Countess Ida, Mother of William Longespée, Illegitimate Son of Henry II’, p. 137.  56. D ugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, p. 437.   57. Webster, King John and Religion, p. 95.   58. Marie Lovatt, ‘Archbishop Geoffrey of York: A Problem in Anglo-French Maternity’, in Nicholas Vincent, ed., Records Administration and Aristocratic Society in the Anglo-Norman Realm (Woodbridge, 2009, p. 95.  59. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle (Paris,1916), Book II, DLVII, p. 138. Chapter 6: The Devil’s Brood and their Illegitimate Siblings   1. Stephen Morillio, Warfare Under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1068–1135, (Woodbridge, 1997), p. 28; P. Latimer, ‘How to Suppress a Rebellion: England 1173–74’ in Paul Dalton and David Luscombe, eds., Rulership and Rebellion in the Anglo-Norman World 1066– 1216, eds. (Farnham, 2015), p. 61.   2. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, Volume III Books V and VI, p. 104.   3.  Maire Lovatt, ‘The Career and Administration of Geoffrey Archbishop of York 1151–1212’ (PhD Diss, University of Cambridge, 1974).   4. Map, De Nugis Curialium, p. 479.   5. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 126.   6.  Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle (Paris,1916), Book II, DLVII, p. 138.   7. The Personnel of the Norman Cathedrals during the Ducal Period, 911–1204. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae. London: Institute of Historical Research, David S. Spear (2006).    8. Greenway, Diana E. (1999). Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6, . Institute of Historical Research.   9.  Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle (Paris,1916), Book II, DCX, p.216, DCCXLI, p. 372, DCCXLII, p. 373, DCCXLV, p. 378 DCCXLVI, p. 382.   10. Lovatt, ‘Career and Administration of Geoffrey’.   11. John D. Cotts, The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century (Washington D.C, 2009), p. 49.  12. Ibid.  13. Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces françaises et les affaires de France, ed. Léopold Delisle, Book II, DCXI, p. 218.

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196  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England  14. M. Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005); Reed, ‘Countess Ida, Mother of William Longespée, Illegitimate Son of Henry  II’, pp. 137–49.   15. William of Jumièges, GND, Vol. I, p. 47.  16. Robert William Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II: Instancing also the Chief Agents and Adversaries of the King in his Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy (London, 1815–1881).  17. Rotuli Litterarum Clausaurm, 2 vols, RC, ed. T.D. Hardy (London,1833–4) vol. 2. p. 71.  18. Elizabeth Hallam, Capetian France 987–1328, (London, 2001), p. 172.   19. B. W. Holden, ‘The Balance of Patronage: King John and the Earl of Salisbury’, Haskins Society Journal, 8 (1996), pp. 79–89.  20. Stephen Church, King John: England, Magna Carta and the Making of a Tyrant, (London, 2015), p. 4.  21. Hallam, Capetian France, p. 162.  22. Ibid, p. 182.  23. Ibid.  24. The History of William Marshal, ed. Nigel Bryant, (Woodbridge, 2018), p. 196.  25. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, p. 293.  26. Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk, p. 3.  27. Gillingham, Richard I, p. 287.  28. The History of William Marshal, p. 182.   29. Matthew Strickland, ‘Longespée, William Third Earl of Salisbury (b. in or before 1167, d.1126’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).  30.  Christopher Harper-Bill, ‘John and the Church of Rome’, in King John: New Interpretations, S.D. Church ed. (Woodbridge, 1999), pp.289–315 at p. 302.  31. Ibid, p. 309.   32. ‘Charters of the Earldom of Hereford, 1095–1201’, ed. D. Walker, Camden Miscellany, XXII (London, 1964), p. 4.  33. The Cartulary of Bradenstoke Priory, ed, Vera C.M. London, Wiltshire Roll Series, 35 (Devizes,1979), p. 34.  34. Michael Aston and Glyn Coppack, Christ’s Poor Men: The Carthusians in England (Kalamazoo, 2002), p. 33.  35. Aston and Coppack, Christ’s Poor Men, p. 30.  36. David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A history of its Development from the Times of St Dunstand to the Fourth Lateran Council 940–1216 (Cambridge, 1940), p. 375.  37. Ibid.   38. B. W. Holden, ‘The Balance of Patronage: King John and the Earl of Salisbury’, Haskins Society Journal, 8, pp. 79–89 at p. 83.  39. Ibid, p. 79.  40. John Sabapathy, Officers and Accountability in Medieval England 1170–1300 (Oxford, 2014), p. 121.   41. David A. Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (Berkeley, 1990), p. 69.   42. Reed, ‘Countess Ida, Mother of William Longespée, Illegitimate Son of Henry II’, pp. 137–49 at p. 143.  43. Strickland, ‘Longespée’.  44. Ibid.  45. Hallam, Capetian France, p. 205. Conclusion   1. Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin, p. 27.   2. Patterson, The Earl, The Kings, and The Chronicler, p. 11.

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Notes 197   3. McDougall, Royal Bastards, p. 125.   4. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I., p. 221.   5. Map, De Nugis Curialium, p. xxiv, p. 478.   6. Gerald of Wales, Opera, IV, p. 368.   7. Robert of Torigni, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I. p. 189.    8. Judith Green, ‘Family Matters: Family and the Formation of the Empress’ Party in South-West England’, in Katharine Keats-Rohan, ed., Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: The Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 147–64 at p. 149.   9. R.H Helmholtz., ‘Bastard Litigation in Medieval England’, The American Journal of Legal History, 13 (1969), pp.360–83 at p. 368.-

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202  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England ——, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986) Hanley, Catherine, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (New Haven, 2019) Hallam, Elizabeth, Capetian France 987–1328, (London, 2001) Hanawalt, Emily Albu, ‘Dudo of Saint-Quentin: The Heroic Past imagined’, The Haskins Society Journal, 6 (1995) Harper-Bill, Christopher, John and the Church of Rome’, in S. D. Church, ed., King John: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, 1999) Helmholz, R.H., ‘Bastard Litigation in Medieval England’, The American Journal of Legal History, 13 (1969) ——, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1974) Hicks, Leonie, ‘The Concept of the Frontier in Norman Chronicles: A Comparative Approach’, in A. Jotischky and K. Stringer, eds., Norman expansion: Connections, Continuities, and Contrasts, c. 1050–1200 (London, 2013) Holden, B. W., ‘The balance of Patronage: King John and the Earl of Salisbury’, Haskins Society Journal, 8 (1996) Hollister, C. Warren, Henry I, (New Haven, 2003) ——, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World (London, 1986) ——, ‘Royal Acts of Mutilation: The Case against Henry I’, in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter, 1978) ——,  ‘The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry  I and William of Warenne’,  in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques Vol. 3, No. 1 (Summer/1976) Hosler, John D., Henry II a Medieval Solider at War 1147–1189, (Boston, 2007) Houts, Elisabeth van, ‘Intermarriage in Eleventh-Century England’, in D. Crouch and K. Thompson, eds., Normandy and its Neighbours. Essays in Honour of David Bates (Turnhout, 2011) ——, Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900–1300, (Oxford, 2019) ——, ‘Orderic and his Father, Odelerius’, in Charles C. Rozier, Daniel Roach, Giles E.M. Gasper, Elisabeth van Houts, eds., Orderic Vitalis: Life, Works and Interpretations (Woodbridge, 2016) ——, ‘The Origins of Herleva, Mother of William the Conqueror’, The English Historical Review, 101 (1986) Howe, John, Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh Century Italy (Philadelphia, 1997) ——, ‘The Nobility’s Reform of the Medieval Church’, The American Historical Review, 93 (1988) Hudson, John, The Formation of the English Common Law: Law and Society in England from King Alfred to Magna Carta (London, 2014) Huneycutt, Lois L., Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Woodbridge, 2003) Janin, Hunt, Medieval Justice: Cases and Laws in France, England and German 500–1500 ( Jefferson, 2004) Johns, Susan M., Gender, Nation and Conquest in the High Middle Ages: Nest of Deheubarth (Manchester, 2013) ——, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm, (Manchester, 2003) Karra, Ruth Mazo, ‘Marriage, Concubinage, and the Law,’ in Ruth Mazo Karras, Joel Kaye, E. Ann Matte, eds., Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe, (Philadelphia, 2008) Keefe, Thomas K., ‘King Henry II and the Earls: The Pipe Roll Evidence’, Albion, 13 (1981) ——, Feudal Assessment and the Political Community under Henry II (Berkeley, 1983) ——, ‘Warenne, Hamelin de, Earl of Surrey [Earl Warenne] (d. 1202)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)

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Bibliography 203 Knowles, David, The Monastic Order in England: A History of its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council 940–1216 (Cambridge, 2004) Kuttner, S. and R. Somerville, People Urban II: Collectio Britannica and the Council of Melfi (Oxford, 1996) Latimer, P., ‘How to Supress a Rebellion: England 1173–74’, in Paul Dalton and David Luscombe, eds., Rulership and Rebellion in the Anglo-Norman World 1066–1216 (Farnham, 2015) Livingstone, Amy, Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire 1000–1200 (Ithaca, 2010) Lloyd, Lewis C., The Origins of some Anglo-Norman Families, (Baltimore, 1951) Lovatt, Marie, ‘Archbishop Geoffrey of York: A Problem in Anglo-French Maternity’, in Nicholas Vincent, ed., Records Administration and Aristocratic Society in the Anglo-Norman Realm (Woodbridge, 2009) ——, ‘The Career and Administration of Geoffrey Archbishop of York 1151?-1212’ (PhD Diss, University of Cambridge, 1974) Luscombe, David, ‘John of Salisbury and the Courtiers Trifle’ in Paul Dalton and David Luscombe, eds., Rulership and Rebellion in the Anglo-Norman World 1066–1216 (Farnham, 2015) Mason, Emma, Westminster Abbey and its People 1050–1216 (Woodbridge, 1996) Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, eds. James C. Robertson & J. B. Shepard, (London, 1876) McCarthy, Conor, Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice, (Woodbridge, 2004) McDougall, Sara, Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy 800–1230 (Oxford, 2017) Melve, Leidulf, ‘The Public Debate on Clerical Marriage in the Late Eleventh Century,’ The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 61 (2010) Morillio, Stephen, Warfare Under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1068–1135 (Woodbridge, 1997) Morris, M., The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005) Nelson, Lynn H., The Normans in South Wales, 1070–1171 (Houston, 2012) Oram, Richard D., ‘A Family Business? Colonisation and Settlement in Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Galloway’, Scottish Historical Review, 72 (1993) ——, David I: The King who Made Scotland (Stroud, 2004) Patterson, Robert B., The Earl, The Kings, and the Chronicler: Robert Earl of Gloucester and the Reigns of Henry I and Stephen, (Oxford, 2018) ——, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Robert of Gloucester: A Re-evaluation of the Historia Novella’, American Historical Review, 70 (1964) Pounds, N.J.G., A History of The English Parish: The Culture of Religion from Augustine to Victoria (Cambridge, 2000) Prestwich, J.O., ‘The Military Household of the Norman Kings’, in Matthew Strickland, ed., Anglo-Norman Warfare: Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Military Organisation and Warfare (Woodbridge, 1991) Reed, P. C., ‘Countess Ida, Mother of William Longespée, Illegitimate Son of Henry  II’, American Genealogist, 77 (2002) Reilly, Diane, ‘Reims, Liege and Institutional Reform in the Central Middle Ages: Flavius Josephus As A Father of The Church,’ in Steven Vanderputten, Tjamke Snijder, and Jay Diehl, eds., Medieval Lieges at the Crossroads of Europe: Monastic Society and Culture 1000– 1300 (Turnhout, 2017) Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997) Roker, Christof, Canon Law and the Letters of Ivo of Chartres (Cambridge, 2007) Rorem, Paul, Hugh of Saint Victor (Oxford, 2009)

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204  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Rowlands, I.W., ‘The Making of the March: Aspects of the Norman Settlement in Dyfed’, Anglo-Norman Studies, III (1980) Sabapathy, John, Officers and Accountability in Medieval England 1170–1300 (Oxford, 2014) Sanders, I.J., English Baronies: A Study of their Origins and Descent 1086–1327 (Oxford, 1960) Matthew Strickland, Henry the Young King 1155–1183, (New Haven, 2016) Smith, Joshua Bryon, Walter Map and the Matter of Britain (Philadelphia, 2017) Stafford, Pauline, ‘Queens, Nunneries and Reforming Churchmen: Gender Religious Status and Reform in Tenth and Eleventh Century England,’ Pauline Satfford, ed., Gender, Family and the Legitimation of Power: England from the Ninth to Early Twelfth Century (Liverpool, 2006) Strickland, Matthew, Henry the Young King 1155–1183, (New Haven, 2016) ——, ‘Longespée, William Third Earl of Salisbury (b. in or before 1167, d.1126’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) Tellenbach, Gerd, The Church in Western Europe from Tenth to the early Twelfth Century, trans. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge, 1993) Thibodeaux, Jennifer D., ‘The Defence of Clerical Marriage: Religious Identity and Masculinity in the Writing of Anglo-Norman Clerics’, P. H. Calum & Kathrine J. Lewis, eds., Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2013) Thomas, H. M., Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs: The Gentry of Angevin Yorkshire, 1154– 1216 (1993) Thompson, Kathleen, ‘Affairs of State: The Illegitimate Children of Henry  I’, Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003). ——, ‘de Dunstanvilles’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) ——, ‘Dowry and Inheritance Patterns: Some Examples from the Descendants of King Henry I of England’, Medieval Prosopography 17 (1996) ——, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of Perche, (Woodbridge, 2002) Turner, Ralph V., Judges, Administrator and Common Law (London, 1994) Vanderputten, Steven, Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages: Richard of SaintVanne and the Politics of Reform, (Ithaca, 2005) Villegas-Aristizábal, Lucas, Norman and Anglo-Norman Participation in the Iberian Reconquista, c.1018–c.1248 (PhD thesis, University of Nottingham) Vincent, Nicholas, Becket’s Murders, (Canterbury, 2004) ——, ‘Did Henry II Have a Policy Toward the Earls?’, in Chris Given-Wilson, Anna Kettle, and Len Scales, eds., War, Government and Aristocracy within the British Isles: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich (Woodbridge, 2008) ——, Records, Administration and Aristocratic Society in the Anglo-Norman Realm (Woodbridge, 2009) Warren, W.L., Henry II (University of California Press, 1977) Waugh, Scott. L., The Lordship of England: Royal Wardships and Marriages in English Society and Politics (New Jersey,1988) Webster, Paul, King John and Religion, (Woodbridge, 2015) Wertheimer, Laura, The Ecclesiastical Construction of Illegitimacy in the Middle Ages (Santa Barbara, 2000) ‘When Did Robert of Torigni First Receive Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, and Why Does It Matter?’, The Haskins Society Journal, 26 (2014) White, Graeme J., ‘Earls and Earldoms during King Stephen’s Reign’, in Diana E.S. Dunn, ed., War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (Liverpool, 2000) Williams, Ann, ‘Henry I and the English’, Donald F. Fleming &, Janet M. Pope, eds., Henry I and the Anglo-Norman World: Studies in Memory of C Warren Hollister (Woodbridge, 2007) Yoshitake, Kenji, The Place of Government in Transition: Winchester, Westminster and London in the Mid-Twelfth Century (Farnham, 2016)

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Index Adeliza, illegitimate daughter of Henry I 37 Adeliza, mother of Sybil Corbet  26 Adeliza of Louvain, second wife of Henry I  66, 77, 90, 114, 177 Ademar, viscount of Limoges  128 Alan, earl of Richmond  106 Alexander III, Pope  150 Alexander II, Pope  4 Alexander, King of Scotland  27, 48–9 Alfonso VII, King of Castile  137 Alice Corbet, aunt of Reginald of Cornwall 25 Aline, illegitimate daughter of Henry I 51 Alys, Princess  141 Ansfride, mistress of Henry I  22 Augustine of Hippo  7–8 Baldwin de Redvers, earl of Devon  69, 94, 98, 114, 127 Beatrice, wife of Reginald of Cornwall  96 Berengaria, wife of Richard I  166 Bertrade de Montfort, married to Philip I 7 Bourgthéroulde, Battle of  74 Bouvines, Battle of  166 Brémule, Battle of  64 Bristol Castle  21, 69, 124 Calixitus II, Pope  75 Carthusian, order of monks  171 Conan III, duke of Brittany  51 Conisbrough, Castle  131, 135 Constance, duchess of Brittany, wife of Geoffrey, legitimate son of Henry II 149 Constance, illegitimate daughter of Henry I  18, 37, 51 Council of Northampton  124, 131

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David, King of Scotland  84 Denise, legitimate daughter of Reginald of Cornwall  103, 127 Edith Forne, mistress of Henry I  24 Ela, countess, wife of William Longespée  164, 168 Eleanor, legitimate daughter of Henry II & Queen of Castile  137 Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II  vi, 120–1, 138, 148 Eustace de Bréteuil  44–6, 63, 78 Fontevraud, Treaty of  132 Fulk, illegitimate son of Henry I  22 Fulk V, count of Anjou  60 Geoffrey, archdeacon of Hereford  54 Geoffrey, count of Anjou  20, 51, 78, 85, 89, 91, 118–19, 130, 134, 163 Geoffrey, count of Nantes, legitimate brother of Henry II  131 Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex 113–14 Geoffrey, illegitimate son of Henry II  vii, xvi, 9, 139, 142, 144, 147, 158, 175, 178 Geoffrey, legitimate son of Henry II  136, 149 Gerald de Windsor, castellan of Pembroke castle 23 Gervase, Abbot of Westminster, illegitimate son of King Stephen  xvi Gilbert, illegitimate son of Henry I  18, 32 Gisors, Battle of  164 Gregory of Nyssa  6 Gregory VII, Pope  9 Hamelin de Warenne, earl of Surrey, illegitimate half-brother of

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206  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Henry II  vii, 128, 130–5, 137, 143, 148, 163, 167, 177 Henry, Bishop of Winchester, younger brother of King Stephen  86, 90, 152 Henry de Bohun, earl of Hereford  170, 172 Henry Fitzroy, illegitimate son of Henry I 23 Henry I  viii, xiii, xvi, 4, 13, 16, 18–19, 22–3, 26–7, 30–2, 35, 37, 41, 43–6, 50–1, 55, 57–9, 61, 64–5, 68, 72, 76, 78–9, 84–5, 88, 92–3, 96, 99, 106, 109, 111, 141, 146, 177, 179 Henry II  vi–vii, xiv, 9, 25, 50, 61, 68, 70, 79, 92, 100, 105, 115–16, 118, 121, 123, 125, 127–8, 131, 135–9, 141–2, 146–7, 149, 151, 153, 155–6, 162–3, 171, 173, 177, 179 Henry III  174 Henry, illegitimate son of Reginald of Cornwall 128 Henry, the Young King, legitimate son of Henry II  136, 141, 148 Henry V, Emperor, husband of Empress Matilda 62 Herleva, mother of William the Conqueror 5 Honour of Eye  85, 169 Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury 161 Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk  113, 125, 141 Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham and co-Justicar of England  132, 160 Hugh, lord of Châteauneuf-enThymerais 42 Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln  150, 160, 171 Ida de Tosny, mistress of Henry II  141, 162 Innocent III, Pope  169 Iorwerth ab Owain, father of Nest, mistress of Henry II  139 Isabel de Beaumont, mistress of Henry I  28, 112, 141 Isabel de Warenne, wife of Hamelin de Warenne  131, 133

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Isabel, illegitimate daughter of Henry I 28 Isabella, countess of Gloucester, wife of King John  140 Ivo, Bishop of Chartres  8, 43 Joan, legitimate daughter of Henry II and Queen of Sicily  132, 137 Joan, legitimate daughter of Reginald of Cornwall 128 Jocelin, Bishop of Salisbury  72 John, King of England  viii, xvi, 18, 128, 132, 136, 140, 152, 158, 164–6, 168, 170, 173, 178 Juliana, illegitimate daughter of Henry I  18, 22, 44, 46 Lincoln, Battle of  97, 173 Louis VII, King of France  vi, 52, 120, 150 Louis VI, King of France  51–2, 59, 64 Lucius III, Pope  154 Lucy Bolingbroke  43 Mabel Fitzhamon, wife of Robert of Gloucester  39, 63, 66, 69–72 Mabel, illegitimate daughter of Henry I 47 Malcom, King of Scotland  86 Margaret of Wessex  57, 86 Matilda, abbess of Barking, illegitimate daughter of Henry II  142 Matilda, abbess of Barking, illegitimate daughter of King John  142 Matilda, abbess of Montivilliers, illegitimate daughter of Henry I  29 Matilda, countess of Perche, illegitimate daughter of Henry I  18, 25, 46, 54 Matilda d’Avranches, wife of Robert FitzEdith 104 Matilda de Percy, wife of William de Beaumont, third earl of Leicester  129 Matilda, Empress, legitimate daughter of Henry I  viii, 62, 66, 75, 77–9, 84, 87, 98, 102, 107, 113, 118, 177–8 Matilda, illegitimate daughter of Henry I, married to Conan III, duke of Brittany 51

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Index 207 Matilda, legitimate daughter of Henry II & duchess of Saxony  137 Matilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen  85, 90, 96 Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror  4, 14–15, 39 Matilda of Scotland, first wife of Henry I  18, 30, 48, 52, 57, 66, 80 Matilda, wife of King Stephen  91 Matilda, wife of William Ætheling and daughter of Fulk count of Anjou  60 Matthew of Montmorency  51 Maud, legitimate daughter of Reginald of Cornwall 128 Miles, earl of Hereford  113 Morgan, illegitimate son of Henry II  140 Nest, mistress of Henry II  139 Nest, Princess, mistress of Henry I  23 Nicholas, cousin of William the Conqueror 5 Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, maternal halfbrother of William the Conqueror  16, 96, 152 Patrick, earl of Salisbury  120 Philip II, King of France  137 Philip I, King of France  7, 14 Ralph Bloet, husband of Nest, mistress of Henry II  139 Ralph the Red, lord of Pont-Echanfré  40, 45, 64 Ramala, Battle of  85 Ranulf, earl of Chester  74, 91, 97, 99, 114, 118, 120 Reginald of Cornwall  18, 25–6, 92–4, 96–7, 99, 101–106, 115, 120, 124, 127, 135, 178 Richard, Bishop of Bayeux, illegitimate son of Robert of Gloucester  9, 21, 38, 152 Richard de Grenville, Lord of Neath  69 Richard de Redvers, earl of Devon  127 Richard, earl of Chester  54 Richard III, Duke of Normandy, uncle of William the Conqueror  5

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Richard I, King of England  vii, xvi, 10, 132, 137, 141, 149, 158, 159, 161, 164, 167, 173 Richard, illegitimate son of Robert of Normandy 56 Richard of Lincoln, illegitimate son of Henry I  18, 22, 40, 44, 46, 54, 63–4 Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln  22, 55, 62 Robert Corbet, father of Sybil Corbet  25 Robert, count of Mortain, maternal halfbrother of William the Conqueror  95 Robert Curthose. See  Robert of Normandy Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester 128 Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester & count of Meulan  109 Robert FitzEdith, illegitimate son of Henry I  103, 107 Robert Fitzhamon, marcher lord  39, 63, 66–7 Robert FitzRobert, illegitimate son of Robert of Gloucester  69 Robert, lord of Okehampton, illegitimate son of Henry I  25 Robert of Bellême  47 Robert of Gloucester  viii, 4, 9, 18–20, 31, 38, 40, 49, 56, 63, 66–9, 73–9, 82, 87–8, 90–2, 94, 98, 106–107, 110, 113, 115–16, 119, 135, 152, 177–8, 181 Robert of Normandy, eldest legitimate son of William the Conqueror  12, 14–17 Robert the Magnificent, father of William the Conqueror  5 Robert Warelwast, Bishop of Exeter  116 Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk  162, 168 Roger de Montgomery, grandfather of Mabel Fitzhamon  39 Roger d’Oily, sheriff of Oxfordshire  24 Rohese, illegitimate daughter of Henry I 26 Rosamund de Clifford, mistress of Henry II  138, 141 Roscelin de Beaumont, viscount of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe  18, 51 Rotrou, count of Perche  25, 46

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208  The Royal Bastards of Twelfth Century England Saint-Ouen Abbey, Rouen  6 Sancho VII, King of Navarre  166 Sarah, Legitimate daughter of Reginald of Cornwall 128 Sibylla of Conversano, wife of Robert of Normandy 17 Simon de Sensis II, earl of Northampton 112 Stephen de Mandeville  94 Stephen, King of England  ix, xvi, 4, 20, 27, 68, 71, 76, 79, 85, 87, 91, 94, 96, 107, 111, 114, 118, 121, 131, 178 Stephen Langton  169 Sybil Corbet, mistress of Henry I  26, 38, 48 Sybil, illegitimate daughter of Henry I and wife of King Alexander of Scotland  18, 26, 48, 49, 51 Synod of Melfi  9 Thegin Forn, lord of Greystoke  24 Theobald, elder brother of King Stephen 87 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury  27, 124, 130, 151, 159 Tinchebray, Battle of  96 Uhtred, Lord of Galloway  50 Urban, Bishop of Llandaff  70 Urban II, Pope  9 Ursula, legitimate daughter of Reginald of Cornwall 128 Waleran de Beaumont, count of Meulan  28, 74, 89, 123, 128, 133 Wallingford  75, 121, 123 Walter de Clifford, marcher lord  138 White Ship  52, 54, 58, 60, 65, 82, 88, 110

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William Aetheling, legitimate son of Henry I  viii, 49, 52, 53–4, 177 William Alis  45 William Anskil, husband of Ansfride  22 William, Archbishop of Canterbury  86 William Clito, legitimate son of Robert of Normandy  35, 61, 74, 78 William, count of Poitiers, eldest legitimate son of Henry II  136, 163 William de Beaumont, third earl of Warwick 129 William de Longchamp  132, 160, 168 William de Tracy, illegitimate son of Henry I  27, 29, 50 William, earl of Gloucester, legitimate son of Robert of Gloucester  68, 96, 120 William FitzPatrick, earl of Salisbury  163, 168 William Fitz Richard of Cardin, fatherin-law of Reginald of Cornwall  96, 116 William Gouet III of Montmirail  47 William II, King of Sicily  132, 137 William, King of Scotland  vi, 132, 149, 166 William Longespée, earl of Salisbury, illegitimate son of Henry II  viii, xvi, 141, 162, 167, 172–3, 178 William Marshal, earl of Pembroke  165–6, 168, 173 William Marshal II, earl of Pembroke  166, 168 William of Blois, son of King Stephen 131 William Rufus, legitimate second son of William the Conqueror  12, 14, 16, 24, 35, 53, 66 William the Conqueror  4, 9, 12, 14–15, 23, 28, 33

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