458 – Henry’s Story

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 458:

Henry's Story.

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The last two episodes have been focused on how King William Rufus was handling the aftermath of the rebellion and the political moves that were being made.

But Rufus didn't exist in a vacuum.

And across the channel, his brothers were making moves as well.

Now, the rivalry between Robert and Rufus had been costly to just about everyone.

Rufus had come out victorious, but his position in England had only weakened.

His power was hanging on by a thread, and his grip was so tenuous that he was forced to turn a blind eye to much of the treasonous behavior from his vassals, because to do anything else would risk fomenting yet another rebellion.

And across the channel, Duke Robert wasn't doing any better.

His failed coup had been expensive, and it wasn't like he was rolling in cash to begin with.

Robert had been burning through money just to keep the nest of vipers that made up Norman aristocracy happy.

Not that it was really working, of course.

Norman nobles weren't inclined to be happy people, even at the best of times.

I mean, these were the same nobles who, upon hearing about the death of the conqueror and the rise of Robert, had attacked and ousted the ducal garrisons from castles all across Normandy, meaning that many of his vassals and so-called allies had celebrated Robert's ascension by essentially engaging in outright treason.

And, just like Rufus, there wasn't much Robert could do about it.

His position and authority was just too weak.

And that was before he'd lost that war against Rufus.

So the rebellion of 1088 had been a disaster for both Normandy and England.

A lot of lives had been lost during this thing, and both Rufus and Robert had come out diminished.

And then there was their baby brother, Henry.

Now, his experience during the war had been very different.

For one, While many of the knights and barons of Normandy were directly involved in the fighting, the twenty-something Henry had decided to stay home instead.

And I'm guessing that as the flower of Normandy were stuck inside Rochester, battling knights, hunger, and an apocalyptic number of flies, Henry probably felt like he made the right call.

And beyond avoiding death, or at the very least, a very uncomfortable and disgusting experience, there was also the fact that by staying home, Henry had remained close to Duke Robert's court.

And that meant he had a chance to network.

And Henry used this little advantage and his status as Robert's brother to position himself as the Duke's new chief counsel.

And when Robert found himself in need of cash, having burned through his ducal reserves trying to stave off internal unrest while also funding an attempted coup, well, Henry was right there with a spare 3,000 pounds.

And all Henry wanted in return, according to Orderic, was just a small thing.

Just a third of Normandy.

Specifically, he had his eyes on the peninsula of northwest Normandy and all those lands that went down through Goutens, Auvranche, and through to Mont Saint-Michel.

And this particular piece of the Norman pie would also give him command of Barfleur, which was a major harbor for traffic from England.

So we're not just talking about a lot of of space.

We're also talking about a lot of money, both in revenue being raised from the peasants who were working the land, but also in taxes being applied through the commerce that was flowing through the roads and from the sea.

And beyond that, this territory was also stacked with castles, all of which, if this deal passed, would be answering to him.

So, in short, there was nothing humble about Henry's request.

But it wasn't like Duke Robert had many alternatives, and besides, his new chief advisor was all for the plan.

So the sale was approved.

And once Henry got his land, now ruling as the Count of Cotentin, he moved to secure his holdings over the counties of Auveranche and Goutens before establishing himself within his base of power at the monastic fortress of Mont Saint-Michel.

And from there, he threw himself into diplomacy, building ties and alliances with nobles all across Western Normandy.

Now, as a vassal and brother of Duke Robert, those alliances were no doubt sold as a stabilizing force for the House of Normandy, a bulwark against infighting.

After all, Henry would have certainly been required to swear homage to Robert prior to becoming count.

So, I'm sure he persuaded Robert that all of these friendships and alliances that Henry was making were so that he could better protect his brother's rule and live out his oath as a loyal vassal and family member of the Duke.

But I probably don't have to remind you that at the end of the day, these were Henry's alliances and friendships, not Robert's.

And it turns out that, unlike his elder brothers, Henry was very good at this diplomacy thing, because those alliances would prove to be remarkably durable.

So at the end of Robert's failed coup, after all the lives lost and all the wealth squandered and all the political capital burned, well, pretty much everyone had less than they had before.

Everyone, except for Henry.

And once the fighting was over, Henry boarded a ship and headed for England.

You see, now that the rebellion in Rochester had fallen and Rufus had secured his throne, well, that meant that Rufus was the man that Henry would need to talk to.

Because it turns out that Henry, the new Count of Cotentin,

wasn't satisfied with governing a mere third of Normandy.

He wanted his mother's lands in England as well.

And so he was headed to Rufus to get them.

And if we look at the records and check the timing of this crossing, it's entirely possible that Odo was sailing back to Normandy at almost the exact same moment that Henry was sailing for England.

And Odo, man,

he had had a hell of a year.

When the rebellion had begun, he was a powerful English land magnate and the chief advisor of Duke Robert of Normandy.

He commanded the loyalty of large numbers of Norman nobles and had a reputation for battlefield victories was actively playing Kingmaker.

I mean, when this rebellion had first been hatched, he no doubt believed that he was mere months away from placing his chosen nephew on the throne of England.

And once he got done with that, who knows what came next?

I mean, maybe he could even make another play at becoming pope.

Anything was possible.

Back then, Odo was so powerful that even though he was actively plotting a coup to seize the kingdom, King Rufus had treated him with honor and restored his properties and provided him with a position of power in the English court.

But rather than an easy victory march, his coup had been an abject failure.

Instead of riding through streets as petals rained down upon him like a hero of old, he was still trying to shake off the smell of his war camp and all of those flies and sewage.

He got nothing out of this war.

He had only lost.

All of his former English properties were gone, and his allies had been weakened, while his enemies were now emboldened.

So it had been a very bad year for this guy.

And we're told that, once back in Normandy, the bishop was absolutely fit to be tied and was looking for any way he could find to lash out.

Here's Orderic on the general mood of Odo.

Quote, Odo of Bayeux, like a fire-breathing dragon that had been vanquished, grew very angry at the king's contempt for him and stirred up a number of troubles in Normandy so that by some means or other, he might contrive to injure his nephew who had banished him in disgrace, end quote.

So yeah.

He wasn't taking that loss very well.

And then he rode to Rouen and he learned what Duke Robert had been doing during all of this time that he wasn't, you know, invading England like he had promised to.

And that's when Odo realized that he had underestimated exactly how bad this year had been, because England was only half of his problems.

It turned out his power had been diminished in Normandy as well.

I mean, sure, he still had his properties, but due to that land grant that Duke Robert had struck with Henry sorry, Count Henry?

Well, the bishop's lands of Bayeux were now heavily threatened and basically in a stranglehold by his youngest nephew's lands.

Even worse, this young man who was barely twenty years old was now serving as Robert's chief advisor, thus supplanting Odo, a man who was pushing 60 and who was so experienced in war and politics that his presence in England went all the way back to the very first Norman landing at Pevensey.

And yeah, he had been replaced by Henry, a kid who wasn't even born yet when they began the conquest of England, and whose wartime experience appears to have been staying home and making real estate deals while everyone else deals with all the death, trauma, and flies.

So, needless to say, Odo was furious.

Meanwhile, back in England, the freshly minted Count Henry had arrived at court, and he was meeting with his older brother, King William Rufus, because he really wanted to get possession of his mother's English properties.

And according to Orderic, the king welcomed his brother to court warmly, and he listened to his requests.

And when we look at the charters, It looks like the king also got his baby brother involved in some English politics, because we see Henry appear in a charter that was granting some seized properties to the monks of Rochester.

Now these properties were to compensate them for the damage that the king and his men did to the cathedral of St.

Andrew during the siege of Rochester.

And while this charter might have been a coincidence, I absolutely love the timing of it.

Because you can practically hear Rufus telling his little brother, oh yeah, did you hear about that?

I had to fight off a whole coup orchestrated by your liege, Duke Robert.

And while I didn't see you on the battlefield, I assume you knew about it, didn't you?

Hank.

Anyway, sign here.

I can't prove that's how it went down, but I really hope it was.

Now, Orderic tells us that in the end, Rufus, quote, fraternally granted his petition, end quote, meaning he gave his baby brother the lands he requested.

However, historians have noted that there appear to be no records of Henry ever receiving those lands.

Orderick stands alone in this claim.

And actually, there are records of those lands being governed instead by a guy named Robert Fitzhammon.

So what happened?

Well, Orderic does tell us that Rufus later seized those same lands and then gave them to Robert Fitzhammond by 1091.

But the timing of that is weird, and it doesn't make a lot of sense.

It makes much more sense if the lands were granted during the 1088 rebellion, since, as historians have noted, Fitzhammond could have used those lands and the authority that came with it to check the power of the treasonous clairs.

This move would have also stiffened royal support in Kent, because Fitzhammond's father was actually the sheriff of Kent, and as we've spoken about previously, maintaining the support of the sheriffs had been key to Rufus' Rufus' victory over Odo.

So a wartime appointment makes a lot of sense, while on the other hand, giving them to Henry and then seizing them and then giving them to Fitzhammond years later and doing it during peacetime, no less, doesn't make much sense at all.

And this is why historians generally suspect that Orderic, who is our sole account for this real estate swap, must have been mistaken, and Henry had actually failed to convince Rufus to fork over their mother's lands.

Being either outright rejected, or possibly, Rufus, hot off a conflict with his elder brother, decided to avoid a shouting match with his younger brother and made some empty promises, knowing that Henry would soon be returning to Normandy anyway and basically punting the issue.

Either way, though, it doesn't look like Henry actually received possession of those lands.

And by autumn of 1088, he was ready to return to Normandy.

And he wasn't going alone.

Thanks to the efforts of powerful members of the English court, one of the rebel leaders was being released from prison.

And so, you know, he'd need a ride home to Normandy as well.

And his name was Robert of Balem.

Now, I'm gonna pause for a minute and give you some background on Robert of Balem.

Because while he's already come up a few times as a minor player in our story, he is going to become a major player in the near future.

And the first thing to know is that Robert is one of those up-and-coming nobles that I've been alluding to.

He was the scion of an incredibly powerful cross-channel dynasty, being the eldest living son of both Roger de Montgomery, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Mabel of Balem.

Now, Earl Roger de Montgomery, in addition to being incredibly wealthy and holding vast estates on both sides of the channel, also had a really good reputation.

He had fought at Hastings, he was one of William's commanders, and he was generally viewed as a good noble, likely meaning that he was considered to be a predom or a worthy guy, meaning that he exhibited the traits that were valued in Norman men, like being considered sensible, dependable, loyal, and self-restrained, you know, at least by Norman standards.

And his wife, Mabel, was also a wealthy and powerful magnate, as she held the lordship of Balem.

And, well, that part is going to require a bit of explanation.

You see, Balem actually held lands that straddled both sides of the Norman border.

And that placed the lords of Balem in a very difficult position with both the House of Normandy and also the courts of Maine and France.

And likely in response to those tensions, over the generations, this dynasty had developed a reputation for ruthlessness in their style of leadership and politics.

For example, when Mabel was younger, her father, Lord William Talvas, was getting remarried, and so he sent out a bunch of invitations to the wedding, including one to his old ally and vassal, William Fitzgeroy.

Now, Fitzgeroy had been instrumental in helping Talvis secure his lands during one of the many internal wars that dominated this period of French history.

So, pretty good vassal, right?

Well, unfortunately, Fitzgeroy was also a vassal of the Count of Maine, because feudalism is a ridiculous system.

And so later on, when Maine got into a scuffle with Balem, the two allies found themselves on opposite sides of a conflict.

And Lord William Talvas, Mabel's father, was still mad about that.

And so, when the unsuspecting Fitzgeroy showed up to his ally's wedding, he discovered they weren't allies at all.

And he and his men were captured and thrown in prison.

Talvis then tortured, mutilated, and blinded all of them.

Nothing says best wishes to the happy couple in Balam like a good old-fashioned blinding, apparently.

And when this happened, Mabel was a young woman, so you can only imagine what kind of impact a court culture of that sort would have had on her.

Later, she married Roger de Montgomery, and over the years, they had a bunch of kids, one of them being Robert of Balem.

Eventually, she inherited the lordship of Balem.

And

remember how Roger de Montgomery had a reputation for being honorable?

Well, Mabel's reputation was kind of the opposite.

Less pro d'omme and more pro-domme.

But to be fair, I should mention that much of this information comes from our favorite medieval gadfly, Orderic Vitalis.

And Ordoric had a pretty dim view on women in general.

All of these monkish chroniclers did, actually.

They were part of an institution, and frankly, a social movement, that was pushing against any form of female power.

So they can't be seen as even remotely neutral observers when they write about the actions of powerful women, because they very much believe that women shouldn't be active and powerful.

Basically, these guys are the medieval equivalent of people who call world-class female artists childless cat ladies and accuse female politicians of sleeping their way to the top.

But unfortunately, these guys are also the people that we have to rely on for our history during this period.

And so the only thing we can do here is keep their ideology in mind as we go along.

And I'm sure it won't surprise you at all to discover that Orderk was not a fan of Mabel.

He tells us that she was a backstabbing, conniving, and vicious woman who could be charming and funny, but could also be cruel and greedy.

And in particular, Orderk tells us that she spent much of her time focused on nursing her family's feuds and expanding her family's lands.

Now, seizing lands and fighting feuds was pretty much standard medieval noble stuff.

So on the one hand, I can't help but wonder if, had she been born a man, maybe she could have gotten a cool nickname like Hadrada.

But on the other hand, if what we're told about the House of Balem is true, it does seem like they had a messed up culture over there that went well beyond the pale for even 11th century noble behavior.

So Orderic might have had a point this time.

Regardless, he tells us that Mabel went straight into the family business and through her husband's influence struck out at her family's rivals by convincing William the Conqueror to seize the Fitzgeroy's lands.

And then she decided to finish the job.

And so she poisoned the scion of that family.

And actually, Orderig tells us that she plotted this out twice.

Because the first time she tried it, she accidentally poisoned her own brother-in-law, Gilbert de Montgomery.

But you know what they say, practice makes perfect.

And on that second attempt, she found her mark.

And when not assassinating rivals, we're told that Mabel also spent time aggressively seizing her neighbor's lands.

But eventually, this style of rule caught up to her, because we're told that some men snuck into her chambers while she was taking a bath and

they lopped off her head.

And if you think back to that incident where Rufus and Henry peed on Robert and his buddies, you might recall that it happened while they were preparing for a campaign.

Well, that campaign was likely in response to this assassination of, you guessed it, Mabel of Balem.

So that's the story of Mabel as far as we can piece it together.

And adding to the drama, we know that her son, Robert of Balem, was with Robert Curthose during that campaign.

And so there's a good chance that he was part of the crowd of young knights who Rufus and Henry pissed on that night.

And so when Henry boarded the ship bound for Normandy and was joined by Robert of Balem,

it might have been a bit of an awkward reunion.

But anger over body fluids was probably the least of Henry's problems here, because the bigger issue was Robert's reputation.

You see, while his father, Earl Roger de Montgomery, had a bit of a stellar reputation, Robert of Boulem's reputation was even worse than his mom's.

This up-and-coming noble and heir to a massive fortune seems to have taken after his grandfather, Lord William Talvas.

We're told that Robert was an unflinching and uncompromising Norman noble.

He had a reputation for being a clever and effective battlefield commander, and also for being absolutely ruthless and quick to exploit the weakness of others.

When Duke Robert's position in Normandy was weak right after the conqueror died, many Norman nobles took advantage of that and ejected the ducal garrisons from their castles, vastly reducing the strength and military influence of the new Duke.

And despite being one of Curt Hose's companions, Robert of Bolem never let an opportunity go to waste.

And so he was one of the lords who ejected his friend and lord's garrisons from his properties.

And he almost certainly certainly knew that there was nothing the Duke could do in response, because his dynasty wielded the combined power of both Bolem and the Montgomery estates.

In fact, it was probably this same power block and the urging of Earl Roger de Montgomery that forced Rufus's hand, leading to Robert Bolem's release and pardon for his role in this attempted coup.

But here's where it gets particularly bad.

Robert of Belem, like his grandfather, was said to be incredibly cruel.

And specifically, he was reportedly quite fond of torturing prisoners to death.

And for this fact, we don't need to rely on Orderic.

Robert of Bolem's sadism and his fascination with the infliction of human pain is attested to by other contemporary chroniclers as well.

Malmsbury tells us, quote, he was a man intolerable from the barbarity of his manners, and inexorable to the faults of others.

Remarkable besides for cruelty, and, among other instances, on account of some trifling fault of their father, he blinded his godchild, who was his hostage, tearing out the little wretch's eyes with his accursed nails.

Full of cunning and dissimulation, he used to deceive the credulous by the serenity of his countenance and the affability of his speech, though the same means terrified those who were acquainted with his malignity, as there was no greater proof of impending mischief than his pretended mildness of address.

End quote.

So, yeah, he reportedly tore out the eyes of a child that he was hostage fostering, and he did it with his own hands while also being soft-spoken and mild-mannered.

And there's something about this account account that rings true to me.

The kind of person whose neighbors describe as nice and quiet and are later shocked to discover what was going on in the basement.

Henry of Huntington provides additional confirmation for this cruelty, adding to the list of crimes that he also enjoyed impaling men and women.

And Huntington goes on to say that Balem was worse than anything you could imagine.

He literally brings up figures like Cerberus and then says, oh no, Balem was way worse.

He's worse than anything.

And if you're getting a kind of Damien from the omen vibe about this guy, you're actually not alone.

There's a medieval legend about Robert the Devil, someone who is so terrible that he was parented literally by the devil.

And Robert of Balem is one of the candidates for the origin of that story.

And this is the man who Henry had probably peed on back in Legle, and who he was now sharing a boat with heading back to Normandy.

Oh good.

Meanwhile, back in Normandy, word had reached Rouen that Henry and Bolem were sailing back to the duchy, meaning that Odo was now aware that Bolem had somehow secured his release.

And somehow, Henry had managed to come out of this entire affair ahead.

He was pretty much the only Norman noble who had come out ahead.

And Odo was very much someone who had not come out ahead.

And so he decided it was time to meet with Duke Robert.

And he told the Duke that he had been hearing some rumors.

Rumors that Henry, who now controlled about a third of Normandy, hadn't gone to England to gain his mother's lands.

Oh no, he had gone to England to conspire with Robert's enemy, King King Rufus.

And Odo also added that he had heard that Robert of Balem had secured peace with Rufus by swearing fealty to him, and they were now conspiring to overthrow the Duke.

Oh, it's shocking stuff to be sure, Your Highness.

But then again, is it really all that shocking?

I mean, think about who these guys are and what they've done.

And as for who told Odo these rumors, well, we don't know.

But I wouldn't be shocked if he heard them from that fella that the bishop saw in the mirror every morning.

But wherever it came from, Orderic tells us that Duke Robert believed him instantly.

And honestly, it's not hard to see why.

It's not like Balem had been a bastion of support and honor.

And as for Henry, well, it can't have escaped the Duke's notice that he had a history of conspiring with Rufus to humiliate Robert.

And as for loyalty, when Robert was in desperate need of funds, Henry didn't offer help.

He extorted him for a third of Normandy instead.

So Duke Robert, taking his uncle's advice, ordered that their ship be detained and the passengers be captured and imprisoned.

And Odo knew just the place to keep them.

Robert would be imprisoned in the bishop's episcopal prison at Neuilly-Levesque, and Henry would be imprisoned much more directly under Odo's control at Bayeux.

And in short order, the two were shackled and were taken off the board.

And with that taken care of, the bishop's influence on the Duke was now unchallenged.

And that meant Odo could focus on the next task at hand.

You see, Odo wasn't accustomed to losing.

And he hadn't just lost in battle here.

He'd also lost his English properties and revenues.

And as salt in the wound, Rufus had humiliated him with that hornblast as they marched out of Rochester.

So Odo wanted revenge.

But it also appears that he was anxious about Robert's position relative to Rufus.

So that would need to change.

And so, rather than immediately launching another attack upon England, Odo urged his nephew to make a show of strength to, hopefully, scare off any of those backstabbing nobles who might be looking to turn against him.

And so he told Robert that it was time to march on Le Man and secure the Norman domination of Maine.

Once that was done, they should then attack the lands of Bolem and Montgomery and drive that dynasty out of Normandy once and for all.

Oh,

and as for Henry,

well,

he had clearly gotten a bit too big for his britches.

He obviously wasn't ready for those lands and titles.

They made him overconfident.

So might as well help the kid out, teach him his place by taking them back.

Duke Robert listened to these suggestions and did as his uncle instructed.

Odo was back.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can reach me at the BritishHistory Podcast at gmail.com.

Thanks for listening.