Fortune's Wheel: A Podcast History of Our Medieval Story
Aug 6, 2026 · 42 min · 12 segments
**Donate:** Buy Me A Coffee! **SEASON 9**: ARCHITECTS OF STABILITY **EPISODE 215:** The Spare Who Dared to Be King Henry *Beauclerc* is now king, a king with a…
Looking back on the previous two days must have been quite a whirlwind mental exercise for Henry, youngest son of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, the great Matilda.
The youngest of four boys to be exact, the second oldest, Richard, died in a hunting accident in the New Forest so eerily similar to how the third oldest brother, William Rufus, died just recently.
The only difference was a question of foul play.
An arrow no one was claiming was his.
As for Henry's eldest brother, well, word arrived recently that he was still on his way home from his heroics in the Holy Land during the First Crusade.
No one knew exactly where he was, but the last thing anyone heard was Robert Curdhose was probably clearing the mighty Alps and slowly making his way across the hills of eastern France with a new wife and a hefty dowry in tow.
Henry was well aware of the previous agreement between Curthose and Rufus, stating that each man was the other's heir, so whoever outlived the other claimed the titles, treasures, and domains who had died immediately and with no deliberation, and the nobility had claimed loyalty to that agreement.
But the king was dead, and Duke Robert was nowhere around.
And as chronicler Waste recorded later, quote-unquote, it is necessary for a kingdom to have a king, for it cannot exist without a king.
Henry learned of Rufus's death curiously back at the hunting lodge they'd left that very morning.
See, Henry, it's said by near contemporary accounts, like the aforementioned Waste, for instance, that Henry's bowstring actually snapped while on hunt elsewhere in that forest that day.
He and his companions had rushed back to gather new bow strings so they could return quickly to the thick of the hunt.
Weiss wrote that Henry was quote-unquote delayed over the mending of his bow, making the case many decades later, mind you, that Henry wasn't even in the forest when Rufus died.
By the time the king's body was scooped up on a cart, quote-unquote, like a wild boar stuck with spears, as Orderic Vitalis said, by, as legend later has it, a man named Perkus, and pulled toward Winchester Cathedral.
Henry had already arrived in Winchester, anxious to grab the royal treasury for his own.
Henry was able to beat the makeshift royal hearse to Winchester, which was crucial.
Had he not beaten the news of the death of the king, then taking the treasury would not have been a surprise.
As Charles Spencer writes in his unbelievably entertaining book, The White Ship, quote, whoever controlled Winchester had one hand on the crown, end quote.
you must have Winchester.
There at the door of the royal treasury in Winchester occurred the first serious obstacle to Henry's grab for the throne of England.
A man who was on that same hunt in the New Forest, a man who presumably had ridden back with Henry to the hunting lodge for a new bowstring when the assassination occurred, a man who rode hard on Winchester alongside Henry, a man named William de Bertoul stood up to Henry and brought up an objection to Henry's assumption of the treasury, reminding Henry and all present, because there were others around, including himself, they had all sworn allegiance to the agreement between Rufus and Curdhose that one should be the other's heir upon death.
Heck, again, they had recently received word that Curdhose was nearing Normandy as they stood outside that treasury.
Henry was no longer the boy who spent his earliest years not training to be a knight, but rather studying under the great Lanfranc on the path to becoming a lifelong cleric, maybe one day rising to the ranks of a bishop or archbishop, ultimately being an ecclesiastic ally to whichever other son was king of England.
Looking back on the previous two days must have been quite a whirlwind mental exercise for Henry, youngest son of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, the great Matilda.
The youngest of four boys to be exact, the second oldest, Richard, died in a hunting accident in the New Forest so eerily similar to how the third oldest brother, William Rufus, died just recently.
The only difference was a question of foul play.
An arrow no one was claiming was his.
As for Henry's eldest brother, well, word arrived recently that he was still on his way home from his heroics in the Holy Land during the First Crusade.
No one knew exactly where he was, but the last thing anyone heard was Robert Curdhose was probably clearing the mighty Alps and slowly making his way across the hills of eastern France with a new wife and a hefty dowry in tow.
Henry was well aware of the previous agreement between Curthose and Rufus, stating that each man was the other's heir, so whoever outlived the other claimed the titles, treasures, and domains who had died immediately and with no deliberation, and the nobility had claimed loyalty to that agreement.
But the king was dead, and Duke Robert was nowhere around.
And as chronicler Waste recorded later, quote-unquote, it is necessary for a kingdom to have a king, for it cannot exist without a king.
Henry learned of Rufus's death curiously back at the hunting lodge they'd left that very morning.
See, Henry, it's said by near contemporary accounts, like the aforementioned Waste, for instance, that Henry's bowstring actually snapped while on hunt elsewhere in that forest that day.
He and his companions had rushed back to gather new bow strings so they could return quickly to the thick of the hunt.
Weiss wrote that Henry was quote-unquote delayed over the mending of his bow, making the case many decades later, mind you, that Henry wasn't even in the forest when Rufus died.
By the time the king's body was scooped up on a cart, quote-unquote, like a wild boar stuck with spears, as Orderic Vitalis said, by, as legend later has it, a man named Perkus, and pulled toward Winchester Cathedral.
Henry had already arrived in Winchester, anxious to grab the royal treasury for his own.
Henry was able to beat the makeshift royal hearse to Winchester, which was crucial.
Had he not beaten the news of the death of the king, then taking the treasury would not have been a surprise.
As Charles Spencer writes in his unbelievably entertaining book, The White Ship, quote, whoever controlled Winchester had one hand on the crown, end quote.
you must have Winchester.
There at the door of the royal treasury in Winchester occurred the first serious obstacle to Henry's grab for the throne of England.
A man who was on that same hunt in the New Forest, a man who presumably had ridden back with Henry to the hunting lodge for a new bowstring when the assassination occurred, a man who rode hard on Winchester alongside Henry, a man named William de Bertoul stood up to Henry and brought up an objection to Henry's assumption of the treasury, reminding Henry and all present, because there were others around, including himself, they had all sworn allegiance to the agreement between Rufus and Curdhose that one should be the other's heir upon death.
Heck, again, they had recently received word that Curdhose was nearing Normandy as they stood outside that treasury.
Henry was no longer the boy who spent his earliest years not training to be a knight, but rather studying under the great Lanfranc on the path to becoming a lifelong cleric, maybe one day rising to the ranks of a bishop or archbishop, ultimately being an ecclesiastic ally to whichever other son was king of England.
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