217: Treaty of Alton

The next six years of English history come down to really one central idea.

Who gets to be the master of the Anglo-Norman world? Henry's just seized the crown, earned the trust by limiting his own power through the Charter of Liberties of 1100, and explicitly pulled the disenfranchised English population right back into the fold of relevancy by marrying Edith of Scotland, now Queen Matilda II.

And the rightful heir to the English throne, the one all the nobility agreed to before 1100, the one who had just returned from becoming an absolute bloody legend in the First Crusade, he just arrived home to find his inheritance once again stolen out from under him by another little brother.

This is, of course, Robert Curdhoe's Duke of Normandy, and he was not going to sit idly by.

And Henry knew it.

The reputation of Duke Robert alone had the potential to upend everything he'd spent years, and especially the last few months, achieving.

Henry of Huntington once remarked about Kurthos' heroics at Antioch in 1098, quote, With his sword, the Duke of the Normans split open one man's head, teeth, neck, and shoulders down to his breast, end quote.

Charles Spencer, in his book, The White Ship, continued by saying, quote, Another story circulated of Kurt Hose striking a Turk so perfectly with his lance that it went straight through the enemy's shield and body.

Such tales probably owe as much to idealization as to fact.

This was how a Norman prince, coursing with Viking blood, was meant to conduct himself in battle.

End quote.

Huntington also points out that when Robert did return to Normandy, despite what had occurred in England, he was quote-unquote joyfully received by all the people.

It didn't matter if these stories were true, though the sheer number of them across many languages lead me to believe that the spirit of them were true, if not the specific details.

What matters is that his fellow Normans believed them to be true, and here he was in the flesh, back home, newly wealthy and furious.

This whole story between Henry and Robert had already played out.

You know, the one where William Rufus beat Robert back to England, convinced everyone to make him king, and then proceeded to spend the next however many years defending his claim against Curthose? Yeah.

Henry knew the story quite well.

He was often caught right smack in the middle of it, sometimes fighting alongside one brother against the other, sometimes against both of them at the same time, sometimes exiled from England and Normandy, and sometimes in prison.

Again, Henry knew the story quite well.

As Duke Robert returned with a new wife, a hefty dowry, and a duchy to buy back from King William II of England, he learned of everything that happened while he was away.

And let's just say he was less than enthused about it all.

He had it all planned out.

But now, he couldn't buy back his duchy from William Rufus, and he couldn't take the crown of England, as was his by right.

He couldn't take the treasury at Winchester because, well, it was already claimed.

He couldn't win over his Anglo-Norman aristocracy because Henry had already issued the Charter of Liberties.