But the war in England, with Stephen’s release, was yet again at a stalemate. Matilda begged Geoffrey to come to her aid, reminding him that it was ‘his duty to maintain the inheritance of his wife and children in England’.81 But he refused: he had nothing to offer her. All his resources were concentrated on the subjugation of Normandy, where he was in the process of triumphing through a combination of force and diplomacy, luring the magnates over to his side. He insisted, instead, that Robert of Gloucester join him in Normandy to aid his fight there: ‘If the earl would cross the sea and come to him he would meet his wishes as far as he could; if not, it would merely be a waste of time for anyone else to come and go.’82 Robert was reluctant to leave Matilda – he was aware how integral he was to her campaign – but he answered Geoffrey’s summons.
Around 24 June 1142, Robert left England for Normandy, from the port of Wareham, held by his son William, on the Dorset coast. When they met, Robert tried to convince Geoffrey to send aid to Matilda, but he refused, claiming that ‘he feared the rebellion of the Angevins and his other men’.83 Nevertheless, William of Malmesbury recorded that Robert’s visit was successful, and that together he and Geoffrey captured ten castles in the north-west of Normandy. However, perhaps aided by discussion with Geoffrey, Robert had a change of heart over the direction of the war for England. Matilda, he believed, had no hope of becoming queen. It was time to bring in her eldest son, Henry.
Robert returned to England in September with between 300 and 400 men, fifty-two ships, and the nine-year-old Henry.84
He immediately set out to save Matilda from disaster. Stephen’s forces had surrounded her at Oxford Castle that month; Robert did not have the men to bring an army to confront the king directly, so instead he attacked Wareham, which Stephen had captured earlier, hoping to draw the king away from Matilda. Stephen did not respond to the ruse, and Matilda found herself in terrible personal danger. After a three-month siege, the castle was about to fall, and Matilda’s capture and imprisonment seemed certain. The weather, and her bravery, saved her.
At the beginning of December, the land covered with snow and ice, Matilda escaped. She and the four men who accompanied her camouflaged themselves in white cloaks which made them invisible against the snow, and escaped, walking across the frozen Thames. She fled to Brian Fitz Count at Wallingford, fifteen miles to the south, who took her on to Devizes.
Matilda had not yet seen her son. Sometime before Christmas, while Brian Fitz Count offered her refuge at Wallingford, Robert was able to bring Henry to her there, where they were ‘delighted’ to be reunited. In her joy at seeing her firstborn, Matilda had a brief respite from the hopelessness of her situation.85 It was from this point, when Matilda saw Henry, that she realised the futility of her pursuit of the crown of England. By 1144, while Geoffrey had achieved complete success with the conquest of Normandy, Matilda had failed. Even Robert, having spent three years and a vast amount of money on his sister’s campaign, realised she could never be queen. It was Robert who fashioned the move to bring young Henry from Anjou as the new figurehead of the Angevin party.
IV
While Matilda fought in England, Henry had remained in Anjou, studying with his tutors and learning knightly skills. It is possible that his paternal uncle, Helias, played a part in Henry’s education, acting as his mentor.86
His parents were clever and inquisitive, both were well educated (Matilda received the greater part of her education at her first husband’s German court rather than in England), and they took great care over the young Henry’s schooling. Matilda and Geoffrey had a plan. They would provide their eldest son not only with an exemplary military and political education, but with the tools to enable him to become the Platonic archetype of a philosopher-prince. Walter Map’s claim that Henry ‘had a knowledge of all the tongues used from the French sea to the Jordan’ is undoubtedly an exaggeration; but it gives a hint as to the breadth of his learning. The languages Henry spoke fluently were French and Latin – Walter Map went on to say that he ‘customarily made use’ of them, and later he possibly learned some English.
Western Europe had never experienced such an intellectually exciting period as the twelfth century. Later historians dubbed it the ‘twelfth-century renaissance’ and it defied the Victorian misnomer of the ‘Dark Ages’.87 It was an age that saw the beginnings of humanism, a sense of the importance of the individual, a massive population shift from countryside to town, the rise of the city, the centralisation of government, and the recognition and employment of the greatest intellectuals of the day in the service of the royal administration. It saw an explosion in art, poetry and literature, particularly in the vernacular, as new fiction was explored for the first time since the classical era, and in science, theology and legal reform. It saw the beginnings of the great cathedral schools, the universities and of the soaring Gothic architecture that visually defined the age and fed the medieval Christian soul.
This quest for knowledge was fed by a ‘rediscovery’ of the classical thinkers of Greece and Rome, particularly Christian Rome after Constantine’s conversion, and by increasing contact with the Arab world and the richness of their intellectual traditions, notably in astronomy, medicine and mathematics. Contemporary writers called this movement a renovatio, meaning a rebirth or a renewal, with its underlying connotations of redemption through knowledge.
It was expected that a ruler should be well educated. Henry I and Geoffrey of Anjou were admired for their intellects. William of Malmesbury – monk, historian and devotee of Henry’s uncle Robert of Gloucester – pronounced that ‘a king without letters is [just] an ass with a crown.’88
Henry’s teachers – he had four that we know of – played an enormous role in shaping his interests. They were important not simply because they were clever, but because of the breadth and internationalism of their knowledge and understanding. Two were celebrated scholars, two we know far less about. But we do know that the experience of Henry’s tutors went far beyond the teachings of the church fathers; they had imbibed the wisdom of the philosophers, mathematicians, medics, poets and scholars of Greece, Rome, the Arabs and the Jews.
His first tutor was Peter of Saintes, chosen by Geoffrey because he was ‘more learned in Poetry than anyone this side of the Pyrenees’.89 Peter taught Henry Latin, and told him stories of the Greek and Trojan heroes; he even composed a poem on the Trojan War.90
When Henry was brought to England in 1142, he lived in his uncle Robert’s household at Bristol, where he continued his education under both Robert’s and his mother’s direction. Robert was a scholar. In 1138, Geoffrey of Monmouth dedicated his Historia regum Britanniae (‘History of the Kings of Britain’) to the earl, and it was from this text that Henry probably first became aware of the legends of King Arthur. This was the first time that an author collated and wrote down in Latin, a language the educated classes understood, all the legends connected with Britain’s most famous king. Geoffrey may even have written the text as a reflection of the civil war. Robert had recently made an alliance with Morgan ap Iorwerth, lord of Usk; the Welsh saw themselves as the proud descendants of Arthur.91 And Matilda is possibly portrayed in the text as Cordelia, the loyal daughter of Lear. Geoffrey’s Cordelia is married to a Frenchman and forced to fight her cousin for her birthright.92 It is probable that Henry discussed the book with both Geoffrey and Robert.
His mother, meanwhile, having fled from Oxford at the end of the year, set up headquarters at Devizes, roughly thirty miles from Henry. Henry of Huntingdon enthusiastically called its castle ‘the most splendid’ in Europe.93 It would be the centre of Matilda’s court for the duration of her stay in England.
The chronicler Gervase of Canterbury wrote of the ‘joy’ Matilda experienced in her son.94 It was in England that Henry began his training for leadership. He began to sign himself as ‘rightful heir of England and Normandy’.95 And on the occasions when he was with his mother, he received joint homage from their English vassals.96
Walter Map, in his gossipy and beautifully written Courtiers’ Trifles on the machinations of Henry’s court, later wrote about Matilda’s methods, much of which she