HENRY I

born c. 1008 died Aug. 2, 1060, Vitry-aux-Loges, France king of France from 1026 to 1060 whose reign was marked by struggles against rebellious vassals. The son of Robert II the Pious and grandson of Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty, Henry was anointed king at Reims (1026) in his father's lifetime, following the death of his elder brother Hugh. His mother, Constance, however, favoured his younger brother Robert for the throne, and civil war broke out on King Robert II's death (1031). The younger Robert was given Burgundy in 1032, after Henry had sought refuge with Robert, Duke of Normandy. From 1033 to 1043 Henry struggled with his feudatories, notably Eudes of Blois and his brother Robert. In 1055, as the result of an agreement made by Robert II, the county of Sens came to the crown as the sole territorial gain of Henry's reign. Henry helped William (the future William I of England), Robert's successor as duke of Normandy, to quell his rebellious vassals at the Battle of Val-aux-Dunes (or Val-s-Dunes; 1047), but he was thereafter usually at war with him-a notable defeat for the king being that at Varaville (1058). Henry tried to resist papal interference but could not prevent Pope Leo IX from holding a council at Reims (1049). Philip, elder son of Henry's marriage to a Russian princess, was crowned in 1059. born 1069, Selby, Yorkshire, Eng. died Dec. 1, 1135, Lyons-la-Fort, Normandy Henry I, miniature from a 14th-century manuscript; in the British Library (Cottonian Claud D11 45 B) byname Henry Beauclerc (Good Scholar), French Henri Beauclerc youngest and ablest of William I the Conqueror's sons, who as king of England (1100-35) strengthened the crown's executive powers and, like his father, also ruled Normandy (from 1106). born c. 1210 died July 22, 1274, Pamplona, Navarre byname Henry The Fat, Spanish Enrique El Gordo, French Henri Le Gros king of Navarre (1270-74) and count (as Henry III) of Champagne. Henry was the youngest son of Theobald I of Navarre by Margaret of Foix. He succeeded his eldest brother, Theobald II (Thibaut V), in both kingdom and countship in December 1270. By his marriage (1269) to Blanche, daughter of Robert I of Artois and niece of Louis IX of France, he had one daughter, Joan, whom, by the Convention of Bonlieu (Nov. 30, 1273), he promised to one of the two sons of Edward I of England, Henry and Alfonso. This would have led to a union of his dominions with English Gascony, but it came to nothing. King Henry died in 1274; both the English princes died in the next decade, and Joan was married in 1284 to the future Philip IV of France. born c. 876 died July 2, 936, Memleben, Saxony [now in Germany] also called Henry the Fowler, German Heinrich der Vogler German king and founder of the Saxon dynasty (918-1024) who strengthened the East Frankish, or German, army, encouraged the growth of towns, brought Lotharingia (Lorraine) back under German control (925), and secured German borders against pagan incursions. The son of Otto the Illustrious, the Liudolfing duke of Saxony, Henry became duke at his father's death (912). His first marriage, to Hatheburg, daughter of Erwin, count of Merseburg, was declared invalid because she had become a nun after her first husband's death. He married Matilda, daughter of Dietrich, count of Westphalia, in 909; their eldest son would rule as the Holy Roman emperor Otto I the Great (936-973). Although at war (912-915) with Conrad I of Franconia (German king, 903-918) over title to lands in Thuringia, Henry received Conrad's deathbed designation as heir to the throne. He was elected king of Germany (May 919) by nobles of Saxony and Franconia, two of the four most influential duchies; the other two important duchies, Swabia and Bavaria, did not recognize him as king. Henry considered Germany a confederation of duchies rather than a nation. Having complete authority in Saxony and nominal sovereignty in Franconia, he sought to bring the duchies of Swabia and Bavaria into the confederation. After forcing the submission of Burchard, duke of Swabia (919), he allowed the duke to retain control over the civil administration of the duchy. On the basis of an election by Bavarian and East Frankish nobles (919), Arnulf, duke of Bavaria, also claimed the German throne. In 921, after two military campaigns, the king forced Arnulf to submit and relinquish his claim to the throne, though the duke retained complete internal control of Bavaria. Henry defeated Giselbert, king of Lotharingia, in 925, and that region, which had become independent of Germany in 910, was brought back under German control. Giselbert, who was recognized as duke of Lotharingia, married the king's daughter Gerberga in 928. When the Magyars, barbarian warriors from Hungary, invaded Germany in 924, Henry agreed to pay tribute to them and return a captured Magyar chief in exchange for a nine-year (924-933) cession of raids on German territory. During these years the king built fortified towns and trained the cavalry force he used to defeat various Slavic tribes; he conquered the Havelli at Brandenburg and the Daleminzi at Meissen in 928 and suppressed a rebellion in Bohemia in 929. The king refused to pay more tribute when the nine-year truce ended in 933. He used his seasoned cavalry to destroy the Magyars, who had resumed their raids, at Riade on March 15, 933, and ended their threat to the German countryside. The king's last campaign, an invasion of Denmark (934), added the territory of Schleswig to the German state. The story that Henry received the surname Fowler because he was laying bird snares when informed of his election as king is probably a myth. born 1203 died June 6, 1217, Palencia, Castile king of Castile from 1214 to 1217. Henry was the son of Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Eleanor, daughter of Henry II of England, after whom he was named. He was killed, while still a boy, by the fall of a tile from a roof. Sovereignty over Castile was then assumed by Alfonso VIII's cousin, Alfonso IX, king of Leon. Additional reading There exists no adequate biography of Henry I. A.L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087-1216, 2nd ed. (1955), contains a good sketch and bibliography of the reign. On Henry's early years, see C.W. David, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy (1920); on Henry's administration, H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (1963); C.H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (1960); and Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, vol. 2, ed. by H.A. Cronne and Charles Johnson (1956).