Stephen, King of England brought up by his mother, Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. Placed into the court of his uncle, Henry I of England, Stephen rose in prominence and was granted extensive lands. He married Matilda of Boulogne, inheriting additional estates in Kent and Boulogne that made the couple one of the wealthiest in England. Stephen narrowly escaped drowning with Henry I's son, William Adelin, in the sinking of the "White Ship" in 1120; William's death left the succession of the English throne open to challenge. When Henry I died in 1135, Stephen quickly crossed the English Channel and with the help
Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine Brittany in April 1203, Henry effectively became the heir of his maternal uncle John Lackland to the English throne, this ended though when John's son (the future king Henry III) was born in October 1207. After he inherited further significant properties in Saxony from his brother William in 1213, Henry ceded the Palatinate to his son Henry the Younger and moved north. After his son's early death the next year, he left his Welf properties to his nephew, William's son Otto the Child, who became the first Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235. Henry died in 1227 and is entombed in