Gilbert Foliot II. It opened on 4 April 1139, and among other matters heard an appeal from the Empress Matilda concerning her claim to the throne of England. Matilda was the daughter and only surviving legitimate child of King Henry I, but following her father's death in late 1135 her cousin Stephen, the son of Henry's sister, had seized the crown. By 1139 Matilda had gathered supporters and was contesting Stephen's right to the throne. In about 1143 Foliot wrote an account of the proceedings of the council in a letter to one of Matilda's supporters. No action was taken on her
Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma however, manage to engineer a match with Margherita de' Medici, daughter of Cosimo II of Tuscany. The husband of Margherita Aldobrandini, niece of Pope Clement VIII, Ranuccio, the son of a Portuguese infanta, was considered as a potential king of Portugal when his childless great-uncle King Henry I died. The throne, however, passed to Philip II of Spain, whose troops had promptly occupied the country after Henry I's death. His great-uncle Henry I of Portugal's death triggered the struggle for the throne of Portugal when Ranuccio was 11 years old. As the son of the late elder daughter of Infante