Eustace fitz John construction of fortifications at Tickhill and Knaresborough in Yorkshire are also recorded in this pipe roll. This and evidence of royal writs show that Eustace and Walter Espec had justiciar responsibility for the counties of Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, a role that involved hearing pleas and conveying instructions from central government. The death of Henry I on 1 December 1135 led to the accession of Stephen de Blois, to whom Eustace submitted. Stephen's seizure of the throne was contested by Henry I's daughter, the Empress Matilda, who had been Henry's designated heir. The "Gesta Stephani" claimed that certain "very
Style of the British sovereign the Almighty to the Throne of the whole Kingdom of Britain". In Scotland the preferred title of the monarch was "King/Queen of Scots" rather than "of Scotland" (although the latter was by no means unknown). William I, the first Norman monarch of England, used the simple "King of the English". His successor, William II, was the first consistently to use "by the Grace of God". Henry I added "Duke of the Normans" in 1121, though he had seized Normandy from his brother Robert in 1106. In 1152 Henry II acquired many further French possessions through his marriage to Eleanor of