Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex to the crown, perhaps in part due to a large fine levied by Henry I due to his displeasure at the escape of an important political prisoner when William was in charge of the Tower of London. The King also held the substantial estate of Geoffrey's maternal grandfather Eudo "le Dapifer" to which Geoffrey laid claim. Geoffrey gained Eudo's lands and his father's offices during the shifting tides of fortunes of the two competitors for the English throne after King Henry I's death in 1135. He initially supported Stephen, who sometime in 1140 (most likely May of that year) made
David, Prince of the Cumbrians the greatest warriors of the age, and applauded if they ended in conquest – nor should it be any surprise that he soon sought to express them upon Henry’s death. That he should seek to place those ambitions upon a solid basis of propriety would have been even less remarkable, had a suitable excuse to attack not been conveniently at hand. When Henry I died in 1135, David had already sat upon the throne of Scotland for nearly eleven years. He had also, in his capacity as a great English nobleman, been the first to swear obedience to Henry’s daughter,