Henry I of England plans for Matilda, the King was succeeded by his nephew, Stephen of Blois, resulting in a period of civil war known as the Anarchy. Henry was probably born in England in 1068, in either the summer or the last weeks of the year, possibly in the town of Selby in Yorkshire. His father was William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy who had invaded England in 1066 to become the King of England, establishing lands stretching into Wales. The invasion had created an Anglo-Norman elite, many with estates spread across both sides of the English Channel. These Anglo-Norman barons typically
Henry II of England his close advisers from the ranks of the Norman bishops and, as in England, recruited many "new men" as Norman administrators: few of the larger landowners in Normandy benefited from the king's patronage. Henry frequently intervened with the Norman nobility through arranged marriages or the treatment of inheritances, either using his authority as duke or his influence as king of England over their lands there: Henry's rule was a harsh one. Across the rest of France, local administration was less developed: Anjou was governed through a combination of officials called "prévôts" and seneschals based along the Loire and in western