Stephen, King of England also risen to power under Henry I. Henry of Blois had become a Cluniac monk and followed Stephen to England, where the King made him Abbot of Glastonbury, the richest abbey in England. The King then appointed him Bishop of Winchester, one of the richest bishoprics, allowing him to retain Glastonbury as well. The combined revenues of the two positions made Henry of Winchester the second-richest man in England after the King. Henry of Winchester was keen to reverse what he perceived as encroachment by the Norman kings on the rights of the church. The Norman kings had traditionally exercised
The Boy Who Was in history, connected only by Nino's involvement. Chapter 3, "Poseidon and the Greeks", covers the building of the temple of Poseidon in Paestum. Chapter 4, "The Romans and the Volcano", tells of the destruction of Pompeii. Chapter 5, "The Last of the Goths", is a highly romanticized view of the fall of the Ostrogothic kingdom in southern Italy which followed the western Roman empire and was in turn followed by the Lombards. Chapter 6, "The Normans and the Saracens", has Nino telling Robert Guiscard's army about a group of Norman soldiers sixty years earlier who repelled a Saracen pirate attack