Hello and welcome to the History of England, episode 30, Henry I, Barron's Warfare and Wales.

Last week we got to the point where we'd been through most of Henry's impact on England

itself, plus we did a bit of scourers, gossip, masquerading and history.

Now Henry's reign has always been described as remarkably peaceful, and so it was, for England.

But it wasn't because of peaceful, for Normandy, and for the edges of Henry's empire.

So this week we're going to look at how Henry established his own power base and controlled

his barons, but then we're going to look briefly at the relationship with Wales and Scotland,

and then given that we're then going to go into a particularly conflict-stream period

of English history, we'll have a general catch-up about where warfare is.

And then finally we'll make a start on Henry's struggle to hold on to Normandy.

I hope that sounds okay, and then next week I promise you we'll see the end of Henry

and put him into his grave.

So first of all let's talk a bit about Henry's relationship with the men who'd fight

alongside him in Wales and Normandy, his barons.

Henry has a reputation for spending his time trying to find ways to beat his barons up,

and while this reputation isn't really considered to be entirely accurate, there's still

a large element to truth in it.

I did have a brief exchange at one point on Twitter with Kim about the merits of the

Norman Kings.

Kim's view was that the Norman Kings were to be admired because they gave strong leadership,

and this is, you have to say, absolutely the case of Henry.

He knew very well that the system the Normans had implemented in England relied on a very

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