Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 495, Power Struggles Part 2.

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Okay, let's return to 1101 and 1102. Because Henry's fight with Anselm and the fight between Henry and the Pope and that fight between

Anselm and the Pope were amazingly only half of the story. There was another entirely different

fight brewing and this one was between Henry and a whole chunk of the nobility. And I know, on the one hand, nobles

moving against the king just kind of sounds like a day ending in why, right? I mean, being

an unscrupulous viper looking to gain advantage through any means necessary was pretty

much the entire job description for being a 12th century Norman Noble.

But in the case of Henry, this was far more than your typical run-of-the-mill treason that

was churning underneath aristocratic life during this era.

Because he was up to his neck in it.

For example, the very first constable of the Tower of London, Jeffrey de Manville,

was supposed to be Henry's man. And yet, it was under his watch that Ranul Flembard managed to

pull off an incredibly loud, drunken, and pratfall-filled escape, only to then go and join Robert Kurt Hose and convince him to launch a war.

And King Henry wasn't convinced that this was all just an accident.

There was something shifty about all of it.

And I know, courtly intrigue, treason, strange events at a prison, war on the horizon, and all of it centering around a guy named Jeffrey.

It seems a bit too on the nose, doesn't it? But here we are. And Jeffrey was just the tip of the iceberg.

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