Category: The Dark Ages

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For the first time since William the Conqueror, there was going to be a primatial council at Westminster Abbey.  

This was a HUGE deal.  

Like… enormous.  Anselm had been trying to hold a major reform council for years, but King Rufus had refused.  Reform, as you may remember, wasn’t something that the red king was all that interested in.

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Ok, let’s return to 1101 and 1102, because Henry’s fight with Anselm, and fight between Henry and the Pope (and the fight between Anselm and the Pope) were …amazingly….only half of the story.  

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In early February of 1102 Queen Matilda was giving birth. 

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The Treaty penned at Alton had avoided outright war, but it wasn’t truly official.  It needed to be finalized at Winchester.

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In 1668, John Dryden became England’s very first Poet Laureate.  But he had a rival.  No, not just a rival.  A nemesis.

This man’s name was Thomas Shadwell, and I can’t overstate how much Dryden hated him.

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King Henry’s first Christmas Court in the closing days of 1100 had felt…off. 

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Ok, let’s face it, last year was a lot.  Rampant corruption, threats of war, tyrannical leaders, actual war, a greedy feckless aristocracy, rulers weaponizing the legal system, rulers completely disregarding the legal system, rulers making grandiose promises they had no interest in actually delivering on, international intrigue, at least one incredibly suspicious death, and finally rumors about that death which continue to haunt the halls of power.

Just… so much.

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Edith, the daughter of King Malcolm Canmore, has appeared from time to time in our story and (by this point) she was about 20 years old… and many of those years had been weird ones.