ABSTRACT
With the death of William Rufus, Anselm’s position in England changed dramatically. Before Rufus died, Anselm’s position had been hopeless. Rufus’s brother Henry, who had been in the royal hunting party, leapt on his horse and headed for Winchester, where he seized the royal treasury and with the help of key magnates such as Robert of Meulan and Henry of Beaumont, arranged for his own coronation as king and successor to his childless, unmarried brother. Henry also had the great fortune that his eldest brother Robert Curthose, who had pawned Normandy to Rufus in 1095/6, was still returning from the Holy Land, where he had gone on the First Crusade. Although it seems unlikely that Henry was a party to the assassination of his brother, and was taken by surprise as much as anyone, Henry was quick-thinking, well educated, and well schooled enough in Anglo-Norman politics to understand just what he must do.
