Plate IX.
Odo. William. Robert.
This scene shows three portraits, William the Conqueror being in the centre, with Bishop Odo on his left and on his right Count Robert of Normandy.
On William’s death, his son, William Rufus, succeeded to England, and Count Robert to Normandy. On the death of William Rufus in 1100, Count Robert was still on an expedition in the Holy Land. Hence Henry I. was elected king by the popular voice, in spite of protests from Normandy, and became an English as opposed to a French monarch.
This happy division of powers was, however, not permanent, and England, Normandy and many other French provinces were reunited under the Angevins, an event which marked the beginning of that perpetual trouble with France which hardly ended with King Henry VI.