One good example is England. The king hardly needed to be present: the government
functioned by itself, with its own officials to handle administrative matters and record
keeping. The very circumstances of the English king favored the growth of an
administrative staff: his frequent travels to and from the Continent meant that
officials needed to work in his absence, and his enormous wealth meant that he could
afford them.
True, a long period of civil war (1135–1154) between the forces of two female
heirs to the Norman throne (Matilda, daughter of Henry I, and Adela, Henry’s sister)
threatened royal power. As in Germany during the Investiture Conflict, so in England
the barons and high churchmen consolidated their own local lordships during the war;
private castles, symbols of their independence, peppered the countryside. But the war
ended when Matilda’s son, Henry of Anjou, ascended the throne as the first
“Angevin” king of England.^1 (See Genealogy 6.1: The Norman and Angevin Kings of
England.) Under Henry II (r.1154–1189), the institutions of royal government in
England were extended and strengthened.
