Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 457, The Bachelor King.

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William the Conqueror had not set his sons up for success and at the heart of it was land.

Now obviously the way he distributed his lands in his will had been a bit of a disaster

as it had set his two eldest sons on the path for war.

And as for his youngest son, Henry, the conqueror didn't even bother to give him anything other than, I assume, a dismissive glance.

And chances are, Henry wouldn't have gotten anything, were it not for the fact that his mother left

him a bundle of cash.

So that's not great, but the real damage that William had inflicted upon his sons wasn't in how he distributed his lands upon his death,

but in how he kept land out of his son's hands during his life.

All three of the boys had been kept landless

until the conqueror lay dying.

And that tight-fisted and controlling behavior meant that Rufus was in nearly as bad of a position as Henry was.

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