Welcome to the British History podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 464,

Rufus's terrible, no good, very bad campaign. This show is ad-free due to member support.

And as a way of thanking members for keeping the show independent, I offer members-only content, including extra episodes and rough transcripts. And right now, members are listening to an

episode about medieval education and how, actually, it was a lot more widespread and available

than you would think. And you can listen to that episode and all the other members extras by signing up for

membership at the British History Podcast.com for about the price of a latte per month. And thank you

very much to Eladie, Mike, and Susan for signing up already. We don't know precisely what Henry

got up to once he fled Montsam-Michel. What few records we have are

incomplete and somewhat contradictory. But from those records, we are able to glean some details.

And when we look at the accounts in total, what immediately becomes clear is that just because Henry was in exile,

it didn't mean he accepted his defeat. He had plans, and he was setting them into motion.

His first plan was to have sex, like lots and lots of sex.

And to be completely fair here, this wasn't just a Henry thing.

Most Norman lords had at least a few mistresses.

The only potential exception here being Rufus.

If he did have paramours, their names didn't survive in the record,

so at the very least, he was more

discreet than most. Not that Momsbury gave him any credit for that. Henry, on the other hand,

well, he was anything but discreet or restrained. This dude simply could not keep it in his pants. And it's at about this point

where he begins to build a small army of mistresses and illegitimate children. In the end,

Henry is responsible for over 20 illegitimate children that we know about. And only God and Santa

know how many went unrecorded. And don't take this as a sign that Henry was some sort of

...