It is a great honour to have been asked to contribute to this tribute to Warren Hollister, whom I knew from his many visits to the Battle Conferences, always enriched by his presence. We did not share the same field of studies, but given that he was the founding father of the Haskins Society, it is appropriate that this paper was delivered to the first meeting of the ‘British Haskins’, on the occasion of the Annual Day-Conference held on 12 September 2002 at the Institute of Historical Research in London. The paper is presented here more or less as it was read. My intention was rather to entertain than to inform the distinguished audience who attended, all of whom knew more about the subject than I, and I hope that Warren, now feasting in the halls of heaven with the other great historians who have gone before us, will also enjoy it.

It might be possible, after long and detailed research, to produce a study of those families of pre-Conquest English origin who managed to survive the Norman settlement, and even to attain, in the early twelfth century, a modest degree of prosperity. I have not attempted this task, which in any event would have little to say of Henry I. As a pre-Conquest historian, I know little of Henry, so when I was asked to speak on his relations with the English, I turned to the works of better-informed scholars. It was rather daunting to discover from Judith Green that ‘Henry was not an Anglophile and did not seek to promote Englishmen’, but I took comfort from G.H.White, who concluded that ‘Henry was evidently devoid of racial prejudice in his choice of mistresses’. Though my assigned topic might preclude any chance of adding to the high intellectual tone of the occasion, at least I should be able to lower it with scandalous gossip and suggestive innuendo.

Two of Henry I’s many liaisons were with women called Edith, a name of insular rather than continental associations, which suggests that they were English.