The chronicler at Battle Abbey, surveying the royal charters of the past, commented that Henry II ‘brought back the times of his grandfather’. Henry certainly was interested in the appearance of restoration. His charters and writs may not have been consistent with Henry I's policies, but as symbols of royal authority they emphasize how Henry II wanted his subjects to view him as king. They offered him the ability to shape his public image more effectively than he could when he was fighting for the throne. The coronation charter that Henry issued in December 1154 gave him the opportunity to project a much firmer statement on the way people should accept him as king. It is a general charter addressed to his nobles and clergy that confirmed all concessions, donations, freedoms, and customs that his grandfather Henry I had given previously. In doing this, Henry II referred to the charter that his grandfather had issued when he made the original concession upon his coronation. He does not, however, acknowledge a similar charter that Stephen of Blois had produced when he became king in 1135. This was a political statement, borrowing the strategy employed by his mother, Matilda, who asserted her authority by issuing charters in a regal style that rivaled those of King Stephen. Henry passed over his mother's right of inheritance as well, giving the impression that he was heir to his grandfather in an unbroken line of succession.

The coronation charter represents a point of transition in a much larger strategy to use royal and ducal writ-charters to establish Henry's legitimacy as heir to the Anglo-Norman realm. The following discussion will argue that Henry's identity as the successor to Henry I developed out of his family's effort to discredit Stephen's reign during the civil war. A survey of Henry's pre-regnal charters demonstrates that he was aware that the expression of his identity was an integral part of his authority, an element that Stephen and his supporters tried to control during negotiations at Winchester in November 1153. Edmund King observes that the manner of Henry's accession to the throne mattered greatly, especially to those who were willing to accept Henry as king so long as this did not invalidate their support of Stephen.

The coronation of Henry II as king of England on 7 December 1154 marked the formal conclusion of a nearly twenty-year conflict over the succession of Henry I. While a personal victory for the young king, the supporters of King Stephen were willing to accept his coronation because of a compromise reached the previous year that recognized Henry's right of succession without delegitimizing Stephen's kingship. The parties finalized the terms for peace at Winchester in November 1153. Stephen appointed Henry as his successor and heir ‘by hereditary right’, promising to include Henry ‘in all the affairs of the kingdom’. Henry agreed that Stephen would remain king so long as the magnates and bishops of England swore an oath to recognize his succession peacefully upon Stephen's death. This compromise, which gave Henry uncontested rights to the crown, redefined the legitimacy of his succession and shaped how contemporaries remembered his parents. Edmund King observes that chroniclers began to write about the civil war as a reflection of the conflict between Stephen and Henry, diminishing or denying altogether any authority that Matilda or her husband, Count Geoffrey le Bel of Anjou, had claimed in the Anglo-Norman realm. This tendency can be seen in the Historia Gaufredi, a biography of Count Geoffrey that was written for the court of Henry II by John of Marmoutier, a monk from Touraine. Although Geoffrey had become duke of Normandy, John clarifies that the count of Anjou invaded the duchy ‘so that he could defend the inheritance for his son’. This allowed him to rehabilitate Geoffrey's legacy as the conqueror of Normandy within the context of the political compromises that existed after Henry received the duchy from his father in 1150.

The purpose of this study is to establish how Geoffrey le Bel viewed his rightful place in the Anglo-Norman realm from the beginning of his marriage. It is has been difficult for scholars to evaluate Geoffrey's expectations without viewing him as the precursor to Henry II. Charles Haskins tried to simplify the issue by focusing on the charters and writs produced by Geoffrey's chancellery in Normandy. His explanation about why Geoffrey chose to maintain Norman administrative practices centers on Geoffrey's decision in 1150 to abdicate the ducal title in favor of his son.