within months without any major military action henry managed to crush his brother's ambitions in part by making jeffrey the new count of nant and in the end the challenge proved beneficial to henry's cementing of his rule he used the opportunity presented by jeffrey's revolt to crush the independence of some of those french knights and nobles under his dominions who had sided with jeffrey and when jeffrey himself died in NUMBER_TOKEN the time proved opportune to fully cement henry's control over his french possessions now henry would have unequivocal control of the growing arjvan empire a hegemony which would not be challenged for nearly NUMBER_TOKEN years in part henry's success came about because of his own boundless energy combined with a shrewd pragmatism the young king knew what was achievable and worked to implement it but his accomplishments in bringing stability to england and france after so many years of turmoil must also be attributed to the intelligence with which he selected his advisors significant amongst them was his mother matilda who had done so much to champion henry's cause in his youth at a time when he barely knew what it was that was being fought over she worked extensively with the church and patronized the cistercian reform movement throughout the NUMBER_TOKENs and NUMBER_TOKENs until her own death in NUMBER_TOKEN. other close advisers included henry's uncle reginald of cornwall the earl of arundel william dobbiny and the justicia's robert earl of leicester and richard delusi several senior bishops were also brought into the administration but no figure was as ubiquitous and influential in the young king's government than the man he made lord chancellor of england thomas becket a protege of the archbishop of canterbury theobaldo beck beckett was recommended to henry in the mid-NUMBER_TOKENs and quickly became an indispensable part of his regime increasing henry's revenues throughout england what each of these advisors offered was experience and administration which the young henry otherwise lacked these years would also see the almost continuous growth of henry's family and eventually henry and eleanor would have eight children in total surprisingly in a time of high infant mortality all but one of the eight survived infancy and by NUMBER_TOKEN their surviving four sons and three daughters ranged in age from NUMBER_TOKEN years old to just three years old the elder daughters matilda and eleanor were married to the duke of saxony named henry the lion and alfonso the king of castile respectively while the third daughter was joanna the eldest son was henry's namesake who was married to margaret the daughter of the king of france louis vii henry jr's younger brothers were richard jeffrey and john two of whom even as younger sons of the king would eventually go on to have extremely consequential lives and careers and their own right richard not least as a king and the lionheart who would battle with saladin in the sands of the
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