Henry of Essex or Henry d'Essex (died c. 1170) was a Norman noble who held the honours of Rayleigh, Essex, Haughley (by right of his 2nd wife Alice de Montfort), and the office of Constable of England during the reigns of Kings Stephen and Henry II. That office included the duty of holding the royal standard to indicate the location of the king.
Henry was the son and heir of Robert fitz Swein of Essex, who was favoured by King Edward the Confessor and who built Rayleigh Castle after 1066, and grandson of Swein, son of Robert FitzWimarc.
Henry is mentioned in several chronicles, including the Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond. His influence at court was greatest during the reign of King Stephen, but continued into the first years of Henry II's reign. He served King Henry as sheriff of Buckinghamshire from 1156 to 1159 and a justiciar as well as constable.[1] Henry participated in the king's Toulouse campaign in the spring and summer of 1159.[2]
After he dropped the royal standard in a Welsh ambush during Henry II's 1157 campaign into Wales, however, his political importance waned. At the Easter court of 1163, Henry was accused of treason for that act by a claimant to the Montfort estate. The two men fought a judicial duel a few months later. Jocelin details Henry's trial by battle with Robert de Montfort on Fry's Island in the River Thames at Reading. Henry's body was carried senseless from the site of the duel by monks of nearby Reading Abbey, but he revived and there took the Benedictine cowl. As a convicted traitor, however, his estates and offices were forfeit and his family disgraced.[3]
Henry of Essex is thought to have died the same year as Becket, in 1170, at Reading Abbey.
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"Arms, Argent, an Orle Gules. Eodem anno, as in Madox's Exch. p.685 John de Bidun."
He married first a woman named Cecily, by whom he seems to have had two sons, Henry and Hugh. His second marriage to Alice de Montfort, widow of Robert fitz Bernard de Vere, produced at least one daughter, Agnes of Essex. Agnes was betrothed in childhood to Geoffrey de Vere, brother of the first earl of Oxford, but later married Aubrey de Vere III, first earl of Oxford, as his third wife.
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| Preceded by Unknown |
Lord High Constable of England 1150–1154 |
Succeeded by Unknown |