• King Henry I was a younger son of King William the Conqueror. He seized the English throne when his brother, King William II, was mysteriously shot dead in the New Forest.

• He was a strong King and a clever one too. He had been educated by the monks at Abingdon Abbey. He liked to study nature and started the first zoo in England at the Tower of London.

• King Henry travelled around the country with a large entourage. This consisted of lots of servants and belongings in big covered wagons.

• When he went to Reading, he found the roads blocked by an even bigger collection of wagons. He was told they belonged to 'Thomas of Reading'. He was a rich cloth merchant. The wagons contained the cloth he was taking to Flanders to sell.

• The cloth trade made England a very rich country. King Henry decided he would like to be buried in the town which most helped to make England rich. So he had a huge Abbey Church built in Reading.

• King Henry had many children. Only two of them were his wife's and could inherit the throne though. One of his other children was the son of a woman from Seacourt, near Wytham, in North Berkshire. He became a monk at Abingdon Abbey.

• Prince William was going to be King after Henry. However, he got drunk with his friends and they sank the boat he was on in the English Channel. They all drowned!

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