an Angevin family that was descended from a noble named Ingelger, whose recorded history dates from 870. During the 10th and 11th centuries, power struggles occurred between rulers in northern and western France including those of Anjou, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, Blois, Maine, and the kings of France. In the early 12th century, Geoffrey of Anjou married Empress Matilda, King Henry I's only surviving legitimate child and heir to the English throne. As a result of this marriage, Geoffrey's son Henry II inherited the English throne as well as Norman and Angevin titles, thus marking the beginning of the Angevin and Plantagenet dynasties. The marriage was the third attempt of Geoffrey's father, Fulk V, Count of Anjou, to build a political alliance with Normandy. He first espoused his daughter, Alice, to William Adelin, Henry I's heir. After William drowned in the wreck of the White Ship Fulk married another of his daughters, Sibylla, to William Clito, son of Henry I's older brother, Robert Curthose. Henry I had the marriage annulled to avoid strengthening William's rival claim to Normandy. Finally Fulk achieved his goal through the marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda. Fulk then passed his titles to Geoffrey and became King of Jerusalem. Angevin kings Arrival in England When Henry II was born in 1133, his grandfather, Henry I, was reportedly delighted, saying that the boy was "the heir to the kingdom". The birth reduced the risk that the King's realm would pass to his son-in-law's family, which was possible if the marriage of Matilda and Geoffrey ended childless. The birth of a second son, also named Geoffrey, increased the likelihood of partible inheritance following French custom, in which Henry would receive the English maternal inheritance and Geoffrey the Angevin paternal inheritance. This would separate the realms of England and Anjou. In order to secure an orderly succession, Geoffrey and Matilda sought more power from Henry I, but quarrelled with him after the king refused to give them power that might be used against him. When he died in December 1135, the couple were in Anjou, allowing Matilda's cousin Stephen to seize the crown of England. Stephen's contested accession initiated the widespread civil unrest later called the Anarchy. Count Geoffrey had little interest in England. Instead he commenced a ten-year war for the duchy of Normandy, but it became clear that to bring this conflict to a successful conclusion Stephen would need