Henry Plantagenet

Notes:

Reigned 1216-1272. A minor when he took the throne he did not take the reigns of Government himself until 1234. Baronial discontent simmered, boiling over in 1258 when Henry facing financial disaster attempted to raise large sums from his magnates. Reforms were agreed upon but then renounced by Henry. Simon de Montford lead a rebellion against the King (the Barons Wars) which was defeated after initial success, thereafter Henry ceded much of his power to his son. Burke say he was born 10 Oct 1206 and married 14 Jan, crowned 1216.

Buried:
Fontevraud-l'Abbaye

Died:
Age: 65

Henry married Eleanor Berenguer on 14 Jan 1236 in Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England. Eleanor (daughter of Count of Provence Ramon IV Berenguer and Beatrice de Savoy) was born in 1223 in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France; died on 24 Jun 1291. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

After King Henry died she took the veil at Amesbury.

Died:
Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England

Notes:

Reigned 1199-1216. Signed Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede.

His reign saw renewal of war with Phillip II Augustus of France to whom he has lost several continental possessions including Normandy by 1205. He came into conflict with his Barons and was forced to Sign the Magna Carta. His later repudiation of the charter led to the first barons war 1215-17 during which John died. Burke says he was born in 1160.

King of Ireland 1177, Count of Mortain 1189, Earl of Gloucester.

Matthew Paris wrote, 'Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the presence of King John', and this pretty well sums up John's reputation--until 1944, that is. For in that year Professor Galbraith demonstrated in a lecture to an astonished world that the chief chronicle source for the reign of John was utterly unreliable. Since then bad King John has been getting better and better, until now he is nearly well again, and a leading scholar in the field has seriously warned us that the twentieth century could well create it own John myth.

A man who can create so many myths, or rather have them created about him, is clearly outstanding in some way, but the myths hide the truth. Plainly the chroniclers who invented stories about him after his death can tell us little, and we should not take too much notice of people who condemned John for carrying out his father's (and his brother's officials') policies and administrative routines, nor indeed those who condemned him because of the bitter troubles that happened in the succeeding reign, troubles which were in no means entirely of John's making. Recent historians have turned to the administrative records of his reign, and found there a very different picture; but still the lingering doubts remain--were these records the result of John's skill and application or of those of his able staff?

John was a paunchy little man, five feet five inches tall, with erect head, staring eyes, flaring nostrils and thick lips set in a cruel pout, as his splendid monument at Worcester shows. He had the tempestuous nature of all his family, and a driving demoniac energy: Professor Barlow says that 'he prowled around his kingdom, ' which is an evocative phrase, but it would be truer to say that he raced around it. He was fastidious about his person--taking more baths than several other medieval kings put together, and owning the ultimate in luxury, for that time, a dressing-gown. He loved good food and drink, and gambled a great deal, though he usually lost--the results of his typical impatience and carelessness are recorded on his expense rolls; above all things he loved women. Some say his 'elopement' was the cause of his loss of Normandy. He was generous to the poor (for instance, he remitted to them the penalties of the forest law), and to his servants; at the least he went through the motions of being a Christian king. He was extortionate, though if one considers the terrific increase in his outgoings (a mercenary soldier cost him 200 per cent more in wages than he would have in Henry II's day) one can understand some of his actions in the field. He was deeply concerned about justice, took care to attend to court business, and listened to supplicants with sympathy; he had also an urgent desire for peace in the land, saying that his peace was to be observed 'even if we have granted it to a dog.' But for all that, he had two totally unredeeming vices; he was suspicious, and enjoyed a cloak-and-dagger atmosphere--simply he did not inspire trust in his subjects. Dr. Warren says of him with some justice that if he had lived in the twentieth century he would have adored to run a secret police.

He was born at Oxford on Christmas Eve 1167. He was oblated for a monk at the abbey of Fontevrault at the age of one year, but was back at court by the time he was six--plainly he had no vocation, but he probably picked up at this early stage his fastidiousness and his passion for books: his library followed him wherever he went. He was his father's favorite, but he turned against the old man when his chance came, as he did against Richard (who had been very generous to his brother) when the latter was in captivity in 1193. The episode was a miserable failure, but it possibly sowed the seeds of distrust for John in England, where they began to sprout luxuriantly in 1199 when Richard died and John came to the throne.

Immediately the challenge came: Philip Augustus, the wily King of France, was backing John's nephew, Prince Arthur of Brittany (son of John's elder brother Geoffrey) as a contender for the throne, and England's French possessions fell prey to civil war. John found grave difficultly in dealing with the situation for a number of reasons, but in 1202 he made the remarkable coup of capturing Arthur by force-marching his troops eighty miles in forty-eight hours; but then his prosecution of the war became listless, and he lost much sympathy by his brutal murder of Arthur whilst in a drunken rage. By 1204 Normandy was lost.

The loss of Normandy seemed to wake John up, and he now deployed his every energy in building up the coastal defenses of Britain, now faced with an enemy the other side of the Channel, instead of just more of her own territory. The navy was built up, and the army, and John poured a quarter of his annual revenue into defense. But he could not persuade the baronage to support him in a counterstroke to regain Normandy: the barons of the north country had never owned land in Normandy and did not see why they should pay to regain southerner's castles for them. These 'Northerners' as they called themselves, were a hive of discontent, and more was to be heard from them. Meanwhile, John sailed angrily about in the Channel, cursing ineffectually.

Other troubles were to come first, however. In 1205 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walker, died, and John assumed that he would have the choice of the new archbishop. However, Pope Innocent III was no man to support secular control over church appointments, and supported the right of the monks of Canterbury to select their own archbishop. For two years the storms blew between England and Rome, then Stephen Langton was appointed. Meanwhile John had driven the monks into exile and appropriated the revenues of the archdiocese. He had fallen out also with his half-brother, Geoffrey Archbishop or York, over tax-collection, and he too fled abroad while John collected his revenues. Four bishops joined in his fight--tension was growing to the snapping point. In 1208 the Pope put an Interdict on England, which in effect meant the clergy went on strike, or, in certain cases and areas, worked to rule. John began negotiations with Innocent, but, finding that he demanded unconditional surrender, stopped them and took over all ecclesiastical properties and incomes. He did leave the clergy sufficient to live, though barely; but he still gained a large increment to his usual finances. In November 1209 the Pope took the final step of excommunicating the King, which, in that it made him an outlaw in Christendom, did far more damage than the Interdict.

John used his enlarged treasury to restore order in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and to rebuild the old alliance with Otto IV of Germany and the Count of Flanders against Philip Augustus. He planned a two-pronged attack on France, to take place in 1212. But that year turned out an unlucky one for John, for the barons again refused to serve abroad, and the army he had was needed to put down a revolt in Wales; the Pope was threatening to demote him, and Philip Augustus was planning a massive invasion of England. John had to give in in one direction, for the pressure was much too great: he chose the Pope, and wisely so. He agreed to return to the status quo in the matter of church property and establishment, and to pay compensation; he further resigned his kingdom into the hands of the Pope, to receive it back in return for his homage and an annual tribute of 1,000 marks (a mark being two-thirds of a pound].

He had won a notable ally in Innocent III, who supported him faithfully throughout his troubles. Then his fleet, his own creation, had the good luck to find the French fleet at anchor and unprotected, destroyed it, and so made a French invasion impossible. On the crest of a wave, John determined to put his two-pronged invasion plan into action, but once more the northern barons refused to play, and he set off to punish them. Stephen Langton had arrived on the scene by now and managed to persuade John not to provoke the barons further.

In 1214 he finally managed to put his long cherished plan into action, but the two attacks were not properly coordinated; Otto was defeated at Bovines, and John was deserted by his Protein knights.

In 1215 John faced a baronage in turmoil: they could point to the failure of his expensive schemes, he ascribed his failure to their total lack of support. The situation could not be more tense. John's nervousness can be seen in his taking of the cross, a blatant attempt to reinforce his alliance with the papacy. In April the Northerners met at Stamford; they were by now a mixture of northerners and southerners--the name was now merely a nickname--but by and large they were the younger element in the kingdom, roughnecks out for a spree. They moved south and were let into London by a faction, and received the expected encouragement from Philip Augustus in the form of siege engines brought over by one Eustace, a renegade monk turned pirate.

John offered arbitration, but the barons turned it down, and while he put his faith in an appeal to Rome, Stephen Langton, in cooperation with William Marshal and other more stable and sensible barons, were working on the Northerners' demands to incorporate them into a general charter, which would not only govern feudal relationships, but would also lay down a more general pattern of legality in government. On 15 June John fixed his seal to the draft of Magna Carat, and on 19 June attested copies were sent to all parts of the kingdom.

The King did his part thoroughly, though for how long he would have continued is another matter, but the barons continued to distrust him. They remained in arms, organizing tournaments as their excuse, saying that the prize would be 'a bear a certain lady would send.' This was civil war, and John took to it with a fiendish glee. He reduced the north and the east, and was about to mop up the remainder of the opposition in London when Philip Augustus' son Louis landed in force to help the barons (May 1216). John had been riding hard for months, and was sick with dysentery after a bout of over-eating; whilst crossing the Wash, the whole of his baggage-train was lost. At Newark Castle on 18 October, he died, desiring to be buried near his patron saint Wolfsan in Worcester Cathedral.

He was by no means a good man, and his energies could well have been put to a better use, but in a different situation he might well have made a great king. His constant failure was discipline, over himself first, and others second. John reminds me of nothing so much as the type of person who is brilliant in many ways, and has many gifts, but leaves after two terms 'not suited to teaching in this type of school.' [Who's Who in the Middle Ages, John Fines, Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1995]

John married Countess of Angoulême Isabella Taillefer on 24 Aug 1200 in Bordeaux, Gironde, France. Isabella (daughter of Count of Angoulême Aymer Taillefer and Alix Courtenay) was born in 1188 in Angoumé, Landes, Aquitaine, France; died on 31 May 1246 in Fontevrault Abbey, Anjou, France; was buried in Fontevrault Abbey, Anjou, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ramon married Beatrice de Savoy on 5 Jun 1219. Beatrice (daughter of Count of Savoy Thomas de Maurienne and of Geneva Marguerite) was born in 1201 in Savoy, France; died in Dec 1266. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Reigned 1154-1189. He ruled an empire that stretched from the Tweed to the Pyrenees. In spite of frequent hostilities with the French King his own family and rebellious Barons (culminating in the great revolt of 1173-74) and his quarrel with Thomas Becket, Henry maintained control over his possessions until shortly before his death. His judicial and administrative reforms which increased Royal control and influence at the expense of the Barons were of great constitutional importance. Introduced trial by Jury. Duke of Normandy.

Henry II was born at Le Mans in 1133. He was the eldest son of the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, by her second marriage to Geoffrey the Fair of Anjou. His parents' marriage was tempestuous, and both parties were glad when politics brought a separation, with Matilda going to England to fight King Stephen, and Geoffrey of Normandy to win a heritage for young Henry.

He first came to England at the age of nine when his mother made her dramatic escape from Oxford where she was besieged by Stephen, across the ice and snow, dressed all in white, to welcome him at Wallingford. His next visit, when he was fourteen, showed his character: he recruited a small army of mercenaries to cross over and fight Stephen in England, but failed so miserably in the execution of his plans that he ended up borrowing money from Stephen to get back home. A third expedition, two years later, was almost as great a failure. Henry was not a soldier, his were skills of administration and diplomacy; warfare bored and sometimes frightened him. For the meanwhile he now concentrated on Normandy, of which his father had made him joint ruler. In 1151, the year of his father's death, he went to Paris to do homage to Louis VII for his duchy. There he met Queen Eleanor, and she fell in love with him.

Henry was by no means averse. To steal a king's wife does a great deal for the ego of a young duke; he was as lusty as she, and late in their lives he was still ardently wenching with 'the fair Rosamund' Clifford, and less salubrious girls with names like 'Bellebelle'; finally, she would bring with her the rich Duchy of Aquitaine, which she held in her own right. With this territory added to those he hoped to inherit and win, his boundaries would be Scotland in the north, and the Pyrenees in the south.

Henry was, apart from his prospects, a 'catch' for any woman. He was intelligent, had learned Latin and could read and possibly write; immensely strong and vigorous, a sportsman and hard rider who loved travel; emotional and passionate, prone to tears and incredible rages; carelessly but richly dressed, worried enough in later life to conceal his baldness by careful arrangement of his hair, and very concerned not to grow fat.

But now he was in the prime of youth, and in 1153, when he landed with a large force in Bristol, the world was ready to be won. He quickly gained control of the West Country and moved up to Wallingford for a crucial battle with Stephen. This was avoided, however, because in the preparations for the battle Henry fell from his horse three times, a bad omen. Henry himself was not superstitious -- he was the reverse, a cheerful blasphemer -- but he disliked battles and when his anxious advisers urged him to heed the omen, he willingly agreed to parley privately with Stephen. The conference was a strange occasion: there were only two of them there, at the narrowest point of the Thames, with Henry on one bank and Stephen on the other. None the less, they seem to have come to an agreement to take negotiations further.

That summer Stephen's son died mysteriously, and Eleanor bore Henry an heir (about the same time as an English whore Hikenai produced his faithful bastard Geoffrey). The omens clearly showed what was soon confirmed between the two -- that when Stephen died, Henry should rule in his place. A year later Stephen did die, and in December 1154, Henry and Eleanor were crowned in London.

Henry was only 21, but he soon showed his worth, destroying unlicensed castles, and dispersing the foreign mercenaries. He gave even-handed justice, showing himself firm, but not unduly harsh. A country racked by civil war sighed with relief. Only two major difficulties appeared: first Henry's failure in his two Welsh campaigns in 1157 and 1165, when guerilla tactics utterly defeated and on the first occasion nearly killed him; second was the reversal of his friendship for Becket when he changed from being Chancellor to Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162.

The quarrel with Becket was linked with the King's determination to continue his grandfather's reform of the administration of justice in the country. He was anxious for a uniform pattern, operated by royal justices, to control the corrupt, ill-administered and unequal local systems operated by barons and churchmen. At Clarendon in 1166 and Northampton in 1176, he got his council's agreement to a series of measures which established circuits of royal justices dealing with the widest range of criminal activities. The method of operation was novel, too, relying on a sworn jury of inquest of twelve men. Though not like a modern jury, in that they were witnesses rather than assessors, the assize juries were the ancestors of the modern English legal system.

Henry traveled constantly, and much of the time in his Continental territories, for there were constant rebellions to deal with, usually inspired or encouraged by Louis of France. Henry was determined to keep the integrity of his empire, and to pass it on as a unity. To do this was no small task, but in 1169 Henry held a conference with the King of France which he hoped would achieve his objectives: he himself again did homage for Normandy, his eldest son Henry did homage for Anjou, Maine and Brittany, and Richard for Aquitaine. The next year he had young Henry crowned in his own lifetime. If anything could preserve the succession, surely this would, yet, in fact, it brought all the troubles in the world onto Henry's head, for he had given his sons paper domains, and had no intention that they should rule his empire. Yet a man with a title does not rest until he has that title's power.

Late in 1171 Henry had a pleasant interlude in Ireland - escaping from the world's condemnation for the murder of Becket. He spent Christmas at Dublin in a palace built for him out of wattles by the Irish.

Meanwhile, Eleanor had been intriguing with her sons, urging them to revolt and demand their rights. Early in 1173 they trooped off to the French court, and with Louis joined in an attack on Normandy. Henry clamped Eleanor into prison and went off to meet the new threat. Whilst he was busy meeting this, England was invaded from Flanders and Scotland, and more barons who fancied a return of the warlord days of Stephen broke into revolt.

Plainly it was St. Thomas's revenge, and there was no hope of dealing with the situation without expiation. In July 1174 Henry returned to England, and went in pilgrim's dress to Canterbury. Through the town he walked barefoot, leaving a trail of blood on the flinty stones, and went to keep his vigil of a day and a night by the tomb, not even coming out to relive himself. As he knelt, the assembled bishops and all the monks of Christchurch came to scourge him -- each giving him three strokes, but some with bitterness in their hearts laying on with five.

It was worth it though, for the very morning his vigil ended Henry was brought the news that the King of Scotland had been captured. He moved quickly northwards, receiving rebels' submission all the time. He met up with Geoffrey who had fought valiantly for him, and commented, 'My other sons have proved themselves bastards, this one alone is my true and legitimate son.'

Returning to France, he quickly came to an agreement with Louis and his three rebel sons, giving each a substantial income, though still no share of power.

Richard set to work reducing the Duchy of Aquitaine to order, and quickly proved himself an able general who performed tremendous feats, such as capturing a fully manned and provisioned castle with three walls and moats to defend it. But the people were less easy to subdue - they loved war for its own sake as their poet-leader, Bertrand de Born, shows well in his works: '. . . I love to see amidst the meadows tents and pavilions spread; and it gives me great joy to see drawn up on the field knights and horses in battle array; and it delights me when the scouts scatter people and herds in their path; and my heart is filled with gladness when I see strong castles besieged, and the stockades broken and overwhelmed, and the warriors on the bank, girt about by fosses, with a line of strong stakes, interlaced . . . Maces, swords, helms of different hues, shields that will be riven and shattered as soon as the fight begins; and many vassals struck down together; and the horses of the dead and wounded roving at random. And when battle is joined, let all men of good lineage think of naught but the breaking of heads and arms: I tell you I find no such savor in food or in wine or in sleep as in hearing the shout "On! On!" from both sides, and the neighing of steeds that have lost their riders, and the cries of "Help! Help!"; and in seeing men great and small go down on the grass beyond the fosses; in seeing at last the dead, with the pennoned stumps of lances still in their sides.'

These robust knights were actively encouraged by the young King Henry. He was handsome, charming and beloved of all, but also feckless and thoughtless -- far keener on tournaments and frivolity than the serious business of government. Then in the middle of his new rebellion he caught dysentery and shortly died. His devoted followers were thunderstruck --one young lad actually pined to death -- and the rebellion fizzled out.

The young king was dead, but Henry, wary of previous errors, was not going to rush into making a new one. He called his favorite youngest son, John, to his side and ordered Richard to give his duchy into his brother's hands. Richard -- his mother's favorite -- had made Aquitaine his home and worked hard to establish his control there; he refused to give his mother's land to anyone, unless it were back to Eleanor herself.

Henry packed John off to Ireland (which he speedily turned against himself) whilst he arranged to get Eleanor out of her prison and bring her to Aquitaine to receive back the duchy. Meanwhile the new King of France, Philip, was planning to renew the attack on English territories, all the while the three, Henry, Richard, and Philip, were supposed to be planning a joint crusade.

In 1188 Henry, already ill with the abscessed anal fistula that was to cause him such an agonizing death, refused point blank to recognize Richard as his heir. The crazy project for substituting John was at the root of it all, though Henry may have deluded himself into thinking he was playing his usual canny hand.

But diplomacy was giving way to the Greekest of tragedies. In June 1189, Philip and Richard advanced on Henry at his birthplace in Le Mans, and he was forced to withdraw with a small company of knights, showering curses on God. Instead of going to the safety of Normandy, he rode hard, his usual long distance, deep into Anjou. This worsened his physical condition and, in high fever, he made no effort to call up forces to his aid. Forced to meet Philip and Richard, he was so ill he had to be held on his horse whilst he deliriously mumbled his abject agreement to their every condition for peace.

Back in bed after his last conference he was brought the news that John, for whom he had suffered all this, had joined the rebels' side. Two sons-- both rebels -- were dead, two sons -- both rebels -- lived, and it was his bastard Geoffrey who now tended him in his last sickness. There was not even a bishop in his suite to give him the last rites. Over and again he cried out in agony "Shame! shame on a vanquished king!"

After his death the servants plundered him, leaving him in a shirt and drawers. When the marshal came to arrange the burial he had to scratch around for garments in which to dress the body. A bit of threadbare gold edging from a cloak was put around Henry's head to represent his sovereignty.

And yet Henry had foreseen it all. According to Gerald of Wales, he had long before ordered a fresco for one of his rooms at Winchester: the picture showed an eagle being pecked by three eaglets, and a fourth perched on his head, ready to peck out his eyes when the time should come. [Source: Who's Who in the Middle Ages, John Fines, Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1995]

Henry married Duchess of Aquitaine Eleanor on 18 May 1152 in Bordeaux Cathedral, Bordeaux, France. Eleanor (daughter of Duke of Aquitaine William X "The Toulousan" and Eleanor Chatellerault de Rochefoucald) was born about 1122 in Chateau de Belin, Guinne, France; died on 31 Mar 1204 in Mirabell Castle, Poitiers, France; was buried in Fontevraud Abbey, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Aymer married Alix Courtenay about 1180. Alix (daughter of Emperor of Constantinople Pierre II Capet and Elizabeth) was born about 1160 in Courtenay, Loiret, France; died about 1218. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Alfonso married Garsenda II de Sabran in Jul 1193 in Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. Garsenda was born in 1180 in Sabran, Gard, Languedoc-Roussillon, France; died in 1242 in Sabran, Gard, Languedoc-Roussillon, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Thomas married of Geneva Marguerite in May 1195. Marguerite was born about 1175; died on 13 Apr 1236 in Pierre Chatel, Hautecombe, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]