Henry II of England
Henry II of England (
5 March 1133 –
6 July 1189) ruled as
Count of Anjou,
Duke of Normandy, and as
King of England (
1154–
1189) and, at various times, controlled parts of
Wales,
Scotland, eastern
Ireland, and western
France. His
sobriquets include "Curt Mantle" (because of the practical short cloaks he wore), "Fitz Empress", and sometimes "The Lion of Justice", which had also applied to his grandfather
Henry I. He ranks as the first of the Plantagenet or
Angevin Kings.
Following the disputed reign of
King Stephen, Henry's reign saw efficient consolidation. Henry II has acquired a reputation as one of England's greatest medieval kings.
Territorial holdings and gains: foreign enemies, allies and correspondents
Prior to coming to the throne he already controlled
Normandy and
Anjou on
the continent; his marriage to
Eleanor of Aquitaine on
18 May 1152 added her holdings to his, including
Touraine,
Aquitaine, and
Gascony. He thus effectively became more powerful than the king of
France — with an empire (
the Angevin Empire) that stretched from the
Solway Firth almost to the
Mediterranean and from the
Somme to the
Pyrenees. As king, he would make
Ireland a part of his vast domain. He also maintained lively communication with the Emperor of Byzantium
Manuel I Comnenus.
Life before accession
He was born on
5 March 1133 at
Le Mans to the
Empress Matilda and her second husband,
Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou. Brought up in
Anjou, he visited England in
1149 to help his mother in her disputed claim to the English throne.
He married
Eleanor of Aquitaine on
18 May 1152, but from May to August he was occupied in fighting Eleanor's ex-husband
Louis VII of France and his allies. In August Henry rushed back to her, and they spent several months together. Around the end of November 1152 they parted: Henry went to spend some weeks with his mother and then sailed for England, arriving on
6 January 1153. Some historians believe that the couple's first child,
William, Count of Poitiers, was born in 1153. Henry's succession was established by the
Treaty of Wallingford in 1153, after he had challenged Stephen's forces at
Wallingford Castle. It was agreed that Henry would become king on Stephen's death.
Civil and legal reform: struggle with the barons
During
Stephen's reign the barons had subverted the state of affairs to undermine the monarch's grip on the realm; Henry II saw it as his first task to reverse this shift in power. For example, Henry had
castles which the barons had built without authorisation during Stephen's reign torn down, and
scutage, a fee paid by
vassals in lieu of military service, became by
1159 a central feature of the king's military system. Record keeping improved dramatically in order to streamline this taxation.
Henry II established courts in various parts of England, and first instituted the royal practice of granting magistrates the power to render legal decisions on a wide range of civil matters in the name of the Crown. His reign saw the production of the first written legal textbook, providing the basis of today's "
Common Law".
By the
Assize of Clarendon (
1166),
trial by jury became the norm. Since the
Norman Conquest jury trials had been largely replaced by
trial by ordeal and "
wager of battel" (which English law did not abolish until
1819). Provision of justice and landed security was further toughened in 1176 with the
Assize of Northampton, build on the earlier agreements at Clarendon. This reform proved one of Henry's major contributions to the social history of England.
Shortly after his coronation, Henry sent an embassy to
Pope Adrian IV, another new arrival. Led by Bishop Arnold of Lisieux, the group of clerics requested from Adrian a privilege authorizing Henry to invade Ireland. Most historians agree that this was the papal bull
Laudabiliter. W.L. Warren asserts that Henry acted under the influence of a "Canterbury plot;" Archbishop
Theobald of Bec,
John of Salisbury, and other Canterbury clergy wished to assert their hierarchical supremacy over the newly created Irish diocesan structure. Other historians have argued instead that Henry intended to secure Ireland as a lordship for his younger brother William.
Shortly thereafter, Henry's continental affairs distracted him. William died, and the English ignored Ireland. It was not until 1166 that it came to the surface again. In that year,
Dermot MacMurrough, having been driven from his kingdom in
Leinster, followed Henry to
Aquitaine. He asked the English king to help him reassert control; Henry agreed to allow Dermot to gather supporters from among his Norman vassals. The most prominent of these was a Welsh Norman,
Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed "Strongbow." In exchange for his loyalty, Dermot offered Earl Richard his daughter Aoife (Eve) in marriage and made him heir to the kingdom.
The Normans quickly restored Dermot to his traditional holdings, and he even toyed with the idea of challenging for the title of
Ard Ri, or High King. However, in
1171, Henry arrived from
France to assert his overlordship. All of the Normans, along with many Irish princes, took oaths of homage to Henry, and he left after six months. He never returned, but he later named his young son, the future King
John of England, Lord of Ireland.
The struggle with the church and Thomas Becket
As a consequence of the improvements in the legal system, the power of
church courts waned. The church naturally opposed this and found its most vehement spokesman in
Thomas Becket, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, formerly a close friend of Henry's and his
Chancellor.
The conflict with Becket effectively began with a dispute over whether the secular courts could try clergy who had committed a secular offence. Henry attempted to subdue Becket and his fellow churchmen by making them swear to obey the "customs of the realm", but controversy ensued over what constituted these customs, and the church proved reluctant to submit. Following a heated exchange at Henry's court, Becket left England in 1164 for France to solicit in person the support of
Pope Alexander III, who was in exile in France due to dissension in the college of Cardinals, and of King
Louis VII of France. Due to his own precarious position, Alexander remained neutral in the debate, although Becket remained in exile loosely under the protection of Louis and Pope Alexander until 1170. After reconciliation between Henry and Thomas in Normandy in 1170, Becket returned to England. Becket again confronted Henry, this time over the coronation of Prince Henry (see below). The much-quoted, although probably apocryphal, words of Henry II echo down the centuries: "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Although Henry's violent rants against Becket over the years were well documented, this time four of his knights took their king literally (as he may have intended for them to do, although he later denied it) and travelled immediately to England, where they assassinated Becket in
Canterbury Cathedral on
December 29,
1170.
For this act Henry was excommunicated but obtained his rehabilitation thanks to the efforts of Robert de Torigny, abbot of
Mont St Michel. As part of his penance for the death of Becket, Henry made
a pilgrimage in sackcloth to his tomb (see also
St. Dunstan's, Canterbury), and agreed to send money to the
Crusader states in
Palestine, which the
Knights Hospitaller and the
Knights Templar would guard until Henry arrived to make use of it on pilgrimage or
crusade. Afterwards, on the
21 May 1172, he was flogged in public, dressed only in his chemise, before the door of the cathedral at
Avranches, which was his capital city in
Normandy. Henry delayed his crusade for many years and in the end never went at all, despite a visit to him by
Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem in 1184 and being offered the crown of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1188 he levied the
Saladin tithe to pay for a new crusade; the chronicler
Giraldus Cambrensis suggested his death was a divine punishment for the tithe, imposed to raise money for an abortive crusade to recapture
Jerusalem, which had fallen to
Saladin in 1187.)
Legitimate
Henry's first son, William, Count of Poitiers, had died in infancy. In 1170, Henry and Eleanor's fifteen-year-old son, Henry, was crowned king (another reason for rupture with
Thomas Becket, whose other bishops acquiesced to this during Becket's exile), but he never actually ruled and does not figure in the list of the monarchs of England; he became known as
Henry the Young King to distinguish him from his nephew
Henry III of England.
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Henry II depicted in Cassell's History of England (1902) |
Henry and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, had five sons and three daughters:
William,
Henry,
Richard,
Geoffrey,
John,
Matilda,
Eleanor, and
Joan. Henry's attempts to wrest control of her lands from Eleanor (and from her heir Richard) led to confrontations between Henry on the one side and his wife and legitimate sons on the other.
Illegitimate
Henry's notorious liaison with
Rosamund Clifford, the "fair Rosamund" of legend, probably began in
1165 during one of his Welsh campaigns and continued until her death in
1176. However, it was not until
1174, at around the time of his break with Eleanor, that Henry acknowledged Rosamund as his mistress. Almost simultaneously he began negotiating the annulment of his marriage in order to marry
Alys, daughter of King
Louis VII of France and already betrothed to Henry's son Richard. Henry's affair with Alys continued for some years, and, unlike Rosamund Clifford, Alys allegedly gave birth to one of Henry's illegitimate children.
Henry also had a number of illegitimate children by various women, and Eleanor had several of those children reared in the royal nursery with her own children; some remained members of the household in adulthood. Among them were
William de Longespee, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, whose mother was Ida, Countess of Norfolk;
Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, son of a woman named Ykenai;
Morgan, Bishop of Durham; and Matilda,
Abbess of Barking.
Succession crisis
Henry II's attempt to divide his titles amongst his sons but keep the power associated with them provoked them into trying to take control of the lands assigned to them (see
Revolt of 1173-1174), which amounted to treason, at least in Henry's eyes.
Gerald of Wales reports that when King Henry gave the kiss of peace to his son Richard, he said softly, "May the Lord never permit me to die until I have taken due vengeance upon you."
When Henry's legitimate sons rebelled against him, they often had the help of King
Louis VII of France.
Henry the Young King died in
1183. After Henry the Young King died, there was a power struggle between the three sons that were left. Henry had wanted John to be the next king, but Eleanor favored Richard. Henry had always loved John more than any of the other sons. Geoffrey tried to overcome both John and Richard, but he was unsuccessful. A horse trampled to death another son,
Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany (1158–1186). Henry's third son,
Richard the Lionheart (1157–1199), with the assistance of
Philip II Augustus of France, attacked and defeated Henry on
July 4,
1189; Henry died at the
Chateau Chinon on
July 6,
1189, and lies entombed in
Fontevraud Abbey, near
Chinon and
Saumur in the Anjou Region of present-day France. Henry's illegitimate son
Geoffrey, Archbishop of York also stood by him the whole time and alone among his sons attended on Henry's deathbed. His last words, according to
Gerald of Wales, were "Shame, shame on a conquered king".
Richard the Lionheart then became King of England. This was unfortunate to Henry because he had always wanted
John, his youngest son, to succeed him. John succeeded to the throne upon Richard's death in
1199, laying aside the claims of
Geoffrey's children
Arthur of Brittany and
Eleanor.
Peter of Blois left a description of Henry II in 1177:
"...the lord king has been red-haired so far, except that the coming of old age and gray hair has altered that color somewhat. His height is medium, so that neither does he appear great among the small, nor yet does he seem small among the great... curved legs, a horseman's shins, broad chest, and a boxer's arms all announce him as a man strong, agile and bold... he never sits, unless riding a horse or eating... In a single day, if necessary, he can run through four or five day-marches and, thus foiling the plots of his enemies, frequently mocks their plots with surprise sudden arrivals...Always are in his hands bow, sword, spear and arrow, unless he be in council or in books."
Another contemporary, Gerald of Wales, described him thus:
"A man of reddish, freckled complexion, with a large, round head, grey eyes that glowed fiercely and grew bloodshot in anger, a fiery countenance and a harsh, cracked voice. His neck was poked forward slightly from his shoulders, his chest was broad and square, his arms strong and powerful. His body was stocky, with a pronounced tendency toward fatness, due to nature rather than self-indulgence -- which he tempered with exercise."
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The Devil's Crown, a 1978 book from the BBC 2 television series |
*13th C: "
Book of the Civilized Man" is a poem believed to have been written in Henry's court and is the first "book of manners" or "courtesy book" in English history, representing the start of a new awakening to etiquette and decorum in English culture.
*1935: The assassination of Archbishop
Thomas Becket is the subject of the celebrated 1935 play "
Murder in the Cathedral" by
T. S. Eliot.
*1964: A fuller account of the struggle between Henry II and Becket is portrayed in the film
Becket (1964) made from the
Jean Anouilh play and starring
Peter O'Toole as Henry and
Richard Burton as Becket.
*1966: The treasons associated with the royal and ducal successions formed the main theme of the play
The Lion in Winter (1966), which also served as the basis of a 1968 film with O'Toole reprising the role of Henry and
Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine. In
2003, the film was remade as a
mini-series with
Patrick Stewart and
Glenn Close in the leading roles.
*1978: Henry II and his sons King Richard and King John also provided the subjects of the BBC2 television series
The Devil's Crown. The 1978 book of the same title was written by Richard Barber and published as a guide to the broadcast series, which starred
Brian Cox as Henry and
Jane Lapotaire as Eleanor.
*1989: The novel
The Pillars of the Earth's final chapters concern the assassination of
Thomas Becket and ends with Henry's penance.
*1994: The first decade of Henry's marriage to
Eleanor of Aquitaine is portrayed in the novel
Beloved Enemy: The Passions of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a Novel (1994), by
Ellen Jones.
Henry II's coat of arms were
gules, a lion rampant Or (red background, with a golden lion on hind legs facing to the side). [
1]
*Robert Bartlett (2000),
England Under The Norman and Angevin Kings 1075-1225*Richard Barber,
The Devil's Crown: A History of Henry II and His Sons (Conshohocken, PA, 1996)
*J. Boussard,
Le government d'Henry II Plantagênêt (Paris, 1956)
*W.L. Warren,
Henry II (London, 1973)
*
Henry II Chronology*
The Henry Project*
Medieval Sourcebook: Angevin England
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