Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks (6 page)

The Plantagenets

As Henry I had no surviving sons the crown was disputed between his nephew, Stephen, and his daughter, Matilda. She married Geoffrey the Handsome of the French district of Anjou, which bordered Normandy. He was also nicknamed after the broom blossom or ‘plante genêt’ as it was known in French, a yellow sprig of which he wore in his hat. The marriage was supposed to seal peace between Normandy and Anjou, but the accession of Stephen led to war. When Henry II, son of Geoffrey and Matilda, ascended the English throne, it meant that England was now part of an Angevin or Plantagenet empire rather than a Norman one.

H
ENRY
II

Reigned 1154–1189

Henry II can be ranked as one of the greatest kings of England, and at the height of his power he controlled most of Britain and much of France. He was educated, but straightforward, and had no love of ostentation. He was a formidable general and a vigorous leader, with a terrible temper and an unrestrained sexual appetite. Henry had up to twelve illegitimate children by more than four mistresses to add to the eight children he had with his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

He was born in 1133 at Le Mans in France, the son of Geoffrey, the Count of Anjou, and Empress Matilda. When his father died in 1151, he succeeded him as Count of Anjou, with dominion over the French regions of Touraine, Anjou, Maine and Normandy. In 1152 he pulled off a spectacular marriage to the sublime Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had just divorced the King of France, Louis VII, which brought Poitou and Gascony under his control. King Louis was horrified by the loss of such rich provinces to a rival and declared war. He was easily defeated by Henry, who then turned his attention to England. In 1153 he boldly crossed the Channel. War was averted by the fortuitous death of King Stephen’s heir and it was agreed that Henry would succeed. He was crowned in 1154 and moved quickly to consolidate and expand his new kingdom. He re-established control over Northumbria, garrisoned Edinburgh, invaded Wales, got the Pope’s permission to invade Ireland and gained control of Brittany.

He oversaw his vast empire by ceaseless travel. He built on the Anglo-Saxon local government system to maintain central control while he was away, while at the same time reducing the independence of the mighty barons. He made them demolish unauthorized castles and ended the hereditary appointment of law officers. He continued with the reforms of Henry I, further developing the English common law system, including the establishment of trial by jury, and ending the age-old systems of trial by combat or ordeal.

But these substantial achievements were diminished by the events of his later years. His first major setback occurred when Thomas Becket, a friend who Henry had elevated to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury, stubbornly took the Pope’s side in disputes concerning the power of the Church. In 1170 a furious Henry demanded, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ This was interpreted as a command, and Becket was brutally assassinated by four knights on the steps of Canterbury Cathedral. In penance, Henry walked barefoot to the site of the murder while being scourged by the clergy. Becket was later canonized.

Even more distressing was the behaviour of three of his four sons, Henry, Richard and Geoffrey. They demanded independent domains and eventually, egged on by their mother Eleanor, who by this time was estranged from her promiscuous husband, they rebelled in 1173. Henry defeated them and Eleanor was imprisoned.

Henry and Geoffrey died, leaving Richard and Henry II’s youngest and favourite son John in line to inherit the empire. But not satisfied with this, Richard sought the support of the new King of France, Philip II. By this time Henry was suffering from ill-health and he was forced to make peace. He died just a few days later, a broken man, having heard that his beloved John had also been part of the conspiracy against him.

R
ICHARD
I

Reigned 1189–1199

Richard the Lionheart was the epitome of the warrior king. He was tall and handsome, a great general and a cultured product of the age of chivalry. Although he has a reputation as a great king, he spent only a few months of his reign in England and spoke very little English.

He was born at Beaumont Palace in Oxford in 1157, the second son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine to reach adulthood. He spent his early years in his mother’s duchy, and inherited it in 1172. Richard first rebelled against his father at the age of sixteen and a decade of strife broke out between them. After the death of Richard’s older brother Henry, the heir to the throne of England, Richard defeated his father, who died soon after.

Richard immediately went to England to prepare for his coronation and raise money for the Third Crusade, with the aim of taking back the Holy city of Jerusalem from the Muslim leader Saladin and the Saracens. He left his grandmother Matilda in charge in Normandy, and his mother Eleanor in England. The Third Crusade failed to recapture Jerusalem, but Richard did manage to conquer Cyprus and Acre and proved a worthy rival to the great Saladin. He was ruthless in victory: after the siege of Acre Richard had 2,700 Muslim prisoners of war slaughtered.

Meanwhile, in England, trouble was brewing due to the arrogance of Richard’s deputy, William Longchamp, and the intrigues of Richard’s younger brother John, who was rallying support for his own cause, and Philip II of France, who was preparing to invade Normandy. So, in 1192, Richard hastily concluded peace with Saladin and set off for home. But on the way he was captured by Leopold of Austria and sold to the Holy Roman Emperor. A huge ransom was demanded, despite the Pope excommunicating the captors. The sum was eventually raised, through heavy taxation of his English subjects, and although both John and Philip II offered the captors money to keep Richard imprisoned, he was released and returned to England in 1194 to be triumphantly recrowned. He almost immediately left again, to win back territories from the French. He succeeded in this, but in 1199 he was wounded in the arm by an arrow at the siege of Chalus and died of an infection. He had no children by his wife, Berengaria of Navarre, leaving his brother John as his successor. He had two illegitimate children.

K
ING
J
OHN

Reigned 1199–1216

‘Foul as it is, Hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John,’ wrote a thirteenth-century monk. John was a deeply unpopular monarch, nicknamed ‘Lackland’ and ‘Softsword’, whose disastrous reign lost England most of the French territories his father and brother had defended so fiercely and also ended with civil war.

John was born in 1166 at Beaumont Palace in Oxford, the youngest son of the formidable Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Attempts to find the young prince lands to rule led to war with his brother Richard over Aquitaine, failure as Lord of Ireland and eventually to the betrayal of his own father. Later, Prince John conspired to seize the throne from Richard, and although his attempts failed, John finally became king when Richard died in 1199.

King John divorced his childless first wife and married Isabella of Angoulême, a marriage designed to knit his French territories together. Unfortunately, she was already betrothed to a French nobleman, Hugh de Lusignan. Outraged, Hugh appealed to King Philip II of France. When John ignored a summons to appear before him, Philip declared that John’s French lands were forfeit. In the war that followed, John had some early success, capturing the Lusignans and his own nephew Arthur of Brittany, who was imprisoned and murdered. But the murder lost John the valuable support of many French nobles and he was forced to abandon his campaign and flee to England, although an expedition to Poitou in 1206 saved Aquitaine for the English Crown.

John spent the next eight years amassing money to renew his campaign to win back his French territories, antagonizing the English with his rapacious demands and heavy taxation. When John disputed Pope Innocent III’s choice of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope banned all church services and Christian burials in England and John was excommunicated in 1209. In 1212 the Pope declared him deposed. Facing a revolt from his disgruntled barons and an attack by Philip II, John was forced to reconcile with the Pope, whom he acknowledged as England’s overlord.

In 1214 John launched his big attack to win back his French lands. With the Pope’s help, he orchestrated a coalition with Otto IV of Germany and Count Ferrand of Flanders, but it was decisively defeated at the Battle of Bouvines. This was a disaster. In losing Brittany, Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Touraine, John had undone one hundred years of successful empire-building. With his position so greatly weakened, the rebellious barons forced the King to sign the Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede, an important document that symbolized the principle that the King was not above the law and that his subjects had the right to due process of law and were protected from arbitrary arrest.

But John had no intention of keeping to its terms and soon persuaded the Pope to revoke it, leading to civil war. The barons gave their support to Philip II’s son, Louis, who landed in Britain and by May 1216 had captured Winchester and London. King John died later that same year, having over-indulged in peaches and new cider, leaving his diminished, threatened kingdom to his nine-year-old son, Henry. John had five children with Isabella and twelve illegitimate children.

H
ENRY
III

Reigned 1216–1272

Henry was a God-fearing, family-loving man, but although his reign was a long one, he was a naive and weak king. His failures as a soldier and diplomat meant that he did not recover the French territories lost by his father, and his reputation was further damaged by his preference for foreign advisors and his outrageous financial demands.

Henry was born at Winchester Castle in 1207 and was nine years old when his father John died in 1216. He was crowned in Gloucester because London and Winchester were under the control of Prince Louis of France, and with his mother’s circlet because the Crown Jewels had been lost in the Wash. His position seemed precarious, but the honesty and commitment of his regent, William Marshal, saved him from the French, and Louis withdrew in 1217. The Magna Carta was reissued that same year, and by the time Marshal died in 1219, the country was ruled by a committee of barons led by Hubert de Burgh.

Henry came of age in 1227 and began his personal rule, ending baronial control and replacing them with hated foreign advisors. He made matters worse by raising taxes to pay for a campaign to recapture the French territories, an attempt to buy the kingdom of Sicily for his son and his plans to rebuild Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. Only his architectural adventures were successful, especially at Westminster, where his work remains a physical embodiment of his conception of kingship, but he was left with no new territories and a ruined country.

The barons, led by Henry’s brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, revolted and forced the King to accept the Provisions of Oxford in 1258, which limited his power and reintroduced a baronial governing council. For the first time, the Crown was forced to recognize the rights of Parliament, which was to meet three times a year. The King turned to the Pope for help and civil war broke out once again.

De Montfort captured Henry and his son Edward at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, and effectively took over the kingdom. In 1265 he called Europe’s first elected Parliament, with elected representatives from both the major towns and the counties. Unluckily for de Montfort, however, Prince Edward had escaped his imprisonment and formed an army, and de Montfort was defeated and killed at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Although Henry lived for another seven years after regaining his throne, his much more effective son was in de facto control of the country, leaving Henry free to pursue his great passion – patronage of the arts – until his death in 1272.

E
DWARD
I

Reigned 1272–1307