English Monarchs: Henry III

Other Names: Henry of Winchester

Reign: October 18th 1216 - November 16th 1272

Born: October 1st 1207

Died: November 16th 1272

Father: John of England

Mother: Isabella of Angoulême

Spouse: Eleanor of Provence

Children:
Edward I of England
Margaret, Queen of Scots
Beatrice, Countess of Richmond
Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster

Royal House: Plantagenet

Henry III's reign of 56 years is the longest of any pre-union English monarch. Despite his impressive longevity, however, Henry is a largely forgotten King who is perceived to have achieved little of merit. A cultured and pious man, Henry's lasting achievement was the rebuilding of Edward the Confessor's abbey church at Westminster, a programme of work that gave the building much of its present form. When it came to the business of government however, Henry was infamous for his adherence to the notion of absolute kingship and his attempts to defy Magna Carta. His poor judgement would lead to another round of baronial resistance to royal authority, the creation of the first English Parliament and greater legal limitations on the powers of the crown.

The Boy King

An unassuming figure with a narrow forehead and a droopy eyelid, Henry III came to the throne at the age of nine. England was in the middle of a power struggle between Henry's father, King John, and the barons who were backing the claim of Prince Louis of France. The death of John led to an immediate end of the fighting as the barons were willing to support the young Henry, whom they could easily control.

With London in the hands of the rebels and Archbishop Langton of Canterbury away in Rome appealing against his suspension for supporting Magna Carta (which the papacy had annulled at John's request), Henry was crowned by the Bishop of Winchester in a simple ceremony at Gloucester on October 28th 1216. The crown and jewels had to be improvised as the originals had earlier been lost to the sea along with much of the royal treasure when John attempted to cross the Wash whist misjudging the tides.

After Henry's coronation the country soon returned to stability and Prince Louis' support melted away. The reissuing of Magna Carta in November was enough to draw most of the barons back into swearing allegiance to the English regime. Louis was dealt a major blow when he was defeated at Lincoln by Henry's regent, the respected knight William the Marshal. Louis attempted to bring in reinforcements from France but the French fleet was defeated of Sandwich in what would be the first of many English naval victories. Interestingly, the English used an early example of chemical weaponry in that encounter, lobbing pots of powdered quicklime onto the decks of the French ships and blinding their crews with the burning dust.

In 1217 the Treaty of Kingston ensured the withdrawal of Prince Louis from England. A year later he would drop his claim on England altogether. At the Pope's insistence, Henry was given a full and elaborate second coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1220. Soon King Alexander II of Scots would be bowing at the boy's feet to pay homage. Alexander was repaid for his kindness with marriage to Henry's sister, Joan.

Absolute Power

The rest of Henry's minority was peaceful, with William the Marshal running the country in accordance with Magna Carta. When William died in 1219 the role of chief minister was taken over Hubert de Burgh. In 1232, at the age of 25, Henry finally dismissed de Burgh and assumed personal control of the kingdom.

Like his father, Henry believed strongly in the concept of unlimited kingly power. Henry took this a step further by believing that absolute monarchical authority was divinely sanctioned by God. His beliefs were most likely a reaction to the humiliating way the barons had treated his father. Unfortunately his sense of pride was not matched by his sense of reason. Henry failed to realise that John had been the architect of his own downfall and that lessons ought to have been learned from it. Instead Henry arrogantly pursued his vision of absolute kingship without regard for the legal limitations on his authority such as Magna Carta, which he regarded as trifling constitutional nonsense.

Predictably, it did not take long for the familiar grumblings of the barons to reappear. Henry's heavy-handedness and flagrant disregard for Magna Carta was alienating his subjects and his choice of favourites was allowing them to indulge in the traditional staple of Medieval and Early Modern English life, distrust and suspicion of foreigners. Lucrative government jobs were going to Henry's French relatives as well as those of his wife, Eleanor of Provence, whom the King had married in 1236. The 13th Century chronicler Matthew Paris wrote:

"At this time the King daily, and not just slowly, lost the affection of his natural subjects. For like his father he openly attracted to his side whatever foreigners he could, and enriched them, introducing aliens and scorning and despoiling Englishmen."

Not content with emulating the unpopular rule of his father at home, Henry was also keen to emulate his efforts to recapture the lands of the former Angevin Empire, albeit more successfully of course. Unfortunately Henry had just as bad a time in France as John did, if not worse, and campaigns in 1230, 1242 and 1253 met with little success. By 1259 Henry was forced to finally renounce the English claims on Normandy and Anjou for good and paid homage to the French King for England's last continental possession, Gascony.

15th Century painting depicting Henry III landing in Aquitaine.

In 1254 the Pope granted Henry the Kingdom of Sicily for his son Edmund CrouchbackMagna Carta.

In July 1258 a sudden thunderstorm in London forced Henry to take refuge in the Bishop of Durham's riverside palace. Whilst sheltering there he happened to bump into his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. De Montfort was emerging as the leading figure in the faction of discontented barons and Henry seemed only too aware of this. Upon meeting him, the King is supposed to have said:

"I fear thunder and lightning beyond measure; but, by God's head, I fear you more than all the thunder and lightning in the world."

The First Parliament

It was the barons' response to Henry's taxation without representation that resulted in the creation of the lawmaking body that would become known as Parliament. In 1258 a committee of barons drew up the Provisions of Oxford which effectively abolished the absolutist Anglo-Norman monarchy. The provisions set out a system of rule established through a Council of Fifteen, acting with the King and his ministers, who were now required to be Englishmen. It was also written that the newly-created "Parliament" (originating from the French word parle, meaning "to speak"), consisting only of nobility at this stage, was to meet three times a year and monitor the Council's performance.

The Provisions of Oxford reduced Henry to the role of a severely limited figurehead monarch and he did not like that one bit. Nonetheless he bowed to pressure from the barons and made the required oaths to uphold the new provisions. Unfortunately the tensions still remained and the nobility gradually became more and more polarised between those backing the King and those backing the rebel baron Simon de Montfort. When Henry obtained a papal bull relieving him of his oath to uphold the Provisions of Oxford in 1262. The two sides began preparing for all-out conflict.

Simon de Montfort and the Second Barons' War

Hostilities between the two factions broke out in 1264. The rebel barons under de Montfort, having already secured much of southern England before the start of the conflict, scored a crushing victory over Henry's army at the Battle of Lewes on May 14th. The King was captured as was his eldest son, Edward Longshanks and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall. With Henry and the heir to the throne under his control, de Montfort was now effectively in charge of the Kingdom.

Simon de Montfort and Henry III

Henry now had even less power than he'd had under the Provisions of Oxford. Although he was now King in name only, de Montfort had no intention of replacing him, preferring instead to keep him as a puppet in order to give the barons' regime greater legitimacy. 1265 turned out to be another landmark year for English politics as de Montfort summoned a Parliament which, for the first time, consisted of not only of nobles but also of knights, clergy and elected (in some cases) representatives from both the counties and the boroughs. The Parliament of 1265 would be instrumental in laying the foundations for what would become the House of Lords and House of Commons.

That year, however, also turned out to be the year of the great Simon de Montfort's undoing. In May 1265 Prince Edward escaped from captivity and was soon joined by de Montfort's former ally Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Edward, as the Welsh and the Scots would later testify, was a somewhat more able military commander than his father and soon the royalist cause was resumed under his leadership. In August, Edward decisively defeated de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham, with de Montfort himself being killed and his remains horribly mutilated. Henry III's authority as King was restored but in 1267, for the sake of political stability, he put his seal to the Statute of Marlbrough, which reaffirmed Magna Carta and some of the Provisions of Oxford.

Last Years: Westminster Abbey

Having learned his lesson and with England returning to stability, Henry withdrew from politics after signing the Statute of Marlborough and spent his final years indulging his religious side, completing the building project which had been ongoing for much of his reign.

Westminster Abbey

Henry was a keen follower of the cult of St Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon King of England who had been canonised in 1161. It was through his admiration for the Saxon saint that Henry established Westminster as the fixed centre of power in England. Henry employed French architects from Rhiems to redesign and rebuild the old Westminster Abbey, the Confessor's crowning glory, in the more fashionable Gothic style. Work began in 1245 and was completed in 1269. Much of the church that stands today dates from this period. The centrepiece for the new Westminster Abbey was the magnificent new shrine into which Edward the Confessor's remains were reinterred in 1269.

Henry did not live long after the completion of the work. He finally died on November 16th 1272, aged 65, and was succeeded by his warrior son Edward Longshanks. Emulating his favorite saint to the last, the body of Henry III was dressed in a simple robe and interred in Edward the Confessor's modest old tomb until his own grand sarcophagus could be made ready.

English Monarchs: John

Other names: Lackland, Softsword

Reign: April 6th 1199 - October 18th 1216

Born: December 24th 1167

Died: October 18th 1216

Father: Henry II of England

Mother: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Spouses: Isabel of Gloucester (1), Isabella of Angoulême (2)

Children:
Henry III of England
Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall
Joan, Queen of Scots
Empress Isabella
Eleanor, Countess of Pembroke

Royal House: Plantagenet

Long derided as the archetypal "bad King", King John has acquired the reputation of being a cruel and treacherous tyrant who plotted against his noble brother Richard and imposed oppressive taxes on his subjects. He has also received plenty of bad press for his failures in war, failures that saw the loss of his father's French territories. Domestically, John possessed considerable skills as a diplomat and administrator but his heavy-handed regime led inevitably to conflict with his barons and the signing of the Magna Carta, a document which, for the first time, clearly set out the legal limitations on the powers of the monarch. Despite putting pen to parchment, John would continue the struggle against the barons and it was only his timely death that prevented England falling into French hands.

Rivalry with Richard

John acquired the nickname "Lackland" as an infant, referring to the fact that he was given nothing when Henry II first attempted to divide up his empire amongst his other sons. Later on towards the end of his reign, Henry intended to present John, now Lord of Ireland, with the Duchy of Aquitaine, which had been previously bequeathed to John's older brother Richard. This pushed Richard into rebellion but John soon joined forces with him against their father. By the time Henry died in 1189, Richard and John were his only surviving sons. The newly-crowned Richard I rewarded John with the title Count of Mortain as well as valuable estates in England.

The good feeling between the brothers was not to last and soon broke down once John learned that Richard had named their nephew Arthur of Brittany as his heir. In 1190 John entered England, breaking his agreement with Richard to not do so while the latter was away taking part in the Third Crusade. John conspired with another of Richard's former allies, Philip II of France to seize the throne but was foiled by Richard's return from crusade and captivity in 1194. Richard surprised everyone with his attitude of forgiveness towards John and would later, on his deathbed, name John as his heir. John became King of England on April 6th 1199.

Collapse of the Angevin Empire

The circumstances that led to the loss of Henry II's former lands in France were set in motion when John became King. Not everyone agreed with John's succession, least of all Arthur of Brittany and the French barons who supported him. However, when John acknowledged Philip II as his overlord in the French territories, Arthur's faction suddenly reverted and recognised the authority of John.

The real trouble started for John when he married his second wife, Isabella of Angoulême who had previously been betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan. The marriage dragged John into the internal politics of the Duchy of Aquitaine as an angered Lusignan and his followers rebelled against the King and appealed to Philip II. Philip summoned John to the French court to explain himself but John failed to show his face. This one moment of insolence from John spelled the end for the Angevin Empire.

Philip II of France

In 1202 Philip declared that all of John's lands in France were forfeit. He handed Normandy and Anjou to Arthur before preparing to face the inevitable military response from England. John's forces captured Arthur at Mirabeau in August that year. Exactly what happened to the 15-year-old after that remains a mystery although it is almost a certainty that John had him murdered. Despite removing his key rival, John's position in France grew steadily weaker as a result of his incompetence in military matters, earning him another derogatory nickname, "Softsword". By 1204 Philip was in total control of Anjou and Normandy, the old heartlands of John's Plantagenet-Norman dynasty, and the Angevin Empire was essentially no more, reduced to only the Channel Islands and the Gascony region of Aquitaine. For the first time since the Norman Conquest, the King of England was more-or-less just that and nothing more.

Making Enemies

Despite the hopelessness of the situation, John continued the fight and spent the next ten years fighting to get his old territories back, mostly unsuccessfully. The need for money to fund his futile campaigns sent taxes in England through the roof. As well as ensuring that the taxes were payed, John took great pains to enforce his royal prerogative on his subjects, actions which contributed significantly to their alienation.

As if things were not already complicated enough, John then made another powerful enemy in the form of Pope Innocent III. A dispute broke out when John resisted the appointment of the papal-approved candidate Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury in favour of a candidate of his own choosing. Once again the King's determination to get his way landed him in trouble. In 1209 Innocent excommunicated John, not that John seemed to mind. He took full advantage of the fallout with Rome, plundering church wealth which he then spent on the fighting in France. This episode did much to establish his rock-bottom reputation in the eyes of the contemporary chroniclers, most of whom were closely involved with the church.

Eventually John realised that he had no chance of recovering his lost lands in France without the support and moral justification that only the Pope could give. In 1213 both parties were reconciled but only after John accepted the appointment of Stephen Langton and agreed to effectively hand England to the Pope, who would then lease it back to him as a papal vassal. It was a large price to pay but it gave John the support of both the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire in the struggle against Philip II's France. Their support did little to change John's fortunes, however, and his invasion of France in 1214 ended in a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Bouvines. Finally realising that his old lands were gone for good, John returned to England humiliated, with nothing to show for the oppressive taxes that he had levied on his increasingly restless subjects.

Magna Carta and the First Barons' War

In 1215 the English barons finally lost patience with John and took up arms against him. Within a month they had the King under their control. John could not resist the barons' will and was forced into a humiliating surrender of his absolute powers as King. In June 1215, in a field near the River Thames at Runnymede, John begrudgingly put his signature to the Magna Carta ("Great Charter"). This famous document, inspired by Henry I's Charter of Liberties, is regarded as the first written constitution in European history and contains some early examples of laws we take for granted today, as demonstrated by two of the more well-known of its 63 clauses:

39. No freeman shall be arrested, or detained in prison, or deprived of his freehold, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way molested... except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.

40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.

As well as setting out the limits on royal power, Magna Carta also codified the feudal obligations of the barons and the liberties of the church, redressing the grievances that had been inflicted on both during John's reign. Although it only benefitted the well-off at the time, namely the clergy and the barons, Magna Carta is seen as the first tentative step on the long and rocky road towards the establishment of civil liberties for all people in England. As far as John was concerned, however, Magna Carta went against almost everything that he stood for and was resolved to get rid of it.

King John signs the Magna Carta.

John made a formal request for the Pope to annul Magna Carta, a request to which Innocent III duly agreed. The annulment led to the restarting of civil war between John and the barons, who were now considering even more drastic measures. Desperate to be rid of John whatever the long-term implications, the rebel barons invited Prince Louis of France (son and heir of Philip II) to come to England, depose John and take the crown. Louis landed in May 1216 and was soon in control of vast areas of the country.

With Louis and his followers holding court in London, John retreated to the north. Whilst attempting to cross the Wash at low tide, John's baggage train was caught out by the rising sea, leaving the King devastated as all his beloved treasure was washed out into the North Sea. His health broken, John headed to Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire where, after a last meal of peaches and beer, he took to his bed and died in the night on October 18th 1216.

When the news of John's death reached London, it changed everything. Support for Louis suddenly evaporated as the barons reverted their allegiance to John's nine-year-old son Henry, a boy towards whom none of them could have possibly held a grudge. Louis soon left England, withdrawing his claim to the throne a year later. The crowning of the young Henry III on October 28th was followed days later by a triumphant reissuing of Magna Carta.

English Monarchs: Richard I

Other Names: Richard the Lionheart

Reign: July 6th 1189 - April 6th 1199

Born: September 8th 1157

Died: April 6th 1199

Father: Henry II of England

Mother: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Spouse: Berengaria of Navarre

Royal House: Plantagenet

It is surprising that Richard I is one of the most celebrated English monarchs considering that he is perhaps one of the least English. Based in the Duchy of Aquitaine in south west France, Richard only spent six months of his ten-year reign in England. As far as he was concerned, England was little more than his landed estate, the income from which he would use to fund the military exploits that earned him his famous epithet "Coeur de Lion", meaning "Lionheart".

Richard is best known by far as being a crusader King, spending a significant portion of his reign fighting the Muslims in the Holy Land. Although this earned him a formidable reputation at the time, later historians would portray him as a vainglorious warrior who shirked his domestic responsibilities in favour of glory on the battlefield. Others of a more sympathetic viewpoint argue that, by going on crusade, he was only doing what was expected of a Christian monarch whilst his military ventures in Europe were necessary for the defence of the Angevin Empire.

Path to the Throne

Richard seems to have set his heart on a military career from an early age and was praised constantly for his chivalry, courage and decisiveness. Having being brought up in France by his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine following his parents' estrangement, Richard's teens and twenties were dominated by the struggles that he and his brothers waged against their father for control of his empire. Being Henry's second surviving son, Richard was set to inherit the Duchy of Aquitaine.

Throughout the 1170s and 1180s Richard fought hard to earn and protect his share of the inheritance. The death of his elder brother Henry, who had been set to inherit the choicest territories, made Richard the senior heir but he still had to fight off his surviving brothers' desires on Aquitaine. Eventually though, Richard came out on top, joining forces with the French King Philip II and forcing his dying father to agree to Richard's inheritance of the entire Angevin Empire. On July 6th 1189, two days after the agreement was made, Henry II died and Richard became King of England.

Richard and the Crusades

The capture of Jerusalem by the Muslim warrior Saladin in 1187 was the event which most likely persuaded Richard to take up the cross and go on crusade. Given his propensity for acts of harsh cruelty and rumours of both excessive womanising and possible homosexuality, chances are Richard may have also been seeking to atone for past sins by doing the Lord's work in Palestine.

Richard waited until he was established on the throne before leaving for the Holy Land. His alliance with Philip II was instrumental in persuading the French King to go on crusade with him, thus ensuring the safety of the Angevin Empire during his absence from Europe. Richard immediately began raising the money to bankroll his venture, selling offices, lands and titles in the less-favoured parts of the empire, England included, to the highest bidder. His Lord Chancellor, William Longchamp was even forced to reapply for his job at a cost of £3000.

"I would have sold London if I could have found a buyer." (Richard I)

On December 12th 1189, five months into his reign, Richard set sail from England, heading for the Mediterranean. The first stop was Sicily, where Richard forcibly secured the succession for his nephew, much to the chagrin of the newly-crowned Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who had entertained his own plans for the island. Next Richard sailed for Cyprus, which he conquered with ease. There he married Berengaria of Navarre, despite being already engaged to Philip II's sister Alice.

Finally, after 18 months of sailing and island-hopping, Richard at last arrived landed with his troops at Acre in Palestine on June 8th 1191 (Philip II had arrived in May, having sailed straight there from Sicily). By this time the Third Crusade had been going on for two years but the Christians had found themselves leaderless following the accidental drowning of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in June 1190, prompting a withdrawal of German forces as their leaders returned home for the election of his successor, the aforementioned Henry VI. The arrival of the Kings of England and France in Palestine, however, began a period of renewed Christian ascendancy. Richard captured Acre within a month of landing and immediately took the fight to Saladin's Muslim armies.

In September that year, Richard scored a victory against Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf and captured the city of Jaffa. Despite his run of successes, Richard's ultimate goal, the capture of Jerusalem, continued to elude him. He and the other leading crusaders quickly became bogged down in disputes amongst themselves, disputes which resulted in the death of the elected King of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat. Richard, against his better judgement, decided that peaceful negotiations were not the best way forward. In September 1192, Richard and Saladin finalized a treaty by which Acre and a small strip of coast would remain in Christian hands. The Muslims would keep control of Jerusalem but were now obliged to allow Christian pilgrims. unrestricted access to the city.

Richard the Lionheart leaves the Holy Land.

Returning Home

On October 9th 1192, Richard departed the Holy Land and began the long trip back to his Angevin Empire. It was not all plain sailing, however, and Richard found himself in hiding after bad weather forced him to dock at the Byzantine island of Corfu (the Byzantine Emperor had objected to Richard's annexation of Cyprus). Richard managed to escape undetected from Corfu disguised as a Knights Templar only to then end up shipwrecked on the Adriatic coast, forcing him to take the overland route home across the potentially hostile lands of Central Europe.

Shorty before Christmas 1192, the inevitable happened and Richard was captured near Vienna by a former crusader colleague, Leopold V, Duke of Austria. Leopold suspected Richard of being the brains behind the murder of his cousin Conrad of Montferrat and had also been greatly offended when Richard took down his banner from the walls of Acre. Despite he and his small group of followers travelling disguised as lowly pilgrims, Richard was most likely rumbled either because he was wearing an expensive ring or because he insisted that he continue eating roast chicken, a popular aristocratic delicacy of the time.

After some time in Leopold's custody, Richard was handed over to the Duke's overlord, the Emperor Henry VI. Henry needed to raise money for his military campaigns in southern Italy so he decided to hold the King for ransom. Pope Celestine III excommunicated both Henry and Leopold, thinking it wrong for them to imprison so venerable a Christian warrior. Henry was nonetheless undeterred and demanded 150,000 marks (65,000 pounds of silver) for Richard's release.

The ruins of Durnstein Castle in Austria, where Richard was held captive/

That kind of money was more than twice the annual income of the English crown at the time but Eleanor of Aquitaine eventually raised the money from the Angevin Empire by raising additional taxes on property and confiscating the treasures of the church. Philip II (who had returned from crusade in 1191) and Richard's last surviving brother John, planning to take full advantage of the King's absence offered Henry 80,000 to keep Richard imprisoned. Henry turned down their offer and took the ransom money. On February 4th 1194 Richard was released. Upon hearing the news Philip sent a warning message to John: "Look to yourself, the devil is loose".

On March 13th Richard at last arrived back in England and discovered what had been going on in his absence. Philip and John had been plotting against the King, with the latter paying homage to the former for Richard's lands in France. As Philip prepared to invade England John had even gone so far as to declare that Richard was dead, although few in England believed him and the truth soon came out once the ransom money changed hands. When Richard returned he found John begging him for mercy. In a quite remarkable display of clemency, Richard shrugged off his brother's wrongdoings, putting it all down to the work of "evil counsellors".

Return to France

Having spent just two months in England since his return from crusade and captivity, Richard left for the last time and returned to France where he would spend the rest of his reign. Before leaving he arranged and held a second coronation ceremony for himself, cementing the absentee King's rule in England, which would now be overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter.

Richard set to work taking back those parts of the Angevin Empire that Philip II has opportunistically grabbed during his time in prison. Taking advantage of Philip's long list of enemies, Richard made key alliances, reconquered Normandy and won several key victories. Philip fled, leaving his entire archive of financial audits and documents to be captured by Richard. Following the Battle of Gisors in 1198, Richard took "Dieu et mon droit" ("God and my right") as his motto, the motto which is still used by the monarchy to this day.

Death of Richard

Richard the Lionheart died in April 1199, not in the midst of battle as might have been fitting, but rather due to an avoidable and somewhat farcical incident. Richard was in the Limousin in central France, dealing with a rebellious local baron, Aimar V of Limoges. Limoges had acquired a substantial hoard of treasure which Richard, as feudal overlord, believed he was entitled to. Richard laid siege to Limoges' castle at Chalus in order to get his hands on the loot but, whilst walking around the perimeter without his chain mail, the King's attention was caught by Bertram de Gourdon, a crossbowman high up on the walls of the castle.

Richard found de Gourdon's use of a frying pan to beat off incoming arrows most amusing, and goaded the man into taking shots at him. Sure enough, a crossbow bolt struck Richard in the shoulder. The wounded King retreated to his tent but could not pull out the bolt himself. His surgeon did an even worse job, mangling Richard's arm and leaving a wound that swiftly developed gangrene. As Richard lay on his deathbed, Bertram de Gourdon was brought to him. "What harm did I ever do thee, that though should'st kill me?" asked the dying King, to which de Gourdon bravely replied:

"You killed with your own hand my father and two of my brothers, and you likewise designed to have killed me. You may take your revenge. I should cheerfully suffer all the torments that can be inflicted were I sure of having delivered the world of a tyrant who filled it with blood and carnage."

Richard was impressed by the lowly crossbowman's forthrightness and courage, ordering that he be released and awarded 100 shillings. Having no legitimate children, Richard bequeathed the crown of England and the Angevin Empire to his brother John before dying in his mother's arms on April 6th. Ignoring their master's final request, Richard's followers immediately had de Gourden flogged and then hanged.

English Monarchs: Henry II

Other Names: Henry Curtmantle, Henry Fitzempress

Reign: October 25th 1154 - July 6th 1189

Born: March 5th 1133

Died: July 6th 1189

Father: Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou

Mother: Empress Matilda, Countess of Anjou

Spouse: Eleanor of Aquitaine

Children:
William IX, Count of Poitiers
Henry the Young King
Richard I of England
Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany
Matilda, Duchess of Saxony
Eleanor, Queen of Castile
Joan, Queen of Sicily and Countess of Toulouse
John of England
William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury

Royal House: Plantagenet

Henry II was one of the great superstar Kings of the Medieval period. Through inheritance and marriage he ruled a vast Western European empire stretching from the River Tweed all the way down to the Pyrenees, controlling more of France than the French King. Despite being famous for his foul Plantagenet temper, a personality trait set to return in later generations, Henry was strong enough in character to be able to rule his many territories effectively and possessed the boundless energy needed in order to cope with the demands of travelling between them.

"In a single day, if need be, he can travel the length of four or five day-marches. Thus outsmarting his enemies, he often mocks their plots with his sudden appearance... In his hands he always has a bow, sword, spear and arrow, except when at council or at study."

(Peter of Blois, writing in 1177)

Domestically, the reign of Henry in England was dominated by his efforts to extend royal control into nearly all areas of society, particularly the church. These efforts, deemed necessary for someone who would inevitably spend long periods out of the country, would lead to the murder of his former friend-turned-opponent Thomas Becket, an act which would cast a dark shadow over an otherwise successful reign.

The Angevin Empire

By the time the dispute between King Stephen and Henry's mother, the Empress Matilda had been resolved and Henry assumed the throne of England in October 1154, a great deal of territory on the far side of the Channel had found its way into his family. As well as succeeding Stephen in England, Henry had inherited Normandy from his mother, Anjou from his father and the substantial Duchy of Aquitaine through his marriage to Eleanor, an ex-wife of the French King Louis VII. Henry II's substantial inheritance laid the foundations of what became known as the Angevin Empire, named in recognition of his paternal roots in Anjou. By the 1170s, Henry had extended his effective rule to the Duchy of Brittany following his intervention in a succession dispute there, bringing the whole of the western half of France under the direct control of the English crown.

The French portion of the Angevin Empire under Henry II.

Henry also looked to expand his holdings within the British Isles. In 1157 he met with King Malcolm III of Scots, to discuss the future of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland, northern English provinces which had been seized by Malcolm's grandfather David I in 1149. Before becoming King of England, Henry himself had promised David that the lands north of Newcastle would remain in Scottish hands but he now had no intention of honouring his word. Without waiting for papal dispensation, Henry took the land back by force. Malcolm's successor, William the Lion would try to retake Northumberland in the 1170s only to be defeated and captured by Henry's forces. William was forced to sign the Treaty of Falaise, allowing for an English military occupation of the whole of southern Scotland as far as Edinburgh.

Henry attempted to invade Wales and force the submission of the local Welsh rulers to has overlordship several times, only to be foiled by poor weather ind circumstances. Henry would later be obliged to resolve the Welsh matter through negotiation once his attentions were diverted to a new campaign in Ireland.

Henry's efforts in Ireland came largely out of the need to provide a fiefdom for his youngest brother William, who did not yet have lands of his own. Obtaining the Pope's blessing for such a venture was easy because the benefits would include bringing Ireland's celtic church in line with Rome. Permission was obtained in 1155 but nothing came of it until 1171 due to William's death and the fact that Henry was almost constantly needed elsewhere. When Henry finally did get round to paying a visit, most of Ireland's native Kings immediately submitted and paid homage, terrified by Henry's intentional display of military might. Henry established English garrisons along the eastern side of Ireland (an area of English dominion known as "The Pale") and left the land for his Norman barons to carve up, appointing his young son John as Lord of Ireland in 1177.

Administering the Kingdom

Of his 35 years of rule, Henry spent a total of 21 of them outside England, including two four-year absences. Because of his constant need to travel around his continental holdings, Henry took great pains to ensure that England could be run as effectively as possible without his direct input. He was successful in maintaining his rule throughout his absences, relying on trusted regents and viceroys to keep everything together.

With England secure, Henry then set about reestablishing royal authority over the barons, which had been eroded during the years of turmoil in Stephen's reign. Henry viewed the new found power and independence of the barons as dangerous and sought to restore the old order of things. Under Henry's supervision, former crown offices and lands siphoned off by the nobility were recovered and castles put up during the Anarchy were demolished.

The most important aspect of Henry's campaign against the power of the barons was his efforts to create a uniformity of the administrative and justice systems in England. Responsibility for civil and criminal trials passed from the baronial to the royal law courts, the first legal textbook was published and trial by jury was introduced as the standard, replacing old methods of resolution such as trial by combat which were retained only for special purposes. Despite the implementation of such radical new measures, Henry remained careful not to alienate the barons and ensured that they continued to play a key role in the government of the kingdom. Increasing royal power over the barons whilst ensuring their continued loyalty was one of the crowning achievements of Henry's reign.

Thomas Becket

If Henry found controlling the barons to be easy, the same could not be said for the other great English institution that he sought to bring under his thumb, the church. The heavily land-endowed English church, its clergy answerable not to the King but to the Pope, continued to be a thorn in Henry's despite his best efforts, possessing its own ecclesiastical courts and laws.

It was this strained relationship between Henry and the church that provided the background to one of the most notorious episodes in English history, the murder of Thomas Becket. Becket was Henry's Lord Chancellor and most loyal servant, just the sort of person the King needed to bring the church to heel. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald died in 1162, Henry lobbied hard to have Becket nominated as his successor, despite the fact that his Chancellor was not yet even an ordained priest. Becket was indeed chosen but things did not go according to plan for Henry.

Almost as soon as he took up the post, Becket, for reasons that remain unknown to this day, abandoned his life of secular worldliness and threw himself whole-heartedly into the ways of the cloth, setting himself up as the church's champion defender. Henry, having seen his best friend become a totally different man before his very eyes, was understandably furious. Becket and the King quarrelled endlessly as the former did everything he could to scupper the latter's efforts to exert royal control over the church.

Henry did everything he could to make the church back down but was blocked by Becket at every turn. In 1164 Henry took the step of trying to prosecute the Archbishop on charges relating to misdemeanors he had allegedly committed whilst Lord Chancellor, forcing Becket into exile in France. He would not return for six years. The final straw came shortly after Becket returned to England in 1170 when he excommunicated the Archbishop of York for officiating at the crowing of Henry's son, Henry the Young King as junior sovereign, an act intended by Henry to cement the eventual succession of his son. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket viewed any coronation ceremony as being his responsibility and his only.

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!"
(Henry II)

Those were the words that the King exclaimed in one of his trademark rages when the news of what Becket had done reached him in Normandy. Those words have since evolved to become the immortal if somewhat inaccurate "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?". Whatever it was that Henry said, four of his knights took the words as a royal command and headed for Canterbury. Once they reached Canterbury Cathedral on December 29th 1170 they attempted to arrest Becket peacefully but he told them in the politest possible manner to go away, which they did. The knights then returned with their weapons and brutally murdered the Archbishop in front of the horrified monks. Within three years of Becket's slaying he had been declared a saint by Pope Alexander III and his shrine at Canterbury had become one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in the whole of Europe.

13th Century illustration depicting the murder of Thomas Becket.

Henry was shocked at the news of the archbishop's murder and was equally shocked to hear that it had apparently been done on his behalf. Despite his proclamations that he had never intended such an outcome but the church held him firmly responsible and insisted that he do penance. Swallowing his pride, Henry made the pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1174 and spent the night sleeping on the cold stone floor at the foot of Becket's shrine. The following day, as a demonstration of his penance, the King allowed every cleric and monk present to thrash his back with painful birch rods. For the rest of his days Henry would regret the fate which had befallen Thomas Becket, a man who had, in happier times, been such a good friend.

Henry's Sons

The second half of Henry's reign was dominated by the disputes which broke out amongst his surviving sons over who should get which parts of their father's vast empire. As Henry's first son William had died in 1156. It was decreed in 1170 that the second son Henry would get England, Normandy and Anjou (prompting the junior coronation ceremony that so angered Thomas Becket). Richard would get Aquitaine whilst Geoffrey would inherit Brittany. There was nothing left for the youngest son John at that point but he would, as was already mentioned, later be made Lord of Ireland by his doting father.

That probably would have been that had it not been for the obvious favoritism that Henry displayed towards John. The decision to award several castles in Anjou to John in 1173 angered the younger Henry and soon he, Richard, Geoffrey and their mother Eleanor (who had become estranged from her husband) joined forces against the King. Despite the big personalities in charge of it, the so-called "Great Rebellion" soon fizzled out after it failed to draw enough baronial support away from Henry. The capture of William the Lion, an ally of the rebels, and Henry's defeat of the Scots in 1174 brought about its final collapse.

After the Great Rebellion Henry begrudgingly forgave his sons but the harmoniousness of the reunited family did not last long. In 1182 Young Henry and Geoffrey rebelled against the King and Richard but the crisis passed when Young King Henry died, leaving Richard as the principle heir. Then it was Richard's turn to get flighty after Henry indicated that Aquitaine would go to John. He then found himself having to resist an invasion of Aquitaine by Geoffrey and John. Richard's already enviable skills as a military commander, something which he would later become very famous indeed for, ensured that the invasion ended in defeat for his brothers. Geoffrey died in 1186, leaving Richard and John as Henry's only surviving sons. They would not take up arms against each other again.

By now Henry himself was ill, old and alone. Abandoned by his family, he only had the one illegitimate son, the Archbishop of York, for company. His long and glorious reign ended on a sour note as he was forced to recognize Richard, now allied with John and Philip II of France, as his heir. Humiliated, Henry II finally died of a fever two days later on July 6th 1189. His last recorded words were "Shame. Shame on a conquered King". Having secured his dying father's lands, the victorious Richard paid his overdue respects at the funeral before crossing the Channel to be crowned King of England.

English Monarchs: Matilda

Other Names: Empress Matilda, Lady of the English

De Facto Reign: March 1141 - November 1141

Born: February 7th 1102

Died: September 10th 1167

Father: Henry I of England

Mother: Matilda (formerly Edith) of Scotland

Spouses: Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1), Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (2)

Children:
Henry II of England
Geoffrey, Count of Nantes
William X, Count of Poitou

Royal House: Normandy

Considering that she ruled without full recognition for only a few months and was never crowned, the Empress Matilda barely merits a mention on the long list of English monarchs. As the matriarch of the Plantagenet dynasty, however, she has great significance in the nation's history. Her direct descendants would occupy the throne of England until 1485. She herself was an unpopular candidate for Queen, giving the country's lack of experience of female rulers, but she fought hard to successfully secure the succession for her son, the future Henry II.

Fighting for the Throne

Matilda was the nominated heir of her father, Henry I but the misgivings of the Norman barons with regards to her gender and the questionable intentions of her second husband allowed her cousin, Stephen of Blois to snatch the crown from her grasp when Henry died in 1135. Despite the early support of the barons, the newly-crowned King Stephen soon began making enemies of some every powerful people, allowing Matilda to take advantage of the conflicting loyalties at court and launch an invasion of England. She arrived in September 1139.

It was not until February 1141 that the deadlock was broken. Matilda scored a decisive victory at Lincoln after surprising Stephen and his forces. The King was captured and became Matilda's prisoner. Feeling that the kingdom was now hers, Matilda was acclaimed "Lady of the English" and leisurely headed for London, arriving there that Summer. If the (most likely sexist) chroniclers such as the anonymous writer of Gesta Stephani ("Deeds of King Stephen") are to be believed, the would-be Queen Matilda did not make a good first impression:

"She at once put on an extremely arrogant demeanour instead of the modest gait and bearing proper to the gentle sex, began to walk and speak and do all the things more stiffly and more haughtily, than she had been wont."

Had power gone to Matilda's head? Maybe so but it was her actions that sealed her downfall. Her decision to impose a stiff tax on the people of London without first confirming their privileges caused a great deal of public alienation. By June 24th Matilda had been unceremoniously thrown out of the city without being crowned. Denied the legitimacy of a coronation, Matilda headed to Winchester in an attempt to seize the royal treasury but was defeated by the forces of her namesake and Stephen's wife, Queen Matilda.

That November 1141, in exchange for her powerful ally and half-brother Robert of Gloucester, Matilda agreed to release Stephen, allowing him to resume his throne and bring her short period of rule to an ignominious close. Matilda continued the struggle and was almost captured by Stephen at Oxford in the winter of 1142. She escaped by crossing the frozen River Thames under cover of darkness, wearing a white cloak to camouflage herself against the snow. With her power base in England melting away, Matilda gave up and left England in 1148, preferring instead to allow her son Henry Curtmantle, a more suitable candidate in the eyes of her enemies, to take up her claim. By 1153 Stephen had given up the fight and agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Winchester, which designated Henry as his successor, ending the long years of struggle for control of the crown that would later become known as "The Anarchy". 

The Plantagenet Succession

Matilda was a pawn in her Father's dynastic ambitions from an early age. Her first marriage, to the considerably older Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, had yielded no children. The Emperor died in 1125 and within three years she was married again. Her new husband was the younger and highly ambitious Count of Anjou, Geoffrey Plantagenet. Geoffrey, who's nickname was a reference to the yellow sprig of bloom blossom (plante genêt) that he wore on his hat, was disliked for the perceived threat he posed to Anjou's neighbours, Normandy and Blois, and the union did much to damage Matilda's chances to claiming the English throne unchallenged. The marriage did, however, result in the birth of three sons.

It was the eldest son Henry that took up Matilda's cause once it became clear that Matilda was never going to win over the Anglo-Normans and rule in her own right. The Treaty of Winchester ratified the succession in Henry's favour and within a year of its signing Stephen was dead. Henry II became King of England, with his mother serving as his regent and advisor until her death in 1167.

English Monarchs: Stephen

Other Names: Stephen of Blois

Reign: December 1st 1135 - October 25th 1154

Born: around 1092 - 1096

Died: October 25th 1154

Father: Stephen II, Count of Blois

Mother: Adela of Normandy

Spouse: Matilda of Boulogne

Children (legitimate):
Marie I, Countess of Boulogne
Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne
Baldwin of Blois
William I, Count of Boulogne
Matilda of Blois

Royal House: Blois

A grandson of William the Conqueror through his mother Adela, Stephen of Blois was hardly expected to become King of England. Henry I obviously wasn't expecting it, having nominated his daughter, the Empress Matilda to succeed him. Through a quirk of geography, however, Stephen was able to beat his cousin to the prize, succeeding Henry to the throne when he died in 1135. Stephen's blatant disregard for the nominated successor would lead to a challenge from Matilda and a period or armed struggle between the two claimants known to history as "The Anarchy", effectively England's first civil war.

Seizing the Crown

By the time of Henry I's death, it was all but clear that the Empress Matilda, now married to her second husband Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, was her father's designated successor. However, the old King had a difficult time persuading the barons that this was an acceptable arrangement. As well as the inevitable doubts they possessed about having a female ruler, there was also the matter of Geoffrey of Anjou, an ambitious young nobleman that the Normans greatly distrusted.

Lumbered by her gender and her husband, Matilda's succession was not as secure as it seemed and her cousin Stephen saw his chance. As a younger man in 1120, Stephen had a lucky escape when he decided not to travel to England with Henry's son William aboard the booze-soaked White Ship. The vessel left without him only to then strike a rock and sink, killing William and causing the succession crisis he now sought to exploit. Stephen also disliked the Empress Matilda's husband and feared that the County of Blois would be threatened by an alliance between Normandy and Anjou. A more likable and affable character than Geoffrey, Stephen could also count on the support of the Anglo-Norman barons.

When Henry died in Normandy in 1135, Matilda was with her husband in Anjou while Stephen was in Boulogne, much closer to England. Matilda had been in the middle of a quarrel with her father and her absence from his bedside when he died counted against her. Having a head-start over his cousin, Stephen immediately crossed the Channel to England and, just as his uncle had done 35 years earlier, secured the throne for himself by capturing the royal treasury at Winchester. Once in London, Stephen claimed to be the rightful King and that Henry had named him so on his deathbed.

It was at this point that Stephen's popularity with the barons came to the fore and ensured his assumption of power. He also had powerful backers within the church, including his own brother Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and King Henry's former chief minister Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. Lobbying from the bishops persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown Stephen on December 22nd. By the following Easter, Stephen was in total control both in England and in Normandy with the almost full backing of the church, the barons and even the Pope in Rome. The Empress Matilda, still in Anjou, was smarting at being outwitted by her cousin. She was not completely without support, however, and Stephen soon found himself facing tough opposition to his rule.

The Anarchy

Stephen may have had a solid support base in England but he had not counted on his new northern neighbours, the Scots. Before 1135 was over the armies of King David I, uncle of the Empress Matilda, were marching south across the border. Stephen was able to deal with the northern threat but soon there were revolts breaking out in the Welsh Marches (the border area between Wales and England). Again Stephen crushed the resistance but he then found out that Geoffrey Plantagenet was attacking Normandy alongside Henry I's powerful illegitimate son, Robert of Gloucester, an initial supporter of Stephen who had defected over to Matilda's cause.

Stephen lost control of the situation in 1139 when he fell out with his powerful sons and Bishop Roger of Salisbury, the men who administered the rule of England on his behalf. Rumours were abound in Stephen's court that the men were going to desert him in favour of Matilda and soon it was becoming difficult to establish exactly who was supporting which candidate. Having begun his reign so strongly, Stephen now found himself dangerously weakened and his enemies were ready to make their move. On September 30th the Empress Matilda landed in England along with Robert of Gloucester, beginning more than a decade of armed struggle as the two cousins locked horns over the throne of England.

The first couple of years or so of the conflict were inconclusive. The balance of power swung in Matilda's favour in early 1141 when her forces surprised Stephen at Lincoln whilst he himself was preparing to assault the castle. The King fought doggedly with tremendous personal zeal but was knocked unconscious by a rock and captured. With a dazed Stephen now the Empress Matilda's prisoner, his wife, also called Matilda, took up the fight on his behalf. Events moved quickly and soon even Stephen's brother, Bishop Henry of Winchester, was proclaiming his support for the Empress. "God has executed his judgement on my brother, in allowing him to fall into the power of the strong.", he proclaimed.

de facto Queen of England was over but it did not deter her from continuing the fight.

A Peaceful Resolution

Stephen was back in control of the Kingdom but the war between him and his cousin dragged on throughout the 1140s and into the 1150s. Robert of Gloucester died n 1147 and, the following year, the Empress Matilda herself returned to the continent. This offered little relief for Stephen as her eldest son, Henry Curtmantle soon arrived and took charge of her efforts. The death of Stephen's eldest son Eustace in 1153 seemed to finally break the King's resolve and, although he still had another surviving son, he recognised that he must bow to the inevitable and end the conflict for the sake of his kingdom.

Negotiations between the two parties soon began, with Bishop Henry, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury and the church acting as mediator. Peace was agreed by the signing of the Treaty of Winchester in 1153. As per the terms of the treaty, Stephen recognised Henry Curtmantle as his heir, a provision which, by skipping Matilda, was intended to alleviate any concerns about the ability of a woman to govern. In October 1154, Stephen died from a stomach disorder at Dover Priory and Curtmantle succeeded him as King Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet Kings of England.

English Monarchs: Henry I

Other Names: Henry Beauclerc, Lion of Justice

Reign: August 2nd 1100 - December 1st 1135

Born: around 1068 - 1069

Died: December 1st 1135

Father: William I of England

Mother: Matilda of Flanders

Spouses: Matilda (formerly Edith) of Scotland (1), Adela of Louvain (2)

Children (legitimate):
Empress Matilda, Countess of Anjou
William of Adelin
Euphemia
Richard

Royal House: Normandy

The youngest son of William the Conqueror, Henry I was an able politician who managed to keep England stable and largely at peace during his reign. He was neither a ruthless warrior like his father nor a dislikable trouble-stirrer like his elder brother and predecessor, William Rufus. Unlike his brother, Henry maintained good relations with the church and preferred administration, wealth and learnedness over fashion and frivolity. Indeed his love of learning earned him the flattering nickname "Beauclerc".

Despite the positive evaluations of Henry by the chroniclers, Henry was known to have a darker side, one that arguably puts him among the cruellest Kings of the English Middle Ages. He certainly had a ruthless streak which was evident well before he took to the throne of England. In 1090, whilst helping to put down an uprising in the Norman city of Rouen, Henry invited the leader of the rebellion, Conan Pilatus to join him in the city's high tower so that together they could admire the town and countryside which the rebels had been trying to conquer. Henry then threw the hapless man out of a window. To this day the tower remains known as "Conan's Leap".

It would appear that Henry's penchant for casual cruelty continued to manifest itself later during his reign. At one point he ordered the mutilation of every coin minter in England rather than make the effort to find out which ones had been issuing false coinage. Once he acquired a greater taste for money, however, such harsh punishments were replaced with fines. Whilst some of Henry's actions were certainly harsh, in most cases they were no more harsh that was would be considered the typical punishments meted out by a Norman or Medieval King.

Henry's Grab for Power

Henry was present at the New Forest on August 2nd 1100 when William Rufus was killed by a stray arrow. Henry was not legally next-in-line to succeed him as their older brother Robert, Duke of Normandy was still alive. Robert and William, echoing Magnus of Norway's 1039 agreement with Harthacnut, had agreed that if either should die without an heir then the other would get their land. By virtue of this agreement, William's death made Robert King of England. A combination of circumstances, however, resulted in an altogether different outcome.

When William died, Robert was, as you might expect, not in England but he wasn't in Normandy either. He was in the Holy Land taking part in the First Crusade and was not due back for another month. With his brother well out of his way, Henry seized the opportunity and rode to Winchester. There he seized control of the royal treasury, an act which effectively gave him control of the kingdom. From there he headed to London where, less than three days after William's death, he was crowned King at Westminster Abbey by the Bishop of London (the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm had been exiled by William).

When Robert returned to Normandy and discovered the news that his brother had yanked the English carpet out from under him, the duke prepared to invade England and did so the year after Henry's coronation. The matter was resolved without a fight, however, and Robert ended up making the same agreement with Henry that he had made with William. Henry, however, had no intention of keeping to his side of the deal and was soon hatching a campaign of political manoeuvring against his brother, forming alliances with Normandy's neighbours. In 1106 Henry and his new allies invaded Normandy and decisively defeated Robert, reuniting their father's cross-Channel empire. Robert would spend the rest of his life imprisoned in various English castles, including the Tower of London, the imposing fortress built by his father.

Reign

Henry I quickly made it clear that his reign was going to be different from that of his brother, quickly moving to redress the grievances that William had brought about. Archbishop Anselm was recalled from exile (although he would later be expelled again following a dispute with Henry over the right of investiture) whilst William's unpopular chief adviser, Ranulf Flambard joined Robert Curthose in the Tower. The decadence, effeminacy and shoddy moral attitudes displayed during William's reign were quickly stamped out, with the men of the court made to cut their long hair short. Administration of the kingdom was placed in the capable hands of Roger le Poer, Bishop of Salisbury.

"Throughout his life he was wholly free from carnal desires... He was plain in his diet... and deplored the least lapse into drunkenness both in himself and others."

(William of Malmesbury)

Henry recognised the significance of the pre-Conquest Saxon regime in England and sought to legitimise his rule by associating himself with it. He even married a descendant of King Edmund Ironside, Edith of Scotland in order to plant the roots of what he saw as the perfect Anglo-Norman royal dynasty. Edith would change her name to the more Norman-sounding Matilda although it did not stop some people at court from sneering at the union.

The changes ushered in by Henry were set out in a newly issued Charter of Liberties which linked his rule-of-law in with the Anglo-Saxon traditions of government. The charter would go on to form the basis of later legal documents that would limit the rights of English monarchs and make them subject to the law, such as Magna Carta. Henry's championing of Saxon-based legal reform would earn him the epithet "Lion of Justice".

What Henry was best at, however, was finance management. He had always been fond of money and had meticulously counted the 5000 pounds of silver left to him by his father. Indeed his haste to secure the royal treasury after his brother's death shows how much he realised its importance. Henry was responsible for bringing the words exchequer and cheque into the language through his accounting reforms. In 1106 Henry introduced the Exchequer, a chessboard-like chequered cloth based loosely in the Middle Eastern abacus, as a revolutionary new form of government accounting, one that ensured an increasing centralisation of economic power in royal hands. Twice a year, at Easter and Michaelmas, the local sheriffs and officials were called in from the provinces to have their money accurately checked and counted via the exchequer board.

Henry's exchequer system would later be refined by the introduction of tally sticks, notched wooden sticks used as proof-of-payment in the collection of taxes and other payments. Tally sticks would continue to to be used until the abolition of the Exchequer in the 19th Century. The word exchequer lives on today in the job title of the person in charge of the nation's finances. The effectiveness of Henry's financial policies is demonstrated by that fact that he was the last English monarch for some 400 years to die without debts.

The White Ship Disaster and Uncertain Succession

Despite having over twenty acknowledged illegitimate children, Henry I was only able to sire two legitimate offspring that survived infancy, both by his first wife Matilda of Scotland. The eldest child was a daughter, Matilda who married the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1114. The other child was Henry's son and heir, William of Adelin. With both Norman and Saxon blood flowing in his veins, the young William was his father's pride and joy, an heir that truly fulfilled Henry's Anglo-Norman vision for the future of the Kingdom.

In 1120, however, disaster struck. The King and his son were preparing to return to England following a visit to Normandy when Henry was offered the opportunity to travel home on a new state-of-the-art vessel known as the White Ship. Henry declined, having already made his travelling arrangements, but suggested that his 17-year-old son might wish to try her out. On November 25th, Henry set sail for England, followed by William and several other younger members of the court aboard the White Ship.

Liberal amounts of wine were being consumed amongst the 300 passengers and crew of the White Ship as it left harbour at high-tide. The oarsmen rowed hard in an effort to catch up to and overtake the King's ship whilst the captain, drunk at the helm, vainly attempted to plot a course. Suddenly the White Ship violently struck a submerged rock and quickly capsized, broke apart and sank. Only one person on board the vessel was rescued. Unfortunately for the oblivious Henry, that survivor was not William. When the news reached England the royal court broke into mourning, most of them having lost a relative or servant in the disaster. A whole day and night went by before anybody dared to tell Henry that his son was dead. When he found out he was heartbroken and shut himself away so that he would not be seen openly grieving.

The White Ship disaster triggered an unexpected succession crisis at it left Henry without an obvious male heir. His wife Matilda had already died in 1118 so the King was obliged to marry again. He took Adela of Louvain as his second wife in 1121 but this marriage turned out to be childless. Henry would spend much of the second half of his reign agonising over the succession. At this time the rules regarding succession of the closest blood relative had not yet been enshrined in law, meaning that Henry could in theory have chosen a less suitable candidate such as on of his illegitimate sons or his favourite nephew, Stephen of Blois. In the end, however, it seems that Henry was willing to put his faith in his daughter, the Empress Matilda, despite the unavoidable fact that having a female monarch was venturing into unknown territory.

The Emperor Henry V died in 1125 and Matilda remarried in 1128, this time to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. By 1135 the couple had two sons, making Matilda a more enticing long-term prospect for the throne. That year saw another visit to Normandy by her father, aged 67 and in failing health. After eating a dish of lampreys, despite the warnings of his physician that the oily seafood delicacy was not good for him, Henry suffered what was apparently an attack of food poisoning. On December 1st 1135, King Henry I died, confident to the last that Matilda and her Plantagenet sons would succeed him.

English Monarchs: William II

Other Names: William Rufus

Reign: September 9th 1087 - August 7th 1100

Born: around 1056-1060

Died: August 7th 1100

Father: William I of England

Mother: Matilda of Flanders

Royal House: Normandy

A competent ruler albeit one disliked by his subjects, William II, named Rufus ("the Red") for his ruddy complexion, was a flamboyant character with an unstable temper, personality traits that failed to rub off on those around him. The Norman chroniclers, all churchmen, derided him for his decadent lifestyle and indifferent, exploitative attitude towards religion. The damning reviews didn't stop there, however, as later historians would cite his lack of a wife or children as evidence of homosexuality. There is no solid evidence for this beyond the contemporary chroniclers' critique of his effeminate behaviour and keen eye for fashion. Oderic Vitalis, in his 12th Century work, Ecclesiastical History, describes William's court thus:

"Our ancestors used to wear decent clothes, well-adapted to the shape of their bodies; they were skilled horsemen and swift runners, ready for all seemly undertakings. But in these days the old customs have almost wholly given way to new fads. Our wanton youth is sunk in effeminacy, and courtiers, fawning, seek the favours of women with every kind of lewdness. They add excrescences like serpents' tails to the tips of their toes where the body ends, and gaze with admiration on these scorpion-like shapes. They sweep the dusty ground with the unnecessary trains of their robes and mantles; their long, wide sleeves cover their hands whatever they do; impeded by these frivolities they are almost incapable of walking quickly or doing any kind of useful work... They curl their hair with hot irons and cover their heads with a fillet or a cap."

The Second Son

According to Norman chroniclers such as Oderic Vitalis, relations between William the Conqueror's three surviving sons, Robert, William and Henry, were never particularly harmonious. They would constantly argue and fight and have to be separated by their father, who often had far more important things to do than stay at home playing Dad. On one such occasion William and Henry, out of sheer boredom, emptied the contents of a chamber pot onto Robert's head from an upstairs gallery, prompting another squabble which had to be broken up by William Sr.

On the Conqueror's death Robert, the eldest, received the duchy of Normandy whilst William, his father's favourite son, succeeded as King of England (Henry had be content with 5000 pounds of silver). William immediately sailed from Normandy to England and was crowned by his father's old adviser, Archbishop Lanfranc. Exactly why the Conqueror chose to divide his lands is unclear. What is clear is that a number of Norman barons, particularly those ones who owned land on both sides of the Channel, were none too pleased about having two different rulers.

Within a year this feeling spilled over into open revolt. The discontented barons launched a military campaign in favour of Robert against William in 1088. William not only crushed them but also began his own campaign against Robert in Normandy. The two siblings were eventually reconciled when Robert mortgaged the duchy of Normandy to William in order to fund his participation in the First Crusade in 1096. William raised the money for this by imposing a much-hated tax on the English, further damaging his already shaky popularity amongst his subjects. Nonetheless the deal effectively brought Normandy under William's control. He had already expanded his influence in Britain by seizing Cumbria from the Scots in 1092 and killing Malcolm III of Scotland at Alnwick the following year.

A Most Un-Christian King

William was notorious both during and after his reign for the open contempt he displayed towards both the English church and towards Christianity in general. While Archbishop Lanfranc was alive, however, William kept this attitude largely to himself. When Lanfranc died in 1089, the King delayed appointing a replacement for four years, preferring instead to siphon off the revenues of the Archbishopric for himself.

William seemed to enjoy openly antagonising the church. Once, during a bout of serious illness in 1093, the King sneeringly asked why he should pray to God when God caused him such pain and hardship. Nonetheless it was that period of illness which at last persuaded William that he ought to appoint a new Archbishop to the see of Canterbury. His choice was the devout Anselm, Abbot of the Norman Abbey of Bec. The two inevitably turned out to be non-compatible and William soon regretted making the appointment just as much as Anselm regretted accepting it.

The failed relationship with Anselm soon caused the King to drift back into his old ways. By the end of his reign, more than a dozen English abbeys were being deliberately kept abbot-less, allowing William to channel their considerable wealth into his own pockets. His behaviour sent the chroniclers into a feather-spitting rage of damning verdicts that destroyed his reputation and portrayed him to be, from a moral standpoint at least, the worst monarch to have ever occupied the throne of England.

An Ironic Demise

During his reign, William became increasingly resented for his implementation of draconian forestry laws. William was a keen huntsman and was responsible for the creation of over seventy royal hunting preserves in England's then-vast wooded areas. His Norman friends were also introducing rabbits and pheasants into the country for the first time in order to broaden the range of creatures to kill. It was made very clear that only the King and his friends were allowed to hunt in these preserves and anyone else caught doing so was punished severely by William's private army of foresters and wood-wards, with blinding or mutilation being the typical penalties. Even being caught carrying a bow and arrow meant losing several fingers.

With all this in mind, it is rather appropriate then that the end of William Rufus should come whilst the King enjoyed the pleasures of hunting in the New Forest. It was there on August 2nd 1100, as the setting sun was dazzling the hunting party, that a stray arrow, allegedly fired by the Norman nobleman Walter Tyrel

The Rufus Stone in the New Forest.

According to the rules of the time, the laws of the land ended upon the death of a King and did not start up again until a new one was proclaimed. This meant that almost as soon as William hit the floor all the other nobles in the hunting party, including Walter Tyrel, immediately ran off for home to secure their estates against any possible upheaval, leaving the King's body alone in the forest. Eventually it was discovered by some local peasants who carted it off to Winchester for burial. Nobody was ever brought to account for killing the King

While the reactions of Tyrel ad the other nobles to William's death could be seen merely as the result of sheer panic or concern for their lands, the same could not be said for another member of the hunting party, William's younger brother Henry. Whilst everyone else ran for the hills, Henry made haste for London. Within three days of his childless brother's death he had been crowned King Henry I. As the primary beneficiary, Henry would be implicated by later historians as being the one behind the "accident" but as for as the God-serving writers of the time were concerned, the death of William Rufus was nothing less than a divine smite upon the man who so shamelessly exploited the church and dared to treat the Christian faith with such whithering indifference.

English Monarchs: William I

Other Names: William the Conqueror, William the Bastard, William of Normandy

Reign: December 25th 1066 - September 9th 1087

Born: around 1027

Died: September 9th 1087

Father: Robert I, Duke of Normandy

Mother: Herlette of Falaise

Spouse: Matilda of Flanders

Children:
Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy
Richard, Duke of Bernay
William II of England
Cecilia of Normandy
Adeliza
Agatha of Normandy
Constance of Normandy
Adela, Countess of Blois
Henry I of England

Royal House: Normandy

Considering that he was born the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy and a tanner's daughter, it's a minor miracle that William the Conqueror got as far as he did in life. Aside from his fifty-year stint in charge of his homeland, William is best known for his lightning conquest of England in 1066 followed by two decades of subsequent brutal suppression of the native Saxon population and ruling establishment. The rule of William would see the very national fabric of England change permanently, dragging the kingdom out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened era dominated by Norman culture, language and an altogether more continental style of doing things.

Duke of Normandy

Despite being illegitimate, William succeeded his father as Duke of Normandy when he was around eight years old. His early years of rule were not easy as the noblemen appointed to advise him kept being murdered and in 1047 a cousin, Guy of Burgundy, formed a rebel alliance against him. The young William only managed to put down the challenge with the help of Henry I, King of France.

Less than ten years later William found himself facing an invasion of his duchy by Henry. William beat of his would-be overlord in 1054 and again in 1057. After the victories against Henry, William was now confident enough to begin expanding his territory. By the 1060s he had become one of the most feared and respected leaders and military commanders in Europe. He was also a skilled diplomat who chose his friends very carefully, being especially astute in his dealings with the church.

Being on such good terms with the church turned out to be highly beneficial for William as the Pope had no qualms about sanctioning William's invasion of England in 1066. The foundations of the friendship were based in William's support of Pope Leo IX's programme of reforms, the aim of which was to ensure that bishop's chairs throughout Europe were occupied by dedicated and spiritual clergy rather than worldly noblemen handpicked by local secular rulers.

William's relationship with the church had not always been rosy, however. He had risked earning their wrath in 1053 when he married Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, without papal consent. This led to a temporary falling out with his closest adviser, the Italian monk Lanfranc of Pavia but the issue was resolved in 1059 when the Pope backed down and recognised William's marriage. Lanfranc returned to William's court and would later become the first post-Conquest Archbishop of Canterbury, the instrumental force behind the establishment of Norman control over the English church.

Conquest of England

William's marriage to Matilda, a descendant of Alfred the Great, was helpful in giving William a viable claim to the English throne as his own link was weak. His great-aunt Emma of Normandy was the mother of the current King Edward the Confessor but that was about as far as it went. What cemented William's claim was that fact that he had allegedly been nominated as successor by Edward, a man who had spent much of his early life in Normandy and had a preference for all things Norman. William's claim was all but made official in the mid-1060s when Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex travelled to Normandy on Edward's behalf and made a sacred oath to ensure William's accession when his ailing master died.

When Edward died in January 1066 Harold surprised everyone by taking the crown for himself, claiming that he was honouring the dead King's last request. William was naturally very upset about this and his propaganda machine went into overdrive, churning out evidence that Harold had perjured himself by going back on the oath he made. The writings of William of Poitiers in the 1070s make the Norman opinion on Harold and his associates abundantly clear:

"The insane Englishman was not a choice of the people, but on that sorrowful day when the best of Kings was buried and the whole nation mourned his passing, he seized the royal throne with the acclaim of certain ubiquitous confederates and thereby perjured himself. He was made King by the unholy consecration of Stigand, who had been deprived of his ministry by the justified fervour of papal anathema."

Obtaining the papal dispensation for a military invasion was a mere formality and William was soon preparing an army and the invasion fleet that would take it across the English Channel. Despite having to wait longer than planned for favourable weather, William and his troops made the crossing on September 28th 1066, landing at Pevensey in Sussex. Legend has it that William stumbled on the beach but got up holding a handful of sand and made an ominous quip about holding England in his hand. The invasion party headed slightly inland and set up camp in a temporary wooden fort as Hastings, hoping to provoke Harold who was up in the north dealing with a Viking invasion. Harold scored a great victory at Stamford Bridge but now found himself having to face William in battle. He immediately returned south.

Bayeux Tapestry: William's half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux leads the charge at Hastings.

On October 14th 1066 at Senlac Hill, a few miles inland from Hastings, one of the most important confrontations in English history took place. Harold's army had taken up a strong defensive position on the hill which William's Norman horsemen struggled to break through. At one point the word went up that William was dead but the Duke restored the morale of his men by making himself known. The fighting went on all day with both sides evenly balanced until the Saxon soldiers broke from their inpenetrable shield wall to pursue the retreating Norman cavalry, leaving them vulnerable to Norman attack. By nightfall the English army was totally defeated and Harold was dead.

When the news of Harold's death and the slaughter at Hastings reached the capital, the assembly of Anglo-Saxon nobles, the Witenagemot attempted to replace the dead King with the last remaining Saxon blood-royal claimant, Edward the Confessor's grand-nephew Edgar Ætheling. Edgar was proclaimed but never crowned as the English nobility were by now in no position to resist the army of William, which was rampaging around the southern counties en-route for London. Soon the English bowed to the inevitable. In early December the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand surrendered along with the rest of the nobles and Edgar Ætheling personally gave up the crown to William. On Christmas Day 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.

King of England

As already mentioned, William's twenty-year reign in England is characterised both by the brutal subjugation of the native population and by the practice of essentially tearing apart English culture and government, starting afresh based on the Norman model. Norman-style churches and castles soon began springing up all across the land and French became the established language of the secular ruling class. Indeed the ruling class itself became French as William confiscated land from the old Anglo-Saxon earls and redistributed it among his Norman favourites who would go on to form the roots of the Medieval English nobility. It would be the biggest mass change of land ownership in England until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th Century. The victory at Hastings and the events leading up to it were commemorated (with a heavy pro-Norman, anti-Saxon bias) in the Bayeux Tapestry, a 70-metre long embroidered cloth commissioned by William's brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.

Becoming King did not totally put a stop to English resistance. In fact, William continued to face challenges throughout his territories, especially in Normandy where the French King was still attempting to assert his overall authority over William's duchy. As such, especially after 1072, William spent most of his time back in his homeland, ruling England through his followers.

The resistance to Norman rule in England was quick to appear. In the first two years of his reign alone William found himself having to deal with uprisings popping up all over the place. The focal point of English discontent was in the north, where opposition was rallying around Edgar Ætheling. In 1068 Mercia and Northumbria revolted. William put down the rebels and Edgar fled to the safety of Scotland. Soon Edgar had married his sister to the King of Scots and was ready to try again, this time with Scottish and Danish assistance. Despite initial setbacks, William managed to defeat his northern enemies. The Danes departed England for the last time and Edgar went scuttling back to Scotland.

After all this trouble, William wanted to ensure that the rebellious north of England could never trouble his regime again. In 1069-1070 his army embarked on a ruthless and bloody campaign of suppression known as the Harrying of the North. The whole are of north-eastern England from the Tees to the Humber was laid waste. Crops were destroyed, livestock slaughtered, villages burned and people put to the sword, the survivors being left to die of starvation. In all it was estimated that over 150,000 people died. Even the pro-Norman chroniclers were shocked and appalled by the scale of the carnage.

William may have been somewhat harsh in his efforts to make an example of the people of the north but it seemed to do the trick. There were no more large-scale uprisings in England although opposition did rumble on until William defeated the Earls of Northumbria and East Anglia in 1075. Their defeat marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon nobility in England, which was now totally dominated by William's Norman barons.

Later Reign

The second decade of William's reign in England was largely peaceful thanks to his subjugation of the natives and increasing Normanisation of English culture. The best-known aspect of his later reign was the creation of a comprehensive nationwide tax and property survey known as the Domesday Book. Commissioned in 1085, the purpose of the Domesday Book was to assess the amount of tax he was able to extract from the population and to establish exactly who owned what. Everything right down to the last pig and plough is listed, providing an invaluable insight into the distribution of property ownership in 11th Century England. It also serves as a reminder of the long-term impact of William's campaigns of suppression. Even some fifteen years after the Harrying of the North, vast areas of northern England were noted in the Domesday Book as being wasta, essentially meaning wasteland.

In August 1087, an ageing an overweight William was flung from his horse whilst on campaign against the French King in his beloved Normandy. Nursing severe abdominal injuries, William lingered for several weeks at the Convent of St Gervais near Rouen, pardoning many of his political enemies before dying on September 9th, aged around 60. At his funeral in Caen the tomb specially prepared for him was found to be too small. When the monks tried to force the bloated Conqueror's corpse inside it burst, filling the abbey church with foul putrefaction gases.

On William's death, his lands were divided amongst his eldest sons. His eldest son Robert Curthose became Duke of Normany whilst his second son, William Rufus became King William II of England.