chapter 1._

See, also, STANDARD, BATTLE OF THE (A. D. 1137).

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189. Henry II., the first of the Angevin kings (Plantagenets) and his empire.

Henry II., who came to the English throne on Stephen's death, was already, by the death of his father, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, the head of the great house of Anjou, in France. From his father he inherited Anjou, Touraine and Maine; through his mother, Matilda, daughter of Henry I., he received the dukedom of Normandy as well as the kingdom of England; by marriage with Eleanor, of Aquitaine, or Guienne, he added to his empire the princely domain which included Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, with claims of suzerainty over Auvergne and Toulouse. "Henry found himself at twenty-one ruler of dominions such as no king before him had ever dreamed of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of Flanders, he had command of the French coast from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, while his claims on Toulouse would carry him to the shores of the Mediterranean. His subjects told with pride how 'his empire reached from the Arctic Ocean to the Pyrenees'; there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who ruled over such vast domains. ... His aim [a few years Inter] seems to have been to rival in some sort the Empire of the West, and to reign as an over-king, with sub-kings of his various provinces, and England as one of them, around him. He was connected with all the great ruling houses. ... England was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in the world without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned travellers, scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing abroad.' The influence of English learning and English statecraft made itself felt all over Europe. Never, perhaps, in all the history of England was there a time when Englishmen played so great a part abroad." The king who gathered this wide, incongruous empire under his sceptre, by mere circumstances of birth and marriage, proved strangely equal, in many respects, to its greatness. "He was a foreign king who never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the most part in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of Brabançons and hirelings. ... It was under the rule of a foreigner such as this, however, that the races of conquerors and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were one. It was by his power that England, Scotland and Ireland were brought to some vague acknowledgement of a common suzerain lord, and the foundations laid of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was he who abolished feudalism as a system of government, and left it little more than a system of land tenure. It was he who defined the relations established between Church and State, and decreed that in England churchman as well as baron was to be held under the Common Law. ... His reforms established the judicial system whose main outlines have been preserved to our own day. It was through his 'Constitutions' and his 'Assizes' that it came to pass that over all the world the English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household became transformed into Ministers of State. It was he who gave England a foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred years. The impress which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time meets us wherever we turn."

_Mrs. J. R. Green, Henry the Second, chapters 1-2._

Henry II. and his two sons, Richard I. (Cœur de Lion), and John, are distinguished, sometimes, as the Angevin kings, or kings of the House of Anjou, and sometimes as the Plantagenets, the latter name being derived from a boyish habit ascribed to Henry's father, Count Geoffrey, of "adorning his cap with a sprig of 'plantagenista,' the broom which in early summer makes the open country of Anjou and Maine a blaze of living gold." Richard retained and ruled the great realm of his father; but John lost most of his foreign inheritance, including Normandy, and became the unwilling benefactor of England by stripping her kings of alien interests and alien powers and bending their necks to Magna Charta.

_K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings._

ALSO IN: _W. Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets._

See, also, AQUITAINE (GUIENNE): A. D. 1137-1152; IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170. Conflict of King and Church. The Constitutions of Clarendon. Murder of Archbishop Becket.

"Archbishop Theobald was at first the King's chief favourite and adviser, but his health and his influence declining, Becket [the Archdeacon of Canterbury] was found apt for business as well as amusement, and gradually became intrusted with the exercise of all the powers of the crown. ... The exact time of his appointment as Chancellor has not been ascertained, the records of the transfer of the Great Seal not beginning till a subsequent reign, and old biographers being always quite careless about dates. But he certainly had this dignity soon after Henry's accession. ... Becket continued Chancellor till the year 1162, without any abatement in his favour with the King, or in the power which he possessed, or in the energy he displayed, or in the splendour of his career. ... In April, 1161, Archbishop Theobald died. Henry declared that Becket should succeed,--no doubt counting upon his co-operation in carrying on the policy hitherto pursued in checking the encroachments of the clergy and of the see of Rome. ... The same opinion of Becket's probable conduct was generally entertained, and a cry was raised that 'the Church was in danger.' The English bishops sent a representation to Henry against the appointment, and the electors long refused to obey his mandate, saying that 'it was indecent that a man who was rather a soldier than a priest, and who had devoted himself to hunting and falconry instead of the study of the Holy Scriptures, should be placed in the chair of St. Augustine.' ... The universal expectation was, that Becket would now attempt the part so successfully played by Cardinal Wolsey in a succeeding age; that, Chancellor and Archbishop, he would continue the minister and personal friend of the King; that he would study to support and extend all the prerogatives of the Crown, which he himself was to exercise; and that in the palaces of which he was now master he would live with increased magnificence and luxury. ... Never was there so wonderful a transformation. Whether from a predetermined purpose, or from a sudden change of inclination, he immediately became in every respect an altered man. {800} Instead of the stately and fastidious courtier, was seen the humble and squalid penitent. Next [to] his skin he wore hair-cloth, populous with vermin; he lived upon roots, and his drink was water, rendered nauseous by an infusion of fennel. By way of further penance and mortification, he frequently inflicted stripes on his naked back. ... He sent the Great Seal to Henry, in Normandy, with this short message, 'I desire that you will provide yourself with another Chancellor, as I find myself hardly sufficient for the duties of one office, and much less of two.' The fond patron, who had been so eager for his elevation, was now grievously disappointed and alarmed. ... He at once saw that he had been deceived in his choice. ... The grand struggle which the Church was then making was, that all churchmen should be entirely exempted from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, whatever crime they might have committed. ... Henry, thinking that he had a favourable opportunity for bringing the dispute to a crisis, summoned an assembly of all the prelates at Westminster, and himself put to them this plain question: 'Whether they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom?' Their reply, framed by Becket, was: 'We are willing, saving our own order.' ... The King, seeing what was comprehended in the reservation, retired with evident marks of displeasure, deprived Becket of the government of Eye and Berkhamstead, and all the appointments which he held at the pleasure of the Crown, and uttered threats as to seizing the temporalities of all the bishops, since they would not acknowledge their allegiance to him as the head of the state. The legate of Pope Alexander, dreading a breach with so powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, advised Becket to submit for the moment; and he with his brethren, retracting the saving clause, absolutely promised 'to observe the laws and customs of the kingdom.' To avoid all future dispute, Henry resolved to follow up his victory by having these laws and customs, as far as the Church was concerned, reduced into a code, to be sanctioned by the legislature, and to be specifically acknowledged by all the bishops. This was the origin of the famous 'Constitutions of Clarendon.''' Becket left the kingdom (1164). Several years later he made peace with Henry and returned to Canterbury; but soon he again displeased the King, who cried in a rage, 'Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?' Four knights who were present immediately went to Canterbury, where they slew the Archbishop in the cathedral (December 29, 1170). "The government tried to justify or palliate the murder. The Archbishop of York likened Thomas à Becket to Pharaoh, who died by the Divine vengeance, as a punishment for his hardness of heart; and a proclamation was issued, forbidding anyone to speak of Thomas of Canterbury as a martyr: but the feelings of men were too strong to be checked by authority; pieces of linen which had been dipped in his blood were preserved as relics; from the time of his death it was believed that miracles were worked at his tomb; thither flocked hundreds of thousands, in spite of the most violent threats of punishment; at the end of two years he was canonised at Rome; and, till the breaking out of the Reformation, St. Thomas of Canterbury, for pilgrimages and prayers, was the most distinguished Saint in England."

_Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors,