Things in History You Should Know: Henry II

As originally appeared in the latest issue of the Meliorist, the University of Lethbridge's student newspaper. I like to write articles for them. It is fun.

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It occurs to me that I spend far less time than I should writing about history’s greatest dysfunctional family. No, not the Tudors; the Tudors inherited their dysfunction from these guys. I speak of the Plantagenets and particularly the first of the bunch, Henry II (of England, that is. Not France, Castile, Navarre, or the Holy Roman Empire. They weren’t particularly creative with names back then.).

Henry was the eldest son of Empress Matilda, who you may remember from another article. If not, here’s a refresher: her pops, Henry I, managed to only have one surviving child who was also the child of his wife. He makes her his heir. Cool! He dies and the English barons are all like, we don’t want no lady cooties on our throne, so we’ll make her cousin king instead. Civil war ensues! Matilda ultimately loses and goes back to the continent. We’ll get back to this.

So young Henry Plantagenet was nineteen years old in 1152. Five years ago, he was helping his dear mother invade England, but now he was slumming it in the French court. Louis VII reigned over it; Eleanor of Aquitaine was his queen. Their relationship? On the rocks. That’s what happens to a couple when they go crusading with one another and even the fear of losing each other at sea and the bloody Pope stepping in to patch things up didn’t help. Furthermore, Eleanor had the unmitigated audacity to have a second daughter instead of a son, like she was supposed to. Women! The Pope knew a lost cause when he saw it and annulled the marriage, on the grounds that they were distant cousins.

Eleanor didn’t long suffer as a single woman, because hey, there was this strapping young lad running about. He was twelve years younger than her, had lots of land, and had claims to a lot more land. What was there not to like? The two got hitched just two months after the annulment, making Eleanor the only woman in history to have been both a queen of England and France (there were others, like Elizabeth I, who claimed to be queen of both. That was very wishful thinking).

Henry celebrated his nuptials by crossing to England the next year, with 3000 of his closest friends, to visit family. His mother’s cousin, King Stephen, was so pleased by the visit that he made him his heir. (Stephen’s son thought this gift a bit too much, but who cares? He soon died.) Stephen further increased his thoughtfulness by kindly passing away in 1154. Henry became king, Eleanor became queen, Matilda was so proud. Everything was peaches and cream for the royal couple from there on out.

Or rather, everything progressively went further and further to pot.

First, let’s talk about his accomplishments. Bear in mind that the medieval definition of “accomplishments” didn’t much allow for being nice to your neighbour and other now-established norms of civilized behaviour. You may recall a landmass – an isle, if you will – just to the west of Britain. It is called Ireland and I hear it’s very lovely. Henry stuck his nose in the business of the Irish when Diarmat Mac Murchada, King of Leinster, came to him asking for help getting his kingdom back. Henry and his Norman lords agreed and did so, out of the goodness of their hearts (this included Richard de Clare, nicknamed “Strongbow.” You may recognize him from your cider. He had a battlefield marriage with Diarmat’s daughter – how sweet!)
King Henry called on Ireland again shortly afterwards, in 1171. He declared himself Lord of Ireland. The Irish were displeased, but the English so enjoyed lording it over them that they kept at it for over seven hundred years. He also beat back a Scottish invasion and most importantly of all, did some serious, hardcore reforming of the legal system. This included the introduction of an embryo version of trial by jury – basically, a “justice in eyre” would come to town and call twenty-four free men together to let him know about any crimes committed in the area and they’d figure out who did them. The accused would have the option of trial by combat, but if they won, they’d still be subject to banishment. Also, getting your nearest and dearest to swear in court that they really, really believed you didn’t do it (a practice called compurgation) didn’t work anymore. Believe it or not, this was all an improvement and it also helped lay the groundwork for the common law we’re subject to today. This led to a problem.

See, Henry wanted this to apply to the clergy as well. Ecclesiastical courts were generally slacker than secular courts, after all – a fact which amazingly, some clergy would abuse. Entirely coincidentally, he wanted to increase his power of the church in England, rather than do what the Pope said all the time. So he made his best dude, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket immediately went all holy on him and started obstructing his attempts at reform. This made Henry angry. Like, “shouting ‘who will rid me of this turbulent priest!’ in front of some way too eager knights” angry.

Those knights, thinking they were being very helpful, went to Canterbury Cathedral and found Becket. Becket refused to flee. The knights proceeded to murder him in a most grisly and excessive fashion.

Well, so much for the “church” plank of his legal reform. Some hardcore penance also had to be done, but everyone took a dim view of Henry’s role in the affair thereafter.
Another problem that Henry had, one that was to recur for many of his descendents, was an excess of sons. Yep, Eleanor, despite the age difference and despite her so peevishly having only daughters with Louis, managed to produce with Henry three daughters and five sons. Five! That was so many that Henry didn’t have enough lands to divvy up between all of them – poor John got squat (hence the nickname “Lackland”) until that whole bit with Ireland.

The eldest son, William, helpfully died before he could get up to too much trouble. But the remaining four (Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, and yes, that’s THE Richard and John) spent much of their time from 1172 to Henry’s death in 1189 engaging in some rather epic teenage rebellion and warring against each other. Further exacerbating matters was Queen Eleanor helping out her favourite, Richard, against her husband, leading to the royal couple’s estrangement and Eleanor’s house arrest.

When Henry perished, two of the Devil’s brood (the younger Henry and Geoffrey) beat him to the punch, but that didn’t change the fact that he was alone and friendless when he did so. Such a shame. It sucks to be the king.