HOME
|
HOME |
The Plantaganet Line 82. Ethelred ii, 968-1016;
m. 985 Ealflaed
83. Edmund ii (Ironside), 993-1016;
m. Ealdgyth
84. Edward (Atheling) of England, ca.1016-1057;
m. Agatha of Germany
85. St. Margaret 1045-1093;
m. Malcolm iii, 1031-1093, King of Scotland.
86. Matilda of Scotland, d. 1118;
m. 1100 Henry i of England, 1070-1135
87. Matilda of England, 1103-1167;
m. 1127 Geoffrey v, Count d 'Anjou, 1113-1151
The daughter of HENRY I of England and mother of HENRY II, Matilda, b. February 1102, d. Sept. 10, 1167, was frustrated in her ambition to become queen of England. She first married (1114) Holy Roman Emperor HENRY V. After his death (1125) she returned to England, where she was recognized (1127) as her father's heir, her only legitimate brother having died in 1120. Matilda's waspish personality and her unpopular marriage (1128) to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou, a bristling warrior, alienated her supporters. On Henry I's death in 1135, Matilda's cousin STEPHEN was proclaimed king, and she went to war to claim her inheritance. For a few months in 1141 she held the upper hand in the conflict, but she was never crowned. Matilda gave up her struggle and left England in 1148, spending her remaining years in Normandy. In 1154, however, her eldest son by Geoffrey, Henry, succeeded to the English throne.James W. Alexander/ Bibliography: Cronne, H. A., The Reign of Stephen, 1135-54;88. Henry ii of England, 1133-1189;
Anarchy in England (1970); Davis, R. H. C., King Stephen (1967). Copyright -1992
Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.
m. Eleanor d' Aquitaine 1123-1204
Henry II, perhaps the greatest king of England, ruled a vast Anglo-Norman domain from 1154 to 1189, founding a structure of government both flexible and well defined and patronizing toward scholarship and literature. The son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou, and MATILDA, daughter of Henry I and briefly queen of England, Henry was born in France on Mar. 5, 1133. Made duke of Normandy in 1150, he inherited his father's lands in 1151 and in 1152 married ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE soon after the annulment of her marriage to Louis VII, King of France, thus acquiring her large domain. They would have 8 children, including two English Kings, Richard I and John. After several unsuccessful attempts to recover his mother's throne, Henry invaded England in 1153 and was recognized as the heir of King STEPHEN, whom he succeeded in 1154.
Henry was a man of high intelligence, practical wisdom, and physical vigor. His early years as king were occupied with recovering his royal rights from the barons who had wrested them from Stephen. Although he could not effectively rule the entire so-called ANGEVIN empire, Henry created a stable royal government within England.
Under Henry many governmental reforms were instituted. A new class of professional royal officials emerged, and new record-keeping practices reflected the increasing complexity of English society. The king ordered inquiries into the operations of local government and a survey (1166) of knight service. During his reign, money payments called scutage replaced knight service as the principal means of raising his army, the largest and most highly organized in Europe since the days of the Roman Empire.
Perhaps Henry's greatest accomplishment was the development of the system of royal justice and hence of COMMON LAW, which was to become the basis of the legal systems of most English-speaking peoples. Common law employed the jury, made the king's legal initiative (in the form of a writ) available to allmade the king's legal initiative (in the form of a writ) available to all free men for a modest price, and began DUE PROCESS under the law.
Henry was primarily interested in extending royal law at the expense of feudal jurisdictions and reaping the financial benefits that accrued. Nonetheless, the ultimate effect of the legal reforms of this reign was to protect the weak from abuse by the strong.
The most famous episode of Henry's reign was the king's quarrel with his friend Thomas BECKET, whom he had made archbishop of Canterbury. Henry had hoped to isolate his kingdom's church from papal leadership and thereby subject it to his own. Becket, however, firmly opposed this policy, often unsupported by his own bishops. His murder (1170) in Canterbury Cathedral, inadvertently instigated by Henry himself, caused considerable uproar but little change in Henry's relations with the church. Henry's final years were troubled by quarrels with his wife and four sons. They rebelled against him several times, most notably in 1172-74. When Henry II died on July 6, 1189, he was succeeded by his second son, RICHARD I; the latter was succeeded in turn by his youngest brother, JOHN.James W. Alexander/Bibliography: Warren, W. L., Henry II (1973.89. John of England 1166-1216;
m. 1200 Isabelle d'Angouleme; d. 1246
90. Henry iii. of England 1206-1272;
m. Eleanor de Provence, d. 1290
91. Edward i of England, 1239-1307;
m. 1254 Eleanor of Castile; d. 1290
92. Edward ii of England 1284-1327;
m. Isabel of France; d. 1358
Edward II, b. Apr. 25, 1284, d. September 1327, king of England (1307-27 was the first Plantagenet to be deposed. He was the son of Edward I and the first English prince of Wales. He married (1308) Isabella, daughter of Philip IV of France. After his accession the magnates quickly grew hostile and suspicious of his close association with a Gascon knight, Piers Gaveston. (Edward may have had homosexual tendencies.) Leading magnates drew up the Ordinances of 1311,which enforced Gaveston's exile and placed limitations on the king's financial independence. When Gaveston returned he was executed (1312) by his enemies. The weak king failed to resist the Scots under Robert I, who decisively defeated (1314) an English army in the Battle of Bannockburn. Edward recovered power with the help of a new favorite, Hugh Despenser, and defeated (1322) his enemies at Boroughbridge. The oppressive rule of Edward and Despenser that followed, however, was ended by an invasion from France by Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, in 1326. The deposed Edward II, who was succeeded by his son, Edward III, was imprisoned and probably murdered.