developed. However there were quarrels with the Church, which became more
powerful following the murder of Thomas а Becket.
As with many of his predecessors, Henry II spent much of his time away
from England fighting abroad. This was taken to an extreme by his son
Richard, who spent only 10 months of a ten-year reign in the country due to
his involvement in the crusades. The last of the Angevin kings was John,
whom history has judged harshly. By 1205, six years into his reign, only a
fragment of the vast Angevin empire acquired by Henry II remained. John
quarrelled with the Pope over the appointment of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, eventually surrendering. He was also forced to sign the Magna
Carta in 1215, which restated the rights of the church, the barons and all
in the land. John died in ignominy, having broken the contract, leading the
nobles to summon aid from France and creating a precarious position for his
heir, Henry III.
HENRY II CURTMANTLE (1154-1189)
Henry II ruled over an empire which stretched from the Scottish border
to the Pyrenees. One of the strongest, most energetic and imaginative
rulers, Henry was the inheritor of three dynasties who had acquired
Aquitaine by marriage; his charters listed them: 'King of the English, Duke
of the Normans and Aquitanians and Count of the Angevins'. The King spent
only 13 years of his reign in England; the other 21 years were spent on the
continent in his territories in what is now France. Henry's rapid movements
in carrying out his dynastic responsibilities astonished the French king,
who noted 'now in England, now in Normandy, he must fly rather than travel
by horse or ship'. By 1158, Henry had restored to the Crown some of the
lands and royal power lost by Stephen; Malcom IV of Scotland was compelled
to return the northern counties. Locally chosen sheriffs were changed into
royally appointed agents charged with enforcing the law and collecting
taxes in the counties. Personally interested in government and law, Henry
made use of juries and re-introduced the sending of justices (judges) on
regular tours of the country to try cases for the Crown. His legal reforms
have led him to be seen as the founder of English Common Law. Henry's
disagreements with the Archbishop of Canterbury (the king's former chief
adviser), Thomas а Becket, over Church-State relations ended in Becket's
murder in 1170 and a papal interdict on England. Family disputes over
territorial ambitions almost wrecked the king's achievements. Henry died in
France in 1189, at war with his son Richard, who had joined forces with
King Philip of France to attack Normandy.
RICHARD I COEUR DE LION ('THE LIONHEART') (1189-1199)
Henry's elder son, Richard I (reigned 1189-99), fulfilled his main
ambition by going on crusade in 1190, leaving the ruling of England to
others. After his victories over Saladin at the siege of Acre and the
battles of Arsuf and Jaffa, concluded by the treaty of Jaffa (1192),
Richard was returning from the Holy Land when he was captured in Austria.
In early 1193, Richard was transferred to Emperor Henry VI's custody. In
Richard's absence, King Philip of France failed to obtain Richard's French
possessions through invasion or negotiation. In England, Richard's brother
John occupied Windsor Castle and prepared an invasion of England by Flemish
mercenaries, accompanied by armed uprisings. Their mother, Queen Eleanor,
took firm action against John by strengthening garrisons and again exacting
oaths of allegiance to the king. John's subversive activities were ended by
the payment of a crushing ransom of 150,000 marks of silver to the emperor,
for Richard's release in 1194. Warned by Philip's famous message 'look to
yourself, the devil is loosed', John fled to the French court. On his
return to England, Richard was recrowned at Winchester in 1194. Five years
later he died in France during a minor siege against a rebellious baron. By
the time of his death, Richard had recovered all his lands. His success was
short-lived. In 1199 his brother John became king and Philip successfully
invaded Normandy. By 1203, John had retreated to England, losing his French
lands of Normandy and Anjou by 1205.
JOHN (1199-1216)
John was an able administrator interested in law and government but he
neither trusted others nor was trusted by them. Heavy taxation, disputes
with the Church (John was excommunicated by the Pope in 1209) and
unsuccessful attempts to recover his French possessions made him unpopular.
Many of his barons rebelled and in June 1215 they forced the King to sign a
peace treaty accepting their reforms. This treaty, later known as Magna
Carta, limited royal powers, defined feudal obligations between the King
and the barons, and guaranteed a number of rights. The most influential
clauses concerned the freedom of the Church; the redress of grievances of
owners and tenants of land; the need to consult the Great Council of the
Realm so as to prevent unjust taxation; mercantile and trading
relationships; regulation of the machinery of justice so that justice be
denied to no one; and the requirement to control the behaviour of royal
officials. The most important clauses established the basis of habeas
corpus ('you have the body'), i.e. that no one shall be imprisoned except
by due process of law, and that 'to no one will we sell, to no one will we
refuse or delay right or justice'. The Charter also established a council
of barons who were to ensure that the Sovereign observed the Charter, with
the right to wage war on him if he did not. Magna Carta was the first
formal document insisting that the Sovereign was as much under the rule of
law as his people, and that the rights of individuals were to be upheld
even against the wishes of the sovereign. As a source of fundamental
constitutional principles, Magna Carta came to be seen as an important
definition of aspects of English law, and in later centuries as the basis
of the liberties of the English people. As a peace treaty Magna Carta was
a failure and the rebels invited Louis of France to become their king. When
John died in 1216 England was in the grip of civil war.
THE PLANTAGENETS
The Plantagenet period was dominated by three major conflicts at home
and abroad. Edward I attempted to create a British empire dominated by
England, conquering Wales and pronouncing his eldest son Prince of Wales,
and then attacking Scotland. Scotland was to remain elusive and retain its
independence until late in the reign of the Stuart kings. In the reign
of Edward III the Hundred Years War began, a struggle between England and
France. At the end of the Plantagenet period, the reign of Richard II saw
the beginning of the long period of civil feuding known as the War of the
Roses. For the next century, the crown would be disputed by two conflicting
family strands, the Lancastrians and the Yorkists.
The period also saw the development of new social institutions and a
distinctive English culture. Parliament emerged and grew. The judicial
reforms begun in the reign of Henry II were continued and completed by
Edward I. Culture began to flourish. Three Plantagenet kings were patrons
of Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry. During the early part of
the period, the architectural style of the Normans gave way to the Gothic,
in which style Salisbury Cathedral was built. Westminster Abbey was rebuilt
and the majority of English cathedrals remodelled. Franciscan and Dominican
orders began to be established in England, while the universities of Oxford
and Cambridge had their origins in this period.
Amidst the order of learning and art, however, were disturbing new
phenomena. The outbreak of Bubonic plague or the 'Black Death' served to
undermine military campaigns and cause huge social turbulence, killing half
the country's population. The price rises and labour shortage
which resulted led to social unrest, culminating in the Peasants' Revolt in
1381.
THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTIES
1216 - 1485
HENRY III
= Eleanor, dau. of Count of Provence
(1216–1272)
Eleanor, =
EDWARD I
dau. of
(1272–1307)
FERDINAND III,
King of Castile
and Leon
EDWARD
II = Isabella, dau.
(1307–1327) of PHILIP IV,
King of France
EDWARD III = Philippa, dau. of Count
(1327–1377) of Hainault and Holland
Edward, Prince = Joan, dau. of Earl Lionel, Duke = Elizabeth
Blanche of = John, Duke = Katharine Swynford,
of Wales, of Kent (son of Clarence de
Burgh Lancaster of Lancaster dau. of Sir
Roet
The Black Prince of EDWARD I)
of Guienne
RICHARD II Edmund, = Philippa
Mary = HENRY IV John Beaufort,
(1377–1399) Earl of March
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