 1133 - 1189 (56 years)
-
| Name |
Henry II 'Curtmantle' PLANTAGENET [1] |
| Suffix |
King of England |
| Born |
25 Mar 1133 |
Le Mans, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire, France  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
6 Jul 1189 |
Chinon Castle, Chinon, Indre-Et-Loire, France |
| Buried |
8 Jul 1189 |
Fontevruad Abbey, Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, Maine-et-Loire, Anjou, France |
| Person ID |
I5729 |
adkinshorton |
| Last Modified |
2 Jan 2013 |
| Father |
Geoffrey V "the Fair" PLANTAGENET, Count of Anjou, b. 24 Aug 1113, Anjou, Pays-de-la-Loire, France , d. 7 Sep 1151, Chateau-dut-Loire, France (Age 38 years) |
| Mother |
Matilda PRINCESS OF ENGLAND, b. 7 Feb 1102, Winchester, Hampshire, England , d. 10 Sep 1167, Abbey de Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France (Age 65 years) |
| Married |
22 May 1128 |
Cathedral of St. Julian of Le Mans, Le Mans, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire, France |
| Family ID |
F25175 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family |
Eleanor OF AQUITAINE, b. 6 Dec 1122, Chateau de Belin, Guinne, France , d. 1 Apr 1204, Mirabell Castle, Poitiers, France (Age 81 years) |
| Married |
18 May 1152 |
Bordeaux Cathredal, Bordeaux, Gironde, France |
| Children |
| | 1. William PLANTAGENET, of England, b. 17 Aug 1152, Le Mans, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire, France , d. Apr 1156, Wallingford Castle, Wallingford, Berkshire, England (Age 3 years) |
| | 2. Henry 'the Young King' PLANTAGANET, b. 28 Feb 1155, d. 11 Jun 1183 (Age 28 years) |
| | 3. Matilda PLANTAGENET, of England, b. Jun 1156, London, Greater London, England , d. 28 Jun 1189, Brunswick, Germany (Age ~ 33 years) |
| | 4. Richard I 'the Lionheart' PLANTAGENET, King of England, b. 1157, d. Yes, date unknown |
| | 5. Geoffrey II PLANAGENET, of England, b. 23 Sep 1158, England , d. 19 Aug 1186, Paris, France (Age 27 years) |
| | 6. Eleanor PLANTAGENET, of Castile, b. 13 Oct 1162, Domfront, Orne, France , d. 31 Oct 1214, Las Hueglas, Burgos, Castile, Spain (Age 52 years) |
| | 7. Joan PLANTAGENET, of England, b. Oct 1165, Angers, Maine-Et-Loire, France , d. 4 Sep 1199, Fontevruad Abbey, Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, Maine-et-Loire, Anjou, France (Age ~ 33 years) |
| + | 8. John I "Lackland" KING OF ENGLAND, b. 24 Dec 1167, Beaumont Palace, Oxford, England , d. 19 Oct 1216, Newark Castle, Newark, Nottinghamshire, England (Age 48 years) |
|
| Family ID |
F25176 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
-
| Notes |
- Henry II. Plantaganet, first Plantaganet King of England (1154-1189), known as Curt Mantel, was born at Le Mans, France, on March 15, 1133. At eighteen in 1151 he was invested with the Duchy of Normandy, his mother's heritage, and within a year became also, by his father's death, Count of Anjou; while in 1152 he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine (see his ancestral lineage elsewhere in Vol. I.), and divorced wife of King Louis VII. of France, added Poitou and Guienne to his dominions. In January 1153 he landed in England, and in November a treaty was agreed to whereby Henry was declared successor to King Stephen; he was crowned in 1154 and ruled until his death in 1189. He confirmed the laws of his grandfather, King Henry I, reestablished the exchequer, banished the foreign mercenaries, demolished the hundreds of castles erected in Stephen's reign, and recovered the royal estates. The whole of 1156 he spent in France, reducing his brother, Geoffrey of Nantes, who died in 1158, and having secured his territories, he spent the next five years warring and organizing his possessions on the Continent. Henry's objective was that of all Norman kings, to build up the royal power at the expense of the barons and the church. From the barons his reforms met with little serious opposition; with the clergy he was less successful. To aid him in reducing the church to subjection, he appointed his chancellor, Thomas a Becket to the see of Canterbury. Henry compelled him and the other prelates to agree to the 'Constitution of Clarendon', but Bechet proved a sturdy churchman, and the struggle between him and the monarch terminated only by his murder. In 1174 Henry did penance at Bechet's tomb, but he ended by bringing the church to subordination in civil matters. Meanwhile he organized an expedition to Ireland. The English Pope, Adrian IV, had in 1155 given Henry authority over the entire island of Ireland; and a number of Norman-Welsh knights had gained a footing in the country, among them Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, styled Strongbow, who in 1155 married the heiress of Leinster and assumed rule as the Earl of Leinster. Henry was jealous at the rise of a powerful feudal baronage in Ireland, and during his stay there (1171-1172) he broke the power of Richard Strongbow and the other nobles.
Henry was raised in the French province of Anjou and first visited England in 1142 to defend his mother's claim to the disputed throne of Stephen. His continued possessions were already vast before his coronation. He acquired Normandy and Anjou upon the death of his father in September 1151, and his French holdings more than doubled with his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitane (ex-wife of Louis VII of France). In accordance with the Treaty of Wallingford, a sucession agreement signed by Stephen and Matilda in 1151, Henry was crowned in October 1154. The continental empire ruled by Henry and his sons included the French counties of Brittany, Maine, Poitou, Touraine, Gascony, Anjou, Aquitane and Normandy. Henry was technically a feudal vassal of the King of France, but, in reality owned more territory and was more powerful than his French lord. Although King John (Henry's son) lost most of the English holdings in France, English kings laid claim to the French throne until the fifteenth century. Henry also extended his territory in the British Isles in two significant ways. First, he retrieved Cumbria and Northumbria from Malcolm IV of Scotland and settled the Anglo-Scot border in the North. Secondly, although his success with Welsh campaigns was limited. Henry invaded Ireland and secured an English presence on the island. English and Norman barons in Stephen's reign manipulated feudal law to undermine royal authority. Henry instituted many reforms to weaken traditional feudal ties and strengthen his position. Unathorized castles built during the previous reign were razed. Monetary payments replaced military service as the primary duty of vassals. The exchequer was revitalized to enforce accurate record keeping and tax collection. Incompetent sheriffs were replaced and the authority of royal courts was expanded. Henry empowered a new social class of government clerks that stabilized procedure--the government could operate effectively in the king's absence and would subsequently prove sufficiently tenacious to survive the reign of incompetent kings. Henry's reforms allowed the emergence of a body of common law to replace the disparate customs of feudal and county courts. Jury trials were initiated to end the old Germanic trials by ordeal or battle. Henry's systemanic approach to law provided a common basis for development of royal institutions throughout the entire realm. Henry's plans of dividing his myriad lands and titles evoked treachery from his sons. At the encouragement, and sometimes because of the treatment of their mother, they rebelled against their father several times, often with Louis VII of France as their accomplice. The deaths of Henry, the Young King, in 1183 and Georffrey in 1186, gave no respite from his children's rebvellious nature. Richard, with the assistance of Phillip II Augustus of France, attacked and defeated Henry on July 4, 1189 and forced him to accept a humiliating peace. Henry II died two days later, on July 6, 1189.
Henry II's contemporaries were Louis VII (King of France, 1137-1180), Thomas Beckett (Archbishop of Canterbury), Pope Adrian IV, Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor) 1152-1190. Henry II, first of the Angevin kings, was one of the most effective of all England's monarchs. He came to the throne amid the anarch of Stephen's reign and promptly collard his errant barons. He refind Norman government and created a capable, self-standing bureaucracy. His energy was equaled by his ambition and intelligence. He survived wars, rebellion, and controversy to successfully rule one of the Middle Ages' most powerful kingdoms.
|
-
| Sources |
- [S18796] The Paternal Ancestry of Homer Beers James, Vol. I.
|
|
|
