Kings of England #2

1. Elizabeth, Princess of England: Born 7 August 1282, Rhuddlan Castle, Rhuddlan, Flintshire, Wales; Died 5 May 1316, Quendon, Essex, England; Married 14 November 1302, Westminster Abbey, Middlesex, England; Humphrey VIII De Bohun: Born about 1276, of Pleshy Castle, Essex, England; Died 16 March 1321/1322, Friars Preachers, York, Yorkshire, England. (See De Bohun)

2. Edward I "Longshanks", King of England: Born 17 June 1239, Westminster, Middlesex, England; Died 7 July 1307, Burgh-On-The-San, Cumberland, England; Married 18 October 1254, Burgos, Burgos, Spain; Eleanor (Leonor), Princess of Castile and Leon, Queen of England: Born 1244, of Burgos, Burgos, Spain; Died 29 November 1290, Herdeby, Lincolnshire, England. (See Kings of Aragon). Edward I was King of England from 1272 until 1307. He completed the conquest of Wales and temporarily subdued Scotland. He was the eldest son of Henry III. In 1254 he was made Duke of Gascony and married Eleanor of Castile. In contrast to his father, Edward showed masterfulness in the disputes with the English Barons following the governmental reforms instituted by the Provisions of Oxford (1258). He supported Simon de Montfort in 1259 but later changed sides. He fought for the King at the Battle of Lewes (1264) and himself defeated Montfort decisively at Evesham (1265), restoring royal power. In 1271-72 he was on crusade at Acre.

During the years from 1272, when Edward succeeded his father, to 1290, striking achievements occurred. Edward conquered the Welsh principality of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd in devastating campaigns in 1277 and 1282-83 and built massive castles to keep it secure. In England he held regular parliaments. A program of legislation strengthened royal control over the court system and reformed the tangled feudal land law.

After 1294 wars in Scotland and France dominated Edward's reign. The death (1290) of Margaret, Maid of Norway, heiress to the Scottish crown, allowed Edward as suzerain to choose a successor, John de Baliol, and then to claim direct rule over Scotland, which he subdued in 1296. In France the conflict concerned the French king's overlordship over Edward's duchy of Gascony. In 1297, Edward attacked France to assert his rights, but the expedition was cut short by the rebellion in Scotland of Sir William Wallace. At the same time the English nobles rebelled, forcing Edward to grant Parliament control over taxes. By a treaty (1303) with Philip IV of France, Edward retained Gascony. He failed, however, to quell the risings of Wallace and Robert the Bruce (later Robert I), and Scotland remained only half-conquered at his death. He was succeeded by his son Edward II.

3. Henry III, King of England: Born 1 October 1206, Winchester, Hampshire, England; Died 16 November 1272, Westminster, Middlesex, England; Married 14 January 1236, Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England; Eleanore (Leonor), Countess of Provence, Queen of England: Born about 1223, of Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-Du-Rhone, France; Died 24 June 1291, Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. (See Kings of Leon) Henry III was King of England from 1216 until 1272. He was the son and successor of King John. At his accession at the age of 9, southeast England was controlled by French invaders. English rule was gradually reestablished by the regency council under the protection of the pope, represented by papal legates. An increasingly prominent councillor, Hubert de Burgh, was dominant as justiciar from 1227 to 1232, when Henry ousted him in alliance with Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, and Peter des Rivaux. The latter promoted a policy of strengthening central government until he and des Roches were overthrown by a Baronial rebellion in 1234.

Although Henry was ambitious and a great patron--he rebuilt Westminster Abbey--he was a poor politician. His marriage in 1236 to Eleanor of Provence brought an influx of her Savoyard relations who alienated the magnates. The king's friendship with the papacy was unpopular, and the continuing centralization of royal finance and justice aroused opposition. In 1254, Henry agreed to finance a conquest of the kingdom of Naples for the pope in return for the grant of the crown to his second son, Edmund. The resulting failure and debt forced him to accept, in 1258, the Provisions of Oxford, a plan for government by nominated councillors and ministers imposed on him by the magnates. In 1259, Henry accepted another set of reforms, the Provisions of Westminster, but a split among the magnates--between radicals, led by Simon de Montfort, and conservatives--allowed the King in 1261 to renounce the provisions. The so-called Barons' War ensued. Henry secured a favorable arbitration by King Louis IX of France (the Mise of Amiens, 1264), but the civil war continued. The King was defeated in 1264, at Lewes, but the following year Montfort was crushed at Evesham by Henry's eldest son, the future Edward I. The war ended with the restoration of royal authority in 1267, but Edward ruled for his father thereafter.

4. John "Lackland", King of England: Born 24 December 1166, King's Manor House, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England; Died 19 October 1216, Newark, Nottinghamshire, England; Married 26 August 1200, Bordeaux, Gironde, France; Isabella De Taillefer, Queen of England: Born about 1188, of Angouleme, Charente, France; Died 31 May 1245/1246, Fontevrault Abbey, Fontevrault, Maine-et-Loire, France. (See Counts of Anjouleme) The youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, John succeeded his brother Richard I as King on May 27, 1199. John's reign is notable for his difficulties with the church and the Barons; the king's conflict with the latter resulted in Magna Carta.

John's character was not attractive--he was hedonistic, mercurial, personally unstable, suspicious, and unforgiving. Yet he had many commendable qualities--he was highly intelligent, well versed in law and government, efficient, and sophisticated. His greatest shortcoming, in view of his contemporaries, was that he was no warrior, in an age when kings were expected to be great fighters. Moreover, John's difficulties stemmed largely from the policies of his father and brother. Richard had bequeathed financial bankruptcy and a ruinously expensive war in France. John also bore the brunt of Baronial reaction to the centralization of government, a policy initiated by his predecessors, though continued with enthusiasm by him.

Early in his reign John lost most of the English possessions in France; by 1206, Philip II of France had conquered Anjou, Normandy, and Brittany. In that year John also became embroiled in a quarrel with the church by refusing to accept the election of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. The pope placed England under Interdict (in effect, closing the churches) until John abandoned the fight in 1213 and accepted papal vassalage.

The King took this step to strengthen his hand against the Barons, with whom trouble had been building since 1208. The failure of John's expedition to Poitou in 1214, however, coupled with the defeat of his ally, Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, in the Battle of Bouvines, gave the English Barons their excuse for rebellion. In June 1215 the Barons forced the King to accede to their demands for the restoration of feudal rights in the famous document called Magna Carta. The civil war was resumed soon after, however, and continued at the time of John's death. John was succeeded by his young son, Henry III.

4. Henry II "Plantagenet", King of England: Born 5 March 1133, Le Mans, Sarthe, France; Died 6 Jul 1189, Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, France; Married 11 May 1152, Bordeaux, Gironde, France; Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, Queen of France, Queen of England: Born 1121/1122, Chateau de Belin, Gironde, France; Died 31 March 1204, Mirabell Castle, Tarn-et-Garonne, France. (See Dukes of Aquitaine #2) 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 the Empress Matilda (Maude), daughter of Henry I and briefly Queen of England, Henry was made Duke of Normandy in 1150, he inherited his father's lands in 1151 and in 1152 married Eleanor of Aquitaine, thus acquiring her large domain. 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 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.

5. Geoffrey V "the Fair" Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy: Born 24 August 1113, Anjou, France; Died 7 September 1151, Chateau, Eure-et-Loire, France; Married 22 May 1127, Le Mans, Sarthe, France; Maud (Matilda), Princess of England, Empress of Germany: Born before 5 August 1102, London, Middlesex, England; Died 10 September 1169, Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France. Matilda's Life was a roller coaster of Peaks and valleys. The daughter of Henry I, she was sent to Germany to marry the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. The young Empress Maude won the love and respect of their subjects at the very formal German court.

While Maude was living in Germany, her young brother William, the only legitimate son of Henry I and his heir, (Henry is know to have had over twenty bastard children) was wed to Alice (or Matilda), the daughter of Fulk V of Anjou, of the gouty feet. In the same year he himself became betrothed to Adelecia "The Fair Maid of Brabant", daughter of Godfrey, Duke of Lower Lorraine and Brabant, a girl of Maude's own age. But before they were wed came a terrible tragedy.

On November 25 1120 a large fleet of royal ships was to sail from Normandy to England. Crown Prince William and the other royal family members his age, including his cousin Stephen, (later King Stephen) were to sail aboard the spectacular White Ship. Bored by the delay in departure, William and His friends spent the time drinking, and generously ordered the wine to be shared with the crew. By the time they left, the royals were quite drunk-- and so were certain key crew members. The ship his an rock and sank. Care was taken to spirit William--drunk and sick--into a lifeboat, but he heard one of his illegitimate sisters crying for help and went back to rescue her. The boat became overloaded and it sank too, taking with it William, his sister Matilda the Countess of Perche, their illegitimate brother Richard, their cousin Lucy, the daughter of Henry's sister Adela. Lucy's brother Stephen had changed his mind at the last minute to sail aboard the King's vessel, and thus was spared a watery grave.

When Henry received the news of the wreck, he fainted and remained unconscious for several days. It is said he never smiled again. Still, he did not lose his eye for opportunity--he attempted to seize William's young widow's dowry! Alice went home to her father and became a nun, later the Abbess of Fontevrault Abbey.

On 21 June 1121, Henry married Adelicia at Windsor. She was 18 and he was 53; he had high hopes of siring an heir by this young wife. By 1126 he had given up this hope, as they remained childless, and he sent for his daughter Matilda, still acting as Empress in Germany, though now one year widowed. When she arrived in England, Henry proclaimed to the people that they could be governed by English blood only if they accepted Matilda as their future Queen. They did, without much enthusiasm, for a woman ruling in her own right was an alien concept. Her cousin Stephen was one of the first to pay homage to Matilda.

Henry then blundered. Instead of keeping her in England where the people could get to know her, he arranged a marriage between her and Geoffrey, the fourteen year old son of his enemy Fulk V, count of Anjou, and brother to the unfortunate Alice. Matilda was outraged--not only was she eleven years older than Geoffrey, but she had been the wife to the Holy Roman Emperor, was daughter of the Queen of England, and would be Queen--how degrading it would be to marry a mere son of a Count, so far beneath her station! To play for time, she pleaded with Henry that she was still in mourning for the Emperor, but her father well knew that she simply did not wish to marry Geoffrey. Christmas that year was spent at Windsor, with Matilda shut up in her apartments and Adelecia acting as Go-between. Henry won in the end and sent her over to Geoffrey in the charge of Robert, Earl of Gloucester. They were betrothed on Whit Sunday, 1127, but she refused to marry Geoffrey immediately as her father had ordered, and Henry himself had to go over in August and personally lead her to the altar.

Between Maude's haughty personality and her unpopular marriage, even her supporters were doubtful of the wisdom in allowing her to succeed her father. On Henry's death in 1135, Maude's cousin Stephen was proclaimed King, and Maude went to war to claim her inheritance. There followed 19 years of bitter, bloody civil war. And so began for the wretched people of England, a time of suffering so great that they began to fear, in the words of the Worcester Chronicle that "Christ and his saints slept." The battles raged back and forth, neither side keeping its advantages long enough to win. For a few months in 1141 it looked as though Maude had won, but she was never crowned, and finally her advantages were lost. She gave up her struggle and left England in 1148 to spend the remaining years in Normandy supporting her son, the future Henry II's efforts to obtain the crown.

Once Matilda gave up her quest, she was a changed woman. Her son Henry took over the war, eventually backing Stephen into a political corner. No one in England wanted to see Stephen's son Eustace crowned--he was violent and mean spirited. Henry, even at 18, had great presence and natural ability as a commander. A truce resulted in Stephen naming Matilda and Geoffrey's son as his heir, and not even Eustace could object--as he had, rather fortunately for England, died a few month earlier, choking to death on a cooked eel. Stephen himself died not long after. Leaving Henry as King of England, and his new wife Eleanor as Queen--the only person to ever wear both the crowns of England and France. Maude acted as Regent for Henry in Normandy, governed it with great discretion and was known as the "Lady of the English." She died, loved and respected by the Normans, in 1167.

Maud's Parents and Paternal Grandparents--

• I. Henry I "Beauclerc", King of England: (See The Kings of England ) Born 1070, Selby, Yorkshire, England; Died 1 December 1135, St Denis, Seine-St Denis, France; Married 11 November 1100, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; Matilda "Atheling", Princess of Scotland: Born about 1079/1080, Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland; Died 1 May 1118, Westminster, Middlesex, England. William Rufus was a homosexual who never married. The second surviving son of William the Conqueror, he managed to get to England before his elder brother Robert, who was in Germany, and became King. When, thirteen years later, he was killed hunting in the New Forest, Henry happened to be in another part of the forest, so he had not far to go to seize the royal treasure at Winchester and claim the throne, which he did with great promptitude. Robert, in the wrong place as usual, was in Sicily on his way back from the Holy Land. Like his second brother Richard, although without so much justification, as Henry was a man of action rather than a scholar, he was nicknamed Beauclerk. Born in 1068, the only one of the Conqueror's sons to be born in England, he could speak Saxon as well as Norman French. The Conqueror left him £5,000 in silver, and Matilda left him her lands in England. Robert promptly borrowed £3,000 of the money and William Rufus seized the lands as soon as he conveniently could. Robert at one time imprisoned him and at another joined Rufus in besieging him; and to escape from them Henry had to wander round Germany for some years with only four retainers. With no money or influence it was entirely due to his prowess as a fighter and his hard cunning that he survived. This struggle for existence left him a shrewd and ruthless negotiator who had no hesitation in being unscrupulous if the occasion arose. He was described by Holinshed as 'strong of body, fleshie, of indifferent stature, black of hair and in manner bald before, large eyes, face comely, well Countenanced and pleasant to beholders especially when he was disposed to mirth'. Presumably 'in manner bald before' meant that his hair was receding. In character he was said to excel in the virtues, wisdom, eloquence and valiance, which notwithstanding were somewhat blemished with the number of vices that reigned in him: as covetousness, cruelty, and fleshy lusts of the body. Like his father, he was inclined to go to fat, but he liked hard exercise and as a boy had run so fast that Rufus had nicknamed him 'Deerfoot'. In manner he was much quieter than either Robert or William Rufus and, far from being a homosexual, he had more acknowledged illegitimate children than any other English King, even surpassing Charles II. They were thought to number twenty, many of them born before he became King.

• After he had been crowned he wasted no time in finding a bride, choosing Edyth, known as Matilda or Maud after she became Queen, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, and Margaret, the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, elder halfbrother to Edward the Confessor. William Rufus had fought her father who had been killed in battle, after which she and her sister had been sent to live in the care of their aunt, the Saxon Princess Christine, Abbess of Romsey. The aunt put up a strenuous resistance to the marriage and declared that both girls had taken the veil. At first Matilda had resisted too, possibly because of Henry's reputation with women; but her brother, Alexander the Fierce of Scotland, persuaded her that it was her duty in the interests of her family and Country to marry Henry and secure peace. A rhyme of that date does not make her sound loath to do this: Special love there has been as I understand, Between him and the fair King's daughter, Maud of Scotland, So that he willed her to wife and the Bishops also, And high men of the land advised him thereto.
• She may have fallen in love with him because he was vital and attractive. Henry too had a large heart and a broad minded taste in women, so may easily have been in love with her, at any rate for a brief period.
• She certainly denied that she had taken the veil and said about her aunt: 'As often as I stood in her presence I wore the veil, trembling as I wore it with indignation and grief, but as soon as I could get out of her sight I used to snatch it from my head and fling it on the ground and trample it underfoot, that was the way and none other that I was veiled.'
• Archbishop Anselm, one of the bishops who 'willed her to wife', married them on Sunday, 11th November, 1100, after which she was crowned. At the wedding the Archbishop said from the pulpit that she was free from religious vows, and explained that in those rough times many girls had to put on veils, made of coarse black cloth or serge, to protect themselves from the attentions of the Norman nobles.
• By nature and temperament she and Henry were opposites, except that they both had a love of music. Despite her spirited defiance of her aunt, she was deeply religious and devoted to good works, and during Lent she would walk barefoot to Westminster Abbey every day and there wash and kiss the feet of the poor. Henry was less religious and got so impatient and bored with long church services that, when he found a priest who could get through Matins and Mass quicker than the others, he called him 'a priest fit for a soldier' and made him Bishop of Salisbury.
• The marriage was popular with the Saxons, but not with the Normans, who nicknamed them 'Godric' and 'Godgifer', Saxon words meaning God's Prince and God's gifts. This was presumably sarcastic, possibly because Henry cut down on the extravagances of the Court in which William had indulged. He cut his hair short and wore simple clothes as had the Conqueror. In William's Court and in his brother Robert's in Normandy they had worn long garments 'like women's, which hindered walking or acting of any kind', and 'let their hair grow long like women'. They also 'copied the mien of women', though handicapped by the 'long pointed shoes ??? cubed points like the horns of rams or the tails of scorpion that they wore. These shoe fashions had an unromantic origin they had been invented by Count Fulk of Anjou to hide swellings of his gouty feet.
• Matilda produced a son, William, in 1101. Robert landed in England and tried to help the discontented Barons to conquer it from Henry. The two armies met and Robert although stronger in numbers, was persuaded to accept a treaty, partly, it was said, because when he heard that Matilda had just had a child, and he said that he would not fight agains woman in childbed.
• In the treaty Henry agreed to give up most of his lands in Normandy and pay Robert a pension of three thousand. Robert then stayed at the English Court for six months. Though he was often drunk, he and Matilda got on well gether and spent a lot of time in each other's company. Like many virtuous women she could be quite unscrupulous if she believed that her cause was right; she was said to have taken advantage of Robert when he was in his cups, and, preyed on his kindness and courtesy further, persuaded him to yield to her the pension that Henry had promised him, by plea that she was badly in need of money.
• In 1104 she produced a daughter, whom they christened Matilda. In 1105 she was left as Regent of England. Henry went over to Normandy to fight Robert. Henry defeated Robert at the battle of Tenchbrai and brought him to England keeping him under open confinement until he died eight years later.
• Henry had put England into good order and was now to do the same in Normandy, so he spent a great deal of time there while Matilda stayed in England. He took over with him Robert of Gloucester, his favourite illegitimate son, whose mother was a French woman, Sybil, daughter of Robert Corbet of Caen.
• The Queen was supposed to have had two more children--Richard and Euphemia. As they were named it is probable she did so, but they must have died in infancy. Queens in those days usually had more than four children and Matilda was still young, but she and Henry saw less and less of each other and she never produced another heir.
• Henry plainly liked having his illegitimate children at his court, and perhaps because of this he did not seem to worry too much about having only one legitimate son. Not all his bastards were as biddable as Gloucester. Henry was nearly killed fighting against the husband of one of his illegitimate daughters, Joanna, in Normandy. He was so furious that she should be on the opposing side that he blockaded her in a tower and, instead of giving her safe conduct to leave, as was often the chivalrous custom of the day, she had to take off her clothes and swim a moat full of muddy water to escape.
• Matilda must have known about his illegitimate children now, if she had not before, and presumably accepted the situation as part of married life, as they seem to have drifted apart rather than to have quarrelled. She led her own life and, although concerned for the poor, liked it to be luxurious and lived in great state at Winchester, devoting herself to charity and religious observances and acting as Regent when necessary.
• In 1111 the little Matilda, then aged five, was betrothed to Henry V of Germany and sent to that Country to be educated. In the same year Robert of Gloucester was married to the daughter of a powerful Norman called Fitz-Hayman, and their descendants played a part in English history for many generations, one of them, Adelicia, becoming the first wife of King John, and another the husband of Joan of Acre, daughter of Edward I.
• In 1112 Henry and Matilda were together at Winchester. In 1117 Henry had to go to Normandy again to quell another revolt and this time took his legitimate son William, then aged sixteen, with him. Matilda died in 1118 while he was still there, so that none of her family were with her. Except for her bold stand against her aunt, her charity and religion and her tricking of the unfortunate Robert, she remains a shadowy figure, described as devoted rather than beautiful. In a quiet way her charities did good. She founded a hospital at St. Giles in-the-Fields in Christchurch, and also had roads and bridges built when she was acting as Regent.
• Matilda's Parents--
  • A. Malcolm III, King of Scotland: Born about 1033, of Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland; Died 13 November 1093; Alnwick, Northumberland, England; Married 1067/1069, of Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland; Margaret "Atheling" Princess of England, Queen of Scotland: Born about 1043/1045, of Wessex, England; Died 16 November 1093, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Mid-Lothian, Scotland. (See Kings of Scotland)

Geoffrey's Parents--

6. Fulk V "Le Jeune", or "the Younger", Count of Anjou, King of Jerusalem: Born 1092, of Anjou, France; Died 10 November 1143, Jerusalem, Israel; Married 11 July 1110, France; Ermengarde (Ermentrude) Countess of Maine, Countess of Anjou: Born about 1096, Maine, France; Died 1126, Maine, France. (See Counts of Maine) Fulk was raised in the Frances' royal household. Shortly after 1106 Fulk received his title of Count of Anjou from King Philip himself. Following this event the king accompanied the new count of Anjou to Angers where he was welcomed by Fulk IV with magnificent ceremony, as his King and lord.

7. Fulk IV "Rechin", Count of Anjou: (See La Zouche) Born 1043, of Anjou, France; Died 14 April 1109, of Anjou, France; Married France; Bertrade De Montfort, Queen of France: Born about 1059, of Montfort, Eure, France; Died 14 February 1117, Fontevrault, Maine-et-Loire, France.

Bertrande's Parents--

8. Simon I, Seigneur De Montfort: Born about 1025, of Montfort, Eure, France; Died 1087; Married Agnes D'Evreux: Born about 1030, of Evreux, Normandy, France. (See De Toeni)