The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

Henry used diplomacy and force to secure his enormous territories. In 1159, he marched on Toulouse under a tangential claim of Eleanor’s. However, the French king came to the city, highlighting their complex diplomatic relationship: as Duke of Normandy, Henry was his vassal, but as King of England, he was his equal. Continuing the campaign would have serious consequences; he withdrew.

Thomas Beckett was Henry’s right-hand man, rising to prominence as Chancellor in the late 1150s. In 1161, Henry pushed for his controversial appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, hoping to cement his authority against the Church’s independence. Instead, Beckett became a staunch defender of church rights, causing a rift. Antagonism escalated, coming to a head over Henry’s Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164. Each appealed to outside authorities including the pope and the French king, but Henry seized the upper hand. Beckett fled to France.

In the late 1160s, Henry solidified his succession plans, dividing responsibilities among his children and incorporating homage to the French king for vassal territories. This smoothed international relations, reassuring Louis that he was not planning to create a huge, threatening bloc. However, his Archbishop of Canterbury remained in France.

In 1170, Henry had his eldest son confirmed as king designate by the Archbishop of York instead. Enraged, Beckett returned, preaching furiously and threatening church sanctions. Hearing of Henry’s furious response, four knights violently murdered Beckett, horrifying Europe and the Church. Henry left for Ireland, using his time there to assert his authority. In 1172 he returned and reached a satisfactory settlement with the Church.

In 1173, Henry faced a cooperative rebellion. Eleanor was discontented at his erosion of her independent rights over her duchy; their three eldest sons sought real power. They joined with the French and Scottish kings and other magnates, opening war on many fronts. However, Henry excelled at managing warfare throughout his territories, and his public display of penance at Canterbury about Beckett’s death won support. The rebellion failed. Henry treated his sons generously, offering castles and revenue, though no concrete power. Their obedience was assured in return. Eleanor was confined to house arrest; the Scottish king was subordinated to England.

In the 1170s, Henry’s sons managed parts of his territories; his daughters’ diplomatic marriages expanded the Plantagenets’ influence. Following the war, he reissued castles to ensure they were held through his authority and rebuilt many in stone. He developed his legal reforms of the 1160s, creating standardized legal structures throughout England which superseded baronial or ecclesiastical proceedings. He imbued bureaucratic bodies with royal authority, devolving power out of the person of the king or magnates.

In the 1180s, Henry’s troublesome eldest son died from illness, and his third son died in an accident. Henry II was reluctant to bequeath everything to his second son, Richard, who already had Aquitaine. He planned to grant his youngest son, John, the kingship of Ireland but remained non-committal. Richard joined forces against him with the new young French king, Philip. In 1189, a seriously ill Henry capitulated and soon died.

Richard was crowned in 1189, restoring Eleanor’s status. He exploited the revenue available from his many possessions to raise a crusading army. In 1190, he set off with Philip, leaving loyalists to oversee his realm.

On his way to the Crusades, Richard’s troops ransacked other areas, and Richard slighted Philip by spurning his engagement to his sister. In 1191, combined European forces conquered Acre, but some leaders, including Philip, were aggravated by Richard’s assumption of pre-eminence. Philip returned to France, aiming to secure the economically important Flanders, leaving Richard dominant in the Crusades.

In Richard’s absence, his younger brother John overthrew the Chancellor he had left in charge. In 1192, Richard heard John was plotting with Philip. Meanwhile, the Crusades were becoming untenable for both Richard’s Christian armies and Saladin’s Muslim armies. They sealed a three-year peace. When Richard left, he had failed to win Jerusalem but had created his legend as the Lionheart.

Unpopular with much of Europe, the Germanic Emperor captured and held Richard prisoner on his way back. John attempted to seize the Crown, but Richard’s allies, including Eleanor, rallied support and raised the money to ransom him.

On his return in 1194, Richard consolidated his Crown through ceremony and a sturdy administration led by his right-hand man, Hubert Walter, which imposed royal authority and extracted vast revenue. He quashed dissent and set out to Normandy to fight Philip’s expansionism. He forgave John, who joined his cause. War dragged on with vacillations of fortune; Philip’s possession of Henry II’s grandson, Arthur, an alternative heir to John, was concerning. In 1199, Richard was dominant, and negotiations in his favor began. However, a lone crossbowman killed him while besieging a minor castle.

Richard represented a consolidation of Plantagenet power into a single bloc and had no children of his own to divide responsibility. John and Arthur were the main contenders; statesmen like Walter and William Marshal the Chronicler disagreed about who should inherit. Philip supported Arthur, already Duke of Brittany. Despite John’s political and personal shortcomings, Normandy and England accepted his leadership, encouraged by Eleanor and senior statesmen.

After initial hostility, John and Philip negotiated a treaty in 1200 that ceded strategic lands and rights to Philip. The treaty practically reasserted his feudal dominance over John’s continental lands, which was theoretical since Henry II.

In 1202, Philip, Arthur, and allies moved against John. Philip declared he was stripping John of his continental lands and granted titles to Arthur instead. Arthur’s forces captured Eleanor, but John recovered her and captured Arthur. However, John was seen as cruel and dishonorable, mistreating both allies and prisoners. By 1203, many of John’s allies had defected, taking their territories with them. John was cornered.

In 1203, Arthur disappeared in captivity, killed by John or on his orders. Rather than ridding John of a rival, it stirred up dissent. He hemorrhaged territory and allies from the continental dominion of his forefathers. In 1204, he fled to England.