Henry the Second

At the beginning of his reign Henry found England in disorder, with royal authority ruined by civil war and the violence of feudal magnates. His first task was to crush the unruly elements and restore firm government, using the existing institutions of government, with which the Anglo-Norman monarchy was well provided. The council contained an unusually able group of men—some of them were great barons, such as Richard de Lucy and Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester; others included civil servants, such as Nigel, bishop of Ely, Richard Fitzneale , and his son, Richard of Ilchester.

In the early months of the reign the King, using his energetic and versatile chancellor Becket, beat down the recalcitrant barons and their castles and began to restore order to the country and to the various forms of justice. It was thus, a few years later, that he came into conflict with the bishops, then led by Becket, over the alleged right of clerics to be tried for crime by an ecclesiastical court. A result of this was the celebrated collection of decrees—the Constitutions of Clarendon —which professed to reassert the ancestral rights of the King over the church in such matters as clerical immunity, appointment of bishops, custody of vacant sees, excommunication , and appeals to Rome.

The Archbishop, after an initial compliance , refused to accept these, and they were throughout the controversy a block to an agreement.

Anglo-Saxon England had two courts of justice—that of the hundred , a division of the shire , for petty offenses, and that of the shire, presided over by the sheriff. The feudal regime introduced by the Normans added courts of the manor and of the honour a complex of estates. Arrest was a local responsibility, usually hard upon a flagrant crime.

This provided a system of criminal investigation for the whole country, with a reasonable verdict probable because the firm accusation of the jury entailed exile even if the ordeal acquitted the accused. In feudal courts the trial by battle could be avoided by the establishment of a concord, or fine.

The justices formed three groups: Those at Westminster dealt with private pleas and cases sent up from the justices on eyre. Pleas brought to feudal courts could be delayed or altogether frustrated. As a remedy Henry established the possessory writ, an order from the Exchequer, directing the sheriff to convene a sworn local jury at petty assize to establish the fact of dispossession, whereupon the sheriff had to reinstate the defendant pending a subsequent trial at the grand assize to establish the rights of the case.

Henry II (1133 - 1189)

This was the writ of Novel Disseisin i. All these writs gave rapid and clear verdicts subject to later revision. Two other practices developed by Henry became permanent. One was scutage , the commutation of military service for a money payment; the other was the obligation, put on all free men with a property qualification by the Assize of Arms , to possess arms suitable to their station. In any case, the long-term results were very great. By the multiplication of a class of experts in finance and law Henry did much to establish two great professions, and the location of a permanent court at Westminster and the character of its business settled for England and for much of the English-speaking world that common law , not Roman law , would rule the courts and that London, and not an academy, would be its principal nursery.

Finally, the increasing use of scutage, and the availability of the royal courts for private suits, were effective agents in molding the feudal monarchy into a monarchical bureaucracy before the appearance of Parliament. Henry II lived in an age of biographers and letter writers of genius.

All agreed on his outstanding ability and striking personality and also recorded his errors and aspects of his character that appear contradictory, whereas modern historians agree upon the difficulty of reconciling its main features.

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Without deep religious or moral conviction , Henry nevertheless was respected by three contemporary saints, Aelred of Rievaulx, Gilbert of Sempringham, and Hugh of Lincoln. Normally an approachable and faithful friend and master, he could also behave with unreasonable inhumanity. His conduct and aims were always self-centred, but he was neither a tyrant nor an odious egoist.

Both as man and ruler he lacked the stamp of greatness that marked Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror. But if his reign is to be judged by its consequences for England, it undoubtedly stands high in importance, and Henry, as its mainspring, appears among the most notable of English kings. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles.

The new King immediately moved against the illegal fortresses that had sprung up during Stephen's reign, having them torn down. To counter the problem of avoiding military service, Scutage became common. This tax, paid by Henry's barons instead of serving in his army, allowed the King to hire mercenaries. These hired troops were used to devastating effect by both Henry and his son Richard , and by the tax was central to the King's army and his authority over vassals.

Record keeping improved dramatically in order to streamline this taxation. Henry II's reign saw the establishment of Royal Magistrate courts. This allowed court officials under authority of the Crown to adjudicate on local disputes, reducing the workload on Royal courts proper and delivering justice with greater efficiency. His reign saw the production of the first written legal textbook, providing the basis of today's " Common Law. Henry also worked to make the legal system fairer. Trial by ordeal and trial by combat were still common but even in the 12th century these methods were outdated.

By the Assize of Clarendon, in , a precursor to trial by jury became the standard. However, this group of "twelve lawful men," as the Assize commonly refers to it, provides a service more similar to a grand jury , alerting court officials to matters suitable for prosecution. Trial by combat was still legal in England until , but Henry's support of juries was a great contribution to the country's social history. The Assize of Northampton, in , cemented the earlier agreements at Clarendon.

This reform proved one of Henry's major contributions to the social history of England. In the tradition of Norman kings, Henry II was keen to dominate the church like the state and aspired to do away with the special privileges of the English clergy, which he regarded as fetters on his authority. When Archbishop Theobald died in , Henry conceived what must have seemed a neat solution to the problem of the imposing of his will upon the church: Becket however did a volte-face and initiated a project to liberate of the Church in England from the very limitations which he had formerly helped to enforce.

His aim was twofold: About one in six of the population of England were clergymen, many of whom were not ordained to the priesthood. All clergy could claim the right to be tried in ecclesiastical courts where they would invariably receive a more lenient sentence than if tried in the criminal courts of the land. Henry's problem was the need to restore order after the chaos which marked the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda.

The king's officials claimed that over a hundred murderers had escaped their proper punishment because they had claimed the right to be tried in church courts. So at Clarendon Palace on January, 30 , the King set out sixteen constitutions. In the anarchic conditions of Henry II's predecessor, Stephen, the church had extended its jurisdiction in the void.

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It was claimed that Constitutions would restore the judicial customs observed during the reign of Henry I —35 , while in fact they were a part of Henry II's larger expansion of royal jurisdiction into the Church and civil law, which was the defining aspect of his reign. Secular courts, increasingly under the King's influence, would also have jurisdiction over clerical trials and disputes. Henry's authority guaranteed him majority support, but the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury refused to ratify the proposals. Henry was characteristically stubborn and on 8 October , he called the Archbishop, Thomas Becket , before the Royal Council.

The King continued doggedly in his pursuit of control over his clerics, to the point where his religious policy became detrimental to his subjects. By , the Pope was considering excommunicating all of Britain. Only Henry's agreement that Becket could return to England without penalty prevented this fate.

This was a breach of Canterbury's privilege of coronation, for which the Pope suspended the three. But for Becket, that was not enough, and in November , he excommunicated all three. While the three bishops fled to the king in Normandy, Becket continued to excommunicate his opponents in the church. Soon word of this reached Henry who was in Normandy at the time. After these latest reports of Becket's activities, Henry is reported to have raised his head from his sickbed and roared a lament of frustration. Passionate words from the angry king, reputedly, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

Bitter at Becket , his old friend, constantly thwarting his clerical constitutions, the King shouted in anger but most likely not with intent. On 29 December , they entered Canterbury Cathedral, finding Becket near the stairs to the crypt. They beat down the Archbishop, killing him with several blows. Becket's brains were scattered upon the ground with the words; "Let us go, this fellow will not be getting up again. For the remaining 20 years of his rule, he would personally regret the death of a man who "in happier times Just three years later, Becket was canonized and revered as a martyr against secular interference in God's church; Pope Alexander III had declared Thomas Becket a saint.

Plantagenet historian John Harvey believes "The martyrdom of Thomas Becket was a martyrdom which he had repeatedly gone out of his way to seek And politically, Henry had to sign the Compromise of Avranches which removed from the secular courts almost all jurisdiction over the clergy. Henry II's attempt to divide his titles amongst his sons but keep the power associated with them provoked them into trying to take control of the lands assigned to them, which amounted to treason, at least in Henry's eyes.

Gerald of Wales reports that when King Henry gave the kiss of peace to his son Richard, he said softly, "May the Lord never permit me to die until I have taken due vengeance upon you. Henry the Young King died in After his death, there was a power struggle between the three sons who were left. In response, four knights made their way secretly to Canterbury , apparently with the intent of confronting and if necessary arresting Becket for breaking his agreement with Henry.

Although Becket had not been popular while he was alive, in death he was declared a martyr by the local monks. In the midth century Ireland was ruled by a number of local kings , although their authority was more limited than their counterparts in the rest of western Europe. Diarmait turned to Henry for assistance in , and the English king agreed to allow Diarmait to recruit mercenaries within his empire. The situation in Ireland was tense and the Anglo-Normans heavily outnumbered. Henry took this opportunity to intervene personally in Ireland.

He took a large army into south Wales, forcing the rebels who had held the area since into submission before sailing from Pembroke and landing in Ireland in October Henry undertook a wave of castle-building during his visit in to protect his new territories—the Anglo-Normans had superior military technologies to the Irish, and castles gave them a significant advantage. Henry instead intervened more directly, establishing a system of local fiefs of his own through a conference held in Oxford in In Henry faced the Great Revolt , an uprising by his eldest sons and rebellious barons, supported by France, Scotland and Flanders.

A number of grievances underpinned the revolt. Young Henry was unhappy that, despite the title of king, in practice he made no real decisions and was kept chronically short of money by Henry. The final straw was Henry's decision to give his youngest son John three major castles belonging to Young Henry, who first protested and then fled to Paris, followed by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey; Eleanor attempted to join them but was captured by Henry's forces in November.

In May Louis and the Young King probed the defences of the Vexin, the main route to the Norman capital, Rouen; armies invaded from Flanders and Blois, attempting a pincer movement, while rebels from Brittany invaded from the west. In early , Henry's enemies appeared to have tried to lure him back into England, allowing them to attack Normandy in his absence. In the aftermath of the Great Revolt, Henry held negotiations at Montlouis, offering a lenient peace on the basis of the pre-war status quo.

Henry now appeared to his contemporaries to be stronger than ever, and he was courted as an ally by many European leaders and asked to arbitrate over international disputes in Spain and Germany. Henry set about extending royal justice in England to reassert his authority and spent time in Normandy shoring up support amongst the barons.

Early life

The peace did not deal with the long-running tensions between Henry and Louis, however, and these resurfaced during the late s. In the late s Henry focused on trying to create a stable system of government, increasingly ruling through his family, but tensions over the succession arrangements were never far away, ultimately leading to a fresh revolt.

By Young Henry reiterated his previous demands: With his eldest son dead, Henry rearranged the plans for the succession: Richard was to be made king of England, although without any actual power until the death of his father. Geoffrey would have to retain Brittany, as he held it by marriage, so Henry's favourite son John would become the duke of Aquitaine in place of Richard. Meanwhile, John undertook an expedition to Ireland in , which was not a success.

Ireland had only recently been conquered by Anglo-Norman forces, and tensions were still rife between Henry's representatives, the new settlers and the existing inhabitants. Henry's relationship with his two surviving heirs was fraught, for, while the King had great affection for his youngest son John, he showed little warmth towards Richard and indeed seems to have borne him a grudge after their argument in Despite attempts to divide the two, Henry and Philip Augustus agreed a joint alliance, even though this cost the French king the support of Flanders and Champagne.

In , Philip Augustus demanded that he be given custody of Geoffrey's children and Brittany, and insisted that Henry order Richard to withdraw from Toulouse, where he had been sent with an army to apply new pressure on Philip's uncle, Raymond. Philip's offer coincided with a crisis in the Levant. In Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin and calls for a new crusade swept Europe. The relationship between Henry and Richard finally dissolved into violence shortly before Henry's death. Philip held a peace conference in November , making a public offer of a generous long-term peace settlement with Henry, conceding to his various territorial demands, if Henry would finally marry Richard and Alice and announce Richard as his recognised heir.

Henry was carried back to Chinon on a litter , where he was informed that John had publicly sided with Richard in the conflict. In the immediate aftermath of Henry's death, Richard successfully claimed his father's lands; he later left on the Third Crusade , but never married Alice as he had agreed with Philip Augustus. Eleanor was released from house arrest and regained control of Aquitaine, where she ruled on Richard's behalf. This collapse had various causes, including long-term changes in economic power, growing cultural differences between England and Normandy but, in particular, the fragile, familial nature of Henry's empire.

Henry was not a popular king and few expressed much grief on news of his death. His legal changes are generally considered to have laid the basis for English Common Law , with the Exchequer court a forerunner of the later Common Bench at Westminster. Philip Augustus' creation of itinerant bailli , for example, clearly drew on the Henrician model.

Henry and his reign have attracted historians for many years. Twentieth-century historians challenged many of these conclusions. In the s Jacques Boussard and John Jolliffe, among others, examined the nature of Henry's "empire"; French scholars in particular analysed the mechanics of how royal power functioned during this period. Robert Eyton's ground-breaking work tracing Henry's itinerary through deductions from the pipe rolls , for example, has been criticised as being too certain a way of determining location or court attendance.

Henry II appears as a character in several modern plays and films. He is a central character in James Goldman 's play The Lion in Winter , set in and presenting an imaginary encounter between Henry's immediate family and Philip Augustus over Christmas at Chinon. The film adaptation communicates the modern popular view of Henry as a somewhat sacrilegious, fiery and determined king although, as Goldman acknowledges, Henry's passions and character are essentially fictional. Henry also appears in the play Becket by Jean Anouilh , filmed in ; once again, however, the character of the King is deliberately fictitious, driven by the need for drama between Henry and Becket in the play.

Eliot 's play Murder in the Cathedral , where the tensions between Henry and Becket form the basis both for a discussion of the more superficial events of Becket's death, and Eliot's deeper religious interpretation of the episode. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For others, see House of Plantagenet. Fontevraud Abbey , Anjou , France. Eleanor of Aquitaine m. Norman invasion of Ireland. Cultural depictions of Henry II of England. Ancestors of Henry II of England [] [] 8.

Fulk IV of Anjou 4. Fulk V of Anjou 9. Bertrade de Montfort 2. Geoffrey V of Anjou Elias I of Maine 5. Ermengarde of Maine Henry II of England William I of England 6. Henry I of England Matilda of Flanders 3. Malcolm III of Scotland 7. Matilda of Scotland Davis believes that it did and was deterred by the presence of Stephen's forces.

Henry II of England - New World Encyclopedia

The terms "divorce" and "annul" are used interchangeably in much of the historical literature to describe Louis's actions towards Eleanor. The term "the Anarchy" as a label for this conflict originates with the Victorian scholar John Round , and has been subject to historical challenge. Little hard evidence beyond a single chronicler account exists to support this, however, and current scholarship discounts the alleged episode. Earlier historians, such as Jacques Boussard, argued in favour of an "administrative coherence" featuring across the empire; this view is opposed by most current historians.

Contemporary historians discounted Henry's liaisons as a probable factor in his marital breakdown. Warren's argument that Henry played a more significant role in the details of the reforms. The official website of the British Monarchy.

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Archived from the original PDF on The Journal of British Studies. Royal Government Restored, — The English Historical Review. The Feudal Kingdom of England, — 5th ed. In Bates, David; Curry, Anne. England and Normandy in the Middle Ages. Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: Legal Reforms of Henry II". The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign. Blockmans, Wim; Hoppenbrouwers, Mark Introduction to Medieval Europe, — 2nd ed. Journal of Medieval History. Archived from the original on 14 October