HENRY II., FITZ-EMPRESS. A.D. 1154-1189.
Henry Fitz-Empress is counted as the first king of the Plantagenet
family, also called the House of Anjou. He was a very clever, brisk,
spirited man, who hardly ever sat down, but was always going from
place to place, and who would let no one disobey him. He kept
everybody in order, pulled down almost all the Castles that had been
built in Stephen's time, and would not let the barons ill-treat the
people. Indeed, everyone had been so mixed up together during the
wars in Stephen's reign, that the grandchildren of the Normans who
had come over with William the Conqueror were now quite English in
their feelings. French was, however, chiefly spoken at court. The
king was really a Frenchman, and he married a French wife Eleanor,
the lady of Aquitaine, a great dukedom in the South of France; and,
as Henry had already Normandy and Anjou, he really was lord of nearly
half France. He ruled England well; but he was not a good man, for
he cared for power and pleasure more than for what was right; and
sometimes he fell into such rages that he would roll on the floor,
and bite the rushes and sticks it was strewn with. He made many laws.
One was that, if a priest or monk was thought to have committed any
crime, he should be tried by the king's judge, instead of the bishop.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket, did not think it
right to consent to this law; and, though he and the king had once
been great friends, Henry was so angry with him that he was forced
to leave England, and take shelter with the King of France. Six
years passed by, and the king pretended to be reconciled to him, but
still, when they met, would not give him the kiss of peace. The
archbishop knew that this showed that the king still hated him; but
his flock had been so long without a shepherd that he thought it his
duty to go back to them. Just after his return, he laid under censure
some persons who had given offence. They went and complained to the
king, and Henry exclaimed in passion, "Will no one rid me of this
turbulent priest?" Four of his knights who heard these words set
forth to Canterbury. The archbishop guessed why they were come;
but he would not flee again, and waited for them by the altar in
the cathedral, not even letting the doors be shut. There they slew
him; and thither, in great grief at the effect of his own words, the
king came--three years later--to show his penitence by entering
barefoot, kneeling before Thomas's tomb, and causing every priest
or monk in turn to strike him with a rod. We should not exactly
call Thomas a martyr now, but he was thought so then, because he
died for upholding the privileges of the Church, and he was held
to be a very great saint.
While this dispute was going on, the Earl of Pembroke, called
Strongbow, one of Henry's nobles, had gone over to Ireland and
obtained a little kingdom there, which he professed to hold of Henry;
and thus the Kings of England became Lords of Ireland, though for a
long time they only had the Province of Leinster, and were always at
war with the Irish around.
Henry was a most powerful king; but his latter years were very unhappy.
His wife was not a good woman, and her sons were all disobedient and
rebellious. Once all the three eldest, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey,
and their mother, ran away together from his court, and began to make
war upon him. He was much stronger and wiser than they so he soon
forced them to submit; and he sent Queen Eleanor away, and shut her
up in a strong castle in England as long as he lived. Here sons were
much more fond of her than of their father, and they thought this
usage so hard, that they were all the more ready to break out against
him. The eldest son, Henry, was leading an army against his father,
when he was taken ill, and felt himself dying. He sent an entreaty
that his father would forgive him, and come to see him; but the young
man had so often been false and treacherous, that Henry feared it was
only a trick to get him as a prisoner, and only sent his ring and a
message of pardon; and young Henry died, pressing the ring to his
lips, and longing to hear his father's voice.
Geoffrey, the third son, was killed by a fall from his horse, and
there were only two left alive, Richard and John. Just at this time,
news came that the Mahommedans in the Holy Land had won Jerusalem
back again; and the Pope called on all Christian princes to leave
off quarreling, and go on a crusade to recover the Holy Sepulchre.
The kings of England and France, young Richard, and many more, were
roused to take the cross; but while arrangements for going were being
made, a fresh dispute about them arose, and Richard went away in a
rage, got his friends together, and, with King Philip of France to
help him, began to make war. His father was feeble, and worn out,
and could not resist as in former times. He fell ill, and gave up
the struggle, saying he would grant all they asked. The list of
Richard's friends whom he was to pardon was brought to him, and the
first name he saw in it was that of John, his youngest son, and his
darling, the one who had never before rebelled. That quite broke
his heart, his illness grew worse, and he talked about an old eagle
being torn to pieces by his eaglets. And so, in the year 1189,
Henry II. died the saddest death, perhaps, that an old man can die,
for his sons had brought down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.