HENRY II.—1154 to 1189.
How Henry the Second did many good things for England; how the gentry
went hawking; how Strongbow conquered a great part of Ireland; and
how the kings of Scotland became under-kings to the kings of England.
We have so much to learn about King Henry the Second, that I think I
must divide the account of his reign into two chapters.
In the first, I will write all the best things I remember; and in the
second, all the bad. Some things that are middling will be at the end
of the first, and some at the end of the second chapter.
It was a glad day for England when young Henry, the son of Maude, was
made king. He was wise and learned, and brave and handsome, besides
being the richest king of his time, and having the largest estates.
The first thing he did when he was king was to send away all Norman
and French soldiers, who had been brought to England to fight either
for Stephen or for Maude. He paid them their wages, and sent them
to their own homes, along with their captains, because he thought
English soldiers were best to defend England, and that foreign
soldiers were not likely to be kind to the poor English people.
He next made the barons, whether Norman or English, pull down a great
many of their castles, because robbers used to live in them, and,
after they had robbed the farmers of their cattle or corn, they used
to hide themselves in these castles, and the judges could not get at
them to punish them.
Then King Henry built up the towns that had been burnt in the wars of
Stephen, and sent judges to do justice all through the land, and the
people began to feel safe, and to build their cottages, and plough
the fields; and the country was once more fit to be called dear merry
England.
Instead of fighting and quarrelling with one another, the young men
used to make parties together, and ride out with their dogs, to hunt
the foxes and deer in the forests, and sometimes the ladies went with
them, to see a kind of sport that was very pretty, but it is not used
now. Instead of dogs, to catch wild animals, they used a bird called
a hawk to catch partridges and pigeons for them. It took a great deal
of trouble to teach the hawks, and the man who taught them and took
care of them was called a Falconer, because the best kind of hawk is
the falcon.
When the ladies and gentlemen went hawking the falcons used to sit
upon their left wrists while they held a little chain in their hands;
and there was a hood over the falcon’s heads, that their eyes might
be kept clear. As soon as the party got into the fields they took
the hood off the birds’ eyes, and as soon as they saw any game they
loosed the little chain they held in their hands, and then the
falcons flew after the game; and the ladies and gentlemen rode up
after them to receive the game when the falcon had caught it.
King Henry loved hunting very well, but he was too wise to hunt much.
He spent most of his time in going about to see what wanted mending
after the sad civil war we read of in the last chapter; and he
employed the cleverest men he could find to put everything in order,
and made the wisest men judges; and he got some learned men to seek
out all the best laws that had ever been made in England; and, as the
long wars had made the people forget the laws, he ordered the judges
to go to all the towns by turns several times a year, and do justice
among all the English.
King Henry was very fond of learning, and gave money to learned men
and to those who made verses, or as we call them poets; and by and
by I dare say you will read about one that Henry was kind to, named
Wace, who wrote a poem about the ancient Britons, and another about
the ancient Normans.
Before I can tell you of a thing that was partly good and partly bad
for England in this King Henry’s reign, I must put you in mind that I
have told you nothing yet about IRELAND, the sister-island of Great
Britain. It was never conquered by the Romans; and the people were
as ignorant as the Britons before the Romans came, with just the
same sort of houses and clothes. They might have been in the same
state for many years if a very good man, whom the Irish called Saint
Patrick, had not gone from Britain to Ireland and taught the people
to be Christians; and he and some of his companions also taught them
to read; and the Irish people began to be a little more like those in
other parts of the world.
[Illustration: Dermot, King of Leinster, doing homage to Henry II.]
Ireland was divided into several kingdoms; and, in King Henry’s
time, their kings quarrelled sadly with one another. And one of them
came to Henry, and begged him to go to help him against his enemies.
But Henry had too much to do at home. However, he said that, if any
of his barons liked to go and help the Irish king, they might. And
the Irish king, whose name was Dermot, promised that if they could
punish or kill his enemies, he would call the King of England Lord
over Ireland, and that he and the rest of the Irish kings should be
his servants.
Then the Earl of Strigul, who was called Strongbow, and some other
noblemen, gathered all their followers together, and went to Ireland
to help Dermot; and, after a great deal of fighting, they conquered
that part of Ireland opposite to England, and drove the people over
to the other side; just as the English had driven the Britons to
Wales. From that time Ireland has always been under the same king
with England.
You remember, I am sure, that one part of Britain is called Scotland.
Now, at the time I am writing about, Scotland had kings of its own,
and was more like England than any other country; but it was much
poorer, and the people were ruder and wilder.
The king of Scotland, named William the Lion, having heard that King
Henry was in Normandy, thought it would be a good opportunity to take
an army into England, to rob the towns and carry away the corn and
cattle; and so he did. But several of the noblemen and bishops got
together a number of English soldiers and marched to the North, and
fought King William and took him prisoner.
William was sent to London, and King Henry would not set him free
till he had promised that, for the future, the kings of Scotland
should be only under-kings to the kings of England; and from that
time the kings of England always said Scotland was theirs; but it was
long before England and Scotland became one kingdom.
I do not think this was quite good for England, though the English
drove the Scots home again, because it made many quarrels and wars
between England and Scotland. As I have now mentioned the best part
of Henry the Second’s reign, we must end our long chapter.