How the Popes wanted to be masters in England; how that led to the
murder of Becket; how Queen Eleanor made her sons rebel against their
father; why Henry the Second was called Plantagenet.
It is a pity that we must think of the bad things belonging to
Henry’s reign.
I dare say you remember the chapter in which I told you how the
Angles and Saxons became Christians, and that a bishop of Rome sent
Augustine and some companions to teach the people. Now the bishops
of Rome called themselves popes, to distinguish themselves from
other bishops; and, as most of the good men who taught the different
nations to be Christians had been sent from Rome, the popes said they
ought to be chief of all the bishops and clergymen in every country.
This might have been right, perhaps, if they had only wanted to know
that everybody was well taught. But they said that the clergymen were
their servants, and that neither the kings nor judges of any country
should punish them, or do them good, without the pope’s leave. This
was foolish and wrong. Although clergymen are in general good men,
because they are always reading and studying what is good, yet some
of them are as wicked as other men, and ought to be judged and
punished for their wickedness in the same manner.
And so King Henry thought.
But the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose name was Thomas Becket,
thought differently.
This Becket wanted to be as great a man as the king, and tried to
prevent the proper judges from punishing wicked clergymen, and wanted
to be their judge himself. And there were sad quarrels between the
king and Becket on that account.
At last, one day, after a very great dispute, Henry fell into a
violent passion, and said he wished Becket was dead. Four of his
servants, who heard him, and wished to please him, went directly to
Canterbury, and, finding Archbishop Becket in church, they killed him
with great cruelty.
You may think how sorry King Henry was that he had been in such a
passion; for, if he had not, his servants would never have thought of
killing Becket. It gave the king a great deal of trouble before he
could make the people forgive the murder of the archbishop. And this
was one of the very bad things in Henry’s life.
There was another bad thing, which perhaps caused the king more pain
than the killing of Becket. It was owing, mostly, to something wrong
which the king had been persuaded to do when he was very young.
You shall hear. I told you how very rich King Henry was; the thing
that first made him so was his early marriage to one of the richest
ladies in the world, although she was very ill-tempered, and in all
ways a bad woman. It is said that she was handsome; but I am sure she
must have been wicked, for she was once married to a French king, who
found her out in such wicked actions, that he sent her away, and gave
her back all her money and estates, as he did not choose to have so
bad a wife.
Now Henry, instead of choosing a good wife, when only nineteen years
old married this bad woman for her riches.
Her name was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and she had four sons, Henry,
Richard, Geoffrey, and John. She brought up these children very
badly, and, instead of teaching them to love their father, who was
very kind to them, she encouraged them to disobey him in everything.
When her son Henry was only sixteen, she told him he would make a
good king, and never rested till his good-natured father caused him
to be crowned king, and trusted a great deal more to him than was
right; till at last young Henry became so conceited that he wanted to
be king altogether, and, by the help of this wicked mother, and of
the King of France, he got an army and made war against his father.
However, he did not gain anything by his bad behaviour, and soon
afterwards he became very ill, and died without seeing his father;
and, when he was dying, he begged his servants to go and say to the
king his father that he was very sorry indeed for his wickedness, and
very unhappy to think of his undutiful behaviour. The king was even
more unhappy than the prince had been, for he loved his son dearly.
I am sorry to say the other three sons of Henry and Eleanor did not
behave much better. Richard was as violent in temper as his mother,
but he had some good qualities, which made his father hope he might
become a good king when he himself was dead. But Queen Eleanor, with
the help of the King of France, contrived to make Richard and his
brother Geoffrey fight against their father. As for John, though he
was too young to do much harm himself while King Henry lived, yet
he became as wicked as the rest when he grew up. Geoffrey married
Constance, Princess of Brittany, but he died soon after. He had only
one son, named Arthur about whom I will tell you more in a short time.
Now Henry’s great fault, in marrying a bad woman because she was
rich, brought the greatest punishment with it, for she taught her
children to be wicked, and to rebel against their father. And there
is nothing in the world so unhappy as a family where the children
behave ill to their parents.
I beg now, my dear little Arthur, that you will take notice, that
all the good belonging to Henry’s reign concerns the country. While
he was doing his duty, being kind to his subjects, repairing the
mischief done in the civil wars, and taking care that justice was
done, and that learning and learned men were encouraged, he was happy.
His bad actions always hurt himself. If he had not given way to his
passion, Thomas à Becket would not have been killed by his servants,
and he would not have suffered so much sorrow and vexation.
And if he had not married a woman whom he knew to be wicked, his
children might have been comforts to him instead of making war upon
him; and they might have been better kings for England after his
death.
Henry the Second has often been called Henry Plantagenet. His father
was the first person in his family to whom that name was given, and I
will tell you why.
When people went to battle long ago, to keep their heads from being
wounded, they covered them with iron caps, called helmets; and there
were bars like cages over their faces, so that their best friends did
not always know them with their helmets on. Therefore, they used to
stick something into their caps, by which they might be known; and
Henry’s father used to wear in his helmet a branch of broom, called
planta genista, or shortly Plantagenet; and so he got his name from
it.