volume 1, chapter 2.

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ANJOU: A. D. 987-1129. The greatest of the old Counts.

"Fulc Nerra, Fulc the Black [A. D. 987-1040] is the greatest of the Angevins, the first in whom we can trace that marked type of character which their house was to preserve with a fatal constancy through two hundred years. He was without natural affection. In his youth he burned a wife at the stake, and legend told how he led her to her doom decked out in his gayest attire. In his old age he waged his bitterest war against his son, and exacted from him when vanquished a humiliation which men reserved for the deadliest of their foes. 'You are conquered, you are conquered!' shouted the old man in fierce exultation, as Geoffry, bridled and saddled like a beast of burden, crawled for pardon to his father's feet. ... But neither the wrath of Heaven nor the curses of men broke with a single mishap the fifty years of his success. At his accession Anjou was the least important of the greater provinces of France. At his death it stood, if not in extent, at least in real power, first among them all. ... His overthrow of Brittany on the field of Conquereux was followed by the gradual absorption of Southern Touraine. ... His great victory at Pontlevoi crushed the rival house of Blois; the seizure of Saumur completed his conquests in the South, while Northern Touraine was won bit by bit till only Tours resisted the Angevin. The treacherous seizure of its Count, Herbert Wake-dog, left Maine at his mercy ere the old man bequeathed his unfinished work to his son. As a warrior, Geoffry Martel was hardly inferior to his father. A decisive overthrow wrested Tours from the Count of Blois; a second left Poitou at his mercy; and the seizure of Le Mans brought him to the Norman border. Here ... his advance was checked by the genius of William the Conqueror, and with his death the greatness of Anjou seemed for the time to have come to an end. Stripped of Maine by the Normans, and weakened by internal dissensions, the weak and profligate administration of Fulc Rechin left Anjou powerless against its rivals along the Seine. It woke to fresh energy with the accession of his son, Fulc of Jerusalem. ... Fulc was the one enemy whom Henry the First really feared. It was to disarm his restless hostility that the King yielded to his son, Geoffry the Handsome, the hand of his daughter Matilda."

_J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People, chapter 2, section 7._

ALSO IN _K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, volume 1, chapter 2-4._

ANJOU: A. D. 1154. The Counts become Kings of England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189.

ANJOU: A. D. 1204. Wrested from the English King John.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224.

ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442. English attempts to recover the county. The Third and Fourth Houses of Anjou. Creation of the Dukedom.

King John, of England, did not voluntarily submit to the sentence of the peers of France which pronounced his forfeiture of the fiefs of Anjou and Maine, "since he invaded and had possession of Angers again in 1206, when, Goth-like, he demolished its ancient walls. He lost it in the following year, and ... made no further attempt upon it until 1213. In that year, having collected a powerful army, he landed at Rochelle, and actually occupied Angers, without striking a blow. But ... the year 1214 beheld him once more in retreat from Anjou, never to reappear there, since he died on the 19th of October, 1216. In the person of King John ended what is called the 'Second House of Anjou.' In 1204, after the confiscations of John's French possessions, Philip Augustus established hereditary seneschals in that part of France, the first of whom was the tutor of the unfortunate Young Arthur [of Brittany], named William des Roches, who was in fact Count in all except the name, over Anjou, Maine, and Tourraine, owing allegiance only to the crown of France. The Seneschal, William des Roches, died in 1222. His son-in-law, Amaury de Craon, succeeded him," but was soon afterwards taken prisoner during a war in Brittany and incarcerated. Henry III. of England still claimed the title of Count of Anjou, and in 1230 he "disembarked a considerable army at St. Malo, in the view of re-conquering Anjou, and the other forfeited possessions of his crown. Louis IX., then only fifteen years old ... advanced to the attack of the allies; but in the following year a peace was concluded, the province of Guienne having been ceded to the English crown. In 1241, Louis gave the counties of Poitou and Auvergne to his brother Alphonso; and, in the year 1246, he invested his brother Charles, Count of Provence, with the counties of Anjou and Maine, thereby annulling the rank and title of Seneschal, and instituting the Third House of Anjou. Charles I., the founder of the proud fortunes of this Third House, was ambitious in character, and events long favoured his ambition. Count of Provence, through the inheritance of his consort, had not long been invested with Anjou and Maine, ere he was invited to the conquest of Sicily [see ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268]." The Third House of Anjou ended in the person of John, who became King of France in 1350. In 1356 he invested his son Louis with Anjou and Maine, and in 1360 the latter was created the first Duke of Anjou. The Fourth House of Anjou, which began with this first Duke, came to an end two generations later with René, or Regnier,--the "good King René" of history and story, whose kingdom was for the most part a name, and who is best known to English readers, perhaps, as the father of Margaret of Anjou, the stout-hearted queen of Henry VI. On the death of his father, Louis, the second duke, René became by his father's will Count of Guise, his elder brother, Louis, inheriting the dukedom. In 1434 the brother died without issue and René succeeded him in Anjou, Maine and Provence. He had already become Duke of Bar, as the adopted heir of his great-uncle, the cardinal-duke, and Duke of Lorraine (1430), by designation of the late Duke, whose daughter he had married. In 1435 he received from Queen Joanna of Naples the doubtful legacy of that distracted kingdom, which she had previously bequeathed first, to Alphonso of Aragon, and afterwards-revoking that testament--to René's brother, Louis of Anjou. King René enjoyed the title during his life-time, and the actual kingdom for a brief period; but in 1442 he was expelled from Naples by his competitor Alphonso (see ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447).

_M. A. Hookham, Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou, introduction and chapter 1-2._

ANJOU: End----------

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ANJOU, The English House of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1155-1189.

ANJOU, The Neapolitan House of: A. D. 1266. Conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

See ITALY: A. D. 1250-1268.

ANJOU: A. D. 1282. Loss of Sicily. Retention of Naples.

See ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300.

ANJOU: A. D. 1310-1382. Possession of the Hungarian throne.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

ANJOU: A. D. 1370-1384. Acquisition and loss of the crown of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.

ANJOU: A. D. 1381-1384. Claims of Louis of Anjou. His expedition to Italy and his death.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389.

ANJOU: A. D. 1386-1399.- Renewed contest for Naples. Defeat of Louis II. by Ladislas.

See ITALY: A. D. 1386-1414.

ANJOU: A. D. 1423-1442. Renewed contest for the crown of Naples. Defeat by Alfonso of Aragon and Sicily.

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

ANJOU, The Neapolitan House of: End----------

ANKENDORFF, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

ANKERS.

See ANCHORITES.

ANNA, Czarina of Russia, A. D. 1730-1740.

ANNALES MAXIMI, The.

See FASTI.

ANNAM: A. D. 1882-1885. War with France. French protectorate accepted.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.

ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA: Change of name from Port Royal (1710).

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710.

ANNATES, OR FIRST-FRUITS.

"A practice had existed for some hundreds of years, in all the churches of Europe, that bishops and archbishops, on presentation to their sees, should transmit to the pope, on receiving their bulls of investment, one year's income from their new preferments. It was called the payment of Annates, or first-fruits, and had originated in the time of the crusades, as a means of providing a fund for the holy wars. Once established it had settled into custom, and was one of the chief resources of the papal revenue."

_J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 4._

"The claim [by the pope] to the first-fruits of bishoprics and other promotions was apparently first made in England by Alexander IV. in 1256, for five years; it was renewed by Clement V. in 1306, to last for two years; and it was in a measure successful. By John XXII. it was claimed throughout Christendom for three years, and met with universal resistance. ... Stoutly contested as it was in the Council of Constance, and frequently made the subject of debate in parliament and council the demand must have been regularly complied with."

_William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England,