Part 11

Henry II., who came to the English throne on Stephen's death, was already, by the death of his father, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, the head of the great house of Anjou, in France. From his father he inherited Anjou, Touraine and Maine; through his mother, Matilda, daughter of Henry I., he received the dukedom of Normandy as well as the kingdom of England; by marriage with Eleanor, of Aquitaine, or Guienne, he added to his empire the princely domain which included Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, with claims of suzerainty over Auvergne and Toulouse. "Henry found himself at twenty-one ruler of dominions such as no king before him had ever dreamed of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of Flanders, he had command of the French coast from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, while his claims on Toulouse would carry him to the shores of the Mediterranean. His subjects told with pride how 'his empire reached from the Arctic Ocean to the Pyrenees'; there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who ruled over such vast domains. ... His aim [a few years Inter] seems to have been to rival in some sort the Empire of the West, and to reign as an over-king, with sub-kings of his various provinces, and England as one of them, around him. He was connected with all the great ruling houses. ... England was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in the world without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned travellers, scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing abroad.' The influence of English learning and English statecraft made itself felt all over Europe. Never, perhaps, in all the history of England was there a time when Englishmen played so great a part abroad." The king who gathered this wide, incongruous empire under his sceptre, by mere circumstances of birth and marriage, proved strangely equal, in many respects, to its greatness. "He was a foreign king who never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the most part in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of Brabançons and hirelings. ... It was under the rule of a foreigner such as this, however, that the races of conquerors and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were one. It was by his power that England, Scotland and Ireland were brought to some vague acknowledgement of a common suzerain lord, and the foundations laid of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was he who abolished feudalism as a system of government, and left it little more than a system of land tenure. It was he who defined the relations established between Church and State, and decreed that in England churchman as well as baron was to be held under the Common Law. ... His reforms established the judicial system whose main outlines have been preserved to our own day. It was through his 'Constitutions' and his 'Assizes' that it came to pass that over all the world the English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household became transformed into Ministers of State. It was he who gave England a foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred years. The impress which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time meets us wherever we turn."

_Mrs. J. R. Green, Henry the Second, chapters 1-2._

Henry II. and his two sons, Richard I. (Cœur de Lion), and John, are distinguished, sometimes, as the Angevin kings, or kings of the House of Anjou, and sometimes as the Plantagenets, the latter name being derived from a boyish habit ascribed to Henry's father, Count Geoffrey, of "adorning his cap with a sprig of 'plantagenista,' the broom which in early summer makes the open country of Anjou and Maine a blaze of living gold." Richard retained and ruled the great realm of his father; but John lost most of his foreign inheritance, including Normandy, and became the unwilling benefactor of England by stripping her kings of alien interests and alien powers and bending their necks to Magna Charta.

_K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings._

ALSO IN: _W. Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets._

See, also, AQUITAINE (GUIENNE): A. D. 1137-1152; IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170. Conflict of King and Church. The Constitutions of Clarendon. Murder of Archbishop Becket.

"Archbishop Theobald was at first the King's chief favourite and adviser, but his health and his influence declining, Becket [the Archdeacon of Canterbury] was found apt for business as well as amusement, and gradually became intrusted with the exercise of all the powers of the crown. ... The exact time of his appointment as Chancellor has not been ascertained, the records of the transfer of the Great Seal not beginning till a subsequent reign, and old biographers being always quite careless about dates. But he certainly had this dignity soon after Henry's accession. ... Becket continued Chancellor till the year 1162, without any abatement in his favour with the King, or in the power which he possessed, or in the energy he displayed, or in the splendour of his career. ... In April, 1161, Archbishop Theobald died. Henry declared that Becket should succeed,--no doubt counting upon his co-operation in carrying on the policy hitherto pursued in checking the encroachments of the clergy and of the see of Rome. ... The same opinion of Becket's probable conduct was generally entertained, and a cry was raised that 'the Church was in danger.' The English bishops sent a representation to Henry against the appointment, and the electors long refused to obey his mandate, saying that 'it was indecent that a man who was rather a soldier than a priest, and who had devoted himself to hunting and falconry instead of the study of the Holy Scriptures, should be placed in the chair of St. Augustine.' ... The universal expectation was, that Becket would now attempt the part so successfully played by Cardinal Wolsey in a succeeding age; that, Chancellor and Archbishop, he would continue the minister and personal friend of the King; that he would study to support and extend all the prerogatives of the Crown, which he himself was to exercise; and that in the palaces of which he was now master he would live with increased magnificence and luxury. ... Never was there so wonderful a transformation. Whether from a predetermined purpose, or from a sudden change of inclination, he immediately became in every respect an altered man. {800} Instead of the stately and fastidious courtier, was seen the humble and squalid penitent. Next [to] his skin he wore hair-cloth, populous with vermin; he lived upon roots, and his drink was water, rendered nauseous by an infusion of fennel. By way of further penance and mortification, he frequently inflicted stripes on his naked back. ... He sent the Great Seal to Henry, in Normandy, with this short message, 'I desire that you will provide yourself with another Chancellor, as I find myself hardly sufficient for the duties of one office, and much less of two.' The fond patron, who had been so eager for his elevation, was now grievously disappointed and alarmed. ... He at once saw that he had been deceived in his choice. ... The grand struggle which the Church was then making was, that all churchmen should be entirely exempted from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, whatever crime they might have committed. ... Henry, thinking that he had a favourable opportunity for bringing the dispute to a crisis, summoned an assembly of all the prelates at Westminster, and himself put to them this plain question: 'Whether they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom?' Their reply, framed by Becket, was: 'We are willing, saving our own order.' ... The King, seeing what was comprehended in the reservation, retired with evident marks of displeasure, deprived Becket of the government of Eye and Berkhamstead, and all the appointments which he held at the pleasure of the Crown, and uttered threats as to seizing the temporalities of all the bishops, since they would not acknowledge their allegiance to him as the head of the state. The legate of Pope Alexander, dreading a breach with so powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, advised Becket to submit for the moment; and he with his brethren, retracting the saving clause, absolutely promised 'to observe the laws and customs of the kingdom.' To avoid all future dispute, Henry resolved to follow up his victory by having these laws and customs, as far as the Church was concerned, reduced into a code, to be sanctioned by the legislature, and to be specifically acknowledged by all the bishops. This was the origin of the famous 'Constitutions of Clarendon.''' Becket left the kingdom (1164). Several years later he made peace with Henry and returned to Canterbury; but soon he again displeased the King, who cried in a rage, 'Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?' Four knights who were present immediately went to Canterbury, where they slew the Archbishop in the cathedral (December 29, 1170). "The government tried to justify or palliate the murder. The Archbishop of York likened Thomas à Becket to Pharaoh, who died by the Divine vengeance, as a punishment for his hardness of heart; and a proclamation was issued, forbidding anyone to speak of Thomas of Canterbury as a martyr: but the feelings of men were too strong to be checked by authority; pieces of linen which had been dipped in his blood were preserved as relics; from the time of his death it was believed that miracles were worked at his tomb; thither flocked hundreds of thousands, in spite of the most violent threats of punishment; at the end of two years he was canonised at Rome; and, till the breaking out of the Reformation, St. Thomas of Canterbury, for pilgrimages and prayers, was the most distinguished Saint in England."

_Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapter 3._

"What did Henry II. propose to do with a clerk who was accused of a crime? ... Without doing much violence to the text, it is possible to put two different interpretations upon that famous clause in the Constitutions of Clarendon which deals with criminous clerks. ... According to what seems to be the commonest opinion, we might comment upon this clause in some such words as these:--Offences of which a clerk may be accused are of two kinds. They are temporal or they are ecclesiastical. Under the former head fall murder, robbery, larceny, rape, and the like; under the latter, incontinence, heresy, disobedience to superiors, breach of rules relating to the conduct of divine service, and so forth. If charged with an offence of the temporal kind, the clerk must stand his trial in the king's court; his trial, his sentence, will be like that of a layman. For an ecclesiastical offence, on the other hand, he will be tried in the court Christian. The king reserves to his court the right to decide what offences are temporal, what ecclesiastical; also he asserts the right to send delegates to supervise the proceedings of the spiritual tribunals. ... Let us attempt a rival commentary. The author of this clause is not thinking of two different classes of offences. The purely ecclesiastical offences are not in debate. No one doubts that for these a man will be tried in and punished by the spiritual court. He is thinking of the grave crimes, of murder and the like. Now every such crime is a breach of temporal law, and it is also a breach of canon law. The clerk who commits murder breaks the king's peace, but he also infringes the divine law, and--no canonist will doubt this--ought to be degraded. Very well. A clerk is accused of such a crime. He is summoned before the king's court, and he is to answer there--let us mark this word respondere--for what he ought to answer for there. What ought he to answer for there? The breach of the king's peace and the felony. When he has answered, ... then, without any trial, he is to be sent to the ecclesiastical court. In that court he will have to answer as an ordained clerk accused of homicide, and in that court there will be a trial (res ibi tractabitur). If the spiritual court convicts him it will degrade him, and thenceforth the church must no longer protect him. He will be brought back into the king's court, ... and having been brought back, no longer a clerk but a mere layman, he will be sentenced (probably without any further trial) to the layman's punishment, death or mutilation. The scheme is this: accusation and plea in the temporal court; trial, conviction, degradation, in the ecclesiastical court; sentence in the temporal court to the layman's punishment. This I believe to be the meaning of the clause."

_F. W. Maitland, Henry II. and the Criminous Clerks (English Historical Review, April, 1892), pages 224-226._

The Assize of Clarendon, sometimes confused with the Constitutions of Clarendon, was an important decree approved two years later. It laid down the principles on which the administration of justice was to be carried out, in twenty-two articles drawn up for the use of the judges.

_Mrs. J. R Green, Henry the Second, chapters 5-6._

{801}

"It may not be without instruction to remember that the Constitutions of Clarendon, which Becket spent his life in opposing, and of which his death procured the suspension, are now incorporated in the English law, and are regarded, without a dissentient voice, as among the wisest and most necessary of English institutions; that the especial point for which he surrendered his life was not the independence of the clergy from the encroachments of the Crown, but the personal and now forgotten question of the superiority of the see of Canterbury to the see of York."

_A. P. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury, page 124._

ALSO IN: _W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 12, sections 139-141._

_W. Stubbs, Select Charters, part 4._

_J. C. Robertson, Becket._

_J. A. Giles, Life and Letters of Thomas à Becket._

_R. H. Froude, History of the Contest between Archbishop Thomas à Becket and Henry II. (Remains, part 2, volume 2)._

_J. A. Froude, Life and Times of Thomas Becket._

_C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 1, chapter 29._

See, also, BENEFIT OF CLERGY, and JURY, TRIAL BY.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1189. Accession of King Richard I. (called Cœur de Lion).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1189-1199. Reign of Richard Cœur de Lion. His Crusade and campaigns in France.

"The Third Crusade [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192], undertaken for the deliverance of Palestine from the disasters brought upon the Crusaders' Kingdom by Saladin, was the first to be popular in England. ... Richard joined the Crusade in the very first year of his reign, and every portion of his subsequent career was concerned with its consequences. Neither in the time of William Rufus nor of Stephen had the First or Second Crusades found England sufficiently settled for such expeditions. ... But the patronage of the Crusades was a hereditary distinction in the Angevin family now reigning in England: they had founded the kingdom of Palestine; Henry II. himself had often prepared to set out; and Richard was confidently expected by the great body of his subjects to redeem the family pledge. ... Wholly inferior in statesmanlike qualities to his father as he was, the generosity, munificence, and easy confidence of his character made him an almost perfect representative of the chivalry of that age. He was scarcely at all in England, but his fine exploits both by land and sea have made him deservedly a favourite. The depreciation of him which is to be found in certain modern books must in all fairness be considered a little mawkish. A King who leaves behind him such an example of apparently reckless, but really prudent valour, of patience under jealous ill-treatment, and perseverance in the face of extreme difficulties, shining out as the head of the manhood of his day, far above the common race of kings and emperors,--such a man leaves a heritage of example as well as glory, and incites posterity to noble deeds. His great moral fault was his conduct to Henry, and for this he was sufficiently punished; but his parents must each bear their share of the blame. ... The interest of English affairs during Richard's absence languishes under the excitement which attends his almost continuous campaigns. ... Both on the Crusade and in France Richard was fighting the battle of the House which the English had very deliberately placed upon its throne; and if the war was kept off its shores, if the troubles of Stephen's reign were not allowed to recur, the country had no right to complain of a taxation or a royal ransom which times of peace enabled it, after all, to bear tolerably well. ... The great maritime position of the Plantagenets made these sovereigns take to the sea."

_M. Burrows, Commentaries on the History of England, book 1, chapter 18._

Richard "was a bad king; his great exploits, his military skill, his splendour and extravagance, his poetical tastes, his adventurous spirit, do not serve to cloak his entire want of sympathy, or even consideration for his people. He was no Englishman. ... His ambition was that of a mere warrior."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, section. 150 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, volume 2, chapter 7-8._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1199. Accession of King John.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1205. The loss of Normandy and its effects.

In 1202 Philip Augustus, king of France, summoned John of England, as Duke of Normandy (therefore the feudal vassal of the French crown) to appear for trial on certain grave charges before the august court of the Peers of France. John refused to obey the summons; his French fiefs were declared forfeited, and the armies of the French king took possession of them (see FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224). This proved to be a lasting separation of Normandy from England,--except as it was recovered momentarily long afterwards in the conquests of Henry V. "The Norman barons had had no choice but between John and Philip. For the first time since the Conquest there was no competitor, son, brother, or more distant kinsman, for their allegiance. John could neither rule nor defend them. Bishops and barons alike welcomed or speedily accepted their new lord. The families that had estates on both sides of the Channel divided into two branches, each of which made terms for itself; or having balanced their interests in the two kingdoms, threw in their lot with one or other, and renounced what they could not save. Almost immediately Normandy settles down into a quiet province of France. ... For England the result of the separation was more important still. Even within the reign of John it became clear that the release of the barons from their connexion with the continent was all that was wanted to make them Englishmen. With the last vestiges of the Norman inheritances vanished the last idea of making England a feudal kingdom. The Great Charter was won by men who were maintaining, not the cause of a class, as had been the case in every civil war since 1070, but the cause of a nation. From the year 1203 the king stood before the English people face to face."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 12, section 152._

See FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1205-1213. King John's quarrel with the Pope and the Church.