CHAPTER XII

FRANCE, NORMANDY, AND ANJOU, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE GREATNESS OF THE CAPETIAN MONARCHY (1108–1189)[21]

Contrast between French and German History—Character and Policy of Louis VI.—Suger—The Conquest of the Royal Domain—Louis VI.’s relations with Normandy, England, Blois, and Aquitaine—Louis VI.’s dealings with the Church and the Towns: Character of Louis VII.—The first ten years of his reign—Divorce from Eleanor of Aquitaine—Rise of Blois and Anjou—The Rivalry of Louis VII. and Henry II.—Progress of the Monarchy under Louis VII.—The early years of Philip Augustus—Death and defeat of Henry II.

[Sidenote: Contrast between the course of French and German History.]

While the imperial rulers of Germany lavished their resources on the pursuit of impossible ideals, the kings of France worked up their way from small beginnings to the possession of great power. In the beginning of the twelfth century there could be no effective comparison between the insignificance of Philip I. and the grandeur of Henry IV. even in the moments of his worst difficulties. Before the century was out, the power of Philip Augustus was worthy to rival that of Henry VI., and a few years later triumphed in the field over all the forces of the German Empire.

[Sidenote: Character and policy of Louis VI.]

The reign of Louis VI. (1108–1137) marks the first and most important stage in this development. The only son of Philip I. and Bertha of Holland, Louis was born in 1081 and brought up in the abbey of Saint-Denis, which he left in 1092, on receiving from his father the investiture of the Vexin, where he learnt his first experience in war and statecraft while defending his appanage against William Rufus. About the end of the century he was associated with his father as king-designate, and for the next eight years the premature infirmities of Philip I. gave Louis a large share of power. On Philip’s death in July 1108, he was at once crowned king at Orléans.

In person Louis was very like his father, with his great height, pale face, and the excessive corpulence that neither constant activity in the field nor unwearied labours in the chase could subdue, and which gave him his almost contemporary surname of the Fat. Like his father also, he was greedy and sensual. But with all his faults, he had acquired at Saint-Denis the softness and mildness of disposition which was his most essential characteristic. He was, moreover, just, loyal, and upright, ever preferring to reach his aims by simple and direct means rather than by craft and treachery. ‘A mighty athlete and an eminent gladiator,’ as his biographer calls him, he was constantly engaged fighting from youth upwards, and never abandoned his military habits, though at the age of forty-six he was too bulky to be able to mount on horseback. His nobles disliked him, as the Normans disliked Henry I., for his love of men of low condition. He was no knight-errant, but a shrewd practical warrior, ever bent on maintaining or increasing his power, and making the chief object of his activity the abasement of the barons of the royal domain and the protection of the poor and the weak from their high-handed violence. He also carefully watched the overgrown power of the great feudatories. Unlike his father, Louis kept on good terms with the Church, posing as the protector of churchmen from the brutality and greed of the lay baronage. He was ever mindful of the monks, and never lost his love for the home of his youth. [Sidenote: Suger.] His famous minister Suger became, in 1122, Abbot of Saint-Denis, and the relations of king and minister went back to the days when Louis abode within the great abbey where Suger, a boy like himself, was being prepared for the religious vocation. A man of humble origin, small and mean appearance, and with wretched health, but restless, indefatigable, clear-sighted and politic, Suger’s brain suggested a subtle policy such as the rough soldier-king delighted to follow. Suger accompanied his master in all his travels, and kept so constantly at court that the zealots reproached him with neglecting the administration of his abbey. In Louis’ later years the influence of St. Bernard induced the statesman-monk to make the reform of the discipline of Saint-Denis one of his main objects of attention. But he never lost his influence over Louis, and to his interest in the strong Church party must be largely attributed the direction of Louis’ ecclesiastical policy. After the king’s death, Suger wrote his biography, and gave us the clearest notion of the life and work of the first Capetian king who approached greatness.[22]

[Sidenote: The conquest of the royal domain.]

There was a real danger of the hereditary domain of the Capetians slipping away as completely from the control of the house of Capet as the more remote regions which only acknowledged the king as suzerain. The proprietor of the strong tower of Montlhéry could block the road between Paris and Orléans, and the bishops and abbots of the Isle de France, the most faithful supporters of the crown, had to witness the constant aggressions of a swarm of petty tyrants. It was an everyday thing for the local lord to take up his quarters in a monastery, with his greedy following, steal the wine, corn, and cattle of the hosts, and pollute the cloister with orgies and bloodshed. Conspicuous among these high-born brigands were Hugh of Le Puiset, the tyrant of the rich plains of La Beauce, and Thomas of Marle, a member of the house of Coucy, and the cruellest and most able of the barons of the royal domains. Louis VI. ever gladly responded to the complaints of a bishop or abbot against a baronial oppressor. He led countless expeditions against the barons of the Isle de France; expeditions which were individually unimportant, but which in the aggregate completely revolutionised the position of the monarchy within its domain. He was as a rule successful, though his task was complicated by his insignificant enemies rallying to their support more formidable foes, such as the King of England or the Count of Blois, the most rebellious representatives of the great feudatories. Confident of the support of the clerks, the townsfolk, and the lesser people, the king was able, by his vigour and persistence, to crush the most formidable of his enemies. Hugh du Puiset, after repeated defeats, was forced to betake himself to the Holy Land. Thomas de Marle died a defiant captive of the prince that he had so often disobeyed. Louis’ numerous campaigns kept clear the roads that united the royal towns, such as Paris, Orléans, Bourges, Sens, Beauvais, Mantes, Etampes, Senlis, Noyon, Montreuil. Before his death the baronage of the domain had learnt that the king was no mere suzerain, but an effective ruler. Moreover, Louis’ triumphs in war enabled him largely to dispense with the disloyal assemblies of magnates who had claimed to direct his policy. The power of the state fell into hands that Louis could trust, like Suger and the bishops. Among laymen the barons were superseded by warriors and men of business, whose whole occupation was in the royal household. Three brothers of the family of Garlande had among the knights of the court the same pre-eminence that Suger had among the clerks; and the fourth Garlande, Stephen, though tonsured, succeeded two of his brothers as royal seneschal, and was the only cleric who ever held that knightly office.

The establishment of the royal authority over the royal domain was but analogous to the process which was going on all over France, and making the chief feudatories of the crown centres of stronger and better organised patrimonies. [Sidenote: Louis VI. and the great feudatories.] Each of the leading states of France had become more self-centred, more concentrated within its own resources. As a natural consequence their relations with each other and with the crown assumed a different character. Each fief lived its own life apart, and followed a different course of development. Of all the French kings Louis VI. had the least frequent dealings with the great vassals of the crown. What relations he had remind us rather of international than of domestic relations.

[Sidenote: Louis VI. and Henry I.]

In 1106 Henry I. of England became Duke of Normandy by the defeat of his brother Robert at Tinchebrai, and Louis VI. had to contend for the greater part of his reign against him. Before long, two strong coalitions were formed under Louis and Henry. Louis supported the rebellious barons of Normandy, who hoped to make Robert’s son, William Clito, their duke, and ultimately found more powerful allies in Baldwin VII. of Flanders and in Bertrada’s son by Fulk le Réchin, Fulk V., Count of Anjou. After Baldwin’s death, Louis VI. secured the succession to Flanders for Charles of Denmark, whose brief reign of peace, justice, and benevolence secured for him the title of Charles the Good. Charles’s murder in 1127 filled Europe with horror. Louis prevailed on the Flemings to accept William Clito as their next count, and to him Thierry of Alsace became a rival claimant. The Clito died in 1128 after destroying his prospects by his folly, and Louis was now forced to recognise Thierry. All through his reign he thus exercised a real influence over the course of Flemish affairs.

GENEALOGY OF THE HOUSE OF BLOIS.

Herbert I., Count of Vermandois and Troyes (_d._ 943). | +-------------------+----------+------------+ | | | | Albert, Count Robert, Herbert, Liutgarde, _m._ Theobald I., of Vermandois, Count of Count of | the Old, first whose great-great- Troyes Troyes | hereditary granddaughter (_d._ 968). (_d._ 993). | Count of brought Vermandois | | Blois (_d._ 978). to Hugh Stephen I. | of France (_d._ 1101). of Troyes Odo I., Count of Blois, (_d._ 1019). (_d._ 995). | +------------------+----------------------+ | | Theobald II., Odo II., Count of Blois Count of Blois, (_d._ 1004). 1004–1037; Count of Troyes, 1019–1037. | +-------------------+--+ | | Stephen II., Theobald III., Count Count of Troyes, of Blois, 1037–1089; (1037–1047). I. of Troyes, 1047–1089 (commonly called Count of Champagne after the acquisition of the Counties of Vitry and Bar-sur-Aube, 1076). | +-----------------+------------+-----+ | | | Odo II. Hugh I. Stephen of Blois, of Champagne, of Champagne, 1089–1102, 1089–1097. 1097–1125, _d._ in _m._ Adela, daughter Holy Land. of William the Conqueror. | +------------------------+--+--------------+ | | | Theobald IV., the Great, Stephen Henry, of Blois, 1102–1152; II. of of Boulogne, Bishop of Champagne, 1125–1152. King of England. Winchester. | +-----------+------+---------------------+----------------+ | | | | Henry I., the Alice, or Adela, Theobald V., William, Liberal, of _m._ Louis VII. the Good, of Archbishop Champagne, 1152–1180, of France. Blois, 1152–1191, of Rheims. _m._ Mary,daughter of | _m._ Alice, daughter Louis VII. Philip II. of France. of Louis VII. | | +----+----------+------------+ +----+-----------+ | | | | | Henry II., Mary, Theobald III. Louis of Blois, Margaret, the Young, _m._ Baldwin of Champagne, 1191–1205. who took of Champagne, of Flanders, 1197–1201, | Blois to the 1180–1197; King Eastern _m._ Blanche, Theobald VI., houses of of Jerusalem, Emperor. heiress the Young, Avesnes and 1192–1197, of Navarre. of Blois, Châtillon. _m._ Isabella of | 1205–1218. Jerusalem. | Theobald IV., the Posthumous or the Great, of Champagne, 1201–1253; King of Navarre, 1234–1253. | +---------------+----------------+ | | Theobald V., the Young, Henry III., the Fat, of Champagne and Navarre, of Champagne and Navarre, 1253–1270. 1270–1274, _m._ Blanche of Artois. | +-----------------+ | Joan (_d._ 1305), _m._ Philip IV. of France.

Henry of England was equally active on his side. Besides his Breton vassals, he could rely upon the special enemies of Louis, the barons of the Isle de France. He became a warm partisan of Thierry of Alsace, and intrigued with the Flemish townsfolk, who were seldom on good terms with their counts. [Sidenote: Louis VI. and the House of Blois.] Above all he had the powerful support of his nephews, Theobald IV., Count of Blois, surnamed the Great, and of his younger brother Stephen, who through his wife had become Count of Boulogne, and was later to become King of England. Theobald the Great was a much abler man than his brother, and the most rancorous and persistent of Louis VI.’s foes among the leading feudatories. In 1125 he once more united the counties of Blois and Champagne, so that he could attack his suzerain both from the south and from the east. But the most powerful combinations of twelfth century diplomacy proved singularly weak when brought into action. Almost ceaseless war was waged between Louis and Theobald, and the struggles of Louis and Henry were only less constant. The desolating, unending, purposeless, and unskilful warfare of the twelfth century was utterly fruitless in results. It was enough for Louis that, despite some defeats, he held his own fairly well.

[Sidenote: Louis VI. and Aquitaine.]

Before the end of Louis’ reign new complications ensued. In 1128, finding the hostility of Anjou a chief obstacle in the way of his plans, Henry I. married his widowed daughter and heiress, the Empress Matilda, to Geoffrey, the son and heir of his old enemy Fulk of Anjou. The way was thus prepared for the Angevin Empire of Henry II., though the refusal of England to accept Matilda as Henry’s successor in 1135 seemed for the moment to remove any imminent danger. While England received Stephen, Geoffrey of Anjou established himself a few years later as duke of Normandy. Soon after, Stephen’s brother, Theobald of Blois, made his peace with Louis. Moreover, two years later Louis negotiated another alliance that seemed to offer even greater prospects to the heir to the French throne. On Good Friday 1137 William X., Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, died on pilgrimage. He was the last male of his house, and his daughter Eleanor succeeded peaceably to his great inheritance. William had wished that his daughter should marry Louis the Young, the eldest surviving son of his suzerain. In a few months the marriage was effected. The vast domains of Eleanor in Poitou, Saintonge, and Guienne at once doubled the domain of the crown, and made the young Louis immediate lord of most of the great barons between the Loire and the Pyrenees. But so long as the interests and feelings of south and north were so absolutely different, it was no great gain to a king, who had only just secured the overthrow of the feudal castles of the Seine and Oise, to begin in his old age a similar but more hopeless struggle on the Charente and the Dordogne.

[Sidenote: Louis VI. and the Church.]

While Philip I. kept both Rome and Cluny in check, his son became the stalwart champion of the rights of the Church. It was his friendship for the Church that conquered the Isle de France and made it possible for Suger to serve two such different masters as Louis VI. and St. Bernard. Louis VI. restored the strong alliance with the Papacy that prepared the way for the time when the French king could boast that he was ‘the eldest son of the Church.’ He ardently supported Innocent II. against Anacletus, welcomed Innocent to his dominions, and attended the Council of Sens in 1131. Nevertheless he did not scruple to show priests and monks that he meant to be master in his own kingdom, making bishops as well as barons respect the royal justice, and never relaxing his rights over ecclesiastical appointments. Even when Suger was chosen abbot by the over-zealous monks of Saint-Denis, who had neglected to wait for the King’s authorisation to elect, Louis, though he confirmed the election, put in prison the monks who brought him the news of their brethren’s unconstitutional haste. Louis quarrelled with leading bishops like Ivo of Chartres and Henry of Sens. Indignation at Louis’ treatment of his bishops drew Bernard from his retreat to denounce a king who ‘persecuted not so much bishops, as the zeal for justice, and the habit of religion which he finds in them.’ But these examples of friction were exceptional. If the clergy would but accept his authority, they could have no better friend than Louis VI. And besides his alliance with the Church, Louis VI. drifted gradually into an alliance with the lesser people, which reminds us of the constant championship by the Norman kings of England of the popular as against the feudal party. The better peace that now prevailed throughout France made town life, trade and commerce, possible on a larger scale than in the rough times of absolute feudal anarchy. [Sidenote: The communal movement.] The communal movement was now beginning in northern France, and though the king was far from being, as the older historians make him, the ‘enfranchiser of the communes,’ he was at least not fiercely hostile to the less revolutionary sides of the new movement.[23] He issued a large number of charters to towns and villages under ecclesiastical control, which, though meant to help the Church, also tended to help forward the municipal movement. Even more than this, his zeal to uphold sound justice was an incalculable boon to his people. The simple peasants saw in the good king a wonder-worker and a thaumaturgist, and were ready to give almost divine honours to the prince whom they celebrated as ‘the Justiciar.’

Ill health and anxiety wore out the health and spirits of Louis. His last days were full of trouble. He desired to retire to the home of his youth clad in the Benedictine garb, but he was too ill to be able to realise his wish. He died at Paris almost in the odour of sanctity, lamenting with his last breath that it was not the lot of man to combine the energy of youth with the experience of age.

Louis VII., surnamed the Young, the eldest of the five sons that Adelaide of Maurienne bore to her husband, had already, when a child nine years old, been crowned at Reims by Innocent II. He was still in his new Aquitanian domains when his father’s death gave him the exclusive rule over France. [Sidenote: Character of Louis VII.] Suger and the other ministers of the old king did their best to carry on still further the policy which had so much improved the position of the French monarchy. But Louis VII. was very unworthy to continue the work of his strong and vigorous father. He is praised by the chroniclers for his honesty, simplicity, and benevolence. He was a fair soldier, but his love of peace made him reluctant to assume the sword, and his weakness and indecision of character often led him into deceit and double-dealing. The chief positive trait in his disposition was a rigid and monastic piety, which kept his private life pure, but led to scruples of conscience and hesitation in conduct that not a little unfitted him for the rude tasks of kingship. The feudal party soon realised his weakness, and Suger found that the work of Louis the Fat had to be done over again. If the petty lords of the Isle de France were still kept in check, the independent great vassals soon began to enlarge their pretensions. It was a time of feudal reaction all over Europe. The weak Stephen had succeeded Henry I., ‘the lion of righteousness,’ in England. Conrad III., the slave of the Church, had replaced the capable but limited Lothair of Supplinburg. Under Louis VII. the same tendencies manifested themselves in France. It speaks well for Louis VI. and Suger that it was a period of stagnation rather than of positive reaction in the fortunes of the French monarchy.

[Sidenote: The first ten years of Louis VII., 1137–1147.]

The first ten years of Louis VII.’s reign were filled with petty and purposeless wars. In his zeal to assert the rights of his wife, Louis spent much time south of the Loire to the neglect of his more immediate interests in northern France. Besides useful but not very fruitful efforts to carry out in Eleanor’s domains the policy of his father in the Isle de France, Louis led, in 1141, an expedition against the Count of Toulouse, Alphonse Jordan, who had refused the homage claimed from him to the Duke of Aquitaine. The city of Toulouse offered him a vigorous and successful resistance, and the first direct action of a descendant of Hugh Capet in Languedoc did not increase the prestige of the royal power. Nor were affairs in the north much more favourable. All his monastic virtues did not prevent him quarrelling with Innocent II., who had consecrated Peter de la Châtre to the archbishopric of Bourges despite the strenuous efforts of the king to prevent his election (1141). As Louis would not yield, Innocent excommunicated him, declaring that he was a child who had to be taught the lesson of not resisting the authority of the Church. Bernard re-echoed the thunders of the Pope, though Suger remained true to his master. Graver danger set in when Theobald of Champagne, who up to this point had remained on good terms with Louis, took up the cause of Peter de la Châtre, and gave him a refuge within his dominions. Louis indignantly went to war against Theobald and invaded Champagne. In the course of the campaign that ensued the king captured Vitry by assault. In the midst of the tumult the church, packed with fugitive townspeople, was set on fire, and more than a thousand men, women, and children were believed to have perished in the flames. Louis, terribly shocked at the sacrilege and slaughter, soon sought peace both with the Church and with Theobald, and allowed Peter de la Châtre to take possession of his see. Vitry was restored to Theobald, and Celestine II., who had now succeeded the truculent Innocent, made no difficulty in absolving Louis (1144). But the massacre at Vitry still weighed on the king’s conscience, and led him to seek expiation by taking the crusader’s vow. In 1147 Louis and Eleanor set out for the Second Crusade. The disasters and miseries of that fatal expedition have been already chronicled [see pages 191–193]. [Sidenote: The Second Crusade, 1147–1150.] In 1150, Louis came back humiliated and defeated. During his absence the aged Suger had striven with all his might to uphold the royal authority, though he had disapproved of the king’s crusading project, and never ceased to urge upon him the necessity of a speedy return. His fears were more than justified, for all the spirits of disorder took advantage of Louis’ absence to disturb the realm. It was proposed to depose Louis in favour of his brother Robert, Count of Dreux. The return of the discredited king was quickly followed by the death of Suger (1152). With him expired the last hope of carrying on the work of national development at which he had so long laboured. To the first great error of the Crusade Louis now added his second mistake of repudiating his wife. In both cases the king put his personal feeling above the interest of his house and realm. As his absence on crusade led to a new wave of feudal anarchy, so his divorce helped on the growth of the great Angevin power, which was, for the rest of his life, to put an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the development of the French monarchy.

[Sidenote: Divorce of Louis VII. and Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1152.]

The relations between Louis and Eleanor had long been strained. After many years of barrenness, the two children which, as it was believed, came to the pair as the result of the prayers of St. Bernard, were both girls, and Louis ardently desired a son and successor. There was, moreover, a strange contrast of character between the weak, pious, and shifty king and the fierce, imperious, and ambitious queen. New grounds of dispute arose during the Crusade, when Eleanor strove to divert the French host from their projected march to Jerusalem in order that its presence might support her uncle Raymond of Antioch in his schemes for the aggrandisement of his principality. The relations of husband and wife became so bad that Suger wrote imploring the king to conceal his anger against the queen. After their return to France nothing but the influence of Suger prevented a breach. Soon after his death, the question of divorce was formally raised. St. Bernard, still omnipotent over Louis’ mind, approved the step. In March 1152 a church council held at Beaugency annulled the marriage on the ground of consanguinity. Eleanor withdrew to her own dominions, which were now again separated from the French crown. Anxious to do all in her power to spite her former husband, she offered herself in marriage to young Henry of Anjou. At Whitsuntide their marriage at Poitiers exposed the French monarchy to the gravest danger. [Sidenote: The rise of the House of Blois.] So long as the chief fiefs were held by separate and rival houses it was not impossible for the crown to hold its own against them, but an aggregation of several great fiefs into the same hands might easily set up a rival power whose forces could overbalance the scanty strength of the king. The union of Chartres, Blois, and Champagne under Theobald the Great had been the gravest obstacle to the plans of Louis VI. The establishment of Theobald’s younger brother in Boulogne, Normandy, and England would have been even more dangerous but for the incompetence of Stephen. Side by side with the union of several fiefs under the house of Blois, was the union of Anjou, Maine, and Normandy, brought about by the policy of Henry I. in marrying his daughter, the Empress Matilda, to Geoffrey, the son of Fulk of Anjou. These two amalgamations neutralised each other, when the accession of Stephen to England and Normandy brought the old interests of Blois and Anjou into fierce antagonism, and for a time neither side won a preponderating position over the other. Though Matilda the Empress failed to conquer England, her husband established himself in Normandy, and in 1144 received from Louis VII. the formal investiture of the duchy. In 1149 Geoffrey and Matilda handed over their Norman claims to their son Henry, now sixteen years old. [Sidenote: The growth of Anjou.] In September 1151 the death of Geoffrey made Henry Fitz-Empress (so the young prince was commonly described) sole lord of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. Anjou now rapidly prevailed over Blois. Young as he was, Henry had already a character and a policy. After his marriage with Eleanor he had a position in France far stronger than that of King Louis himself; from the Somme to the Pyrenees, from the Bay of Biscay to the mountains of Auvergne, Henry and Eleanor ruled directly or indirectly over the fairest half of France. [Sidenote: The Empire of Henry II.] Two years later, the death of Stephen made Henry King of England. In 1158 Henry added to his possession the county of Nantes and re-enforced the old Norman claims of overlordship over Duke Conan of Brittany. Later he secured the hand of Constance, Conan’s daughter and heiress, for his second son Geoffrey, who in 1171 peacefully succeeded his father-in-law as Duke of Brittany. Henry was equally successful in realising the many pretensions of Eleanor over the lands of south-western France. In 1158 Eleanor’s claims to overlordship over the county of Toulouse led Henry to lead an expedition against Count Raymond V., who had succeeded his father Alphonse in 1148, and by his marriage with Constance, sister of Louis VII., and widow of Eustace of Boulogne, King Stephen’s son, had united himself against the Angevin with the houses of France and Blois. The personal intervention of King Louis saved Raymond from absolute submission, though the peace transferred Cahors and the Quercy from Toulouse to the duchy of Aquitaine. In 1173 Henry accomplished his purpose. Henceforth the county of Toulouse, with its dependencies the Rouergue and the Albigeois, became, by Raymond’s submission, recognised dependencies of Aquitaine. With equal energy Henry pressed his claims to overlordship over Berri, where his aggressions were particularly unwelcome by reason of the large strip of royal domain which ran from Bourges southward. Henry also revived successfully the old Aquitanian claim to the overlordship of Auvergne, while his alliance with the rising house of Maurienne, now Counts of Savoy, gave him some command of the upper Rhone valley and the chief passes over the Alps. The extraordinary ability of Henry made his commanding position the more formidable. He was no mere feudal chief like the Counts of Blois, but a statesman capable of building up a mighty empire.

[Sidenote: Rivalry of Louis VII. and Henry II.]

After the consolidation of the Angevin Empire, Louis had to watch narrowly the actions of a vassal more powerful than himself. Before long war became almost chronic between him and Henry. It was not that constant efforts were not made to secure peace and alliance. Henry married his eldest son to Louis’ daughter, Margaret, receiving as her marriage portion the long-coveted possession of the Vexin. In 1162 Louis VII. and Henry again made common cause in favour of Alexander III. against the Antipope [see page 257]. During his exile in France Alexander frequented the dominions of Henry as much as he did those of Louis. It was in Henry’s town of Tours that the council assembled that excommunicated the Antipope. Henry seemed too strong to make direct resistance of much avail.

Before long Henry II. fell into his quarrel with Archbishop Thomas of Canterbury, which gave Louis an opportunity of adding to his rival’s difficulties, by giving as much support as he could to his enemies. After Thomas’s death Louis found an even better way of effecting this purpose by forcing Henry to divide his dominions among his sons, and then fomenting the discord that soon burst out between Henry and his wife and children. In 1170 the young Henry, Louis’ son-in-law, was crowned joint king with his father, after the French fashion. Geoffrey was already Duke of Brittany, and in 1172 Richard, the third son, was enthroned Duke of Aquitaine, and betrothed to Alice, Louis VII.’s younger daughter. Louis soon persuaded the vain and weak Henry III.—so he was often styled—to make common cause with him against his father. In 1173 a well-devised conspiracy burst forth against the power of Henry II. [Sidenote: The War of 1173 and 1174.] The feudal party in England and Normandy, the King of Scots, and Henry’s discontented vassals in Britain, made common cause with Louis VII. and the younger King Henry against the archenemy of the Capetian house. The vassals of France, who feared Henry more than Louis, joined the confederacy, and at their head were Geoffrey of Brittany and Richard of Aquitaine, and even Queen Eleanor herself. Among Louis’ greater vassals Philip of Alsace (son of Thierry of Alsace), Count of Flanders, entered into the league. So did the sons of Theobald the Great—Henry the Liberal, Count of Champagne, and Theobald V., the Good, Count of Blois, both married to Louis VII.’s daughters. The representative of the younger branch of Blois, the Count of Flanders’ brother, who ruled Boulogne as the husband of King Stephen’s daughter Mary, also took up the hereditary policy of his house. The good luck and the genius of Henry prevailed over Louis and his associates, and in 1174 peace was patched up on conditions that left matters much as they had been before the war. Eleanor of Aquitaine, captured as she was endeavouring to escape to her divorced husband’s court, was the chief sufferer. She was immured in a prison, from which she hardly escaped during the rest of Henry II.’s life.

[Sidenote: Progress of the Monarchy under Louis VII.]

In the last seven years of his life Louis VII. made no sensible advance against Henry II., but though beaten in the field, he had broken up the unity of the Angevin power, and could still count upon the support of the sons of his enemy. His reign ended as ingloriously as it had begun. Nevertheless, the constant interest of the king in the policy of the remotest parts of the monarchy was a step forward in the royal operations. The intervention of Louis in Toulouse, in Auvergne, in Burgundy, though not always successful, marked an advance over the incuriousness and indifference of his father’s reign in matters not directly concerning the domain. He even looked beyond his kingdom into the Arelate, where Barbarossa’s coronation in 1178 was a source of inquietude to him. Moreover, Louis VII.’s constant friendship for the Church stood him in good stead in his dealings with his remoter vassals. His pilgrimages to distant shrines, to St. James of Compostella, to the Grande Chartreuse, and to the new shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, spread his fame. The younger monastic orders, especially the Cistercians and the Carthusians, were his enthusiastic friends, and the unostentatious and timid support of a crowd of bishops and abbots gave Louis VII.’s reign its peculiar position in history. The chronicler tells us how, in Louis VII.’s days, war was rare, and the realm ruled peacefully and strenuously; many new towns established, and ancient ones increased; many forests were cut down; and divers orders of religion marvellously multiplied in various parts of the land.

[Sidenote: Family, old age, and death of Louis VII.]

Louis VII. was thrice married. His first two wives brought him daughters only. Eleanor of Aquitaine’s children, Mary and Alice, became the wives of the two brothers, Henry of Champagne and Theobald of Blois. Constance of Castile, Louis’ second wife, was the mother of Margaret, afterwards wife of the young king, Henry III., and of another Alice, long betrothed to his brother, Richard of Aquitaine. Fourteen days after Constance’s death, Louis VII. married his third wife, Alice or Adela of Champagne, sister of his sons-in-law, Henry the Liberal and Theobald the Good. For five years they had no children, and Louis, fearing the division of his kingdom between his daughters, longed earnestly for a son. He visited Citeaux, and threw himself on his knees before the General Chapter that was in session, and only rose when he had been assured that God would soon answer his prayers. In August 1165 the long-wished-for son was born at Paris, amidst heartfelt rejoicings, and was christened Philip, but soon became known by the surnames ‘Godgiven’ and ‘Augustus.’ When Philip was only fourteen years old, Louis VII. was stricken with paralysis. On All Saints’ Day 1179, he was crowned joint-king at Reims by his mother’s brother, Archbishop William of Blois. In September 1180 the old king died, and Philip Augustus became sole King of France.

In the first ten years of the reign of Philip II., the fierce factions that had raged round the death-bed of Louis VII. were continued. The chief influences to which the boy-king was exposed were those of Philip of Flanders, and of the house of Blois. Philip of Alsace had shown more than the usual energy and skill of a feudal prince in his administration of Flanders. He is celebrated in Flemish history as the founder of ports and cities, the granter of charters of liberties, the maker of canals, the cultivator of sandy heaths and barren marshes, the strong administrator, the vigilant upholder of law, the friend and patron of poets and romancers. He also laboriously built up a great family connection, from which he hoped to establish a power such as might rival the aggregated fiefs of Blois or Anjou, and might well have anticipated the later unions of the Netherlands under the Bavarian and Burgundian houses. [Sidenote: The early years of Philip Augustus, 1180–1189.] Himself lord of Flanders and Artois, Philip became, by his marriage with Isabella of Vermandois, the descendant of Hugh the Great the Crusader, Count of Amiens and Vermandois. His nephew Baldwin was Count of Hainault. His brother Matthew and his niece Ida were in succession Count and Countess of Boulogne. Moreover, Philip was the most trusted counsellor of the old age of Louis VII., and the godfather of Philip Augustus. Just before Louis’ death his influence was confirmed by the marriage of his niece, Isabella of Hainault, to the young king. Being childless, he promised that after his death Artois should go to his niece and her husband.

The house of Blois had hoped much from the accession of a king whose mother was a Champenoise. But Philip of Flanders chased Adela of Champagne from the court, and showed a fierce hostility to her brothers. Theobald of Blois and Henry of Champagne were forced to make alliance with their old enemy, Henry of Anjou. William of Reims, disgusted that the Archbishop of Sens was called upon to crown the new queen, strove to act once again the part played by Thomas of Canterbury when the younger Henry was crowned by Roger of York. War seemed imminent between the two Philips, and a strong coalition that included the houses of Blois and Anjou, and a vast swarm of smaller feudatories, who rejoiced that the reign of a boy of fifteen bade fair to give them a chance of striking an effective blow against the power of their suzerain. But Philip of Flanders pressed his advantages too far. A natural reaction from the overbearing Count of Flanders soon drove King Philip towards his mother and her family. Henry of Anjou’s mediation patched up peace between Philip II. and his mother’s kinsfolk, and enabled him to shake off his dependence on Philip of Flanders.

Peace did not last very long. For a short time Henry II. was on good terms with the French king, and strove to persuade him to associate himself with the declining fortunes of Henry the Lion, and swell the coalition against Frederick Barbarossa. But Philip II. gave the deposed Saxon no effective help, and before long the old relations were restored. In 1183 Philip was again backing up the rebellious sons of Henry II. against their father, though the sudden death of Henry, the young king, quickly brought this struggle to an end. In the next year, 1184, Philip went to war against Philip of Flanders, who on the death of his wife, Isabella of Vermandois, in 1183, had kept possession of her lands, which Philip II. had declared forfeited. So fierce a struggle seemed imminent that the Count of Flanders was glad to get the support of the house of Blois, which had now again drifted into opposition to the king. At the same time he called in the Emperor as a counterpoise against his other suzerain. But Philip of Flanders was afraid to face the great host which the French king now turned against him. He sought the intervention of Henry II., who, in November 1185, personally negotiated the peace of Aumâle, by which the Vermandois was added to the royal domain, and the promise of Artois and the Somme towns at the Count’s death was renewed. It was the first real triumph of the young king’s reign.

Flushed by his success against Flanders, Philip II. soon fell again into hostilities against Henry II. He clamoured for the restoration of the Vexin, the marriage portion of his sister Margaret, widow of Henry the younger, but finally allowed it to remain in the English king’s hands as the future portion for his other sister Alice, the promised bride of Richard of Aquitaine. But he still intrigued actively with Henry’s disloyal sons. In 1186 Geoffrey of Brittany went to Paris to plot new designs against his father, but was cut off by fever when still the French king’s guest. Projects of crusade delayed for a time the weaving of the network of intrigue. But in 1189 Philip again found Richard at war against his father. [Sidenote: Defeat and death of Henry II., 1189.] A sharp campaign was fought, which resulted in the complete defeat of Henry II., who on 4th July 1189 was forced to make a complete submission at Colombières, and died two days afterwards. It was the second great triumph of Philip’s reign. Though the Angevin heritage passed unimpaired to Richard, the new king was not statesman long enough to keep together so precarious an inheritance. Henceforth the advantage was increasingly on Philip’s side. [Sidenote: The call to the Third Crusade, 1187–1189.] The call to the Third Crusade postponed the inevitable struggle between them. But the historian of France may well pause at the death of Henry II. The period of struggling and waiting was now almost over. In the later and more brilliant portion of his reign, the conqueror of Philip of Alsace and Henry of Anjou had to gather in the fruits of his victories. Yet the future position of France was already assured in the year that saw the death of the most resourceful of her enemies.