Henry the Young King, 1155-1183

by Matthew Strickland

  He and the two prelates prostrated themselves before the high altar while the Te Deum Laudamus was sung. Then the bishops raised him up and, touching the Gospel book and relics of the saints placed upon the altar, he swore the tria praecepta or threefold coronation oath.64 The first of these was ‘that he would keep peace, honour and duty towards God and holy Church and its customs all the days of his life’.65 Next, he swore ‘that he would exercise right justice and equity among the people committed to his charge’, prohibit all depredations and injustice to all ranks of men, and, thirdly, that ‘he would annul any evil laws and customs which might have been introduced into the realm, and make good laws and keep them without fraud or evil intent’.66 The coronation oath formed a deeply significant element in the ceremony, for by it the king entered into a contract with his people and with the Church to rule as a just and lawful sovereign. Yet in the light of the long, bitter and still unresolved dispute over the Constitutions of Clarendon, young Henry’s oath in 1170 acquired a still greater significance. Becket and the pope had feared that the wording might have been altered to the prejudice of the Church, perhaps to assert the ‘new customs’ that Henry II had claimed. Writing to Alexander later in 1170, however, Archbishop Rotrou of Rouen assured him that the Young King had clearly sworn to observe all the rights of the Church, and Archbishop Roger likewise swore that young Henry had taken the customary oath, omitting nothing that ought to have been undertaken in the coronation of a king of England.67

  After young Henry had made the oath came the recognitio, whereby one of the bishops asked the people if they were willing to submit to him as their ruler and obey his commands, to which they replied, ‘We wish it and grant it so (Volumus et concedimus)’.68 This reflected the element of election inherent in the king-making process. Kingship in England was less truly elective than in the empire, yet it was not nominal, as the circumstances of both King Stephen’s accession in 1135 and the dramatic events of 1141 had so forcefully revealed. Blood right and designation by the previous ruler did not always guarantee a smooth succession, and the support of a majority of the nobility was essential.

  It was only after these solemn promises had been made that the archbishop would proceed to the greatest and most sacred act, that of anointing.69 After further prayers, in which the king was reminded of exemplars of good rulership from the Old Testament, his outer garments were removed, leaving him in his breeches and a shirt slit open at the shoulders. Then the archbishop of York first anointed his hands with holy oil, then his head, chest, shoulders and elbows.70 As Becket had earlier reminded Henry II, ‘kings are anointed in three places, on the head, on the breast, and on the arms, which signifies glory, wisdom and strength’.71 Then, to hold in place and soak up the holy oil, the archbishop placed a consecrated linen cloth on the young king’s head, and over this the royal cap.72 By this act of anointing, young Henry was now hallowed, set apart and above other men as the Christus Domini – the anointed of the Lord. Following the ceremony, these consecrated garments were kept safely, for it was customary for kings to be buried in them, as young Henry was to be.73

  During the bitter disputes of the Investiture Controversy and the assaults made on theocratic kingship by the reformed papacy from the later eleventh century, the nature of the holy oil used in the rite of coronation had become an important issue.74 The papacy and its supporters sought to diminish the sacral element of royal anointing by substituting a less significant ‘holy oil’, known as the oil of catechumens, instead of the chrism; for anointing with chrism, used in the ordination of priests, implied that the ruler was a ‘king-priest’ in the mould of the Old Testament figure Melchizedek.75 Some variants of English coronation ordines in the first part of the twelfth century may have mirrored this change, but at the coronation of Henry II in 1154, chrism was again used, doubtless reflecting his desire to restore the status and prerogatives of kingship as enjoyed by his grandfather.76 His insistence on such matters was only strengthened by his own dispute with Becket, and it is possible that his clerical supporters knew of the polemical literature stressing royal sacrality that had been produced during the conflict over investiture between Henry I and Anselm.77 One such tract, by ‘Anonymous of York’, had made far-reaching claims: ‘The power of the king is the power of God, but it is God’s through nature, the king’s through grace, and whatever he does is not simply as a man, but as one who has been made God and Christ through grace . . . No one by right ought to take precedence over the king, who is blessed with so many and such great sacraments . . .’78 It was by virtue of the sacrament of unction, noted Gilbert Foliot in his letter Multiplicem nobis, addressed to Thomas Becket in 1166, that the power to judge not just in secular affairs but even in certain ecclesiastical matters was claimed for the king.79 While Gilbert did not necessarily concur with such a view, he nevertheless stressed the sacral qualities of kingship bestowed by anointing

  because holy unction sanctifies the king – for his hands are anointed for the purity of deeds, his elbows for the embrace of chastity, his chest for cleanliness of heart, his shoulders to bear labours for Christ, and the chrism poured on his head, so that like Christ (from whom the word chrism is derived) and consecrated through his name, he should always strive, through suitable government, to dispense those things lent to him – he is set apart from others, and considered not only a secular but also an ecclesiastical judge.80

  It thus seems likely that the oil of chrism was used at young Henry’s coronation, as it had been at his father’s. That unction still bestowed a special power and aura upon the ruler is indicated by Peter of Blois, who, writing of Henry II, noted that ‘there is something holy about serving the lord king, for the king is indeed holy and the anointed of the Lord’.81 Referring to the practice whereby kings ‘touched’ victims of scrofula to heal them by virtue of their sacral power, Peter continued: ‘The sacrament of unction at his coronation was not an empty gift. Its virtue, if there is anyone unaware of it or who calls it into question, will be most amply proved by the disappearance of the disease which attacks the groin and the cure of scrofulas.’82 Henry I had reputedly touched for ‘the king’s evil’, as scrofula was known, and although there is little evidence that either the young Henry or his father did likewise, Peter readily assumed their powers to do so.83

  After the anointing, young Henry was clothed in a rich tunic and dalmatic before being invested with the regalia. In the ceremonies of 1154 and 1189, the new king first received ‘the sword of the realm with which he was to repress evildoers against the Church’, to which Becket referred when in 1166 he had reminded Henry of his duties as king:

  You should know that you are king by God’s grace; in the first place, that you should rule yourself and shape your life according to the best practices so that the others might be inspired to better things by your example, according to the wise saying, ‘The world is arranged in the king’s image.’ In the second place, that you should rule others, some by fining, others by punishing, both by the authority of the power which you received from the Church in the sacrament of unction and also by the office of the sword, which you bear to restrain those who do ill to the Church.84

  Given Henry II’s subsequent insistence on the Young King’s royal status and their regal equality, it seems very likely that he too received the sword of justice during the service. Great golden spurs were attached to his feet, reflecting the permeation of a strong chivalric element into the coronation rituals during the twelfth century. The spurs also had a powerfully Christian meaning, for they symbolized the knight’s swiftness to serve God.85 Gold bracelets or armils were placed on his arms, his feet were shod in sandals worked with gold, while a rich royal mantle was placed over his shoulders, all elements added to the ceremony of the Third Recension to reaffirm royal status.86 Then the prelates placed a great golden crown on the young king’s head. It is likely that, as in the ceremony of 1189, two nobles were assigned to take its great weight from the monarch’s head – a role that the
Young King himself would later perform at the coronation of Philip Augustus at Rheims in 1180.87 Further investiture with the ring, sceptre and rod followed, after which the king was blessed and led back to his throne, to sit in majesty while the choir chanted the Te Deum. Archbishop Roger then pronounced the prayer, Sta et retine, and conducted the ceremony of the Mass.88 For the offertory, the two prelates again conducted young Henry to the altar, where he made the customary gift of one mark of pure gold.89 At fifteen, Henry now found himself the crowned and anointed king of England.90 Young, handsome and athletic, with piercing eyes and a pleasing countenance, he cut a fine figure, and to an admiring contemporary it seemed that all of nature’s gifts had come together in him.91 He was, noted the History of William Marshal, ‘the most handsome prince in all the world, whether Christian or Saracen’.92

  The Coronation Banquet

  Following the coronation, the assembled nobles and clergy led the new king in procession back to the palace, where he removed the heavy crown and put on a lighter one. He was then escorted to the great hall of Westminster, built by William Rufus and described by the Histoire des ducs as ‘une des plus riches sales del monde’.93 Here a magnificent banquet was held; the royal plate had been transported from Woodstock to London, while more vessels had been gilded for the Young King’s use.94 As was customary, the new king sat with the higher clergy, the archbishop of York at his right. According to William of Canterbury, one of Becket’s earliest biographers writing c.1173–74, Henry II served young Henry at table, to emphasize his son’s regal dignity, and even ‘protested that he himself was not king’.95 Similarly, William FitzStephen claimed that Henry had forestalled an interdict by Thomas on England because, after his son’s coronation, ‘he was no longer king’.96 In serving his son at table, Henry II may well have been stressing young Henry’s equality as a crowned and anointed king, but it is scarcely credible that he in fact denied his own kingship. Nevertheless, such a view could be taken by continental chroniclers such as Gilbert of Mons.97 Developing the trend already set by Becket’s hagiographers, Matthew Paris’ later story of the Young King’s response that it was quite fitting for the son of a count to serve the son of a king demonstrates how easily the incident could be manipulated as a ready means of denigrating Henry II’s authority.98 An illustrated Anglo-Norman poem on the life of Becket, composed c.1220–40, depicts both the Young King’s coronation and the ensuing banquet, at which Henry II offers a cup to his son. One of those seated at table holds a scroll bearing the inscription, ‘Behold majesty too much bent low (Ecce maiestas nimis inclinata)’, while the rubric repeats William of Canterbury’s claim that Henry proclaimed himself not to be king.99 By contrast, those chroniclers with close connections to the Angevin court, notably Roger of Howden, Ralph of Diss and Robert of Torigni, chose to omit all reference to Henry serving his son. That they may have regarded such a gesture as shocking and damaging to the king’s dignity is suggested by a marginal poem added to one manuscript of Howden’s Chronica: ‘O heavy occurrence, miserable overthrow, singular pestilence! He who was once free now serves, he who was once rich goes begging. He who once reigned pre-eminent in hall now suffers exile.’100

  This verse was penned with hindsight, well after the rebellion of 1173–74 and with knowledge of the Young King’s subsequent disloyalty and death. Yet even in 1170, the coronation of a son in the lifetime of his father raised important issues concerning the respective authority of the two kings. The senior monarch not unnaturally might take steps to safeguard and proclaim his superior authority. In 1151, King Roger II of Sicily had his son William crowned, but before the consecration, the young man ‘solemnly undertook in a public assembly at his father’s precept that he would preserve peace and justice all his days, show reverence for the church of God, and throughout his father’s life obey him as his lord. This undertaking he confirmed with an oath.’101 If a similar oath preceded the Young King’s coronation, it is not recorded. But the following day, 15 June 1170, when King William of Scotland and his brother David, followed by all the earls, barons and free tenants of the realm, became the men of the new young king, swearing allegiance (ligantiam) and fealty to him against all men, their oath explicitly saved their fealty to Henry the elder.102 Looking back after the great rebellion, Jordan Fantosme stressed this fact at the very start of his poem, to implicitly criticize those who had supported young Henry against his father:

  Noble king of England with right bold countenance, do you not remember that when your son was crowned you made the king of Scotland do him homage, with his hands placed in your son’s, without being false in his fealty to you? Then you said to them both: ‘May God’s curse fall on any who take their love and affection from you. [And you, William] stand by my son with your might and your aid against all the people in the world, save where my own overlordship is concerned (salve ma seignurie)!’103

  The coronation of young Henry stressed his regal dignity, but few of those attending the great ceremony at Westminster can have doubted the superiority of Henry II’s kingship, and his authority over his royal son.

  Reverberations

  The coronation united father and son in a moment of triumph for the Angevins. As Henry II must have expected, there was a storm of protest from Thomas and his supporters, and the archbishop swiftly wrote to Pope Alexander to make complaint and seek disciplinary measures. But the blow against Thomas had been struck, and he had been powerless to prevent the coronation. Robert of Torigni, the loyal abbot of Mont Saint-Michel, gives what was effectively the ‘official’ court stance on Becket’s exclusion, noting pointedly that Thomas had, after all, now been absent in France continuously for over six years, and that many of the English bishops were present to dignify the occasion.104 Though there were those who took it badly that York had performed the ceremony, he wrote, there was a clear and distinguished precedent for such an act: no less a king than William the Conqueror had been anointed and consecrated by Ealdred of York, that ‘most religious man’, while Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, was in England, but under excommunication by the pope.105 In condemning the bishops for violating the prerogative of Canterbury, moreover, even voices of protest within the realm had to be careful not to impugn the position of the new monarch. Thus when, soon after the coronation, Henry confronted Roger of Worcester and accused him of acting treasonously in failing to attend his son’s crowning, Roger retorted that he had been forbidden to leave Normandy by Queen Eleanor, and that ‘the wrong was done when you ordered me to be present at the crowning, for it was unlawful and an offence to God; not because of who was crowned, but because of who did the crowning. If I had been there, I would not have allowed him [Archbishop Roger] to crown your son.’106 Writing in late 1174, Guernes of Pont-Sainte-Maxence was keen to stress that the sacrality of the Young King was in no way diminished by the act of usurpation committed by the ‘false trinity’ of Roger of York, Gilbert of London and Jocelin of Salisbury, whom he roundly condemned:

  It was these three impostors who anointed the child – may God increase his years, his virtue and his honour! – but this was not within their competence; they acted like thieves. The words of consecration are no less valid for that, however, nor is the child any the less consecrated. May God grant him his love!107

  A more overtly hostile response came from King Louis, equally outraged by Henry II’s decision not to have Margaret crowned with young Henry, which he regarded as a deliberate insult; as an informant had told Becket shortly before the coronation, she had been left ‘as if repudiated . . . to the disgrace and contempt of her father’.108 He vented his anger by attacking the Norman border, forcing Henry II swiftly to return to the duchy to see to its defences.109 After mediation between the kings by Count Theobald of Blois, Henry II met with Louis himself at Vendôme, and in subsequent talks between La Ferté and Fréteval, he succeeded in placating Louis over Margaret’s exclusion from the coronation and restoring peace.110 This accord paved the way for a settlement with Thomas. Accor
dingly, on 22 July, king and archbishop met at Fréteval. The two men conversed apart on horseback: Henry’s manner was notably conciliatory, and both studiously avoided the earlier issues of contention, especially the question of royal customs. Nevertheless, Becket protested about the coronation of young Henry, and the words given to him by FitzStephen reflect just how great a blow this had been to the primate: