The dissolution of ties of the sworn alliance and the annulment of all the Young Henry’s grants to his erstwhile supporters was an essential prerequisite for a lasting peace. The treaty had opened by proclaiming that the three young men had ‘returned to their father and to his service, as to their lord, free from all oaths and undertakings they had made among themselves or with others, against him or his men’.22 Henry II, moreover, pledged to remit any rancour against those of his men who had supported his sons, and to cause them no harm, as long as they accepted him as their liege lord and served him faithfully. Such terms gave a degree of assurance to the Young King’s followers, who not unnaturally had feared Henry II’s imminent ira et malevolentia. Yet the treaty also addressed the dilemma in which the young King’s rebellion had placed Henry II’s own loyal men. The homage they had sworn to the young Henry in 1162 and again in 1170 had been explicitly saving the fidelity owed to his father, and, as was their duty as loyal vassals, they had supported the Old King to whom they owed liege homage. Nevertheless, in so doing, they had taken up arms against the Young King, who was both an anointed sovereign and the man who would before too long inherit the rule of England, Normandy and Anjou. Accordingly, Henry II’s fideles looked with trepidation to the future: once their lord and protector was dead, might not the Young King or his partisans attempt to settle old scores? The Treaty of Montlouis thus declared explicitly that, in turn, the Young King had put aside all malice against all men, both clerics and laymen, who had supported his father. He pledged, with his hands in his father’s, that he would, for all his life, neither do nor seek to do any ill or harm to those who had served Henry II. So important was this promise that Henry II’s grant to the Young King of revenues specified in the treaty was made specifically ‘on this condition’. King Henry also demanded a pledge from his eldest son that he would firmly observe all the grants that Henry II had made or would make in the future both to his men in reward for their service and to churches in free alms.23 The evident concerns reflected in these clauses – that young Henry would revoke grants made by his father after the Old King’s death – goes far to explain why many felt it so important to obtain charters of confirmation from the Young King while the elder king was still alive.
The Old King abided in large measure by the terms promised to the rebels. Ralph de Faye, however, was banished for his leading part in plotting the rising, his treasure confiscated and his offices redistributed, while his English honour of Bamley, Surrey, was forfeit and later granted to Baldwin de Béthune.24 After a period of temporary custody, Hugh of Chester, Robert of Leicester and Ralph de Fougères were released, though their lands were taken into the king’s hands. Hugh Bigod emerged from the failed rebellion with his power curbed but not broken. He was amerced £466, but initially was allowed to keep Bungay castle.25 As he had surrendered on terms, he fared better than some of the leading lords who were captured during the rebellion itself and thus excluded from the provisions of the settlement of Montlouis. Unsurprisingly, the earl of Leicester’s men were among those feeling the king’s greatest indignation: some, including the constable Ansketil Mallory, suffered lasting disseisin, while tenants of the honour of Leicester paid a punitive aid.26 Leicester’s own lands were gradually restored in instalments: in 1179–80, his steward was still accounting to the Exchequer for one-third of the earl’s lands in Leicestershire and Warwickshire.27 Seizure of lands occurred on a scale large enough to make a significant increase in the sums returned to the Exchequer by sheriffs from the county farms.28 Nevertheless, according to Ralph of Diss, Henry II freed no fewer than 969 prisoners of seigneurial or knightly rank without ransom, though he took hostages or pledges of surety from them.29 The Young King, by contrast, extracted ransom from the hundred or so prisoners he or his allies had captured ‘according to the laws of war (jure belli)’, an action against the spirit of the peace but reflecting his dire financial circumstances.30 Henry II, however, subsequently paid off the Young King’s creditors, as well as honouring the extensive purveyances for provisions made by his own officials in Normandy, Maine and Anjou during the hostilities.31
Writing in the years after the war, the royal treasurer Richard FitzNigel not only praised Henry II’s great clemency, but held it up as an example for his sons to emulate:
When his enemies had been captured, his unprecedented mercy pardoned the perpetrators for terrible crimes, so that few of them suffered the loss of their possessions, and none lost their rank or life. If you were to read of the revenge which David took on the corrupters of his son Absalom, you would say that King Henry far surpassed him in gentleness … So although the renowned King Henry had many examples and could have justly inflicted the most severe punishment upon the rebels, he preferred to spare them, rather than to punish them, so that, though unwillingly, they would see his kingdom grow. Therefore, long live that glorious and happy king, and for the grace that he has shown may he receive grace from on high. And long live his noble offspring, subject to their father and not unlike him, and, because they were born to rule over nations, may they learn from both their father’s example and their own how glorious it is to spare the conquered and beat back the rebels.32
There was, however, one glaring omission from the general amnesty. Queen Eleanor received no mention in the Treaty of Montlouis, and the silence of the chronicles concerning her fate is deafening. In Aquitaine, Richard the Poitevin lamented his duchess’ captivity, but in the north, only the Frenchman Guernes of Pont-Sainte-Maxence dared to put in a plea for her, alluding to the association of Eleanor with ‘the eagle of the broken covenant’ in the ‘Prophecies of Merlin’:
But there is no need for the king to fear this eagle any more. She will never make her nest somewhere else, since she has lost her feathers and will never hatch anything again. Let him keep his eye on the country, however. It is badly in need of it!33
The queen appears not to have been subjected to any form of trial, but her lands were confiscated by Henry II and she was kept a prisoner at the king’s pleasure.34 By October 1175, Henry II seems to have seriously contemplated divorcing her, as he is said to have sought a papal annulment from the visiting legate Cardinal Pierleone. There can be little doubt that young Henry and his brothers were implacably opposed to such a plan, but its failure may have been due more to ecclesiastical opposition.35 Determined to keep Aquitaine in his control, Henry II chose instead simply to keep Eleanor a captive. Her custody amounted to comfortable house arrest at major royal residences such as Salisbury and Winchester, and she was later permitted to attend some major court festivals and even to visit Aquitaine in 1184.36 Nevertheless, she did not completely regain her liberty until her husband’s death in 1189. Of all the leading rebels, Eleanor was thus the most severely punished, a reflection of her key role in the conspiracy and the continuing danger Henry II judged her as posing to him if she was again set free. How much contact young Henry had with his mother during her captivity is unknown, but for him and his brothers her prolonged confinement must have been a continuing source of grievance against their father.
Revenues and Castles: Henry II’s Provision for his Sons
The second crucial issue addressed by the settlement at Montlouis was the provision for Henry II’s sons. The Old King’s terms were not punitive, for he sought a genuine rapprochement with his sons. Nevertheless, the terms did reflect the overwhelming strength of his position and pointedly granted considerably less than he had first offered young Henry and his brothers in the talks in September 1173 but they had rejected. The Young King was to have two castles in Normandy, to be chosen by Henry II, and an annual revenue of 15,000 livres angevins (£3,750).37 This was at a time when the average audited income from England as recorded on the Pipe Rolls between 1165/6 and 1189 was £20,400 and the estimated revenue for Normandy in 1180 was 27,000 livres angevins.38 The revenue from the duchy in the 1170s is unknown, but it is evident that the Young King was being offered a very substantial percentage of the duchy’s fixed income.
Richard gained half the revenues of Poitou and two dwellings (receptacula) ‘from whence no harm could come to the King’, a telling recognition by Henry II of the potential danger posed by the young count of Poitou. Geoffrey was to have half the income of the marriage portion of his future wife, Constance, and all of it following the marriage itself.39 Henry II, however, held back the county of Nantes from this agreement, possibly as a mark of his displeasure at Geoffrey’s involvement in the rebellion.40
The Young King himself received a clear rebuke in Henry II’s provision for his youngest son John, who alone had remained in Henry’s charge during the war.41 John was to hold three castles, one in each of the counties of Anjou, Maine and Touraine: the treaty does not name them, but they were clearly intended to echo the original provision of Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau in the Maurienne dower. In addition, he was to have 1,000 livres angevins (£250) from the lands of the count of Anjou, 1,000 livres angevins from Normandy and two castles in the duchy to be chosen by his father.42 In England, he received the county of Nottinghamshire and Nottingham castle, the castle of Marlborough with its appurtenances, £1,000 from royal lands and any escheats the king should choose subsequently to give him. In other words, John was now given significant revenues in all of the Young King’s lands, and though his income was considerably less than that of his elder brother, he held more castles. It was a handsome provision, and an early manifestation of what would become evident favouritism by Henry II for John, doubtless intensified by the king’s disillusionment with the conduct of his elder sons in 1173–74.43 It was little wonder that Henry II had made young Henry swear to observe his grants inviolably. Only months later, on the death of Henry II’s uncle Reginald, earl of Cornwall, John was granted his extensive lands in England, Normandy and Wales, even though this effectively disinherited Reginald’s three daughters and would force the hitherto loyal Count Aimar of Limoges into open rebellion.44
Aware that the question of income and territorial settlement had been a driving factor behind the rebellion, Henry extracted a promise from young Henry and his brothers ‘that they would never demand anything more of the Lord King their father, beyond the prescribed and determined settlement, against the will and pleasure of the Lord King their father, and that they would withdraw neither themselves nor their service from their father’. Young Henry, Richard and Geoffrey put their seals to the treaty.45 To make the settlement more binding, Richard and Geoffrey performed homage to Henry for their grants, but although the Young King wished to do likewise, Henry II ‘would not receive it, because he was a king, but he took securities from him’.46 Although his son had submitted, Henry was concerned that this should be an agreement between two kings, without any damage to his son’s regal status. The Young King accordingly swore an oath to observe the terms of the treaty ‘in the hand of the lord king his father’, perhaps a handshake as in the reconciliation between Henry II and Louis VII at Montmirail rather than an act of homage involving the ritual of a vassal placing his hands within those of his lord – the immixio manuum.47 Henry II, however, had no such qualms concerning William, the captive king of Scots, who performed homage to both Henry II and his eldest son at Valognes on 8 December, when the treaty he had been forced to accept as the price of his release was ratified.48
The Young King and his brothers could have counted themselves fortunate in their father’s leniency and generosity. Nevertheless, the crucial issue that had lain at the heart of the rebellion by Henry II’s sons – their desire to exercise direct authority over the territories assigned to them by their father – remained unresolved. Ironically, indeed, the rebellion itself made the granting of direct rule to young Henry still more difficult for Henry II. From the early months of 1175, the Old King would use the process of restoring order to the Angevin lands as a means of granting Richard and Geoffrey a more active role in the governance of his empire, turning their energies towards the suppression of their erstwhile allies. Yet Henry II felt unable to do likewise with his eldest son: not only would a grant of direct rule appear to have been extracted by coercion, but, still worse, Henry now distrusted young Henry, fearing that any designated rule in England, Normandy or Anjou would only be turned against him. In turn, as events were soon to show, the Young King mistrusted his father, suspecting that his forgiveness was not genuine.
Lord and Father: Submission and the Security of Homage
Henry II held his Christmas court at Argentan before moving through Anjou to Poitou, where he strengthened his castles’ garrisons.49 The Young King joined his father at Le Mans for the feast of the Purification of the Virgin, 2 February 1175, and here both Richard and Geoffrey performed homage to Henry II.50 Travelling to Normandy together, the two kings held a conference with Louis at Gisors on 24 February, before returning to Rouen.51 It may be doubted that the citizens of Rouen gave the younger Henry a joyous welcome; the city still bore the scars of the recent siege, and the allied army had wreaked havoc on the surrounding countryside during the weeks of futile investment. Nevertheless, Henry II left his eldest son in Rouen while he again toured the major fortifications in Anjou, restocking them with victuals and garrisons, and ordering that some of the castles held against him during the war were to be destroyed and others reduced to their state fifteen days before the war began.52 Meanwhile, he had given Richard command of the army of Poitou to do likewise to the castles of the Poitevin lords who had taken part in the rising.53
The all too visible contrast between the authority Henry II bestowed on Richard and the close scrutiny under which young Henry was now kept gave King Louis the chance to play once more upon the Young King’s fears. While his father was absent, the French king repeatedly sent messengers to Rouen warning his son-in-law not to cross over to England; were he to do so, his father would seize and imprison him, and across the Channel, Louis would be powerless to help him.54 Had Henry II not imprisoned Queen Eleanor? For the Young King, Louis’ scaremongering must have brought back all the uncertainties of early 1173, when it had been rumoured that his father might make him a prisoner: perhaps this was really why the Old King had refused his homage, so that he could take sterner measures against him, unrestrained by a lord’s obligations to his vassal. Accordingly, when Henry II returned to Normandy in late March 1175 and summoned the Young King to join him at Caen to prepare to journey to England, his son flatly refused. ‘He was “soft as wax for moulding to evil”’, noted Howden, sourly quoting Horace on the follies of youth, ‘nor did he dare to return to his lord father’.55 Henry was compelled to send messenger after messenger, until their reassurances finally won young Henry over and he came to his father at the palace at Bur on 1 April.56 There, in the presence of Archbishop Rotrou, Bishop Henry of Bayeux, Earl William de Mandeville, Richard de Humez the constable ‘and many others of the households of both kings’, the Young King ‘fell flat on the earth at the feet of the Lord King his father, begging him with tears to receive homage and allegiance from him, as he had done from his brothers’. He wished to do so ‘in order that he might remove all mistrust from his father’s mind’, and the Young King added ‘that if the king refused to accept his homage he would not believe that he loved him’.57
Henry II was deeply moved by his son’s abject abasement. While the Young King had to all intents and purposes surrendered to his father at Montlouis the previous September and had sworn to observe the terms of the settlement, there had as yet been no truly cathartic act of submission and reconciliation. The French, as well as many magnates from the Angevin territories, had been present at Montlouis, and Henry II had been extremely concerned not to damage young Henry’s regal dignity, attained at such cost in 1170.58 Now, with the pleas of his own men added to those of his son, Henry took liege homage from the Young King.59 William of Newburgh later reflected on the significance of this act:
As scripture says, ‘A three-ply rope is not easily broken.’ If he warred against nature in breach of observance of the natural law towards a father, he would at any rate have t
o continue to bear in mind his homage and the twofold guarantee of his oath and the surety provided by others. He would have to ensure that the words spoken of old by the Lord of Lords through the prophet to the sinning people could not justly be addressed to him by his father, who was now not merely his father, but also his lord: ‘If I am your father, where is the honour owed to me? And if I am your lord, where is your fear of me?’60
As a gesture of his good intentions, Henry II even gave young Henry permission to visit King Louis.61 On his return from the Île-de-France, he met his father at Cherbourg on 12 April, and here they celebrated Easter together. The king now extended his act of reconciliation to Geoffrey, whom he ordered to destroy the castles in Brittany that had been held against his father.62
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