Henry the Young King, 1155-1183

by Matthew Strickland

  106.Torigni, 256.

  107.Whether she had remained in Normandy during the Maurienne negotiations, or whether she had accompanied the royal court in its itineraries and was left behind at Chinon is unknown. She next appears in Henry II’s keeping in 1174, when, with Eleanor, she was taken to England (Torigni, 263).

  108.GH, I, 43. As Smith, ‘Acta’, 304, suggests, this makes it likely that the seal used by the Young King after the end of the war in 1174 was this original seal, restored to him by his father.

  109.GH, I, 43.

  110.Some, such as John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham, refused to do so (FitzStephen, MTB III, 99–101); A. Duggan, ‘The Price of Loyalty: The Fate of Thomas Becket’s Learned Household’, in idem, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts, 1–18, at 8–9.

  111.GH, I, 43: Howden, II, 46.

  112.Turner, ‘Richard Barre’, 25–48. Walter’s appointment occurred in either 1173 or 1174 (R. V. Turner, ‘Walter of Coutances (d. 1207), administrator and archbishop of Rouen’, ODNB).

  113.Northamptonshire Charters, no. 6; GH, I 46. After the war, the Young King confirmed the grant of North Luffenham given by Earl William to Solomon (Northamptonshire Charters, no. 7; Smith, ‘Acta’, no. 30).

  114.GH, I, 42; Diceto, I, 355.

  115.The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland, ed. E. Mullally (Dublin, 2002), ll. 2864–945; Warren, Henry II, 123.

  116.Warren, Henry II, 123 and n. 4; R. A. Brown, ‘Royal Castle Building in England, 1154–1216’, EHR, 70 (1955), 353–98, reprinted in idem, Castles, Conquest and Charters, 19–64, at 26, and 46–7.

  117.Gillingham, Richard I, 42–3; Flori, Eleanor, 100–1.

  118.WN, I, 170–1: trans. EHD, II, 371.

  119.GH, I, 42.

  120.Diceto, II, 67, and for discussion of Eleanor’s association with the eagle of the prophecies, Flori, Eleanor, 112–17. Ralph Niger, writing in the later 1190s, twice refers to her explicitly as ‘Alienor, dicta aquila rupti foederis’ (Ralph Niger, Chronicle, 95, 98).

  121.Turner, Eleanor, 207; and for Eleanor’s role in the rebellion, Flori, Eleanor, 97–110.

  122.Though it is often claimed that Richard was Eleanor’s favourite son (for example, Turner, Eleanor, 240, ‘obviously Eleanor’s favourite’), much of the evidence for the closeness of their relationship comes from after Richard’s accession in 1189, and the almost complete dearth of information regarding her feelings for the Young King until his death in 1183 urges caution about such claims.

  123.RHF, XII, 420: Flori, Eleanor, 111–12.

  124.Peter of Blois, Epistolae, no. 154 (PL, CCVII, cols 448–9).

  125.Peter of Blois, Epistolae, no. 154; trans. Flori, Eleanor, 108.

  126.Vigeois, 318–19.

  127.Everard, Brittany and the Angevins, 127.

  128.William the Conqueror’s queen Matilda had incurred her husband’s wrath for sending money to her eldest son Robert Curthose during his estrangement from his father, an act that William not without reason saw as an act of betrayal, as his son was openly in arms against him. He ordered her messenger, Sampson, to be blinded, though he escaped to become a monk at St Evroult (Orderic, III, 102–5). William of Malmesbury believed that Robert raised troops from the revenues sent by his mother from her estates (Gesta regum, I, 500–1). For Matilda’s actions, Aird, Robert Curthose, 83–6.

  129.Diceto, I, 350.

  130.Gillingham, Richard I, 43; and Flori, Eleanor, 101–5 for a detailed analysis of the chronicles’ treatment of Eleanor’s involvement. Howden, for example, noted that she was among the main authors of the conspiracy, ‘ut a quibusdam dicebatur’ (GH, I, 42).

  131.Melrose, 40.

  132.Flori, Eleanor, 122–3.

  133.For Rosamund, T. A. Archer, revised E. Hallam, ‘Rosamund Clifford [called Fair Rosamund] (b. before 1140?, d. 1175/6)’, ODNB; Flori, Eleanor, 97, suggests that the relationship had begun in about 1166–67. Henry’s relations with Rosamund may have been of long standing by 1173, but among the king’s earlier mistresses was Ida de Tosny, the mother of Henry II’s natural son William Longespée, born in or before 1167 (P. C. Reed, ‘Countess Ida, mother of William Longespée, illegitimate son of Henry II’, American Genealogist, 77 (2002), 137–49; and R. W. Phair, ‘William Longespée, Ralph Bigod and Countess Ida’, American Genealogist, 77 (2002), 279–81). Another natural son, Geoffrey, was born c.1151, for whose possible maternity, and a discussion of Henry II’s extramarital liaisons, see M. Lovatt, ‘Geoffrey (1151?–1212)’ ODNB; and idem, ‘Archbishop Geoffrey of York: a Problem in Anglo-French Maternity’, Records, Administration and Aristocratic Society in the Anglo-Norman Realm, ed. N. Vincent (Woodbridge, 2009), 91–124.

  134.Aurell, ‘Aux origines de la légende noire’, 89–102. For the notorious record of Henry II’s grandfather in this regard see K. Thompson, ‘Affairs of State: The Illegitimate Children of Henry I’, JMH, 2 (2003), 129–51.

  135.Warren, Henry II, 120–1.

  136.RHF, XII, 419.

  137.Gillingham, Richard I, 47; Flori, Eleanor, 98–9.

  138.RHF, XVI, 158–9; Sassier, Louis VII, 449; Flori, Eleanor, 98, and for another translation of the complete letter, Cheyette, Ermengard of Narbonne, 268–9. On Ermengard, see also J. Caille, ‘Ermengarde, vicomtesse de Narbonne (1127/29–1196/97), une grande figure féminine du Midi aristocratique’, La Femme dans l’histoire et la société mediévale, 66th Congress of the Federation Historique du Languedoc-Roussillon (Narbonne, 1994), 9–50.

  139.RHF, XVI, 628, no. XX1, ‘in coronae suae dispendium comitem Sancti Egidii in ligium hominem recepistis’. For Henry’s undermining of Louis’ position more generally, Sassier, ‘Reverentia regis’, 28–31.

  140.Vones-Liebenstein, ‘Aliénor d’Aquitaine, Henri le Jeune et la révolte de 1173’, 85, who also notes that at Montmartre in November 1169, Louis had promised ‘to summon the count of St Gilles to Tours to answer to Richard for the county of Toulouse’. This, however, was to happen once Richard was handed over to him for his upbringing at the Capetian court, something which, unsurprisingly, Henry did not allow to happen (CTB, II, no. 243).

  141.Sassier, Louis VII, 448–51.

  142.Flori, Eleanor, 98–9; Sassier, Louis VII, 44–50.

  143.Wace, Roman de Rou, ll. 94–6.

  144.Gervase, I, 243; JF, ll. 30–32, who puts the council at St Denis.

  145.GH, I, 44; Gervase, I, 243.

  146.GH, I, 44.

  147.JF, ll. 31–58.

  148.Peter of Blois, Epistolae, no. 153 (PL, CCVII, cols 446–8).

  149.WN, I, 170; trans. EHD, II, 370–1.

  150.Peter of Blois, Epistolae, no. 153 (PL, CCVII, cols 446–8); Sassier, Louis VII, 448–51.

  151.GH, I, 43–4; Sassier, Louis VII, 451.

  152.As William of Newburgh sourly observed: ‘Their pretext was zealous support for the son against the father – and certainly nothing could have been more stupid (nil stultius) than such support – but in reality they were seeking the opportunity for the business of private hatred, as in the case of the king of France, or that of gain, as in the case of the count of Flanders’ (WN, I, 172–3; trans. Kennedy and Walsh, 120–1).

  153.No seals from this matrix are known to have survived, for Henry II had it and documents sealed during the war by the Young King subsequently destroyed.

  154.GH, I, 44–5.

  155.Fresh hostility had flared up as recently as 1169, when Henry II had obtained control of the castles of Montmirail and St Aignan, claimed by Theobald (Torigni, 243–4).

  156.The Feoda listed in all some 1,900 lords and knights, all of whom acknowledged their obligation to serve the count in time of war (T. Evergates, Feudal Society in the Baillage of Troyes under the Counts of Champagne, 1152–1284 (London, 1975), 9–10, 60–2, 91–5; J. Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843–1180 (Oxford, 1985), 250–3, 312–14).

  157.JF, l. 28, ‘le Puignaire’. He and the Young King were thus first cousins once removed, as his father Thierry had married Geoffrey of Anjou’s sister
Sybil, while Philip’s wife Elizabeth of Vermandois was Queen Eleanor’s niece (HWM, ll. 2459–60, and ibid., III, 73, note to line 2460). For Philip, see H. van Wereke, Een Vlaamse graff van Europees formaat. Filips van de Elzas (Haarlem, 1976).

  158.For an overview of Philip’s position between 1168 and 1173, Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 35–9. Philip had succeeded Thierry as count, though by virtue of his father’s frequent absences in Jerusalem, he had been effective ruler of Flanders for some time (Torigni, 234).

  159.GH, I, 44; Gervase, I, 243; Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 39–40. As Gilbert of Mons put it, ‘to help his lord the young king of England’, Count Philip ‘rose up in great strength against his first cousin the elder king of England’ (Gilbert of Mons, c. 73; trans. Napran, 65). William of Ypres had been entrusted with control of Kent (Gervase, I, 121, II, 73; Warren, Henry II, 122; R. Eales, ‘Local Loyalties in Norman England: Kent in Stephen’s Reign’, ANS, 8 (1985), 88–108; idem, ‘William of Ypres, styled Count of Flanders (d. 1164/5)’, ODNB).

  160.WN, I, 171; trans. Kennedy and Walsh, 119, and on the county’s resources. P. Trio, ‘Vlaanderen in de twaalfe eew: een hoogtepunt in de geschiedenis van het graafschap’, Thomas Becket in Vlaanderen. Waarheid of Legende? (Kortrjk, 2000), 17–36, with English summary at 234–5.

  161.Before Philip Augustus’ acquisition of Artois in 1191, the only coastal possession of the king of France was the castle of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

  162.Torigni, 238; Diceto, I, 303. For the county of Boulogne and its English holdings, J. H. Round, ‘The Counts of Boulogne as English Lords’, Studies in Peerage and Family History (London, 1901), 147–81; and H. A. Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and England, c. 879–1160 (Leiden, 2004). King Stephen’s ability to draw on the naval resources of the county of Boulogne had been an important factor both in his successful acquisition of the throne in 1135, and in his subsequent struggle against the Empress and her adherents.

  163.Gervase, I, 203, and II, 78. In 1168, Henry II had promised Matthew a large annual cash revenue in return for relaxing his claim on the county of Mortain, and Matthew had accordingly brought both a naval force and many knights to aid Henry in his campaign in Brittany (Torigni, 238).

  164.GH, I, 44; Gervase, I, 243. For the extent of the honour of Mortain, F. M. Powicke, ‘The Honour of Mortain in the Norman Infeudationes Militium of 1172’, EHR, 26 (1911), 89–93.

  165.WN, I, 105; RRS, I, 9–10. For the wider context, J. Green, ‘Anglo-Scottish Relations, 1066–1174’, England and Her Neighbours, 1066–1453, ed. M. Jones and M. Vale (London: Hambledon, 1989), 53–72.

  166.RRS, I, 10 and n. 1, also noting that in the Cartae Baronum of 1166 King William did not make any return for either Huntingdon or Tynedale, suggesting a privileged form of tenure (ibid., 10, n. 1; Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland Preserved in Her Majesty’s Public Record Office, ed. J. Bain, 5 vols (Edinburgh, 1881–1886), I, no. 205).

  167.G. W. S. Barrow, ‘The Reign of William the Lion, King of Scotland’, Historical Studies, 7 (1969), 21–44, reprinted in G. W. S. Barrow, Scotland and its Neighbours in the Middle Ages (London. Hambledon, 1992), 67–90; RRS II, 1–21; and D. D. R. Owen, William the Lion, 1143–1214: Kingship and Culture (East Linton, 1997). Within a year of his accession in 1164, William was at odds with Henry over the latter’s refusal to restore the county to him, while he can only have been further alienated by Henry II’s effective deposition in 1166 of Duke Conan of Brittany, who was married to William’s sister Margaret (CTB, I, no. 112; MTB, VI, 72; A. O. Anderson, Early Sources for Scottish History, AD 500 to 1286, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1922, reprinted Stamford, 1990), II, 264).

  168.LJS, II, no. 279, at 606–7.

  169.Melrose, 40, ‘hoping he would find a remedy for old injuries in this new strife, [William] waged a fierce war against his kinsmen and lord, Henry, king of England’.

  170.JF, ll. 271–337, who has William’s messenger, the Hospitaller William de Olepen, propose that the claim to Northumberland be settled by a judicial duel between two knights.

  171.JF, ll. 338–79.

  172.JF, l. 378. Howden lists Robert and Adam de Brus, and Everard de Ros among the loyalists to Henry II (GH, I, 51, n. 4).

  173.JF, ll. 245–70, and ll. 410–36, noting that the two envoys, William of Saint-Michael and Robert of Huseville, sailed from Berwick to Flanders before travelling south to the court of King Louis.

  174.GH, I, 62 and 47. For a valuable discussion of the role of the Poitevin nobility in the revolt of 1173–74 and other risings against Henry and Richard, see A. Debord, La Société laïque dans les pays de La Charente. X-XIIe siècles (Paris, 1984), 382–96. For Preuilly-sur-Claire (Indre et Loire, arr. Loches), Boussard, Le Comté d’Anjou, 11–12; idem, Le Gouvernement d’Henri II Plantagenêt (Paris, 1956), 21, 102, 483, 226–7.

  175.GH, I, 46–7; Norgate, Richard, 15; Gillingham, Richard I, 53.

  176.Flori, Eleanor, 108; M. Brand’honneur, ‘Seigneurs et réseaux de chevaliers du nord-est du Rennais sous Henri Plantagenêt’, Noblesses de l’espace Plantagenêt, ed. M. Aurell (Poitiers, 2001), 165–84; Gillingham, Richard I, 43.

  177.Torigni, 259. Ralph had led an earlier rebellion against Norman domination in 1164, and his continued resistance with other discontented lords in Brittany and Maine had led to a punitive campaign by Henry, which included the razing to the ground of Ralph’s castle at Fougères in 1166 (Torigni, 214; LJS, II, no. 173; Everard, Brittany and the Angevins, 41–2, and n. 32). Styling himself ‘Dei gratia dux Britannorum’ in a charter of 1153, Eudo had been a leading figure in the revolt of 1167–68, and may have been in arms again in 1170 (Torigni, ed. Delisle, II, 42, n. 4; Everard, Brittany and the Angevins, 45–8; GH, II, 3). Among the leading Breton rebels in 1173 were William de Tinténiac, Guethenoc d’Ancenis and ‘Gwenis’ de Palvel (GH, I, 46–7).

  178.Everard, Brittany and the Angevins, 35–6.

  179.Power, The Norman Frontier, 397–8.

  180.Boussard, Le Gouvernement, 102, ‘un bastion féodal avec lequel, après ses ancêtres, Henri II devra compter’.

  181.Warren, Henry II, 132.

  182.Dunbabin, France in the Making, 339.

  183.K. Dutton, ‘The Personnel of Comital Administration in Greater Anjou, 1129–1151’, Haskins Society Journal, 23 (2011), 125–54.

  184.Ibid., 125, 136; John of Marmoutier, Historia Gaufridi ducis, 185.

  185.M. Billoré, De gré ou de force. L’aristocratie normande et ses ducs (1150–1259) (Rennes, 2014), 175–217. For the wider context of Henry’s rule in the duchy, D. J. Power, ‘Angevin Normandy’, A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. C. Harper-Bill and E. M. C. van Houts (Woodbridge, 2003), 63–85; and idem, ‘Henry, Duke of the Normans (1149/50–1189)’, Henry II. New Interpretations, ed. C. Harper-Bill and N. Vincent (Woodbridge, 2007), 85–128.

  186.F. Neveux, La Normandie des ducs aux rois, Xe-XIIe siècle (Rennes, 1998), 538, ‘de territoires traditionnellement frondeurs’; D. Power, ‘Henry, Duke of the Normans’, 91–4; Billoré, De gré ou de force, 176–8.

  187.J. A. Green, ‘Lords of the Norman Vexin’, War and Government in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Gillingham and J. C. Holt (Woodbridge, 1984), 47–63.

  188.D. Crouch, ‘Normans and Anglo-Normans: a Divided Aristocracy?’, England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, ed. D. Bates and A. Curry (London, 1994), 51–67, at 60.

  189.Crouch, ‘A Divided Aristocracy?’, 59; idem, Beaumont Twins, 64–79. Waleran of Meulan had joined forces with King Louis in 1161.

  190.He was the son of Waleran de Beaumont; Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae sub regibus Angliae, ed. T. Stapleton, 2 vols (London, 1840–1844), I, cxviii; E. Houth, Les Comtes de Meulan, ix–xiii siècles (Mémoires de la société historique et archéologique de Pontoise, du Val d’Oise et du Vexin, vol. 70 (Pontoise, 1981); Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 60. An edition of Robert’s charters is currently being prepared by David Crouch, who kindly made this available to
me. Robert was joined in revolt by his kinsman Robert de Montfort-sur-Risle (Torigni, 257; Torigni, ed. Delisle, II, 38–9 and notes).

  191.Crouch, ‘A Divided Aristocracy?’, 59; D. J. Power, ‘King John and the Norman Aristocracy’, in King John. New Interpretations, ed. S. D. Church (Woodbridge, 1999), 117–36, at 127; idem, The Norman Frontier, 186–7.

  192.Power, The Norman Frontier, 398–400.

  193.J. Everard, ‘Wace: The Historical Backround: Jersey in the Twelfth Century’, Maistre Wace: A Celebration. Proceedings of the International Colloquium held in Jersey, 10–12 September 2004, ed. G. S. Burgess and J. Weiss (Société Jersaise, 2006), 1–16, at 2.

  194.Neveux, La Normandie, 538; and Billoré, De gré ou de force, 177–9, with a map showing principal areas of rebellion.

  195.Boussard, Gouvernement, 477–8, had dismissed earlier views that Normandy was the epicentre of the rebellion, and that many lords were involved. Yet as Nicholas Vincent, ‘Les Normands de l’entourage d’Henri II Plantagenêt’, La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen ge, ed. P. Bouet and V. Gazeau (Caen, 2003), 75–88, at 86–7, argues, an analysis of the major rebels shows this view to be untenable, and that Boussard’s own list of rebels ‘semble démontrer précisément le contraire de ce qu’il avance’.

  196.Vincent, ‘Les Normands’, at 85–7, and Table 5, listing the principal Norman rebels, together with their fiefs as recorded in the Inquest of 1172.

  197.D. Crouch, ‘Robert de Breteuil, [Robert ès Blanchmains, Robert the Whitehanded, Robert de Beaumont], third earl of Leicester (c.1130–1190)’, ODNB; idem, ‘Robert de Breteuil, fourth earl of Leicester’, ODNB.

  198.T. F. Tout, ‘Hugh, fifth earl of Chester’, revised T. K. Keefe, ODNB; A. T. Thacker, ‘The Earls and their Earldom’, The Earldom of Chester and its Charters, ed. A. T. Thacker (Chester Archaeological Society, vol. 71, Chester, 1991), 7–22, at 22, ‘Appendix: The Earl’s Norman Estates’. He held fifty-one fiefs in the duchy, and his position as a great baron of Lower Normandy led Wace to include his ancestor in the list of key companions of the Conqueror at Hastings, which may well have displeased Henry II (M. Bennett, ‘Poetry as History? The Roman de Rou of Wace as a Source for the Norman Conquest’, ANS, 5 (1985), 21–39, at 32–4).