The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

by Dan Jones

  In Wales, too, the mark of the Plantagenets remains near-indelible. The ring of castles built by Edward I from the 1280s still stands, monuments of a long-ago conquest that still reminds the inhabitants of north and west Wales of the struggle for mastery that took place so long ago, and that set many of the conditions of relations between Wales and England to this day. No less longstanding are the grievances of the Irish against English conquerors. For some, the beginning of the long and troubled history of Anglo–Irish relations goes back to the Papal bull Laudabiliter, granted in 1155 by the only English pope, Adrian IV, to the first Plantagenet king, Henry II. Of all the Plantagenet kings, only Henry II, John and Richard II ever set foot in Ireland, and none with especially laudable consequences. Yet they did enough both to establish the idea of English dominion across the Irish Sea and to arouse the consequent violent resistance of the affronted native Irish. This was only the beginning of a story that has yet to end; but it was a beginning nonetheless.

  Besides all this, the Plantagenets changed England in very obvious ways. The realm was not simply constituted differently in 1400; it looked different. Eight generations of builders and patrons of the arts had transformed the English landscape. The Plantagenets had established grand castles, palaces and hunting lodges. They had employed the great artists and architects of their age. Westminster, Windsor and the Welsh castles were the most obvious, but during two and a half centuries of rule the realm had also matured in myriad other ways. London was transformed – the capital had expanded rapidly and was well on its way to becoming a major international trading centre. At Dover the massive fortress rebuilt by Henry II during the later years of his reign loomed over the white cliffs, daring any Frenchman to invade. A golden age of cathedral building had seen Gothic spires and flying buttresses erected across the realm. Brick-building had been reintroduced to the realm for the first time since the Romans left. New towns and ports had sprung up – most of them before the population collapse that accompanied the Black Death. Portsmouth was the military town established by Richard I, but others such as Harwich (given its charter in 1238 by Henry III) and Liverpool (established by King John in 1207) had flourished under royal patronage, too. At the same time, the population collapse of the fourteenth century had seen many villages abandoned, though to say that this was attributable to the direct influence of the Plantagenet kings would be to overstate the case.

  Finally, Plantagenet England now sounded English. When Henry II first landed on the wintry coasts of England as a young man in the chilly 1140s, he would have had the most basic, rudimentary understanding of the native language. Certainly he would not have regarded it as a very useful tongue for important conversation. No one of any worth or merit would have spoken English to the king. The languages of Henry II’s court were Norman French and perhaps the langue d’oc spoken by Eleanor of Aquitaine and her southern French attendants. The language of official record was Latin.

  This state of linguistic affairs continued until relatively late in the Plantagenet years, and in some senses, beyond: for French remained the most sophisticated courtly language, best-suited to the mouths of aristocrats, and Latin an important language of record for courts and government departments. But by the fourteenth century English was rallying. Edward III’s Statute of Pleading, given in celebration of his fiftieth birthday in 1362, at a parliament that marked the highest point of English medieval kingship during the whole of our period, had made English the language of proceedings in royal courts and parliaments. The stock of the rude native tongue had risen accordingly. By Richard II’s reign, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland and the Gawain poet (among others) were transforming English from a language for dolts and serfs into a language fit for poetry and scholarship. In time, English would become not only a language of princes and kings, but the pre-eminent language in the world.

  When Richard II’s body was carried from Pontefract to London, then, it marked both the dismal end of a dynasty and the beginning of a new and troubled century in English history. Richard’s deposition and his agonizing death had truncated the direct line of kings that had begun with Henry II, and it had brought shame upon his realm. Yet it also marked the end-point of a period of transformation, development and growth: a time during which England had emerged as a vibrant and confident nation. During 246 years of turbulent rule, the Plantagenets had forged England in their own image. They had changed a lightly governed, brittle and easily fractured realm into one of the most powerful and sophisticated of the age and, what is more, they had stamped their mark for ever on the English imagination.

  FURTHER READING

  This note offers a starting point for readers who wish to know more about some of the more important themes and characters discussed in this book.

  Anyone wishing to research the lives of English kings – or of any key figure in British history – should begin with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, now available online for a subscription fee at oxforddnb.com. (Many libraries and institutions provide free access.)

  Another useful online source is British History Online (britishhistory.ac.uk) – a hub that gives access to many valuable primary and secondary sources and government records. Again, many libraries will have free access. Particularly useful here are the Parliament Rolls of Medieval England (also accessible at sd-editions.com/PROME/home. html).

  For readers wishing to sample the primary sources of the period, a very useful starting place is English Historical Documents, general editor David C. Douglas, particularly volumes 2, 3 and 4, which between them cover the period 1042–1485. A detailed guide to the building works of the period can be found in The History of the King’s Works by H. M. Colvin (2 vols, 1963).

  PART I – AGE OF SHIPWRECK (1120–1154)

  A useful general study to the early period is England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, by Robert Bartlett (2000). For Henry I the standard biography is C. Warren Hollister’s Henry I (2001).

  The best recent discussion of Matilda’s life is to be found in She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, by Helen Castor (2010). The last full biography is Marjorie Chibnall’s The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English (1993). Also worth consulting on Matilda and every other English queen in the period is Queens Consort: England’s Medieval Queens, by Lisa Hilton (2008). For the other side, see David Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen (2000) and Edmund King, The Anarchy of Stephen’s Reign (1994).

  Revealing chronicles are The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitali, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall (1968–90), William of Malmesbury’s Historia Novella, trans. K. R. Potter, ed. Edmund King (1998), and the Gesta Stephani, ed. and trans. K. R. Potter (1976).

  PART II – AGE OF EMPIRE (1154–1204)

  As a complete portrait of the Plantagenet founder, Henry II by W. L. Warren (1973) remains to be surpassed, although it is best read with an eye on Henry II: New Interpretations, ed. Nicholas Vincent and Christopher Harper-Bill (2007). Eleanor of Aquitaine by Ralph V. Turner (2009) is the latest biographical study of the first Plantagenet queen consort. Also see Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, ed. Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons (2003). The latest biography of Henry’s troublesome archbishop is Thomas Becket, by John Guy (2012). For sources on Becket’s life and death see The Lives of Thomas Becket, ed. and trans. Michael Staunton (2001). For Henry’s legal reforms a useful account appears in A History of English Law Before the Time of Edward, by Frederick Pollock and F. W. Maitland (1968).

  Richard I by John Gillingham (1999) is the standard biography of the Lionheart. Richard’s adventures in Outremer are summarized and contextualized in The Crusades, by Thomas Asbridge (2010). A comparative biography, Lionheart and Lackland: King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest, by Frank McLynn (2006), is strong on Richard’s wars with Philip II. King John by W. L. Warren (2nd ed., 1978), tries to balance John’s flaws with his administrative achievements. Older, more damning biographies include John L
ackland by Kate Norgate (1902) and John, King of England by J. T. Appleby (1959). All should be read alongside King John: New Interpretations, ed. S. D. Church (1999). For a broader overview of the Plantagenet wars in Britain and Ireland, The Struggle For Mastery: Britain 1066–1284, by David Carpenter (2003), is essential. For the significance of the loss of Normandy, see Daniel Power, The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and early Thirteenth Centuries (2004). The most recent biography of John’s French nemesis is Philip Augustus: King of France 1180–1223 by Jim Bradbury (1998).

  English Historical Documents vols 2 and 3 contain lengthy extracts from chroniclers including William of Newburgh, Walter Map and Gerald of Wales. The History of William the Marshal, ed. A. J. Holding, trans. S. Gregory, historical notes by David Crouch (3 vols 2002–2006), is a tub-thumper worth reading at length. Roger of Howden’s chronicle is in English translation as The Annals of Roger de Hoveden, ed. H. T. Riley (1853). An insight into government and administration is Richard FitzNigel’s Dialogue of the Exchequer, published as Dialogus de Scaccario and Constitutio Domus Regis, ed. and trans. Emilie Amt and S. D. Church (2007).

  PART III – AGE OF OPPOSITION (1204–1263)

  The classic study of the revolt against John is The Northerners: a study in the reign of King John by J. C. Holt (1961). Magna Carta by the same author (2nd ed, 1992) is a brilliant technical study of the charter and contains full texts from 1215 and 1225. John’s role in justice is examined in The King and His Courts: the role of John and Henry III in the administration of justice, 1199–1240, by Ralph V. Turner (1968). John’s mistreatment of the English Jews is dealt with in The English Jewry Under Angevin Kings, by H. J. Richardson (1960), and put in historical context in Trials of the Diaspora by Anthony Julius (2010).

  Henry III is one of the few English monarchs lacking a modern biography in the Yale series. Readers should use Henry III and the Lord Edward: The Community of the Realm in the Thirteenth Century by F. M. Powicke (1947), The Minority of Henry III by D. A. Carpenter (1990), and the collection of essays in The Reign of Henry III by the same author (1996). Henry’s obsession with his royal ancestors is discussed in ‘King Henry III and Saint Edward The Confessor: the Origins of the Cult’, by D. A. Carpenter, in English Historical Review 122 (2007). Also important is Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester 1205–38: An Alien in English Politics, by Nicholas Vincent (1996). For the wars of the 1250s and 1260s, see Simon de Montfort, by J. R. Maddicott (1994). The Lord Edward’s early involvement in political crisis is narrated very well in Marc Morris, A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain (2008); for Edward’s political education before his accession, see ‘Edward I and the Lessons of Baronial Reform’ in Thirteenth Century England, i (1986).

  Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, trans. J. A. Giles (1849), is valuable on John’s struggles with the barons. Matthew Paris, who continued Wendover’s chronicle, was close to Henry III’s court – his writing is published in Latin as Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard (7 vols, 1872–3). Correspondence of Henry’s court is collected in Royal and Other Historical Letters Illustrative of the Reign of King Henry III, ed. W. W. Shirley (2 vols, 1862–1886). Papers relating to the war with de Montfort are collected in Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion 1258–1267, ed. R. F. Treharne and I. J. Sanders (1973). Contemporary poems and sources from the age of opposition are collected in Thomas Wright’s Political Songs of England, ed. P. Cross (1996).

  PART IV – AGE OF ARTHUR (1264–1307)

  See Edward I, by Michael Prestwich (1988), and Edward I, by E. L. G. Stones (1968) for comprehensive biographies. Edward I’s obsession with King Arthur looms large in A Great and Terrible King, by Marc Morris (2008), and is considered in detail in ‘Edward I: Arthurian Enthusiast’ by R. S. Loomis in Speculum 28 (1953). For Edward’s castles, see ‘Master James of St George’ by A. J. Taylor in English Historical Review 65 (1950) and Castle: A History of the Buildings That Shaped Medieval Britain, by Marc Morris (2003). For individual castles, see The History of the King’s Works by H. M. Colvin (ed.) (2 vols, 1963).

  For Edward I and Wales, see The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415 by R. R. Davies (2000) and the same author’s Domination and Conquest (1990). On Scotland, see The Kingship of the Scots, 842–1292 by A. A. M. Duncan (2002) and Under the Hammer: Edward I and Scotland 1286–1306, by F. Watson (1998). The process of English lawmaking by statute, which also developed in Edward I’s reign, is important to the long-term processes described in From Memory to Written Record by M. T. Clanchy (2nd ed. 1993). For Edward’s most difficult year, see Baronial Opposition to Edward I: the earls and the crisis of 1297, by Michael J. Hodder (1976).

  The original architect of Arthuriana can still be read: Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, ed. L Thorpe (1966). The laws of Edward’s reign are collected in vol. I of The Statutes of the Realm, ed. A. Luders, T. E. Tomlins, J. France, W. E. Taunton and J. Raithby (1810). Papers relating to the Great Cause are collected in Edward I and the Throne of Scotland 1290–1296: An Edition of the Record Sources for the Great Cause, ed. E. L. G. Stones and G. G. Simpson (2 vols, 1977). For sources concerning Edward’s government under attack, see Documents Illustrating the Crisis of 1297–98 in England, ed. M. Prestwich (1980). A non-contemporary but valuable Scottish chronicle perspective on Edward’s wars is Scalacronica by Sir Thomas Grey of Heton, Knight, ed. J. Stevenson (1836).

  PART V – AGE OF VIOLENCE (1307–1330)

  Edward II by Seymour Phillips (2010) is the new standard biography, which complements King Edward II by Roy Martin Haines (2003). Additional aspects are considered in The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson (2006). The end of the reign is discussed in The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321– 1326 by Natalie Fryde (1979). The king’s folly and his nemesis are considered respectively in Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall by J. S. Hamilton (1988) and Thomas of Lancaster by J. R. Maddicott (1970). On his later favourites see ‘The Charges Against The Despensers, 1321’, by Michael Prestwich in Bulletins of the Institute of Historical Research 48 (1985).

  Context is given to Edward’s reign in The Fourteenth Century by M. McKisack (1959) and Plantagenet England, 1225–1360 by Michael Prestwich (2005). For biographical information on Edward’s wife, see ‘Isabella, the She-Wolf of France’, by H. Johnstone in History, new series 21 (1936–7). For theories of Edward’s survival see The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327–1330 by Ian Mortimer (2003) and ‘The Death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle’, by the same author in English Historical Review 120 (2005).

  The essential chronicle for the period (referenced in the text as the ‘Life of Edward II’) is Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. and trans. Wendy R. Childs (2005). The Chronicles of Lanercost, 1272–1346, trans. Sir Herbert Maxwell (1913), is good on the war between Edward II and the Bruce family. Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle, ed. T. Hearne (2 vols, 1725), is also very useful. Other contemporary chronicles are extracted and translated in English Historical Documents vol. 3, ed. H. Rothwell (1975).

  PART VI – AGE OF GLORY (1330–1360)

  Edward III is the subject of a fine new biography, Edward III, by W. Mark Ormrod (2011), as well as another very readable recent work, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation, by Ian Mortimer (2006). Also see essays, particularly on military development, in The Age of Edward III, ed. J. S. Bothwell (2001). Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine by R. Barber (1978) examines the life and career of the Black Prince. Also see John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in fourteenth-century Europe, by Anthony Goodman.

  The best guide to the opening phases of the Hundred Years War is found in The Hundred Years War I: Trial by Battle, by Jonathan Sumption (1990) and the same author’s The Hundred Years War II: Trial by Fire (1999). On the 1341 crisis, see ‘Edward III’s Removal of his Ministers and Judges, 1340–1’ by Natalie Fryde in Historical Researc
h 48 (1975). For an example of disorder in England during the early years of Edward’s reign see ‘The Folvilles of Ashby-Folville in Leicestershire, and their associates in crime’ by E. L. G. Stones in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 7 (1957). The Black Death: an intimate history, by John Hatcher (2008), is one of the best recent books on the 1348 population crisis. For an introduction to Edwardian chivalry, see The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461 by Hugh E. L. Collins (2000).

  The supposed origins of Edward’s French wars can be read in The Vows of the Heron, ed. J. L. Grigsby and N. J. Lacy (1992). Froissart’s Chronicles, trans. G. Brereton (1978), is a vital, vivid if erratic chronicle of the wars and their context, and follows the model of the Chronique de Jean le Bel, ed. J. Viard and E. Deprez (2 vols 1904–5). A monastic perspective comes from The St Albans Chronicle: The ‘Chronica Maiora’ of Thomas Walsingham, ed. and trans. J. Taylor, Wendy Childs and L. Watkiss (2003).

  PART VII – AGE OF REVOLUTION (1360–1399)

  The Good Parliament, by George Holmes (1975), details the events of the opposition movement in 1376. Shaping The Nation: England 1360–1461, by G. L. Harriss (2005), provides essential context, overview and analysis of domestic and foreign politics. Richard II by Nigel Saul (1997) is the key biography of the last Plantagenet. Richard II and the Revolution of 1399 by Michael Bennett (1999) focuses tightly on the last years of the dynasty.

  On declining English fortunes in France, see The Hundred Years War III: Divided Houses by Jonathan Sumption (2009). Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 by Dan Jones (2009) narrates the great popular rebellion and its aftermath. ‘Richard II and the Vocabulary of Kingship’ by Nigel Saul in English Historical Review 60 (1995) examines Richard’s ideas of kingly majesty. ‘The tyranny of Richard II’ by Caroline Barron in Bulletins of the Institute of Historical Research 41 (1968) shows how Richard oppressed his people in the final years of his reign; his removal from the throne is charted in ‘The Deposition of Richard II and the Accession of Henry IV’ by B. Wilkinson in English Historical Review 54 (1939).