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3. John Lackland 14-16
Part II. The last Plantagenets 17-30

1. Henry III 17-18

2. Edward I 19-20

3. Edward II 21-22

4. Edward III 23-24

5. Richard II 25-30

Conclusion 31-33

Bibliography 34-35

References 36-38

INTRODUCTION

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a monarchy, now Parliamentary and once an absolute one. That’s why the history of the country closely connected with the history of Royal dynasties.

Speaking about royal dynasties in England we should take in mind the fact, that the first one appeared in the country with the Norman invasion in 1066. In the ancient time after Anglo-Saxon invasion the country consisted of small kingdoms each ruled by its own king. Their representatives (Chieftains of the kingdoms)– the Witan – chose king of
England (for example Edward the Confessor). It was William the Conqueror, who began the first dynasty – House of Normandy. William I the Conqueror
–Duke of Normandy (1035-1087) invaded England, defeated and killed his rival Harold at the Battle of Hastings and became King of England. With the coronation of William the new period in history of England began. England turned into a centralizes , strong feudal monarchy. The period of small kingdoms ended and started the Era of Absolute Monarchy. William was Duke of Normandy and at the same time the King of England. He controlled two large areas: Normandy – inherited from his father and England – he won it.
Both areas were his personal possession. To William the only difference was that in France he had a King above him and he had to serve him. In England he had nobody above him. Nobody could say who he was – an Englishman or a
Frenchman. The Norman Conquest of England was completed by 1072 aided by the establishment of feudalism under which his followers were granted land in return for pledges of service and loyalty. As King William was noted for his efficient harsh rule. His administration relied upon Norman and other foreign personnel especially Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1085 started Domesday Book. In this book there was the reflection of what happened to England.

The next kings were kings of Plantagenet’s dynasty.

I have chosen the history of this dynasty as a subject for my course paper because, on the one hand, being a student of the English language I can’t but be interested in the history of this country, and, on the other hand, not so much is written about the Plantagenet’s kings, among which there were such world-known persons as Richard-the-Lion Heart and John
Lackland.

Part I. The early Plantagenets (Angeving kings)

House of Plantagenet.

“The Plantagenet dynasty took its name form the “planta Genesta”
(Latine), or broom, traditionally an emblem of the counts of Anjou.
Geoffrey is the only true Plantagenet so-called, because he wore a spring of broom-genet in his cap. It was a personal nickname, such as Henry’s
“Curt-manted”. Soon this nick-name habit was to die, to be replaced by names taken from one’s birthplace. Members of this dynasty ruled over
England from 1154 till 1399. However, in conventional historical usage ,
Henry II (son of Count Geoffrey of Anjou) and his sons Richard I and John are Normandy termed the Angeving kings, and their successors, up to Richard
II, the Plantagenets. The term Plantagenet was not used until about 1450, when Richard, Duke of York, called himself by it in order to emphasize his royal descent from Edward III’s fifth son, Edmund of Langley.”(1)

Henry II (1154-1189 AD)

“Henry II, the first Plantagenet, born in 1133, was the son of
Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count Of Anjou, and Matilda, the daughter of Henry I.
Henry II, the first and the greatest of three Angevin kings of England, succeeded Stephen in 1154. Aged 21, he already possessed a reputation for restless energy and decisive actions. He was to inherit vast lands. As their heir to his mother and his father he held Anjou (hence Angevin) ,
Maine, and Touraine; as the heir to his brother Geoffrey he obtained
Brittany; as the husband of Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII of
France, he held Aquitaine, the major part of southwestern France.
Altogether his holdings in France were far larger than those of the French king. They have become known as the Angevin empire, although Henry II never in fact claimed any imperial rights or used the title of the emperor.” (2)
From the beginning Henry showed himself determined to assert and maintain his rights in all his lands.

In the first decade of his reign Henry II was largely concerned with continental affairs, though he made sure that the forged castles in
England were destroyed. Many of the earldoms created in the anarchy of
Stephen’s reign were allowed to lapse. Major change in England began in the mid 1160s. The Assize of Clarendon of 1166. , and that Northampton 10 years later, promoted public order. Juries were used to provide evidence of what crimes had been committed and to bring accusations. New forms of legal actions were introduced , notably the so-called prossessory assizes, which determined who had the right to immediate possession of land, not who had the best fundamental right. That could be decided by the grand assize, by means of which a jury of 12 knights would decide the case. The use of standardized forms of edict greatly simplified judicial administration.
“Returnable” edicts, which had to be sent back by the head to the central administration, enabled the crown to check that its instruction were obeyed. An increasing number of cases came before royal court rather than private feudal courts. Henry I’s practice of sending out itinerant justices was extended and systematized. In 1170 a major inquiry into local administration, the Inquest of Sheriffs, was held, and many sheriffs were dismissed.

There were important changes to the military system. In 1166 the tenants in chief commandment to disclose the number of knights enfeoffed on their lands so that Henry could take proper financial advantage of changes that had taken place since his grandfather’s days. Scutage (tax which dismissed of military service) was an important source of funds, and Henry preferred scutage to service because mercenaries were more efficient than feudal contingents. In the Assize of Arms of 1181 Henry determined the arms and equipment appropriate to every free man, based on his income from land.
This measure, which could be seen as a revival of the principles of the
Anglo-Saxon fyrd, was intended to provide for a local militia, which could be used against invasion, rebellion, or for peacekeeping.

“Henry attempted to restore the close relationship between Church and
State that had existed under the Norman kings. His first move was the appointment in 1162 of Thomas Becket as archbishop of Canterbury. Henry assumed that Becket, who had served efficiently as chancellor since 1155 and been a close companion to him, would continue to do so as archbishop.
Becket, however, disappointed him. Once appointed archbishop, he became a militant defender of Church against royal encroachment and a champion of the papal ideology of ecclesiastical supremacy over the lay world. The struggle between Henry and Becket reached a crisis at the Council of
Clarendon in 1164. In the constitution of Clarendon Henry tried to set down in writing the ancient customs of the land. The most controversial issue proved to be that of jurisdiction over “criminous clerks” (clerics who had committed crimes); the king demanded that such men should , after trial in church courts, be sent for punishment in royal courts.” (3)

“Becket initially accepted the Constitution but would not set his seal to it. Shortly thereafter, however, he suspended himself from office for the sin of yielding to the royal will in the matter. Although he failed to obtain full papal support at this stage, Alexander III ultimately came to his aid over the Constitutions. Later in 1164 Becket was charged with peculation of royal funds when chancellor. After Becket had taken flight for France, the king confiscated the revenues of his province, exiled his friends, and confiscated their revenues. In 1170 Henry had his eldest son crowned king by the archbishop of York, not Canterbury, as was traditional. Becket, in exile, appealed to Rome and excommunicated the clergy who had taken part in the ceremony. A reconciliation between Becket and Henry at the end of the same year settled none of the points at issue.”
(4) When Becket returned to England, he took further measures against the clergy who had taken part in the coronation. In Normandy the enraged king, hearing the news, burst out with the fateful words that incited four of his knights to take ship for England and murder the archbishop of Canterbury
Cathedral.

Almost overnight the martyred Thomas became a saint in the eyes of the people. Henry repudiated responsibility for the murder and reconciled himself with the church. But despite various royal promises to abolish customs injurious to the church, royal control of the church was little affected. Henceforth criminous clerks were to be tried in church courts, save for offenses against the forest laws. Disputes over ecclesiastical patronage and church lands that were held on the same terms as lay estates were, however, to come under royal jurisdiction. Finally Henry did penance at Canterbury, allowing the monks to scourge him. But with Becket out of the way, it proved possible to negotiate most of the points at issue between church and state. The martyred archbishop, however, was to prove a potent example for future prelates.

Rebellion of Henry’s sons and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Henry’s sons, urged on by their mother and by a coalition of Henry’s enemies, raised a rebellion throughout his domains in 1173. King William I the Lion of Scotland joined the rebel coalition and invaded the north of
England. Lack of cooperation among the rebels, however, enabled Henry to defeat them one at a time with a mercenary army. The Scottish king was taken prisoner at Alnwick. Queen Eleanor was retired to polite imprisonment for the rest of Henry’s life. The king’s sons and the baronial rebels were treated with leniency, but many baronial castles were destroyed following the rising. “A brief period of amity between Henry and Louis of France followed, and the years between 1175 and 1182 marked the zenith of Henry’s prestige and power.” (5) In 1183 the younger Henry again tried to organize opposition to his father, but he died in June of the year. Henry spent the last years of his life locked in combat with the new French king, Philip II
Augustus, with whom his son Richard had entered into an alliance. Even his youngest son, John, deserted him in the end. In 1189 Henry died a broken man, disappointed and defeated by his sons and by the French king.

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