to return to the French king’s homage, to swear fealty before all in his own person and in public (corporaliter et publice) that he will serve him as his lord for the duchy of Normandy, as his predecessors as dukes used to serve the French kings. He was bound to hand over the counties of Anjou and Maine, and fealties pertaining to these dignities (fidelitates procerum ad memoratos honores pertinentium), to his son the lord Henry, who was to do homage and fealty to the French king against all men for them.122
Most significantly of all, these earlier terms continued by stipulating that ‘the young Henry will owe nothing to his father or brothers save what they may deserve, or what natural affection dictates’. There was thus no saving clause, reserving prior homage and loyalty of the young Henry to his father, who was to receive from his son ‘only what was owed by natural affection’.123 Significantly, these terms had been offered by Henry, not demanded by Louis. The French king may indeed have grasped ‘the value of his lordship over Henry’s sons as a weapon for eating away at the English king’s power’, but the negotiations of 1168 reveal both that Henry was well aware of this, and that he believed it could be used to his own advantage.124
At Montmirail, the performance of homage by Henry II’s sons to Louis was reserved for the second day of the conference, 7 January, to emphasize it as quite distinct from the reconciliation of Henry II and Louis. Young Henry had already performed homage to Louis for Normandy in October 1160, and hence well before his coronation originally intended for 1162.125 Now at Montmirail, he performed homage and swore fealty to the French king for the counties of Anjou and Maine, though not the Touraine, which Henry II held de jure of Count Theobald of Blois.126 In a departure from the earlier concessions proffered by Henry II, however, young Henry also performed homage to Louis for Brittany. Though the Plantagenets thus acknowledged that Brittany was held as a fief of France, Louis’ acceptance of young Henry’s homage marked his recognition of the overlordship (dominium) which the dukes of Normandy had long claimed over it.127 Young Henry would thus exercise a degree of authority over Brittany,128 which the arrangement at Montmirail made clear that Geoffrey would hold as the vassal of his elder brother, and accordingly, at his father’s command, he subsequently performed homage for Brittany not to Louis, but to young Henry.129 Richard, by contrast, performed homage directly to the king of France for the county of Poitou, an arrangement fully sanctioned by Eleanor who still remained de jure duchess of Aquitaine.130 Louis could thus be assured that under Richard’s heirs Aquitaine would become independent from the ruler of the main Angevin territories. Further to strengthen his ties to the king of France, Richard was now betrothed to Alice, Louis’ second daughter by Constance of Castile.131 The obligation that Richard ‘would take the French king’s daughter to wife without a dowry’, a condition proffered by Henry II in the earlier 1168 negotiations, was a major concession, undoubtedly intended to salve the injury caused by Henry II’s coup in having young Henry and Margaret married as children in 1160.132
In early 1169 relations between Henry II and Louis appeared better than they had for nearly a decade. Even King Louis had been alienated by Becket’s stubborn refusal to compromise and accept the peace offered to him by Henry II at Montmirail.133 A second meeting was held between the two rulers at Tours, and by February, John of Salisbury could report that ‘the kings have made a treaty with one another of mutual help against all men’.134
Henry, Seneschal of France
Young Henry himself played an important part in cementing this new entente. At Montmirail, Louis had granted his son-in-law the seneschalship of France, one of the greatest offices in the French royal household.135 Among his most important functions, the seneschal played a key role in the coronation ceremonies and crown-wearings of the kings of France, while in war he led the vanguard of the royal host when the army moved against the enemy, and the rearguard as it withdrew. From at least the reign of Fulk V, the counts of Anjou had laid claim to this office as of ancient right, tradition asserting that this dignity, formerly known as the majoralty of the palace (majoratum domus regiae), had been given by King Robert the Pious to Geoffrey Greygown, count of Anjou (970–c.987), for his aid against Emperor Otto.136 Even after becoming king of England, Henry II had exploited this claim. In 1158, as part of his embassy to France, Becket had obtained for him the grant of the seneschalship from Louis, and when later that year Henry led a campaign against his Breton opponents, he claimed it was by virtue of the authority vested in this office.137 These events provide the most likely context for the composition of a tract, De majoratu et senescalcia Franciae, probably written by Hugh de Clers, a prominent Angevin familiaris, in which the origins and prerogatives of the office were set out at length.138 Hugh, himself seneschal of La Flèche from c.1164 and a close advisor on Angevin affairs to Henry II, was still alive in 1170, and may well have played a role in instructing prince Henry on the functions of the office of the seneschal of France and its protocols.139 For, following the summit at Montmirail, prince Henry travelled to his father-in-law’s court to give tangible expression to his new office. At Paris on 2 February 1169, at the great feast to celebrate the Purification of the Virgin, young Henry personally served King Louis at table.140 Regarded as a mark of high honour, such acts of personal service to a king or great lord were jealously guarded; the seneschalship was also claimed by Theobald of Blois, and young Henry’s award of the office in 1169 may well have deepened the animosity of Theobald towards Henry II and his family.141
Shortly afterwards young Henry also performed homage to Louis’ son and heir Philip, barely four years old.142 The arrangements made at Montmirail were thus envisaged as extending to the next generation. Historians have been divided as to whether the acts of homage by the Angevins to the kings of France represented a fundamental weakness in Henry II’s position: did such recognition of Capetian sovereignty within France represent a fatal flaw which hampered any attempt to create a lasting Plantagenet ‘empire’, or was it merely a pragmatic mechanism whereby Henry II sought to manipulate the nominal authority of the Capetians to secure ratification of his own dynastic schemes?143 The true weakness, it has been plausibly argued, lay not in such acts of homage but in the conflicts which subsequently developed between Henry and his queen and their sons: had the Angevins remained united, issues of homage and subordinate status would have mattered little in reality.144 The more negative implications of homage were certainly to become apparent soon after young Henry’s death in 1183, when Henry II’s position was weakened and his status as a vassal more relentlessly pressed by the new king, Philip Augustus. Yet in 1169, both the settlement at Montmirail and young Henry’s willing assumption of the seneschalship of France reveal an unquestioning acceptance by the Angevins both of the legitimacy of Louis’ overlordship over their continental domains, and of the primacy of the Capetians’ status within France. Seeking further legitimation through tenure of a great office of the French crown was an act more consistent with the earlier outlook of the counts of Anjou than the aggressively independent stance of the dukes of Normandy.145 Henry II may have been insistent on guarding his dignity as king of England, but tenure of the seneschalship proclaimed prince Henry’s pre-eminence among the peers of France.
John of Salisbury noted of the settlement at Montmirail that ‘in this distribution of honours the French reckon to lie the greatest hope for their kingdom; especially as they recalled with bitter sorrow that Henry, the king’s son, had done homage for the whole inheritance (pro omnibus), when he and the king’s daughter were betrothed’.146 Remarkably, despite such misgivings, Louis nonetheless surrendered Alice into Henry’s custody. He may well have been tricked into so doing in the expectation that he would receive Richard in exchange.147 Henry II had made two visits to France soon after the summit at Montmirail, and in their wake probably brought Alice back with him.148 But when in November Henry came to meet Louis at Saint-Denis, he put off handing Richard over as promised. Too late, Louis realized that he had been d
eceived again.149 Little could he have suspected what a troubled future lay ahead for his daughter.150
Crusading Plans and Family Settlement
On 15 August 1169, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had his own son Henry crowned as king of the Romans.151 This was added stimulus for Henry II to delay no longer in his long-held plans to have young Henry crowned and anointed. Young Henry had already been acknowledged by the nobles of England and Normandy as Henry II’s principal heir, but his coronation would be the climax to the dynastic settlement established at Montmirail and ensure a smooth process of succession in the event of Henry II’s death. One other key factor appeared to drive Henry II’s efforts, his stated desire – whether sincere or feigned – to undertake an expedition to the Holy Land.
Henry II ranked as one of the greatest kings in Western Europe, yet unlike Louis VII and Frederick Barbarossa, who had both participated in the Second Crusade, he himself had not yet fought in the defence of God’s patrimony. To the dictates of honour and remission of sin urging such a peregrinatio were added Henry’s close kinship with the kings of Jerusalem, a cadet branch of the Angevin house, which gave him a particular sense of responsibility for affairs in the Holy Land.152 Ralph of Diss reflected Plantagenet sentiment in regarding Fulk V’s election to the throne of Jerusalem – the throne of ‘David the great king’ – as a glorious achievement, which made the fame of his name shine widely throughout the world.153 Angevin chroniclers similarly recorded the deeds of Fulk V’s successors in the East with evident pride, but equally with mounting anxiety about the deteriorating fortunes of the crusader principalities.154 Between 1162 and 1165 both Henry II and Louis had been the target of repeated letters from the king of Jerusalem, the Templars and other Frankish princes seeking aid, and a crusade may have been considered around 1163.155 The catastrophic defeat of the Franks at Harim by the Muslim ruler Nur al-Din in 1164, which threatened the loss of Antioch, had led Pope Alexander III to reissue Eugenius III’s great crusading encyclical Quantum praedecessores in January 1165.156 Henry and Louis discussed plans for a crusade, and although mutual suspicion and ongoing hostility prevented them embarking on a joint expedition, the two kings had authorized a special tax in 1166 to aid the Holy Land.157 The same year, Gilbert Foliot could inform the exiled Thomas Becket that King Henry II was anxious to go on crusade, and ‘is hardly detained by the dearest ties of wife and children, and so many kingdoms that obey his rule, from taking up his cross . . .’158
Hostile contemporaries, particularly within the circle of Thomas Becket, were quick to dismiss Henry’s promises to go on crusade merely as insincere and cynical diplomatic manoeuvring.159 This view was still more vehemently expressed in the retrospective and embittered writings of Gerald of Wales, who saw Henry’s eventual fall as punishment not only for Becket’s death but also for his failure to aid the Holy Land in its time of greatest need.160 Yet it is important not to judge Henry’s crusading intentions in 1169–70 with hindsight, for the Young King’s rebellion in 1173–74 was to mark a crucial political watershed that would profoundly affect Henry II’s ability to undertake a crusade. If from the later 1170s Henry did indeed leave ‘a sequence of false trails and broken promises’ until his final assumption of the cross in 1188 following the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, it was because fear of his sons’ renewed disloyalty and of Capetian aggression rendered an expedition to the East all but impossible.161 In 1173, in a response to an appeal by King Amalric for aid, Henry II told the king of Jerusalem that he would have set out already on an expedition to the East were it not for the outbreak of his sons’ rebellion.162
By contrast, the settlement at Montmirail ‘represented a considerable step towards the internal and external security of the Angevin lands’.163 The intimate link between the settlement at Montmirail and Henry II’s projected crusading plans is revealed by John of Salisbury’s account of the peace talks that had preceded it in 1168. Henry II had told William aux Blanchesmains, then bishop elect of Chartres and an intimate counsellor of Louis, that he wished to undertake an expedition with the French king to the East.164 ‘Is it true what you say,’ asked William, ‘that you would like to go with him to Jerusalem?’ To which Henry reportedly responded, ‘I have never done anything more gladly – so long as my lord wishes it, and I am allowed to set my house in order and make disposition for my children.’165 Louis himself was said to be sceptical, but nevertheless was more inclined to make peace with Henry,166 and his promise to join Henry on crusade removed the most pressing strategic threat posed to the Angevin lands in his absence.
Map 1 The Angevin empire c.1170
By 1169, moreover, affairs in the East had taken a grave turn. Nur al-Din had already united the powerful principalities of Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus under his rule, placing the Frankish states under ever increasing military pressure. Between 1167 and 1169, Nur al-Din’s general, Shirkuh, had engaged in a protracted struggle with Amalric, the able and energetic king of Jerusalem, for control of the moribund Fatimid caliphate of Egypt. The stakes were enormous: if Amalric succeeded in conquering Egypt and the Nile delta, its wealth and strategic importance would secure the crusader states indefinitely against resurgent Muslim aggression. But if it fell to Nur al-Din, the kingdom of Jerusalem would be all but surrounded and the balance of power decisively altered in Nur al-Din’s favour.167 By 1169, it had become clear that King Amalric had been thwarted in his attempts to conquer Egypt, but an expedition from the West might yet tip the strategic balance in favour of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The critical nature of the situation led to a major embassy by Frederick, archbishop of Tyre, and John, bishop of Banyas, to the kings and princes of the West, and the issuing on 20 July 1169 by Alexander III of a major crusading appeal, Inter omnia.168 Henry II announced his intention to take the cross, and to depart for the East at Easter 1171.169 His subsequent negotiations in 1170 to marry his youngest daughter Joanna to William II of Sicily equally suggested Henry’s intention of securing an ally and a base for his forthcoming crusade.170
It is impossible to know to what extent Henry II was sincere in his intentions. Embarkation on crusade or a major military campaign was, however, a common catalyst for the formal recognition of heirs. In 1157, prior to his departure to the East, Thierry of Flanders had made his eldest son Philip, already associated in his rule, ‘heir and count of all Flanders’.171 In February 1170, young Henry turned fifteen, the age Geoffrey le Bel had been when invested with direct rule of Anjou on Fulk V’s departure East to become king of Jerusalem.172 If Henry II was to depart for the Holy Land, young Henry’s coronation would itself be a crucial prerequisite: not only would many months of preparation be needed for so great an undertaking, but it would be essential to establish effective arrangements for the empire’s governance in his absence. Should Henry himself die in the East, England would already be ruled by a crowned and anointed king. Yet even if he did not undertake such an expedition, his eldest son’s coronation would set the seal on Henry II’s dynastic plans by ensuring an undisputed succession to the throne.
CHAPTER 5
Novus Rex
THE CORONATION, 1170
And Samuel took a little vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said: Behold, the Lord hath anointed thee to be prince over his inheritance, and thou shalt deliver his people out of the hands of their enemies, that are round about them. And this shall be a sign unto thee, that God hath anointed thee to be prince.
– 1 Samuel 10:1
ONLY ONE IMPEDIMENT now stood in the way of young Henry’s coronation. The archbishops of Canterbury had long claimed and jealously guarded the right to crown kings of England. Yet Archbishop Thomas, whose rift with the king had postponed the boy’s intended coronation back in 1162, was still in exile after six long years of quarrel with Henry II. Although Becket had few supporters among the English episcopate, the improving political position of Alexander III in Italy, which made him less reliant on the Angevin king’s goodwill, added to mounting internati
onal pressure on Henry to agree a settlement. Henry himself realized that peace had to be made with Becket, not least if his proposed expedition to the Holy Land was to depart at Easter 1171.1 Alexander III had seen in the younger Henry himself a possible way out of the impasse caused by Henry II’s continuing refusal to give Thomas the highly symbolic kiss of peace; in a mandate to William, archbishop of Sens, dated 19 January 1170, the pope ordered Henry II to restore Thomas and his followers, and the archbishop to submit to the king. If Henry II in person would not give Becket the kiss of peace, then young Henry could do so in his stead. The papal commissioners were to urge Becket to accept this element of the compromise, provided it did not endanger him or his followers.2 Thomas was on the verge of accepting, but a planned reconciliation with Henry in Normandy was suddenly aborted by the king when he learned of the terms of peace to be brought by papal nuncios, and of the contents of letters obtained in February by Thomas’ agents concerning the coronation of young Henry.3 For on 24 February, Pope Alexander wrote to Thomas and all the English bishops forbidding them to crown and anoint the prince unless young Henry first took the coronation oath, which began with a promise to uphold the liberties of the Church and contained an explicit promise to abrogate all bad customs which had been introduced into the realm. The prince was to swear in particular to uphold the liberties of the church of Canterbury; and to release everyone from their oaths to observe the ‘new customs’ that Henry II had recently imposed upon them.4 The pope, moreover, wrote to Archbishop Roger on 26 February, prohibiting him and all the bishops, on pain of losing their office and orders, from crowning young Henry while Becket was in exile as such an act would be in violation of the ancient privileges of Canterbury.5
Henry the Young King, 1155-1183 Page 13