Henry the Young King, 1155-1183

by Matthew Strickland

  I am indebted and accountable to you as my king and worldly lord, saving honour to God and Holy Church, especially now when you have just recalled and admitted me to your peace and favour. But among all the individual evils which in your anger and resentment I have endured – proscription, plunder, my banishment and that of my people and whatever oppressions of the church of Canterbury – there is one that disturbs me most, and which I neither can nor ought to leave untouched or uncorrected: that you had your son crowned by the archbishop of York in the province of Canterbury. You despoiled the church of Canterbury, the church which anointed you as king with the unction of God’s mercy, of its privilege of consecrating kings. This among all its privileges it has considered particular, its own and special for a long time past, since first the blessed Augustine established the metropolitan see of Canterbury.111

  To Becket’s complaints, Henry replied that the coronation had been necessary for the status regni, and also claimed that the right to select the officiating prelate was one of his royal customs. As FitzStephen has him say: ‘I have heard and been informed that one of the royal privileges of my realm is that if a king of England while still living wishes to appoint his son king, he is allowed to do so wherever and through whatever archbishop or bishop he pleases. My great-grandfather William, the conqueror of England, was consecrated and crowned at London by the archbishop of York, and my grandfather by the bishop of Hereford [recte London].’112 Becket acknowledged this was true, but pointed out that these coronations had not been in prejudice to Canterbury’s rights. For in 1066, the irregularities of Stigand meant that the see of Canterbury was effectively vacant, while in 1100 Anselm had been in exile, and because any delay in the coronation ‘could have been very dangerous to the kingdom’, the ceremony had been conducted by one of Canterbury’s suffragans. Henry replied: ‘That could well be true. What I said on the matter, I did not say against the church of Canterbury. It anointed me, and I wish its dignity to be safe in all circumstances.’113 The king promised to allow Becket to crown both young Henry and his wife Margaret. He might also seek papal judgement concerning the infringement of Canterbury’s right by the archbishop of York and the other English bishops. As a further act of conciliation, Henry II added that when he took the cross, as he had pledged to, he would entrust the Young King to Becket’s care. How sincere Henry was in making such an offer cannot be known, but it recalled the happier days when young Henry had been under Becket’s tutelage, and held out the prospect of giving Thomas a position of considerable power and influence, analogous to that enjoyed by Abbot Suger during Louis VII’s absence on crusade. Becket, however, responded by saying he would not accept any secular office, but offered his counsel to young Henry.114 The negotiations concluded by the king agreeing to the restoration of Becket and restitution of lands, churches and goods lost by the archbishop and his supporters.

  In the wake of the war of 1173–74, Henry was said to have deeply regretted having his son crowned king.115 Yet few if any of these troubles could have been foreseen in 1170.116 If Henry II had made an error of judgement, it had not been in the act of having his son crowned as associate ruler, but rather in proceeding to hold his son’s coronation in such highly contentious circumstances. Events, indeed, quickly demonstrated Henry II’s foresight and wisdom in having his successor crowned and anointed. For only two months after the ceremony, around 10 August, Henry fell seriously ill with fever at La Motte-de-Ger, near Domfront.117 Fearing that he was close to death, he restated the divisions of his lands among his sons which he had established at Montmirail the previous year.118 The Young King was to receive the kingdom of England, Normandy, Anjou and Maine, Richard was to have the duchy of Aquitaine, and Geoffrey the county of Brittany.119 King Henry entrusted John to the guardianship of the Young King, ‘that he might advance and maintain him’.120 He gave instructions that his body was to be buried at the abbey of Grandmont, near Limoges, of whose order he was so great a patron, but his nobles vehemently protested that this lacked the dignity that befitted his royal majesty.121 For the rest of August and into September, Henry’s life hung in the balance. Rumours even spread through the kingdom of France that he had died. No contemporary records the reaction of his eldest son, whether grief, trepidation or exultant expectation. But young Henry must have waited on tenterhooks for news of his father’s condition: direct rule of the lion’s share of Henry’s great empire appeared imminent. Had Henry died in the late summer of 1170, there would have been no interregnum – always a time of disturbance and instability – as the division of his great empire between his sons had been carefully mapped out and to a degree implemented. Judged without hindsight, the Young King’s coronation had been an astute and timely move.

  But Henry II survived. By late September, he had convalesced sufficiently to undertake a pilgrimage to Rocamadour.122 This shrine to the Virgin, perched high in the cliffs above the river Alzou in the Quercy, was a renowned site for healing, and Henry may have made the journey as part of his recuperation as much as to give thanks for his recovery.123 Henry’s entourage, however, was more like an army than an escort. As Robert of Torigni noted, the king ‘gathered a great company of armed men, both horsemen and footsoldiers, since he was approaching the lands of enemies, and came to pray equipped as though for battle, doing harm to no-one, but providing generously for all, and especially for the poor, with alms’.124 It was a show of armed might in Aquitaine, and the message was clear: the Old King was alive, vigorous, and firmly back in power. Young Henry would have to wait.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Regent and the Martyr, 1170–1172

  For England in the course of time would

  Have two kings – so Merlin sang – but one of these

  Would kill his father in the mother’s womb.

  – Anon., The Long-Veiled Voice of the Prophet 1

  WHEN HENRY II had sailed for Normandy in late June 1170, he left his newly crowned son as his regent in England.2 The Young King was given power to exercise all ‘rights and justices’ through the authority of his own seal, which his father had had made for him, and which bore the title ‘Henricus Rex Anglorum et Dux Normannorum et Comes Andegavorum’.3 Henry II’s own seal, like those of preceding Anglo-Norman kings of England, was double sided: on the obverse, the king was shown in majesty, with a drawn sword in his right hand, and in his left an orb topped by a cross upon which was a dove. On the reverse was an equestrian image depicting him as a fully armed knight, with sword and shield.4 In marked contrast, the Young King’s new seal was single-sided, depicting the king in majesty, holding not a sword but a sceptre in his right hand, and an orb, apparently topped with a cross, in his left.5 The absence of the sword, symbolizing the power of justice, and of a reverse to the seal, might be interpreted as reflecting the lesser authority of the Young King.6 Yet his seal was almost certainly modelled directly on those of the Capetian kings of France, and on that of his father-in-law Louis VII in particular.7 Capetian royal seals were normally single-sided, and depicted the king seated in majesty, holding a sceptre topped with a fleur-de-lys contained within a lozenge-shaped frame in one hand, and a small rod topped with a fleur-de-lys in the other.8 The absence of a drawn sword, or of an equestrian warrior image, from the iconography of the seals of Louis VII and Philip Augustus clearly did not symbolize any limitation in authority. Indeed, speaking of the coronation of Louis VI, Suger noted that the king received ‘the sceptre and the rod that symbolize the defence of the churches and the poor’.9 As there were no precedents for an English associate king, it may be that in practical terms, the adoption of a single-sided seal for the Young King was a simple but effective means of distinguishing the charters of young Henry from those of his father. In symbolic terms, the significant omission from the legend of the Young King’s seal of the phrase Dei gratia could very well represent an attempt to distinguish between the authority of father and son, as Henry II’s own seal had borne this from the outset of his reign.10 Nevertheless, the conscious b
orrowing of a Capetian model, like associative kingship itself, reflects Henry II’s aspirations for Angevin kingship far more than a concern to indicate his son’s subordinate status.11

  The scheme for co-rulership which Henry II had envisaged since at least 1162 was thus finally put into practice. To assist young Henry in the governance of the realm, Henry II selected a number of tutores for his son, drawn ‘from the most proven men to be found throughout the realm’.12 Most were experienced officials, appointed by and loyal to his father and it was they who had charge of the de facto running of the government. Prominent among these senior curiales were Geoffrey Ridel, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Richard of Ilchester, archdeacon of Poitiers.13 Both men had begun their careers in the royal chancery under Thomas Becket, and on the latter’s resignation of the office in 1162, Ridel had become acting chancellor. Subsequently, however, they had adhered firmly to the king and became the archbishop’s implacable opponents. Becket referred to Geoffrey, who had argued Henry II’s case against Becket at the papal Curia, as ‘our archdevil’, while Ilchester was a kinsman of Becket’s long-standing enemy, Gilbert Foliot.14

  In addition to the two archdeacons, young Henry was assisted by a number of other familiares of Henry II, including William de St John, William FitzAldelin, Hugh de Gundeville and Ralf FitzStephen, all of whom are named by William of Canterbury as the tutores attending the Young King at his court at Winchester in early December 1170.15 William de St John, a leading royal official in Normandy, appears as the most frequent witness to the Young King’s writs in his period as nominal regent from late June 1170 until late 1172.16 William FitzAldelin and Hugh de Gundeville already had a well-established connection with young Henry, and in 1170, probably as a reward for earlier services to the queen and the royal children, Hugh was appointed sheriff of Hampshire.17 Ralph FitzStephen, together with his brothers William and Stephen, were long-standing familiares of the king, and Ralph had a close role in the maintenance of the royal family.18

  As in Queen Eleanor’s earlier periods of regency, the government of the Young King intinerated between a number of principal royal sites, mostly in southern England or the Thames valley.19 A charter of William de Mandeville, earl of Essex, recording an exchange of land with Roger FitzRichard, was drawn up at Winchester ‘at the Exchequer, before the lord king Henry, son of King Henry the second, and his barons’, probably in early December 1170.20 Similarly, it was at Woodstock, a favourite royal residence and hunting lodge near Oxford, that William FitzRalph issued grants to the monks of Newport Pagnell and to the priory of Tickford ‘in the presence of Henry, the son of King Henry, and his barons’.21 Once business was complete, the Young King and his companions would have enjoyed the chase in the king’s park and the extensive demesne forests of Woodstock, Cornbury and Wychwood.22 At Salisbury castle, where Henry I’s chancellor Roger of Salisbury had constructed a magnificent palace, young Henry ordered the sheriff of Wiltshire to construct new mews, while Bigod, one of the king’s falconers, was paid the considerable sum of 72s. 11d. for keeping the king’s hawks.23

  Though only a small number of the administrative writs from this period in the Young King’s career survive, they give a glimpse of the routine and often humdrum nature of government. Thus his mandates in favour of the great abbey of Bury St Edmunds require Hamo Peche to pay 25 shillings rent for his holding at Shelfhanger, Norfolk, to the abbey, while he commands the men of the soke of Brockford and Palgrave to render their due services to the monks.24 Another writ commands Henry the Forester to make good a ditch in Holywell meadow, Oxford, lest a holding and the weir of the monks of St Frideswide’s abbey suffer harm. The reeves and burgesses of Bedford are warned not to molest those coming to the fair held by the monks of Elsdow abbey, while the sheriff, bailiffs and reeves of Huntingdon are similarly instructed to safeguard the rights of the monks of Ramsey abbey at the fair of St Ives.25 In addition to such business, the Young King confirmed grants made by his father, for example, that of a mill in Bedminster, Somerset, and the church of Ashleworth by Gloucester to the monks of St Augustine’s abbey, Bristol.26 In this, as in subsequent periods, the majority of the Young King’s charters took the form of such confirmations, with the absence of his own grants being testimony to his lack of landed resources. Nevertheless, the beneficiaries clearly felt it worth the time and expense to obtain new versions of their charters from the new king, in order to further safeguard their possessions.

  After Becket’s consecration as archbishop of Canterbury, Henry II had suspended the office of chancellor within his own household. But that of his son was, at least nominally, a separate entity, and it was important that the man who held the Young King’s seal, and thus effectively controlled the issue of his charters and writs, was trustworthy. The man chosen by Henry II was Richard Barre, who had trained in Roman law at the great university of Bologna.27 A skilful diplomat, he was one of the king’s ‘clerici et familiares’ at the Roman Curia from 1169, where his activities on Henry II’s behalf gained him the special odium of Becket and his followers.28 In January and February 1170 he had again been in Rome, very possibly in connection with the plans for the Young King’s coronation.29 The chancellor also had supervision of the king’s chapel and its clerics, such as Walter of Coutances, who appears as one of the young Henry’s chaplains in the early 1170s.30 The post of royal chaplain was much sought after, for it was normally the assured route to higher promotion – an archdeaconry, or perhaps even a bishopric. The chapel itself was not a fixed structure, but an element of the household that accompanied the king on his travels, its liturgical vessels and vestments set up as required in the chapels of castles, other royal residences, or in the king’s pavilion in the field.31 The chapel (capella) of Earl William de Mandeville was described in 1189 as ‘a fine chapel which was worthy of such a man, fully equipped with vestments, books, chalice, vessels, wine ewers and bowls of silver, all stored properly in strong boxes’.32 On the move, these precious devotional objects were packed on to sumpter horses or carts, and William FitzStephen noted that on Thomas’ great embassy to Paris in 1158 ‘the chancellor’s chapel had its own wagon, as did the chamber, bursary and kitchen’.33 The clerics who performed religious offices for the new king also acted as his secretariat, as did those of more mundane office; Wigain, a clerk of the kitchen, is found in the later 1170s keeping a record of knights captured in the tourney by the members of Henry’s mesnie.34

  As the Young King had no direct control over the mechanisms of finance, he had no separate treasurer. His chamberlain, Ailward, would have been responsible not only for the immediate domestic arrangements of the Young King’s itinerant household, including his wardrobe and valuables, but also for his finances. His chamber, or household financial office, regulated the income of monies received from his father’s exchequers at Westminster and Caen, and probably also from major castle treasuries such as Chinon when he travelled further south. The chamberlain, assisted by a number of clerks, would have accounted for household expenditure, and for the wages of the household officers, knights and servants of the familia.35 Young Henry also had at least one usher (hostarius), William Blunt, whose functions included keeping order in the king’s hall and ensuring its smooth functioning.36 In Henry II’s court, protocol and highly sensitive issues of precedence may well have been the responsibility of a ‘king of arms’, a leading herald, though no similar officer is visible in the Young King’s service.37 At some stage after the death of William FitzEmpress in 1164, Henry II had transferred a number of members of his late brother’s household to that of his son, including a trusted serjeant, Solomon, who had been William’s dispenser (dispensator), while Roger Caperun, who had been William’s chamberlain, later appears as one of young Henry’s chamberlains (camerarius meus).38

  In addition to his father’s familiares, the Young King had a number of younger, aristocratic companions in his household. At least one of these, William Marshal, had also been selected by King Henry. Soon after his coronation in the
summer of 1170, Henry II entrusted his son to the Marshal with orders to ‘guard and instruct him’ in the use of arms and in knightly accomplishments.39 William was a younger son of the Wiltshire baron John Marshal, a prominent Angevin supporter during Stephen’s reign.40 In part, William’s appointment to the Young King’s household in 1170 may have reflected Henry II’s gratitude for his father’s past services, but it was primarily William’s own prowess and loyalty which had recently brought him to the attention of Queen Eleanor. In 1168, William had accompanied his uncle Patrick, earl of Salisbury, to Poitou, then in turmoil as a result of the rebellion of the powerful Lusignan family. Geoffrey and Guy de Lusignan had ambushed Earl Patrick’s retinue while escorting Queen Eleanor, but though taken unawares and not fully armed, the royal escort had put up a fierce resistance. Eleanor was brought to safety, but Earl Patrick was struck down from behind and slain, and William himself was wounded in the thigh while valiantly attempting to avenge his uncle.41 Despite a period in captivity, he was fortunate enough to be ransomed by Eleanor, who, noted the author of the History of William Marshal, ‘was a very worthy and courtly lady’. Impressed by the young man, she took him into her service, and gave him ‘horses, arms, money and fine clothes’.42 In claiming that already ‘kings and queens, dukes and earls had a very high opinion of him’, the History undoubtedly exaggerates the extent of the Marshal’s reputation in the early 1170s. Nevertheless, his valour and skill in arms were already evident in both war and the tournament, and as one of the queen’s household knights, William was probably already known to the young Henry.