Henry the Young King, 1155-1183
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Resistance was crushed elsewhere in the Limousin. Aided by Alfonso of Aragon, Richard laid siege to Hautefort on 30 June, and on 6 July he took it by storm, having routed the forces of Raymond of Toulouse in a memorable engagement.46 Bertran de Born, who complained bitterly that his erstwhile allies had made peace without including him, was forgiven by Richard, who gave him the kiss of peace, but Hautefort was taken from him and restored to his brother Constantine.47 The roving bands of routiers who had been at the centre of the hostilities now found themselves under attack not by the royal or ducal forces but by members of a sworn peace league, known as the Capuchins after the distinctive white hood bearing an image of the Virgin worn by its members. Founded by Durand, a carpenter of Le Puy in the Auvergne who had been inspired by a vision of the Virgin, this armed confraternity quickly gained ecclesiastical backing in its attempts to rid the region of the scourge of the hated mercenaries. Not long after the Young King’s death they achieved the first of a number of military successes against bands of routiers, but, alarmed by the growing power of the peace league, the local nobility finally rounded on the Capuchins and in turn slaughtered them without mercy.48
Count Geoffrey submitted to his father at Angers, probably in July, swore fidelity to him, and was compelled to surrender all his castles in Brittany.49 But Henry II’s desire to reassert direct control in all his domains was also indicated by the fact that, despite his successes, Richard too was commanded by his father to yield into his keeping all the castles with which he had been entrusted as duke prior to the outbreak of the war.50 With the Young King’s death, the turmoil in Aquitaine finally died down: referring to the mythical serpent of Delphi slain by Apollo, Walter Map noted that ‘riot was turned to quiet, and so the world was at rest when Python perished’.51 Likewise Ralph of Diss noted that the Young King’s life ‘was cut short, as if by a weaver, and with it the hopes of many fighting for him and hoping to rule with him after his father’s death’.52 Among those who, deprived of the Young King’s protection, were forced to seek Henry II’s peace was Bertran de Born. According to the fictionalized razos explaining the context of Bertran’s poems, the king ironically demanded of him, ‘You were wont to boast of possessing more wits than you ever needed to use – what has become of them now?’ To which Bertran replied, ‘Sire, on the day that the valiant Young King your son died, I lost my knowledge, my wits and my skill.’ Dissolving into tears, Henry II forgave Bertran and restored Hautefort to him.53 Imaginary though such a story may be, it echoes that related in the History of William Marshal, which recounts how, on the Young King’s demise, William had immediately been seized by the routier captain Sancho de Savennac as a pledge for 100 marks owed to him by the late king. Unable to pay such a sum out of his own purse, the Marshal deftly convinced Sancho that Henry II would settle his debt. When confronted with this pledge, Henry was at first indignant, but finally agreed to pay the 100 marks to Sancho: ‘“My son has cost me much more than that”,’ the History has him say, ‘“and would that he were still costing me!” His eyes filled with tears of sorrow and, for a brief moment, he looked like giving way to it.’54 He subsequently gave the Marshal 100 livres angevins towards the costs of his pilgrimage to fulfil young Henry’s vow, though considering the expense involved in so long a journey, this was a modest sum. It is clear that the Marshal’s involvement in the Young King’s final rebellion had earned him Henry II’s displeasure and that his two-year sojourn in the East was a timely period of political cooling off. Nevertheless, mindful of his earlier service, the Old King promised him a place in his household on his return, a pledge he subsequently honoured.55
Even in death, the Young King was to be a continuing source of contention. From Poitou, his funeral cortège had passed through Anjou, crossing the Loire and continuing as far as Le Mans. There, the bier was placed overnight in the choir of the great cathedral of St Julian, next to the magnificent tomb of his grandfather, Count Geoffrey V, and a vigil was kept with hymns and psalms around the body of the king.56 The following morning, as the bearers prepared to leave for Rouen, a group of the leading citizens entered the cathedral and, to great acclamation from the populace, promptly dug a grave in the cathedral choir and interred the body with great honour, with the bishop of Le Mans presiding.57 It was a forceful demonstration of young Henry’s great popularity, of the strength of feeling between the citizens of le Mans and the Angevin comital dynasty, and of the benefits in prestige and patronage expected from the possession of the tomb of a king.58 The actions of the Manceaux, however, caused outrage among the Rouennais, who regarded this as an intolerable insult. They demanded that the Young King’s body be given up to them, even threatening to destroy the city of Le Mans, but they met with obstinate refusal. Young Henry lay for thirty-four days in St Julian’s, while Henry II sought to arbitrate between the representatives of the two cities whom he had summoned before him.59 Letters confirming that Rouen had been the place of burial expressly wished for by the Young King were sent to Pope Lucius III by a number of leading men who had been present to hear the Young King’s dying wishes, including Count Raymond V of Toulouse, the duke of Burgundy, William, castellan of St Omer, and Bishop Bernard of Agen.60 On ascertaining that it had been his son’s wish to be buried in the cathedral church of St Mary in Rouen, Henry commanded that the body be exhumed and taken to the place chosen by the Young King. Archbishop Rotrou sent his nephew Robert of Neubourg, dean of Rouen cathedral, aided by the archbishop of Canterbury, to Le Mans to secure the safe release and transit of the Young King’s body.61
Once in Rouen, he was buried ‘with the honour due to a prince’ in the cathedral on 22 July, in the north ambulatory of the choir, close to the high altar dedicated to the Virgin.62 Henry was an anointed king of England, yet his choice to be buried neither at the existing royal mausolea of Reading or Westminster, nor in Anjou, but in the capital of the duchy was a powerful reflection of the significance Normandy had come to hold for him. Beginning in earnest with his regency in 1171–72, his association with the Normans had intensified in the later 1170s and early 1180s, by which time Henry II had effectively delegated authority in the duchy to him. At St Mary’s cathedral, as the Norman Robert of Torigni explained with evident pride, were laid his forebears, the earliest dukes of Normandy, including Rollo, founder of the duchy itself, and his son, William Longsword, as well as the Young King’s beloved uncle, William FitzEmpress.63 The contemporary tombs of Louis VII and Henry, count of Champagne, are known to have been surmounted by a life-sized effigy, but it is far from certain that the effigy of the Young King now visible in the cathedral, and heavily restored following damage in the Wars of Religion and the Revolution, is part of his original monument.64 Around 1300, the canons of St Mary’s commissioned a new series of effigies of the early dukes of Normandy buried there as part of an ambitious programme to celebrate their foundation’s illustrious ducal and royal heritage, and it seems likely that the Young King’s tomb was remodelled at this time with a new effigy.65
Thomas of Earley and the Cult of the Young King
Among those attending the Young King during his last days had been Thomas of Earley (also known as ‘Agnellus’ or ‘de Agnellis’), who had been one of his clerks and his confessor. A canon of Wells cathedral and a kinsman of the influential Reginald, bishop of Bath, he was author of a considerable number of sermons.66 Thomas had been appointed archdeacon of Bath and Wells by Henry II by 1168, and had been associated with young Henry as early as 1170 when he had carried a letter from Henry II to Rotrou of Rouen accepting terms of peace for Becket prior to the Young King’s coronation.67 In 1183, he was dispatched to bear the sad tidings of her son’s death to Eleanor at Salisbury, her principal residence during her captivity, and it was doubtless with the queen’s encouragement that not long thereafter he preached a sermon in which he proclaimed the Young King’s sanctity.68 A nascent cult had already sprung up around the Young King and healing miracles were reported at his tomb. As William of Newburgh later not
ed, ‘even when he was dead many extraordinary things were related of him’.69
Nevertheless, Thomas’ task was no easy one. Of all young Henry’s qualities in life, piety had not been the most prominent. He had not washed the feet of paupers, as his sainted ancestor St Edward had reputedly done, and though he had confirmed grants to religious houses, he had not been in a position to endow his own monastic foundation. If he had been generous in almsgiving, it went unrecorded, unlike his expenditure on the tournament. In his later years, indeed, he had spent much of his time engaged in a sport loudly and repeatedly condemned by the Church. On his own deathbed, William Marshal was reminded of the clerical stricture that salvation would be difficult unless he gave back his winnings from the tournament – a suggestion the Marshal rejected with anger and exasperation.70 Aware too of the charge that young Henry had despoiled several of the great churches of the Limousin and Angoumois, Thomas claimed that he had taken these treasures in a just cause to fund a war to free Aquitaine – and its churches – from tyranny. He was, however, careful never to name Richard, and treated the conflict in the most general and guarded of terms, as Eleanor’s patronage doubtless demanded. Undeterred by such difficulties, Thomas chose to focus on Henry’s last days as a sign that the Young King was a ‘vir sanctus’.71 He speaks of his illness as a form of martyrdom, and uses martial language to describe the Young King’s battle against sickness; he ‘fought on (militavit) for many days under such penitential discipline and wonderful devotion of contrition’ that he set an example even to the men of religion who attended him.72 ‘The glory of a martyr should thus not be denied to he who ended his life by the violence of such persecution, instead of by the sword’.73
Thomas relates how Queen Eleanor had told him of a dream in which she had foreseen her son’s death and beatitude. She saw young Henry lying, hands in prayer, with a serene visage, wearing two crowns, one with the brightness of an earthly crown, but the other far more brilliant:
What meaning could one give to that crown, other than eternal bliss, which knows neither beginning nor end? What meaning can one see in the splendour of such intensely brilliant light, other than the glory of felicity on high? That superior crown surpassed anything that can be seen on earth by the eyes of men. Truly, ‘eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him’.74
Earley claimed, moreover, that almost immediately after the Young King’s death miracles had begun, attesting to his sanctity and God’s favour towards him. Drawing on Christ’s healing miracles as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, an analogy that would have been readily recognized by contemporaries, he reported how the sick were healed by touching his corpse.75 A woman suffering from a haemorrhage was cured by touching the hem of his robes, and Thomas himself claimed to have seen a man completely cured of debilitating ulcers within two days, who had showed the scars of his healed wounds to witnesses.76 A further potent sign of the deceased king’s sanctity occurred when a leper was healed at the Young King’s bier as it was being carried out of the gates of Martel. To commemorate this miracle, a church was constructed on the site in honour of the Young King, where, noted Thomas, the memory of the martyr continued to be venerated.77 Further along the route, as those who were carrying the bier were hastening to reach the monastery of St Savin before nightfall, a long shaft of very bright light appeared from the heavens, and for more than a hour illuminated the church until the entourage had arrived there safely.78 Similarly, four miles from Le Mans, a shaft of light shone down on the bier, and above it a cross of light appeared in the sky, which continued to shine until the cortège was safely in the cathedral of St Julian. This divine sign encouraged the people of Le Mans to bury the Young King on the spot, and further healing miracles took place there before his body was finally removed to Rouen.79
William of Newburgh, looking back from the later 1190s, may have had Thomas in mind when he noted how after the Young King’s death ‘some persons, induced by the love of falsehood and most unblushing vanity, widely disseminated a report that cures of diseased people took place at his tomb, insomuch as he was believed either to have had good grounds for offence against his father, or to have highly pleased the Almighty by his last repentance’. ‘As it is written,’ he added dismissively, ‘“The number of fools is infinite”.’80 It is clear from Thomas’ own sermon that there were already sceptics: he obliquely refers to ‘Pharisees’ among those who had the temerity not to believe in the miracles, and alleges that attempts were made by ‘iniquitous persecutors’ to remove offerings left at the Young King’s tomb by the faithful and to suppress his veneration.81 Had Queen Eleanor been at liberty to foster the cult directly, it might perhaps have had a longer vitality. Yet grief-stricken as he was at his son’s death, Henry II had little wish to see another figure of sanctity, who, like Thomas Becket, might afford a focus of opposition to the king, while Richard must have been actively hostile to any such veneration of a man he had come to hate cordially.82 The cult itself and attributions of miracles reflected a spontaneous outpouring of grief as much for dashed hopes of a better future as for the untimely death of a highly popular prince.83 Yet without the concerted and sustained clerical support that had helped propel Thomas’ cult, that of young Henry, more improbable from the first, could only be short-lived. There is little or no trace of claims to the Young King’s sanctity in any of the vernacular sources, though Bertran de Born no doubt spoke for many of the nobility and knighthood when he expressed the fervent hope that God would forgive young Henry’s sins and ‘that He might set him among the honoured companions, there where there never was grief, nor will be sorrow’.84
Commemoration
Less dramatic but more lasting than the efforts of Thomas of Earley was the commemoration of the Young King in a series of bequests to religious houses by members of his family and by his men. In 1184, Geoffrey of Brittany, the brother who was closest to him, founded a chaplaincy at the cathedral of Rouen for the benefit ‘of the soul of my venerable brother Henry the Young King’, providing an annual rent of 20 livres from the ducal mills at Guingamp.85 The following year, in a charter which affords a rare glimpse of a strong bond of affection between the couple, his widow Margaret, ‘ever preserving the memory of her lord and husband, King Henry the Younger, and anxious to maintain the same union of minds when dead as when alive’, pledged revenues from the income she was to receive from her future husband, King Béla of Hungary, for other chaplains in Rouen cathedral to say Masses for the Young King, and arranged that they be supported by a fund supervised by the abbot of Clairvaux.86 The charter was witnessed by at least two other great ladies, Marie, countess of Champagne, the Young King’s half-sister, and Hawise, countess of Gloucester and sister to Earl Robert of Leicester, suggesting their own attachment to the young Henry.87 Further benefactions to the cathedral of Rouen for the Young King were to follow. In November 1189, his youngest brother John, now count of Mortain, granted it the chapelry of St Nicholas in the castle of Blyth, Nottinghamshire, for the health of his soul and those ‘of Henry the King his father, of happy memory, and of his brother Henry the Young King, buried in the church of Rouen, and all my other ancestors’. The revenues were to supply two priests, while other funds were set aside for an annual commemoration of young Henry’s death.88 The establishment of these chaplaincies and altars for the Young King has been seen as an early and important stage in the development of the institution of the endowed chantry, as well as being influential in the growth of chantries in secular cathedrals.89
John’s charter granting of the chapelry of Blyth noted that his gift had been made at the prayers of ‘most dear Richard, illustrious king of England and my most beloved mother Eleanor, queen of England’.90 How far Eleanor was the driving force behind this benefaction cannot be known, but it has been argued that the considerable size of the queen’s own clerical establishment was a reflection of her desire to maintain elaborate liturgical commemor
ation for her family and affinity.91 Her concern with her son’s spiritual well-being in death, already visible in the promotion of his cult of sanctity, was again evident when shortly after Richard’s own death in April 1199 Eleanor made a grant of 100 livres angevins to the abbey of Fontevraud ‘for the health of our soul and the pious commemoration of our revered husband King Henry, and King Henry our son of good memory, and the powerful man King Richard and our other sons and daughters’.92 Richard’s own orders as he lay mortally ill following his wounding by a crossbow bolt at the siege of Châlus in 1199 were that his body was to be buried at Fontevraud at the feet of his father, an act not only of filial piety but also of contrition for having brought about his downfall. His heart, however, was to be taken to Rouen cathedral, a gesture which an anonymous contemporary author believed was intended to reward the city of Rouen for its exceptional loyalty and to safeguard Normandy by striking terror into the French.93 Yet in his stipulation that his heart was to be buried opposite the tomb of his brother Henry we may perhaps see another act of posthumous reconciliation.94
If the Angevin family took a lead in the spiritual commemoration of young Henry, several of his former men were also concerned to remember a lord dear to them. When at last William Marshal found himself in possession of sufficient lands to found the Augustinian priory of Cartmel, Lancashire, he did so for the salvation of his soul and that of his family, yet also for the soul of Henry II and young Henry ‘our lord’.95 Similarly, in 1200 Peter de Préaux made a grant of rents from the market and fairs of Rouen to the canons of Notre Dame de Beaulieu, on condition that they should pay 20 shillings annually to the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene for the soul of Henry the Young King, ‘my lord’.96 William and Peter were among those knights formerly in the Young King’s mesnie who subsequently took service with Henry II and Richard, and were men of rising prominence. Yet lesser figures, who presumably had also served young Henry, remembered him with affection in their benefactions. Thus Osbert, son of William, who founded the chapel of North Cove, Suffolk, endowed it for the soul of King Henry the Younger, of himself, his parents, his wife and his children, while John Lestrange granted lands at Edgefield to the monks of Binham priory, Norfolk, in perpetual alms for his soul and those of his family, but also for the soul ‘of the lord king Henry junior and Queen Eleanor and of her sons’.97