♂Henry of England

Henry of England (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), King Henry II, was King of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, and through his wife Duke of Aquitaine. In 1152 he married Eleanor of Aquitaine fifty-eight days after her divorce from King Louis VII of France^W, and her inheritance, the duchy of Aquitaine, passed to him with the marriage. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), by two separate lines of descent: one through his son John of England (1166–1216), the other through his daughter Eleanor of England (1162–1214).

The heir

Henry was born at Le Mans on 5 March 1133, the eldest son of Geoffrey of Anjou and the Empress Maud. His great-uncle David, King of Scotland, knighted him at Carlisle at Whitsuntide 1149. His mother’s claim to the English crown had failed against her cousin Stephen^W, but by the Treaty of Winchester in 1153 Henry was recognized as Stephen’s heir. He reached England on 8 December 1154 and was crowned at Westminster on 19 December 1154.

King of England

Henry’s lands in England, Wales and France were ruled as separate parts but held by one man, and are known as the Angevin empire^W after his father’s title of Count of Anjou. He restored royal authority after the disorder of Stephen’s reign, encouraged the use of juries of local men to investigate crimes, and sent royal justices to try the accused. His writs to the sheriffs also settled claims to land and church livings, so that men no longer had to take them back by force.

His insistence that clergy answer in the king’s courts brought him into a quarrel with his former chancellor, Thomas Becket^W, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in his cathedral in December 1170. In 1171 Henry invaded Ireland, and by Christmas the towns of Waterford, Wexford, Limerick and Cork were in his hands and most of the Irish princes had given hostages and promised tribute.

The last years

The end of the reign was marked by quarrels between Henry and his sons, who rebelled, and by his separation from their mother. In the summer of 1189 war broke out again, and in July Henry was forced to sign a treaty giving way on every point. He died, with a will, at Chateau Chinon on 6 July 1189 in the midst of the rebellion. He was buried at Fontevrault Abbey^W, and Eleanor was buried there too in 1204.

The family

Henry and Eleanor had eight children, five sons and three daughters. Their son Henry, called the Young King^W, was crowned joint king of England on 14 June 1170 and rebelled against his father in 1173–74 and again in 1183; he died at Martel in Touraine on 11 June 1183 and was buried in Rouen Cathedral. Richard^W was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 3 September 1189 and left England for the Third Crusade^W that December; he died of a crossbow wound on 6 April 1199, and his youngest brother John was king after him. Maud, born in London in 1156, married Heinrich the Lion^W, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, at Minden on 1 February 1168, and Joan, born at Angers in October 1165, married William II, King of Sicily^W, at Palermo on 13 February 1177. Eleanor of England, born at Domfront in Normandy on 13 October 1162, married Alfonso VIII, King of Castile^W, at Burgos in September 1170. She died at Burgos on 25 October 1214, twenty days after her husband, and both were buried at the monastery of Las Huelgas near Burgos.

Lines of descent

Both lines from Henry to Nancy Jane Blanchard run down her father’s side, through Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975). One runs through his son John of England (1166–1216), then John’s son Henry of England (1207–1272) and Henry’s son Edward of England (1239–1307). The other runs through his daughter Eleanor of England (1162–1214), her daughter Berenguela of Castile, Berenguela’s son Fernando III of Castile and Leon, and Fernando’s daughter Eleanor of Castile (died 1290). The lines meet again in Joan of England (1272–1307), whose parents, Edward and Eleanor of Castile, both descended from Henry.

Notes

Sources

Henry’s birth, knighting, marriage, accession, reforms, the Becket quarrel, the Irish campaign, his death and burial and his children are from Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., 2011), vol. I, ENGLAND 2, pp. 5–19, a printed genealogy of the medieval royal family that cites the chronicles, charters and royal rolls. Richard’s coronation, crusade and death and the story of the last treaty are from the entry for Richard in the same chapter; the Young King’s and Eleanor of England’s entries come from the same chapter and from CASTILE 3, pp. 491–492. Henry’s dates and places (born 5 March 1133 at Le Mans, died 6 July 1189 at Chateau Chinon, buried at Fontevrault) are Richardson’s.

The quarrel with his sons

Richardson writes that Henry’s last years “were marked by quarrels with and between his sons, stirred into rebellion by their mother, from whom he was separated.” Richardson also records that Eleanor was released in 1185 from ten years of captivity.

The interval between the marriages

Richardson gives the divorce of Eleanor and Louis VII as 21 March 1152 and her marriage to Henry at Bordeaux as 18 May 1152, which makes fifty-eight days.