Henry Of Anjou

The weather today is hardly spring-like. It's still a little on the cold side and the weather men are promising us some rain during the day. Yesterday was FA Cup Final day - Chelsea just managed to beat bankrupt Portsmouth 1 - 0 - much to almost everybody's regret, I am sure. And this is the Sunday of the annual motor-fest in Monaco that is the Monaco GP. I will watch this evening because the race through the streets is a wonderful spectacle - even on television.

Today is also the date of a rather obscure anniversary but one which was enormously important in English history. On 16th May 1152 in Poitiers, Henry of Anjou married Eleanor of Aquitaine. So, what's special about that? Henry of Anjou was the son of Matilda, the only surviving legitimate daughter of Henry I of England. She had been married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1114, when she was only 12 years old and she lived in the land that is now Germany. Henry V, like many a Holy Roman Emperor, spent much of his time arguing with the Pope about who had responsibility for what on this Earth and holding meetings [diets] in Worms to try to reach agreements. Henry V died in 1125 and Matilda then returned to England as the "Empress Maud". In 1127 Henry I forced his barons to accept her as the Queen of England in the event of his death. The barons were less than enthusiastic - about having a Queen Maud but also because neither England nor Normandy had ever been ruled by a woman. But, for the moment, they went along with it. In the meantime Matilda married Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, which only increased the antagonism of the barons; the Plantagenents in Anjou were long time enemies of the Normans. Matilda's son was Henry Plantagenet.

When Henry I died in 1135, the barons, with the support of the Church invited Stephen, Matilda's cousin, to be king. He was the son of Stephen, Count of Blois and Adele, daughter of William the Conqueror. Stephen was crowned king and reigned until his death in 1154. However, much of this time was spent in a civil war with his cousin Matilda. Stephen's reign was, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a time when "there was nothing but strife, evil and robbery" across the whole kingdom of England. These were indeed difficult and chaotic times and power moved from Stephen to Matilda and back again several times - it is a long story. Eventually, Stephen came to a compromise - almost a coalition - with Matilda and agreed to recognise Matilda's son Henry, now married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, as his successor as king. The marriage to Eleanor gave Henry control of large and rich areas of France which strengthened his hand as king.

The reign of Henry II - the first Plantagenet king - from 1154 to 1189 did much to stabilise England after the turmoil of Stephen's reign. He was a well educated man and a good manager of the nation's finances. He lead a quite spartan existence by the standards of the time and only rarely did he wear the full regalia of a king. He was the first monarch to call himself King of England - as opposed to King of the English. He is now, perhaps unfortunately, remembered mainly for the incident of the murder of the Archbishop of Caterbury, Thomas Becket, by four over-zealous knights.

There, a bit of history. I think we can truly say that "Not a lot of people know that!"

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