House Of Plantagenet

"Edward I.'s general political outlook was so conservative that his method of choosing his servants differed rather in practice than in theory from that of Henry III. There was, no doubt, all the difference in the world between an orderly mind, loving efficiency and method, and a thriftless, easy-going temperament, desiring chiefly to be surrounded by personal friends and dependents; between the king who was a good Englishman and mainly served by English-born followers, and the king who was surrounded by foreign favourites, both of high and low degree. But father and son shared the same general point of view, the same distrust of the magnates, both in church and state, and the same desire to work through the royal household staff, whose ways were familiar to them through long years of constant intercourse."

"His life was moral, and he seems to have been a good deal under the influence of his clever and accomplished queen. To Dante, who placed him in the valley where they sat who had been careless of the great reward, and yet had not been unfruitful or evil, he was ‘il Re della simplice vita.’ Nevertheless he was inordinately extravagant, and squandered his subjects' money recklessly in gratifying his private tastes and ambitions, and on his foreign relatives and favourites. Utterly un-English in feeling, he loved to be surrounded by foreigners, and had no sympathy with the tendencies of the nation. His religion was rather that of a Roman than an Englishman, and he did not hesitate to injure the national church by conferring bishoprics and other benefices on foreign adventurers, ignorant of the language of the people, and unfit to be their spiritual guides. Though obstinate, he was infirm of purpose, and no dependence could be placed upon him. The union of pertinacity and weakness in his character rendered him irritable. When crossed or in difficulties he had no self-command, although in ordinary circumstances he was not devoid of wit or courtesy of manner. His nobles did not fear or respect him. Faithful service never won his gratitude; he was incapable of valuing his best and wisest counsellors, and was always ready to believe slanders against them. Physically brave, he was morally a coward, easily frightened, and quick to lean on others for support. Shifty and false, he met open opposition with evasion and secret influence, and the most solemn oaths failed to bind him. He had no talent for administration; in affairs of state he was content with a hand-to-mouth policy, and his campaigns were disgracefully mismanaged. Most of his difficulties were of his own making; some part of them, however, arose from the change which was passing over the spirit of the constitution. If he had been a capable king he might have taken advantage of this state of change, and of the party jealousies and struggles which accompanied it, to found a new despotism. As it was his long reign was a period during which the checks placed on the monarchy in his father's days had time to gather strength, so that when he was succeeded by such an able ruler as Edward I all danger that they might be broken up had passed away."

"He was certainly a great prince, but enjoyed no great success and, like Marius, met with both kinds of luck. He was generous and liberal to aliens but he plundered his own people. He ignored those who were rightfully his men and placed his trust in strangers. Before his end his people deserted him, and at his end few mourned for him."

"For John even in the abject humiliation of his end we have no word of pity as we have had none of sympathy. He has deserved none. He has no policy of either aggression or defence. We do not credit him with a deliberate design on the rights of his people, simply because he never showed the consciousness of any rights they had, but took his own evil way in contempt of law, and in a wilful ignoring of dangers he dared not face. He made no plans and grasped at no opportunities. He was persistent only in petty spite and greedy of easy vengeance. He staked everything on the object of the moment and made no effort to avert his ruin until it was consummated. He looked neither before him nor behind him, drew as little from experience as he sacrificed to expediency, or as he utilised the present for the ends of the future. He had not sufficient regard for virtue to make him play the hypocrite, and lost even the little defence that such a cloak gives to kings. He had neither energy, capacity, nor honesty; he availed himself neither of the help of those who had common interests, nor of the errors of those whom he regarded as his enemies. He met honest service with contempt, and the best advice with the treatment due to dangerous conspiracy. He is an exception to the class of men who are well hated only in this, that none even pretended to love him. And as he is without wisdom for himself, he has no care for his people; on them, the weaker and more innocent the better, he wreaks the vengeance, the savage vengeance, that the stronger and less innocent have provoked, as if burning villages and slaying peasants was an enjoyment to be set against defeat in council and disgrace in the field. And now the heart that was obdurate against the sufferings of the people, that had been unmoved by the cries of the tortured as it was inexorable to the prayers of friendship, virtue, and sorrow, is broken by the loss of his treasure. And he who had defied God by word and deed all his life, sought shelter from the terrors with which superstition, not conscience, had inspired him, by being buried in the habit of a monk: a posthumous tribute to religion, which he had believed only to outrage."

"In considering the other side of the picture it must be remembered that for lack of evidence judgement must be reserved about the blackest charges against John. Nor should present-day standards of morality be used for judgement of only the unsuccessful kings. Nor should any chronicler be believed who is not strictly contemporary, and is not supported by record evidence when he makes extravagant statements about the king's evil deeds, but when all has been said which may lighten the picture of this most enigmatic king, there remains the mistrustful sovereign who binds his subjects to him by taking their sons as hostages for good behaviour, who charges individuals, even his best servants, with an insupportable weight of debt, who forces every debtor to find sufficient sureties to cover the whole obligation so that the sureties themselves become enmeshed, who seems as irresponsible in his occasional pardons as in his impositions; the king whose arbitrary conduct drives his subjects to rebellion."

"No king of England was ever so unlucky as John. From the moment when France came to the strong hands of Philip II his conquest of Normandy was only a matter of time. Richard staved off its loss by a fierce concentration on its protection and by reckless expenditure on defence and allies; expedients that brought their own unfortunate consequences for John. Barons who resented both fighting and paying to keep their king's continental lands resented the loss of them only when they found to their surprise that it meant the loss of their own lands in France as well as the king's. After that, there was never confidence and trust between the king and his barons. Each felt resentment against the other."

"The character of this prince is nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious; ruinous to himself, and destructive to his people. Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his life to give us room to suspect, that the disagreeable picture has been any-wile overcharged by the prejudice of the antient historians. It is hard to say, whether his conduct to his father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects was most culpable; or whether his crimes in these respects were not even exceeded by the baseness, which appeared in his transactions with the King of France, the Pope, and the barons. His dominions, when they devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive than have, ever since his time, been ruled by any English monarch: But he first lost by his misconduct the flourishing provinces in France, the antient patrimony of his family: He subjected his kingdom to a shameful vassalage under the fee of Rome: He saw the prerogatives of his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction: And he died at last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking shelter as a fugitive from the pursuit of his enemies."

"The awful lesson of his life rests on the fact that it was no weak and indolent voluptuary, but the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins who lost Normandy, became the vassal of the Pope, and perished in a struggle of despair against English freedom."

""Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John." The terrible verdict of the King's contemporaries has passed into the sober judgment of history. Externally John possessed all the quickness, the vivacity, the cleverness, the good-humour, the social charm which distinguished his house. He was fond of books and learned men, he was the friend of Gerald as he was the student of Pliny. He had a strange gift of attracting friends and of winning the love of women. But in his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins. He united into one mass of wickedness their insolence, their selfishness, their unbridled lust, their cruelty and tyranny, their shamelessness, their superstition, their cynical indifference to honour or truth."

"The harshness of the king has today increased so much that no one however great and wise dares to cross his will. Thus parliaments, colloquies, and councils decide nothing these days. For the nobles of the realm, terrified by threats and the penalties inflicted on others, let the king's will have free play. Thus today will conquers reason. For whatever pleases the king, though lacking in reason, has the force of law."

"Edward II sat down to the game of kingship with a remarkably poor hand, and he played it very badly."

"In person the new king was almost as striking a man as Edward I. He was tall, handsome, and of exceptional bodily strength... But though well fitted to excel in martial exercises, he never showed any real inclination for a warlike life, or even for the tournament. As soon as he was his own master he avoided fighting as much as he could, and when compelled to take the field his conduct was that of an absolute craven. Lack of earnest purpose blasted his whole character. He had been trained as a warrior, but never became one. He had been drilled in the routine of business, but had only derived from it an absolute incapacity to devote himself to any serious work. His only object in life was to gratify the whim of the moment, reckless of consequences. Much of his folly and levity may be set down to habitual deep drinking. His favourite pastimes were of a curiously unkingly nature. He disliked the society of his equals among the youthful nobility, and, save for a few attached friends, his favourite companions were men of low origin and vulgar tastes... He was also a good athlete, fond of racing and driving, and of the society of watermen and grooms. He was passionately devoted to horses and hounds and their breeding... He was not well educated, and took the coronation oath in the French form, provided for a king ignorant of Latin. He was fond of fine clothes, and with all his taste for low society liked pomp and state on occasions. He had the facile good nature of some thoroughly weak men. Without confidence in himself, and conscious probably of the contempt of his subjects, he was never without some favourite of stronger will than his own for whom he would show a weak and nauseous affection. Sometimes with childlike passion he would personally chastise those who provoked his wrath. He could never keep silence, but disclosed freely even secrets of state. He had no dignity or self-respect."

"Fair lords, though we be so few against that mighty power of enemies, let us not be dismayed; for strength nor victory lies not in multitudes, but those to whom God gives it. If he will it that the day be ours, the highest glory of this world shall be given to us. If we die, I have the noble lord my father and two fair brothers, and you have each of you many a good friend, who will avenge us well. Thus then, I pray you, fight well this day; and if it please God and St. George, I will also do the part of a good knight."

"I have tried to make this book as representatively English as I might; with less thought of robust and resounding 'patriotism' than of that subdued and hallowed emotion which, for example, should possess any man's thoughts standing before the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral: a sense of wonderful history written silently in books and buildings, all persuading that we are heirs of more spiritual wealth than, may be, we have surmised or hitherto begun to divine."

"Is the sable warrior fled? Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead."

"To a mind such as Henry’s Thomas’s preference for principle, even to the point of personal disloyalty, was incomprehensible. Within the black and white cavities of the king’s mind the idea was forming that Becket must have been carrying on a false front all these years in hopes of greater preferment, and that his present rejection of the secular office was an act of disloyalty and even treason."

"Once again Henry showed a lack of subtlety which remained his own worst enemy throughout his life. His obsession with order and precise definition smashed the interplay of fragile and tacit forces which is required for successful diplomacy. He disregarded the first law of negotiation, namely, always to give your opponent the opportunity to save face, especially when he is yielding the substance of his position."

"What separated the king and archbishop was more than the personality of the two antagonists. Each had become by the time of Clarendon a fierce and unyielding representative of opposing views regarding the nature and purpose of law. Germanic law, which only in the Angevin lands was maintaining its purity against the spread of the Roman concept of justice, operated pragmatically to settle disputes by appealing to earlier practices. Custom and precedent, rather than an abstract concept of “justice,” determined what was just in a given case. This explains Henry’s conservatism and obsessive search for the practices of his ancestors. By Roman (and Canon) lawyers, on the other hand, a law was deemed just not because it was aligned to the past, but because it borrowed its justness from an a priori, rational, transcendental concept of justice."

"As a by-product of his attempt to solve the problem of law and order, the Plantagenet king was creating the foundation of English common law."

"Henry II’s introduction of English authority into southern Ireland was to last exactly 750 years. Eight centuries later the native Irish in the north were still discontent with the nature of English rule."

"Henry was the type of ruler who brought to every problem a preconceived solution designed to increase his own power. Most of his time and energy was then devoted to devising ways of forcing others to adopt his point of view."

"The production at this time of the Dialogue of the Exchequer, which a leading historian would characterize as “one of the most wonderful things of Henry’s wonderful reign,” further suggests that Henry’s innovative days were over, for only after an institution has settled down and begun to harden is it considered worthwhile to commit such a detailed description of it to writing."

"Of the two pillars of Henry Plantagenet’s monument, the continental fiefs of the Angevin lands and an England that was assuming some of the early trappings of nationhood, the first did not survive the life span of his sons while the second continued on with varying fortunes to become a political unit that would occupy the center of world history and turmoil for seven centuries. The Angevin realm, like its creator, foundered on the ineptitude and pettiness of Henry’s sons."

"Henry Plantagenet, no less than any political leader in the second half of the present century, was confronted with such varied problems as law and order, a war weariness which brought about a military organizational revolution, economic inflation, the choice between isolation and “internationalism,” sovereignty, and even, on a personal level, women’s lib. To maintain that any of these tensions are new to the twentieth century is the highest form of self-adulation and to hold that nothing can be learned from their past appearances the height of historical nearsightedness."

"To him, as to many since his time, order was synonymous with political centralization, and in effecting this centralization lies one of Henry Plantagenet’s greatest accomplishments."

"The cornerstone of the English and Norman races."

"You have to deal with one whose astuteness is dreaded by those at a distance, whose power is feared by those close at hand, and whose severity is felt by those who are subject to him; whom continuous success and good fortune have rendered so sensitive that every act of disobedience is rewarded by an outrage; whom it is easy to provoke as it is difficult to placate; who does not encourage rashness by impunity, but whose vengeance is instant and summary. He will sometimes show himself amenable to humility and patience, but will never submit to compulsion; whatever he does openly must appear to have sprung from his own will and not from weakness. He is more covetous of glory than of gain, which fact might be deemed commendable in a prince, if virtue and truth, not vanity and the honeyed flattery of courtiers, provided the substance of that glory. He is great, indeed the greatest of monarchs, for he has no superior of whom he stands in awe, nor subject who may resist him. His innate ferocity has not been tamed by injuries inflicted upon him by foreigners from abroad, but all who have had occasion to contend against him have preferred to conclude precarious treaties of an empty peace rather than run the risk of a trial of strength with one pre-eminent in the abundance of his riches, the number of his forces and the strength of his power."

"You ask me to send you an accurate description of the appearance and character of the king of England. That surpasses my powers, for the genius of a Vergil would hardly be equal to it. That which I know however I will ungrudgingly share with you. Concerning David we read that it was said of him, as evidence for his beauty that he was ruddy. You may know then that our king is still ruddy, except as old age and whitening hair have changed his colour a little. He is of medium stature so that among small men he does not seem large, nor yet among large men does he seem small. His head is spherical, as if the abode of great wisdom and the special sanctuary of lofty intelligence. The size of his head is in proportion to the neck and the whole body. His eyes are full, guileless and dove-like when he is at peace, gleaming like fire when his temper is aroused, and in bursts of passion they flash like lightning. As to his hair he is in no danger of baldness, but his head has been closely shaved. He has a broad, square, lion-like face. His feet are arched and he has the legs of a horseman. His broad chest and muscular arms show him to be a strong, bold, active man."

"He does not loiter in his palace like other kings, but hurrying through the provinces he investigates what is being done everywhere, and is especially strict in his judgment of those whom he has appointed as judges of others. There is no one keener in counsel, of more fluent eloquence, no one who has less anxiety in danger or more in prosperity, or who is more courageous in adversity. If he has once loved any one, he rarely ceases to love him, while one for whom he has once taken a dislike he seldom admits to his favour. He always has his weapons in his hands when not engaged in consultation or at his books. When his cares and anxieties allow him to breathe he occupies himself with reading, or in a circle of clerks tries to solve some knotty question."

"Your victories vie with the world itself, since you, our Alexander of the West, have stretched out your arms from the Pyrenean mountains to the farthest and most western borders of the ocean. In these parts you have spread your triumphs as far as nature has spread her lands. If the bounds of your expeditions be sought, we reach the ends of the earth before we find their limits. For though your brave spirit may find no more lands to conquer, victory never deserts it; and its triumphs will never fail but with the want of materials for triumph."

"He brought not only strong peace with the aid of God's grace to his hereditary dominions, but also triumphed victoriously in remote and foreign lands, a thing of which none of his predecessors since the coming of the Normans, not even the English kings, had proved capable... Indeed, he was sometimes wont, since "his mouth spoke from a full heart", to let fall spirited and ambitious words among his intimates to the effect that the whole world was too small a prize for a single courageous and powerful ruler. Thus, throughout the world the fame of his honoured name was so spread abroad that it abounded in glory above the kings, princes and liegemen of the whole earth and to the terror of the nations."

"In times of war, which frequently threatened, he gave himself scarcely a modicum of quiet to deal with those matters of business which were left over, and in times of peace he allowed himself neither tranquillity nor repose. He was addicted to the chase beyond measure; at crack of dawn he was off on horseback, traversing waste lands, penetrating forests and climbing the mountain-tops, and so he passed restless days. At evening on his return home he was rarely seen to sit down either before or after supper. After such great and wearisome exertions he would wear out the whole court by continual standing."

"He was a man easy of access and condescending, pliant and witty, second to none in politeness, whatever thoughts he might counsel within himself; a prince so remarkable for charity that as often he overcame by force of arms, he was himself vanquished through showing too great compassion. Strenuous in warfare, he was very prudent in civil life. But always he dreaded the doubtful arbitrament of war, and with supreme wisdom, in accordance with the ancient comic poet, he essayed every method before resorting to arms. For those lost in battle he grieved more than any prince, and was more humane to the dead warrior than to him who survived; the dead indeed he mourned with a grief far greater than the love he bore the living. When difficulties pressed hard upon him, none was more amicable, but none sterner once safety was regained. He was fierce towards those who remained untamed, but merciful to the vanquished, harsh to his servants, expansive towards strangers, prodigal in public, thrifty in private. Whom he had once hated he scarcely ever loved, but whom he had once loved he scarcely ever called to mind with hatred."

"Although he was daily set amidst a host of faces, he never again forgot anyone whom he had once closely scrutinized. Anything he had once heard worthy of remembrance he could never obliterate from his mind. So he had at his fingers' end both a ready knowledge of nearly the whole of history and also practical experience of almost everything in daily affairs. To compress much in a few words, if he had to the very end remained a chosen vessel to the Lord and had turned himself to his obedience, he would have been beyond comparison among the princes of this world for his many natural gifts."

"He was a link in the chain of great men by whom, through good and evil, the English nation was drawn on to constitutional government. He was the man the time required. It was a critical time, and his actions and policy determined the crisis in a favourable way. He stands with Alfred, Canute, William the Conqueror, and Edward I., one of the conscious creators of English greatness. His reign was the period of amalgamation, the union of the different elements existing in the country, which, whether it be looked on as chemical or mechanical, produced the national character and the national institutions."

"The course of history might have been radically different if Henry II, instead of devoting himself principally to the pursuit and exploitation of the rights of lordships which fell to him fortuitously, had turned his energies to forging the unity of the British Isles."

"Given the framework within which Henry II chose to operate, his achievement is remarkable... He overcame the old disintegrating force of baronial separatism, and resisted the newer ones of municipal independence and clerical exclusiveness, not in order to destroy – for Henry II was fundamentally a conservative – but in order to bring all into balance under royal control. Much of his skill, and wisdom, and ingenuity which went into the work doubtless derived from those who were known as the king's familiares; but the will to do it was the will of one man, Henry of Anjou. It was a will which refused to accept that any problem was insoluble. If a frontal assault failed he would find a way in through the back door, of, if necessary, via the sewer. He was an irresistible force demonstrating – and relishing the demonstration – that immovable obstacles could be moved."

"Laymen ought not to be accused save by dependable and lawful accusers and witnesses in the presence of the bishop, yet so that the archdeacon lose not his right or anything which he ought to have thence. And if there should be those who are deemed culpable, but whom no one wishes or dares to accuse, the sheriff, upon the bishop's request, shall cause twelve lawful men of the neighbourhood or the vill to take oath before the bishop that they will show the truth of the matter according to their conscience."

"And let all the sheriffs make a list of all fugitives who have fled from their counties; and let them do this before the county courts, and they shall bring the names of these men in writing before the justices when first they come to them, in order that they may be sought throughout all England and their chattels seized for the benefit of the king."

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!"

"O wretched Man that I am, who shall deliver me from this turbulent Priest?"

"[He said] that he was very unfortunate to have maintained so many cowardly and ungrateful men in his court, none of whom would revenge him of the injuries he sustained from one turbulent priest."

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

"Will no one rid me of him? A priest! A priest who jeers at me and does me injury."

"Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?!"

"Henry's choice of these two men was a signal that the criteria for deciding who was a friend and who a foe had changed with the coronation and that from that moment on those who worked loyally for his program of centralization were to be his friends, while those who opposed the increase of monarchial power were his enemies, regardless of former affiliations."

"Edward the third, your King of rich renowne, Against the French did use his conquering sworde: Mauger their beardes, he did possesse their Crowne, The French were faine, to serve him as their Lord. Take courage then, maintaine your Countries right, Gainst Rabsica, in Gods name enter fight."

"The laws the Irish use are detestable to God, and so contrary to all law that they ought not to be deemed law."

"Terra Walliae cum incolis suis, prius regi jure feodali subjecta."

"When you get rid of a turd, you do a good job."