Monarchs From England

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It was a common saying of the Anglo-Saxons of Athelstan, that no one more legally or more learnedly conducted a government. It is not at all surprising, that he was a favourite both among his own people and in Europe. He was certainly a great and illustrious character. He appears to have been as amiable as great. To the clergy he was attentive and mild; to his people affable and pleasant. With the great he was dignified; with others he laid aside his state, and was condescending and decently familiar. His stature was almost the middle size; his hair yellowish, twisted with golden threads. His people loved him for his bravery and humility; but his enemies felt his wrath."

"My wish it is that you should always provide the destitute with food."

"It was through a sound historical instinct that Ælfric, the greatest of late Old English scholars, writing when civilization was again threatened by foreign invaders, placed Athelstan among the three English kings whose histories might encourage a harassed people. Between Alfred who fought with the Danes until he gained the victory and freed his people, and Edgar, whose enemies sought peace from him without a battle, he sets Athelstan, "who fought with Olaf, destroyed his army, drove him into flight, and then reigned peacefully"."

"In spite of the unsatisfactory materials for his history, Athelstan is one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings of whose personality a faint impression can be formed. It is known that he was of no more than average height, and that his hair was flaxen, with intermingled golden threads. The record of his movements is hardly needed to show that he possessed the physical energy without which no early king could govern well. More remarkable is the mixture of devotion and intellectual curiosity which made him a collector of relics on a scale approached by no other English king. The devotion appears again in his gifts of books to churches for the recompense of their prayers, and the curiosity found another vent in the entertainment of foreign scholars at his court and in the intercourse which he maintained with foreign monasteries. More unusual, or at least more rarely recorded than any of these qualities, is the touch of humanity shown in the pardon which he granted to criminals willing to make amends, and in his revulsion against the execution of young offenders. In character and cast of mind he is the one West Saxon king who will bear comparison with Alfred."

"Athelstan's charters are the most important memorial of his government... [T]he king himself was inclined to leniency. In what seems to be the last of his laws, he exempts all persons under fifteen from the death penalty "because he thought it too cruel to kill so many young people and for such small crimes as he understood to be the case everywhere". It is this suggestion of a humane mind in revolt against the grimmer aspects of government which raises Athelstan's laws above the commonplace."

"Northumbria and Wales fell into the power of Athelstan, by this victory [the Battle of Brunanburh]. It effectually secured to him the throne of his ancestors; and the subjugation of the Anglo-Danes was so decisive, that he has received the fame of being the founder of the English monarchy."

"King Henry left no one like him among Christian kings or princes. His death, not only by his subjects in England and France but in the whole of Christendom, was deservedly mourned. He was pious in soul, taciturn and discreet in his speech, far-seeing in counsel, prudent in judgement, modest in appearance, magnanimous in his actions, firm in business, persistent in pilgrimages and generous in alms, devoted to God and supportive and respectful of the prelates and ministers of the church. War-like, distinguished and fortunate, he had won victories in all his military engagements. He was generous in constructing buildings and founding monasteries, munificent in his gifts, and above all pursued and attacked enemies of the faith and the church. Thinking of his memorable deeds, people felt awe at his sudden and terrible death [and] mourned inexpressibly."

"[Henry V was] very wise and capable in everything he undertook and he had an iron will. When he ruled France, he made greater conquests than any before him for many years past. He was so feared by his nobles and captains that there was no one, however close or dear to him, who was not afraid to go against his orders."

"Take him all round and he was, I think, the greatest man that ever ruled England."

"Henry the fift, I wish you not forget, At Agent Court, thinke what a field he fought: When all the powre of Fraunce him round beset, Ten thousand men, them to subjection brought. Though night before, they Bonfires great did make, And made their boastes, what prisoners they would take."

"[O]ur older men [do not] remember any prince ever having commanded his people on the march with more effort, bravery or consideration, or having, with his own hand, performed greater feats of strength in the field. Nor, indeed, is evidence to be found in the chronicles or annals that any king of England ever achieved so much in so short a time and returned home with so glorious a triumph."

"He applied his mind with all devotion to encompass what could promote the honour of God, the extension of the Church, the deliverance of his country and the peace and tranquillity of kingdoms."

"The simple record of Henry V's achievement is sufficient to establish him as a great king... His ambitions in France were inspired by a new vision and new methods [and], given the years, energy and luck he might have reshaped the development of both nations just, as in brief space, he had restored the fortunes of England."

"If we set aside the charges of sacrificing the welfare of his country to an unjustifiable war of aggression, and of being a religious persecutor, Henry V stands before us as one of the greatest and purest characters in English history, a figure not unworthy to be placed by the side of Edward I. No sovereign who ever reigned has won from contemporary writers such a singular unison of praises. He was religious, pure in life, temperate, liberal, careful and yet splendid, merciful, truthful, and honourable; 'discreet in word, provident in counsel, prudent in judgment, modest in look, magnanimous in act;' a brilliant soldier, a sound diplomatist, an able organiser and consolidator of all forces at his command; the restorer of the English navy, the founder of our military, international and maritime law. A true Englishman, with all the greatnesses and none of the glaring faults of his Plantagenet ancestors, he stands forth as the typical medieval hero. At the same time he is a laborious man of business, a self-denying and hardy warrior, a cultivated scholar, and a most devout and charitable Christian."

"Thou speakest as a fool, for by the God of Heaven in whose grace I trust and in whom is my firm hope of victory, I would not have one more than I have, even if I could... Dost thou not believe that the Almighty can through this humble little band overcome the pride of these Frenchmen, who boast of their numbers and their strength?"

"War without fire is worth nothing—like sausages without mustard."

"Henry V was by far the greatest king in Christendom, and he deserved the estimation in which he was held, both for the grandeur and sincerity of his character and for the greatness of the position which, not without many favouring circumstances on which he could not have counted, he had won. It was very much owing to his influence that the great schism was closed at Constance; it was the representative of the English church who nominated pope Martin V, the creator of the modern papacy: and although the result was one which ran counter to the immemorial policy of kings and parliaments, of Church and State, the mischief of the consequences cannot be held to derogate from the greatness of the achievement. It is not too much to suppose that Henry, striking when the opportunity came and continuing the task which he had undertaken without interruption, might have accomplished the subjugation and pacification of France, and realised the ambition of his life, the dream of his father and of his Lancastrian ancestors, by staying the progress of the Ottomans and recovering the sepulchre of Christ. This was not to be; and he had already done more than on ordinary calculations could have been imagined, compassed more than it was in England's power alone to hold fast or to complete. England was nearly exhausted; it could only have been at the head of consolidated France and united Europe that he could have led the Crusade. In him then the dying energies of medieval life kindle for a short moment into flame; England rejoices in the light all the more because of the gloom that precedes and follows: and the efforts made by England, parliament, church, and nation, during the period, are not less remarkable than those made by the king."

"Owre Kynge went forth to Normandy With grace and myght of chyvalry Ther God for hym wrought mervelusly; Wherefore Englonde may call and cry: Deo gratias! Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!"

"The enterprizes finished by this prince, and the projects which he formed and brought very near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more regularly conducted, and more advantageous to the solid interests of his kingdom than those which were undertaken in any reign either of his ancestors or his successors. He restored authority to the government, disordered by the weakness of his father; he maintained the laws against all the efforts of his turbulent barons; he fully annexed to his crown the principality of Wales; he took the wisest and most effectual measures for reducing Scotland to a like condition; and tho' the equity of this latter enterprize may reasonably be questioned, the circumstances of the two kingdoms promised such certain success, and the advantage was so visible of uniting the whole island under one head, that those who give great indulgence to reasons of state in the measures of princes, will not be apt to regard this part of his conduct with much severity."

"This diplomatic revolution, part of the growing bureaucratization of government, was complemented by a revolution in political ideas that we can measure in the changing use of the term “state.” In the fourteenth century the Latin term status (and vernacular equivalents such as estat or state) was mainly used with reference to the standing of rulers themselves, much as we would today use the term “status.” Thus the chronicler Jean Froissart, describing King Edward III entertaining foreign dignitaries in 1327, recorded that his queen “was to be seen there in an estat of great nobility.” Gradually, however, usage was extended to include the institutions of government. In the works of Machiavelli, written in the 1510s, lo stato becomes an independent agent, separate from those who happen to be its rulers. In a similar vein, Thomas Starkey, the English political commentator of the 1530s, claimed that the “office and duty” of rulers was to “maintain the state established in the country” over which they ruled. The thrust of such arguments was to limit the power of kings by postulating their higher obligation to the common good. In radical hands this implied that subjects had the right to overthrow tyrannical rulers, which is what happened in the English civil wars of the 1640s and Europe’s bitter wars of religion. Responding to this crisis of governance,Thomas Hobbes moved the debate to a different level, defining the state as “an artificial man” abstractly encapsulating the whole populace, who enjoys absolute sovereignty (his “artificial soul . . . giving life and motion to the body”) which is exercised in practice through a sovereign ruler. This gradual but dramatic word shift, from the medieval state of princes to the person of the Hobbesian state, was hugely important for political thought. It also reinforced the decline of dynastic summitry: diplomacy, like governance, was no longer regarded as the sole prerogative of princes."

"The greatest of all the Plantagenet kings was Edward III. Edward inherited the throne as a teenage puppet king under his mother and her lover Roger Mortimer, who were responsible for the removal of Edward II. He soon shook off their influence, and the next three, triumphant decades of his reign are described in Part VI, 'Age of Glory.' In these years, the Plantagenets expanded in every sense. Under the accomplished generalship of Edward, his son the Black Prince, and his cousin Henry Grosmont, England pulverized France, and Scotland (as well as other enemies, including Castile), in the opening phases of the Hundred Years' War. Victories on land at Halidon Hill (1333), Crécy (1346), Calais (1347), Poitiers (1356) and Najera (1367) established the English war machine – built around the power of the deadly longbow – as Europe's fiercest. Success at sea at Sluys (1340) and Winchelsea (1350) also gave the Plantagenets confidence in the uncertain arena of warfare on the water. Besides restoring the military power of the English kings, Edward and his sons deliberately encouraged a national mythology that interwove Arthurian legend, a new cult of St George and a revival of the code of knighly chivalry in the Order of the Garter. They created a culture that bonded England's aristocracy together in the common purpose of war. By 1360, Plantagenet kingship had reached its apotheosis. Political harmony at home was matched by dominance abroad. A new period of greatness beckoned."

"I am your leader: follow me."