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HENRY, the eldest son of Maud, daughter of Henry I., and Geoffrey, earl of Anjou, was born at Mans, in Maine, in March, 1133. He was brought to England in his 10th year, and passed several years of his boyhood under the care of his uncle Robert, earl of Gloucester, from whom he imbibed a greater degree of literary culture than was then usual among princes. In 1151 he contracted a politic, but unhappy and discreditable marriage with Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII. of France, with whom he obtained possession of Aquitainei, and shortly after succeeding, by compact, to the

She was the daughter of William V. of Aquitaine, and married Louis of France, by whom she had two daughters, and accompanied him to Palestine (see p. 235), but was divorced soon after his return to Europe on the plea of consanguinity. Her marriage with Henry was also unhappy, and in the course of it she suffered several years' imprisonment. She had a great share in the conduct of affairs during the reign of her son Richard, strenuously exerted herself to procure his liberation, and then reconciled him to his brother John. The latter years of her life were chiefly passed abroad, and dying June 26, 1202, at the castle of Mirabel, in Anjou, she was buried at Fontevraud.

throne of England, he became one of the most powerful princes of his time. His first step towards remedying the disorders of his kingdom was forcing the most turbulent of his nobles to respect his authority, and to give up many of their strongest castles. He also dispossessed the Scots from the northern districts of England, made several strenuous but vain efforts to subjugate the Welsh, and formally annexed Ireland to his dominions. But the early years of his reign were disturbed by contentions with the Church, and the latter by the rebellions of his sons, who, encouraged by their mother, leagued themselves with the kings of France and Scotland against him, and at last caused his death from grief and vexation.

Henry died at Chinon, in Touraine, on the 6th of July, 1189, and was buried at Fontevraud, in Anjou. His marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine brought him five sons and three daughters.

1. William, born 1152, had fealty sworn to him in 1156, but died shortly after, and was buried at Reading.

2. Henry, born at London, Feb. 28, 1155, was in his childhood affianced to Margaret, the daughter of Louis VII. of France, and married to her in 1173. He was crowned king by his father's command in 1170, but leagued with his brothers against him; in the midst of the contest he died, with strong marks of contrition, June 11, 1183. His widow married Biela, king of Hungary, and died a pilgrim at Acre, in 1198.

3. RICHARD became king.

4. Geoffrey, born Sept. 23, 1158, married Constance,

the heiress of Conan le Petit, earl of Bretagne. In the contests of his father and brothers, he sided alternately with each, so as to become detestable for his treachery; he was thrown from his horse and killed at a tournament at Paris, Aug. 19, 1186. His children were the unfortunate Arthur and Eleanor, the victims of their uncle John.

5. JOHN became king.

6. Matilda, born at London in 1156, was married to Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, and after sharing many troubles with him, died June 28, 1189, shortly after his exile by the emperor Frederick I.

7. Eleanor, born at Domfront, in Normandy, in 1162, was married to Alphonso III. of Castile, with whom she lived forty-three years, and died of grief, October 31, 1214, only twenty-five days after his decease.

8. Joanna, born at Angers in October, 1165, was married while a child to William the Good, king of Sicily; she was early left a widow, and afterwards married Raymond VI., count of Toulouse. She accompanied her brother Richard to the Holy Land, and did not long survive him, dying, after having assumed the habit of a nun, in Sept. 1199; she was buried with him at Fontevraud.

Henry's illegitimate children by Rosamond, the daughter of Walter, lord Clifford, both attained to eminence.

William, called Longespee, received in marriage Ela, the heiress of William Fitz-Patrick, earl of Salisbury. He was an eminent military commander, and the main support, both by his arms and his counsel, of his brother

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John, and by whom he appears to have been duly valued. He did much damage to the towns, and burnt the fleet of France, but was himself captured at Bouvines; he died March 7, 1226. His son, of the same name, served in Egypt under Louis IX. of France, and was killed there in 1249.

Arms of William Longespee.

Geoffrey, though not in orders, had the see of Lincoln bestowed on him in 1173, and held it till Jan. 6, 1182, when he resigned it, devoting himself to a secular life, and accompanied his father as his chancellor; his conduct contrasted so greatly with that of his brothers, that the king declared Geoffrey was his true son, and on his death-bed, which he alone attended, expressed a wish that he should become archbishop of York. Richard accordingly bestowed it on him, though he prohibited his coming to England. Geoffrey, however, took possession after a short struggle with Longchamp, the justiciary, and held his see till 1207, when opposing the exactions of John, he was driven abroad, and he died in exile in Normandy, Dec. 18, 1212.

Another natural son, Morgan, a priest, became provost of Beverley, and in 1215 was elected to the see of Durham, but rejected by the pope on the ground of his illegitimate birth, which he proudly refused to conceal, by taking, as the pontiff is said to have advised, the name of Bloet, that of his mother.

In this king's reign the royal arms of England assumed their present form, "Gules, three lions passant gardant, in pale, or," being, as is supposed, a lion added

for Aquitaine to the two before used for Normandy and Poitou. Beside using the badge of his house, the broomplant, the personal devices of an escarboucle and a sword and olive-branch are attributed to him,

Arms and Badge of Henry II.

Planta Genista.

The character of Henry, judging from his actions, cannot be drawn in other than unfavourable colours. His cotemporaries are almost unanimous in describing him as polished in his manner, though subject to occasional fits of ungovernable rage; faithless to his oath, and even attempting to justify his conduct, by remarking that it was better to have to repent of words than of deeds; crafty rather than brave, and cruel in the extreme, when irritated by defeat; licentious in his life, and most unwise in his treatment of his children; and so covetous of empire as to marry a divorced wife for the sake of her patrimony, and to strip his own brother

j See anno 1165, p. 250.

* Henry's children all rebelled against him; but the fault was not wholly theirs, or their mother's, whom historians in general blame so heavily. From his childhood he had encouraged Richard to look on himself as the future sovereign of Aquitaine, and he had early employed him against rebels in that quarter, which rendered the young prince unpopular there, yet he allowed Henry and Geoffrey to make war upon him, in their support; and his conduct was such regarding the possessions of Margaret and Adelais, who were betrothed to Henry and Richard, as to shew that views of territorial aggrandisement actuated him as much in the case of their marriages as in his own,

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