ENGLISH SUZERAINTY.

531

English point of view, the kings of England were henceforth lords-paramount of Ireland, with the fee of the soil vested in them, and all Irish princes in future were no more than tenants-in-chief. From the Irish point of view, the English kings were nothing more than military suzerains in the districts outside the pale.

CHAPTER XXXI.

PRIVATE LIFE, AND FAMILY WARS AND DEATH, OF

HENRY II.

CHARACTER OF HENRY II. FIRST FAMILY WAR. SUCCESS OF THE OLD
KING. SECOND WAR. SIEGE OF LIMOGES, AND DEATH OF PRINCE

HENRY. WAR WITH RICHARD AND PHILIP AUGUSTUS. DEATH AND
PUBLIC CHARACTER OF HENRY II.

HE death of Becket and the conquest of Ireland

T did not give Henry the repose he desired. The

double curse of his own actions and his wife's character followed him inexorably through life. life. There were strange stories of Eleanor's ancestry. Her father had carried off his viscount's wife, and had been cursed by a monk of the time with a prediction that no good fruit should ever come of the unhallowed alliance. One of her ancestors had married a woman of no birth, but endowed with marvellous beauty. It was observed that the countess always quitted church before the mass was offered up. One day her husband gave orders she should be detained, and the lady escaping from those who held her, rose into the air, with two of her children in her grasp, disappeared through the church window, and was never more seen. "We came of the devil, and shall go to the devil," was Richard Cœur de Lion's comment upon this tradition.' But Henry needed no other Nemesis than that of his own crimes. He had unbridled passions, and no principle but a fear of divine

HENRY'S CHARACTER.

533

wrath and a hope of divine favour. His penance at Becket's tomb, while he favoured Becket's murderers and disregarded his principles, was no mere appeal to the bigotry of the multitude, but rested on the idea that he could cajole the saint into procuring success for him. In a similar spirit, he once exclaimed, in the last years of his life, that he would no longer reverence Christ, who gave a beardless boy the victory over him. In his observance of promises, Henry was so bad as to be branded with utter untrustworthiness by his contemporaries. Yet the truth seems to be that he fixed certain arbitrary bonds to himself, the feudal oath or kiss, which he never broke; he was thus punctilious but not honourable. His love of diplomacy was increased by his want of warlike ability;' rapid movements and large forces often won him successes; but he was not a match for soldiers-born, like his own sons, or Philip Augustus. A passionate and uncertain man, 'Henry was disliked in his own household. His conjugal infidelities distressed his queen the more that she was older than himself. The fiery and vindictive woman revenged her wrongs as a wife on Henry's heart as a father.

The coronation of the young prince Henry had been procured by his father at the price of much intrigue, many promises, and a yet deeper breach with Becket. During Becket's lifetime, it enlisted the prince on his father's side against the primate, whom he regarded as his enemy. But when Becket was removed, prince Henry soon wearied of the title, without the power, of royalty. During a visit to Paris, he was persuaded by the French king to demand that his father should en

"Omnia prius quam arma pertentans." Girald. Camb., de Inst. Princ.,

p. 71.

trust him with England or Normandy. The news of this intrigue reached Henry II., and he instantly recalled his son. But in a. D. 1173 the king of England was in the south of France, occupied with a settlement of feudal claims, and a contract of marriage between his youngest son, John, and a princess of Savoy. Prince Henry took occasion to protest against the cession of Chinon, Loudon and Mirebeau, as his brother's marriage portion; and having established a grievance, escaped from the court as it returned north, and took refuge at St. Denys. It soon appeared that there were other malcontents in the king's family. Richard and Geoffrey contrived to join their brother; the queen herself was taken in man's clothes, as she tried to fly, and thrown into prison. Nevertheless, Henry was not dismayed. The bishops stood by him; and of all his sons' retinue; only three accepted permission to follow their masters' fortunes. The importance of the war was not understood for some time. Hatred of his powerful neighbour had long rankled in the breast of Louis; and while the king of England so little suspected, or so profoundly despised him, that he offered to make him mediator, the French king meditated an implacable war. He rejected the proposed office, on the ground that Henry was thoroughly faithless. In an assembly at Paris, every discontented noble who held anything of the English crown was invited to transfer his homage to the young king, and the counts of Flanders and Blois were among those who complied. The fidelity of the nobles of Aquitaine had already been undermined. The king of Scotland was bought over with the promise of Northumberland for himself, and Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire for his brother. The earls of Leicester and Derby agreed to raise the

HENRY'S DANGER AND PENANCE.

535

standard of revolt. Strong in these allies, Louis fortified his castles and collected an army of twenty thousand Brabançons.

Yet the successes of the first campaign were on the whole with Henry, who took Dôl with the earl of Chester inside it, and forced Louis to retreat from Verneuil with only the discreditable success of surprising one of its three castles under cover of a truce. The count of Flanders, who had taken Albemarle (it was said by connivance of its earl), retreated in superstitious terror from Driencourt, on the death of his brother, the count of Boulogne. In England, the Scotch were driven back from Carlisle, and the earl of Leicester, who had invaded the eastern counties with a force of untrained Flemings, was deterred from attacking Dunwich by the resolute attitude of its citizens, and presently defeated and taken by the king's forces at Fornham St. Genevieve. But in July, A. D. 1174, the bishop of Winchester1 appeared in person at Bonnevillesur-Tonque to warn Henry that only his own presence could retrieve England, where a Scotch army was pouring in from the north, while David of Huntingdon headed an army in the midland counties, and the young prince was preparing to bring over fresh forces from Gravelines. Henry crossed the channel in a storm, and, by advice of a Norman bishop, proceeded at once to do penance at Becket's shrine. On the day of his humiliation, the Scotch king, William the Lion, was surprised at Alnwick and captured. This, in fact, ended the war, for David of Huntingdon was forced to return into Scotland, where the old feud of Gael and

'So many messengers had already gone over, that the Normans said the next envoy sent would be

the tower of London. Diceto; Twysden, 576.