Angevins

The Angevins — meaning from Anjou—are considered by many historians to be the distinct Royal House—and part of the House of Plantagenet—that provided the English monarchs Henry II of England, Richard I of England and King John. They were a family of Frankish origin descended from a ninth-century noble named Ingelger. The chronicler Gerald of Wales borrowed elements of the Melusine legend to give a demonic origin to the Angevins, and several of them were prone to joke about the story.

The family held the title Count of Anjou from 870. Territorial ambitions to expand the Angevin holdings prompted power struggles with neighbouring provinces and led to influence extending into Maine and Touraine. Fulk V, Count of Anjou had a number of failed attempts to expand his domains via marrying his daughters to the heirs of Normandy and England before he managed to arrange the marriage between his son and heir, Geoffrey, to Henry I of England's daughter and only surviving legitimate child, Matilda. This brought about the convergence of the Angevins, the House of Normandy and the House of Wessex to form the Plantagenet dynasty. Fulk the Younger who had forged valuable connections while on the Second Crusade then resigned his titles to Geoffrey and sailed to become King of Jerusalem through marriage to Baldwin II's daughter Melisende in 1131.

Geoffrey who was Fulk's eldest son succeeded upon his father's departure for Jerusalem, whilst Baldwin III, Fulk's eldest son with Melisende, inherited Jerusalem after Fulk's death in 1143. It was in 1154 that Geoffrey’s son, Henry II of England won control of England and Normandy and he later expanded the family's holdings into what was later termed the Angevin Empire through marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Historians have retrospectively considered that members of the family from after 1204, when John lost Anjou and the Angevins' continental territory to the House of Capet are known as the Plantagenets  until the reign of Richard II. This is from a nickname of Geoffrey. After this the dynasty is considered to split into two cadet branches, the House of Lancaster and the House of York.

Origins
The Angevins descended from a ninth-century noble named Ingelger with the family holding the title Count of Anjou from 870. When the male line of Ingelger became extinct in 1060 cognatic descent continued from Geoffrey II, Count of Gâtinais and Ermengarde of Anjou, the daughter of Fulk III of Anjou Territorial ambitions to expand the Angevin holdings prompted power struggles with neighbouring provinces such as Normandy and Brittany leading to influence extending into Maine and Touraine. Fulk V, Count of Anjou, married his daughter Alice to the heir of Henry I of England, William Adelin, to address competition from Normandy, but the prince drowned in the wreck of the White Ship. Fulk then wed his daughter Sibylla to William Clito, heir to Henry's older brother, Robert Curthose. Henry had this marriage annulled because of the threat of a rival claim to his throne. Finally, Fulk married his son and heir, Geoffrey, to Henry's daughter and only surviving legitimate child, Matilda. This brought about the convergence of the Angevins, the House of Normandy and the House of Wessex to form the Plantagenet dynasty. Fulk the Younger who had forged valuable connections while on the Second Crusade then resigned his titles to Geoffrey and sailed to become King of Jerusalem through marriage to Baldwin II's daughter Melisende in 1131.

Angevin arrival in England
Matilda's father Henry I of England named her as heir to his large holdings in what are now France and England. But on Henry's death her cousin Stephen had himself proclaimed king. Geoffrey showed little interest in England, but he supported Matilda by entering Normandy to claim her inheritance. Matilda landed in England to challenge Stephen and was declared "Lady of the English" which resulted in a civil war called the Anarchy. When Matilda was forced to release Stephen in a hostage exchange for her half-brother Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, Stephen was re-crowned. Matilda was never crowned as the English conflict continued inconclusively. However, Geoffrey secured the Duchy of Normandy. Matilda's son, Henry II, by his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine had acquired the Duchy of Aquitaine and was now immensely rich. With skilful negotiation with the war-weary Barons of England and King Stephen, he agreed to the Treaty of Wallingford and was recognised as Stephen's heir.

Henry saw an opportunity to re-establish what he saw as his rights over the Church in England by reasserting the privileges held by Henry I when Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, died, by appointing his friend, Thomas Becket to the post. Henry had clashed with the church over whether bishops could excommunicate royal officials without his permission and whether he could try clerics without them appealing to Rome. However, Becket opposed Henry's Constitutions of Clarendon and fled into exile. Relations later improved, allowing Becket's return, but soon soured again when Becket saw the crowning as coregent of Henry's son by the Archbishop of York as a challenge to his authority and excommunicated those who had offended him. On hearing the news Henry uttered the infamous phrase "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 clerk". In response to please Henry three of his men murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, probably by misadventure after Becket resisted a botched arrest attempt. In Christian Europe Henry was considered complicit in this crime, making him a pariah, and he was forced to make a dramatic exhibition of penance, publicly walking barefoot into the cathedral and allowing monks to scourge him.

In 1155 Pope Adrian IV had given Henry papal blessing to expand his power into Ireland in order to reform the Irish church. This was not a matter of urgency until Henry allowed Dermot of Leinster to recruit soldiers in England and Wales for use in Ireland, including Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow. These knights took on the role of colonisers, accruing autonomous power, which concerned Henry. When Dermot died in 1171 Strongbow, as his son-in-law, seized significant territory. In response, and also to escape the controversy caused by the murder of Becket, Henry landed and re-established all fiefs, and jurisdictions in Ireland were held subordinate to him as high king.

When Henry II attempted to give his land-less youngest son, John, a wedding gift of three castles it prompted his three eldest sons and wife to rebel in the Revolt of 1173–1174. Louis VII encouraged the three elder sons to destabilise his mightiest subject and not to wait for their inheritances. William the Lion and disgruntled subjects of Henry II also joined the revolt for their own ends. It was only after eighteen months of conflict that Henry II was able to force the rebels to submit to his authority. In Le Mans in 1182 Henry II gathered his children to plan for partible inheritance in which his eldest son, also called Henry, would inherit England, Normandy and Anjou; Richard the Duchy of Aquitaine; Geoffrey Brittany and John would receive Ireland. This broke down into further conflict and the younger Henry rebelled again, but died of dysentery. In 1186 Geoffrey died as a result of a tournament accident but Henry was still reluctant to have a sole heir so, in 1189, Richard and Philip II of France took advantage of a sickening Henry II with more success. Henry II was forced to accept humiliating peace terms, including naming Richard as sole heir. When Henry II died shortly afterwards his last words to Richard were allegedly "God grant that I may not die until I have my revenge on you".

Angevin decline
On the day of Richard's English coronation there was a mass slaughter of the Jews, described by Richard of Devizes as a "holocaust". Quickly putting the affairs of the Angevin Empire in order he departed on Crusade to the Middle East in early 1190. Opinions of Richard amongst his contemporaries were mixed. He had rejected and humiliated the king of France's sister; deposed the well-connected king of Cyprus and afterwards sold the island; insulted and refused spoils of the third crusade to nobles like Leopold V, Duke of Austria, and was rumoured to have arranged the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. His cruelty was demonstrated by his massacre of 2,600 prisoners in Acre. However, Richard was respected for his military leadership and courtly manners. He achieved victories in the Third Crusade but failed to capture Jerusalem, retreating from the Holy Land with a small band of followers.

Richard was captured by Leopold on his return journey. Custody was passed to Henry the Lion and a tax of 25% of movables and income was required to pay the ransom of 100,000 marks, with a promise of 50,000 more. Philip II of France had overrun great swathes of Normandy while John of England controlled much of the remainder of Richard's lands. But, on his return to England, Richard forgave John and re-established his control. Leaving England in 1194 never to return, Richard battled Phillip for the next five years for the return of the holdings seized during his incarceration. Close to total victory he was injured by an arrow during the siege of Château de Châlus-Chabrol and died after lingering injured for ten days.

Richard's failure in his duty to provide an heir caused a succession crisis. Anjou, Brittany, Maine and Touraine chose Richard's nephew and nominated heir, Arthur, while John succeeded in England and Normandy. Yet again Philip II of France took the opportunity to destabilise the Plantagenet territories on the European mainland, supporting his vassal Arthur's claim to the English crown. When Arthur's forces threatened his mother, John won a significant victory, capturing the entire rebel leadership at the Battle of Mirebeau.

Arthur was murdered, it was rumoured by John's own hands, and his sister Eleanor would spend the rest of her life in captivity. John's behaviour drove numerous French barons to side with Phillip. The resulting rebellions by the Norman and Angevin barons broke John's control of the continental possessions, leading to the de facto end of the Angevin Empire, even though Henry III would maintain the claim until 1259.

After re-establishing his authority in England, John planned to retake Normandy and Anjou. The strategy was to draw the French from Paris while another army, under Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor, attacked from the north. However, his allies were defeated at the Battle of Bouvines in one of the most decisive and symbolic battles in French history. The battle had both important and high profile consequences. John's nephew Otto retreated and was soon overthrown while King John agreed to a five-year truce. Philip's decisive victory was crucial in ordering politics in both England and France. The battle was instrumental in forming the absolute monarchy in France.

John's defeats in France weakened his position in England. The rebellion of his English vassals resulted in the treaty called Magna Carta, which limited royal power and established common law. This would form the basis of every constitutional battle through the 13th and 14th centuries. However, both the barons and the crown failed to abide by the terms of Magna Carta, leading to the First Barons' War in which the rebel barons invited an invasion by Prince Louis. This is considered by some historians to mark the end of the Angevin period and the beginning of the Plantagenet dynasty with John's death and William Marshall's appointment as the protector of the nine-year-old Henry III. Marshall won the war with victories at the battles of Lincoln and Dover in 1217, leading to the Treaty of Lambeth by which Louis renounced his claims. In victory, the Marshal Protectorate reissued the Magna Carta agreement as a basis for future government. The term Angevin has also become associated with later Houses of Anjou rewarded with the title count by kings of France.

House of Plantagenet
Prince Louis’s invasion is considered by some historians to mark the end of the Angevin period and the beginning of the Plantagenet dynasty. The likely outcome of military situation was uncertain at the time of John's death and it was William Marshall who saved the dynasty forcing Louis to renounce his claim through his military victory. However, Philip had captured all of the Angevin possessions in France except Gascony. This collapse had various causes, including long-term changes in economic power, growing cultural differences between England and Normandy but, in particular, the fragile, familial nature of Henry's empire. Henry III continued his attempts to reclaim Normandy and Anjou until 1259, but John's continental losses and the consequent growth of Capetian power in the 13th century proved to mark a "turning point in European history".

It was Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, who adopted Plantagenet as a family name for him and his descendants in the 15th century. Plantegenest (or Plante Genest) had been a 12th-century nickname of Geoffrey, perhaps because his emblem may have been the common broom, (planta genista in medieval Latin). It is uncertain why Richard chose this specific name, but it emphasised Richard's hierarchal status as Geoffrey's (and six English kings') patrilineal descendant during the Wars of the Roses. The retrospective usage of the name for all of Geoffrey's male descendants was popular in Tudor times, perhaps encouraged by the added legitimacy it gave Richard's great grandson, Henry VIII of England.

Descent
Through John descent from the Angevins is widespread—both legitimate and illigimate— including all subsequent monarchs of England and the United Kingdom. He had five legitimate children by Isabella.
 * ’’Henry III’’— king of England for the majority of the 13th century.
 * ’’Richard’’—a noted European leader and ultimately the King of the Romans in the Holy Roman Empire.
 * ’’Joan’’— married Alexander II of Scotland to become his queen consort.
 * ’’Isabella’’— married the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.
 * ’’Eleanor’’—married William Marshal's son, also called William, and later the famous English rebel Simon de Montfort.

John also had a large number of illegitimate children by various mistresses, including nine sons – Richard, Oliver, John, Geoffrey, Henry, Osbert Gifford, Eudes, Bartholomew and probably Philip – and three daughters – Joan, Maud and probably Isabel. Of these, Joan became the most famous, marrying Prince Llywelyn the Great of Wales.

Contemporary Opinion
Henry was not a popular king and few expressed much grief on news of his death. Writing in the 1190s, William of Newburgh commented that "in his own time he was hated by almost everyone"; he was widely criticised by his own contemporaries, even within his own court. In contrast his son Richard's contemporaneous image was more mixed. On one hand that of a king who was also a knight, and that was apparently the first such instance of this combination. He was known as a valiant and competent military leader and individual fighter, courageous and generous. Richard, however, also received negative portrayals. During his life, he was criticised by chroniclers for having taxed the clergy both for the Crusade and for his ransom, whereas the church and the clergy were usually exempt from taxes. Chroniclers, including Richard of Devizes, William of Newburgh, Roger of Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto were generally unsympathetic to John's behaviour under Richard's rule, but slightly more positive towards the very earliest years of John's reign. Accounts of the middle and later parts of John's reign are more limited, with Gervase of Canterbury and Ralph of Coggeshall writing the main accounts; neither of them were positive about John's performance as king. John's later, negative reputation was largely established by two chroniclers writing after the king's death, Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris, the latter claiming that John attempted conversion to Islam, a story which is considered to be untrue by modern historians.

Constitutional Impact
Many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule had major long-term consequences. His legal changes are generally considered to have laid the basis for English Common Law, with the Exchequer court a forerunner of the later Common Bench at Westminster. Henry's itinerant justices also influenced his contemporaries' legal reforms: Philip Augustus' creation of itinerant bailli, for example, clearly drew on the Henrician model. Henry's intervention in Brittany, Wales and Scotland also had a significant long-term impact on the development of their societies and governmental systems. John's reign and his signing of Magna Carta was seen as a positive step in the constitutional development of England and the part of a progressive and universalist course of political and economic development in England over the medieval period by historians in the "Whiggish" tradition. This was despite the flaws of the king himself. Winston Churchill, for example, argued that "[w]hen the long tally is added, it will be seen that the British nation and the English-speaking world owe far more to the vices of John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns". Magna Carta was reissued by the Marshal Protectorate and repeatedly afterwards as a basis for future government.

Historiography
Henry and his reign have attracted historians for many years. In the 18th century the historian David Hume argued that Henry's reign was pivotal to creating a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. His role in the death of Becket and his disputes with the French were considered relatively praiseworthy and patriotic by Protestant historians of the period Similarly John's opposition to the Papacy and his promotion of the special rights and prerogatives of a king gained him favour from Tudor historians in the 16th century. John Foxe, William Tyndale and Robert Barnes portrayed John as an early Protestant hero, and John Foxe included the king in his Book of Martyrs. John Speed's Historie of Great Britaine in 1632 praised John's "great renown" as a king; he blamed the bias of medieval chroniclers for the king's poor reputation.

Increasing access to the contemporary documentary records from late-Victorian times led to Henry’s contribution to the evolution of key English institutions, law and the exchequer being stressed. William Stubbs' labelled Henry as a "legislator king" because of his responsibility for major, long-lasting reforms in England. In contrast Stubbs thought Richard "a bad son, a bad husband, a selfish ruler, and a vicious man". He was a bad king: his great exploits, his military skill, his splendour and extravagance, his poetical tastes, his adventurous spirit, do not serve to cloak his entire want of sympathy, or even consideration, for his people. He was no Englishman, but it does not follow that he gave to Normandy, Anjou, or Aquitaine the love or care that he denied to his kingdom. His ambition was that of a mere warrior: he would fight for anything whatever, but he would sell everything that was worth fighting for. The glory that he sought was that of victory rather than conquest.

The growth of the British Empire led historians such as Kate Norgate to undertake detailed research into Henry's continental possessions, creating the term "the Angevin Empire" in the 1880s.

Interest in the personal morality of historical figures and scholars grew in the Victorian period led to greater criticism of Henry's personal behaviour and Becket’s death. Historians were also more inclined to draw on the judgements of the chroniclers and to focus on John's moral personality. Kate Norgate, for example, argued that John's downfall had been due not to his failure in war or strategy, but due to his "almost superhuman wickedness", whilst James Ramsay blamed John's family background and his cruel personality for his downfall. Twentieth-century historians challenged many of these conclusions. In the 1950s Jacques Boussard and John Jolliffe, among others, focused on the nature of Henry's "empire"; French scholars in particular analysed the mechanics of how royal power functioned during this period. The Anglocentric aspects of many histories of Henry were challenged from the 1980s onwards, with efforts made to bring together British and French historical analysis of the period. More detailed study of the written records left by Henry has cast doubt on some earlier interpretations: Robert Eyton's ground-breaking 1878 work tracing Henry's itinerary through deductions from the pipe rolls, for example, has been criticised as being too certain a way of determining location or court attendance Although many more of Henry's royal charters have been identified, the task of interpreting these records, the financial information in the pipe rolls and wider economic data from the reign is understood to be more challenging than once thought. Significant gaps in historical analysis of Henry remain, especially the nature of his rule in Anjou and the south of France. Interpretations of Magna Carta and the role of the rebel barons in 1215 have been significantly revised: although the charter's symbolic, constitutional value for later generations is unquestionable, in the context of John's reign most historians now consider it a failed peace agreement between "partisan" factions. There has been increasing debate about the nature of John's Irish policies. Specialists in Irish medieval history, such as Sean Duffy, have challenged the conventional narrative established by Lewis Warren, suggesting that Ireland was less stable by 1216 than was previously supposed.

Richard's reputation over the years has "fluctuated wildly", according to historian John Gillingham. That reputation has come down through the ages and defines the popular image of Richard. He left an indelible imprint on the imagination extending to the present, in large part because of his military exploits. This is reflected in Steven Runciman's final verdict of Richard I: "he was a bad son, a bad husband, and a bad king, but a gallant and splendid soldier." ("History of the Crusades" Vol. III). Richard's sexuality has become an issue of wider interest and controversy since the 1940s when John Harvey challenged what he perceived as "the conspiracy of silence" surrounding Richard's homosexuality drawing on chronicler accounts of Richard's behaviour, two public confessions, penitences and Richard's childless marriage. Opinion remains divided on this question. For example Gillingham argues against the idea and Jean Flori takes the contrary position. Today historians — such as John's recent biographers Ralph Turner and Lewis Warren— argue that John was an unsuccessful monarch, but also that his failings were exaggerated by 12th- and 13th-century chroniclers. . Jim Bradbury notes the contemporary consensus that John was a "hard-working administrator, an able man, an able general", albeit, as Turner suggests, with "distasteful, even dangerous personality traits". John Gillingham, author of a major biography of Richard I concurs but considers John a less effective general than do Turner or Warren; Bradbury takes a moderate line, but suggests that in recent years modern historians have been overly lenient towards John's numerous faults. Popular historian Frank McLynn maintains a counter-revisionist perspective on John, arguing that the king's modern reputation amongst historians is "bizarre", and that as a monarch John "fails almost all those [tests] that can be legitimately set".

Popular culture
Henry II appears in highly fictionalised form as a character in several modern plays and films. The King forms a central character in James Goldman's 1966 play The Lion in Winter, set in 1183 and presenting an imaginary encounter between Henry's immediate family and Philip Augustus over Christmas at Chinon. He is presented as masculine in contrast to John represented as an "effete weakling". In the 1968 film Henry is represented as a somewhat sacrilegious, fiery and determined king. Henry also appears in the play Becket by Jean Anouilh, filmed in 1964. . The Becket conflict also forms the basis for T. S. Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral  forming a discussion of the of Becket's death and Eliot's deeper religious interpretation of the episode. .

It was in the Tudor period that popular representations of John first emerged. . He appeared as a "proto-Protestant martyr" in the anonymous play The Troublesome Reign of King John and John Bale's morality play Kynge Johan — in which John attempts to save England from the "evil agents of the Roman Church". Shakespeare's relatively anti-Catholic play —King John— draws on The Troublesome Reign but offers a more "balanced, dual view of a complex monarch as both a proto-Protestant victim of Rome's machinations and as a weak, selfishly motivated ruler". Anthony Munday's play The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington portrays many of John's negative traits, but adopts a positive interpretation of the king's stand against the Roman Catholic Church. By the middle of the 17th century, plays such as Robert Davenport's King John and Matilda, although based largely on the earlier Elizabethan works, were transferring the role of Protestant champion to the barons and focusing more on the tyrannical aspects of John's behaviour. Graham Tulloch noted that totally unfavourable nineteenth-century fictional depictions of John were heavily influenced by Sir Walter Scott's historical romance Ivanhoe. This in turn influenced the late 19th-century children's writer Howard Pyle's book The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood which established John as the principal villain within the traditional Robin Hood narrative. During the 20th century, John was normally depicted in fictional books and films alongside Robin Hood. Sam De Grasse's role as John in the black-and-white 1922 film version shows John committing numerous atrocities and acts of torture. . Claude Rains played John in the 1938 colour version alongside Errol Flynn, starting a trend for films to depict John as an "effeminate ... arrogant and cowardly stay-at-home"... The character of John acts either to highlight the virtues of King Richard, or contrasts with the Sheriff of Nottingham, who is usually the "swashbuckling villain" opposing Robin. An extreme version of this trend can be seen in the Disney cartoon version, for example, which depicts John, voiced by Peter Ustinov, as a "cowardly, thumbsucking lion".

Medieval folklore
From the 13th century folk tales developed in which Richard’s minstrel Blondel travelled singing a song known only to the two of them to find where Richard was imprisoned. The story was the basis of André Ernest Modeste Grétry's opera Richard Coeur-de-Lion and seems to be the inspiration for the opening to Richard Thorpe's film version of Ivanhoe. In the 16th century, tales of Robin Hood started to mention him as a contemporary and supporter of King Richard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry, during the misrule of Richard's evil brother John, while Richard was away at the Third Crusade.