Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (8 page)

Henry’s father, Count Geoffrey of Anjou, used to wear a sprig of bloom on his helmet. The plant was called the Broom Flower or
planta genista
(
planta genet
in French), and from that came first his nickname and then years afterwards the family surname and the name of the Plantagenet dynasty.

King Henry II ruled a vast territory. From his father he inherited Anjou, Touraine and Maine; from his mother he inherited Normandy; and from his grandfather Henry I (via Stephen and Matilda) he inherited England. Before his accession, Henry II had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the former wife of the King of France (the marriage annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, but in truth because after 14 years of marriage she had not produced a son), and she brought Henry the lands of Aquitaine, Poitou, Gascony and Auvergne. Later, Henry inherited Brittany from his brother. As a result, Henry ruled England and the western half of present-day France.

England’s growing status was enhanced when Nicholas Breakspear was elected the first and only English pope, Adrian IV, who is said to have authorised Henry to conquer Ireland.

Short but strong, Henry had tremendous energy and intelligence as well as an impressive knowledge of languages and the law. He also had a fearsome temper. His problems came from those closest to him, and one by one they reduced him from greatness to a weak old man.

Early in the reign, Henry appointed his friend and Chancellor, Thomas Becket, as Archbishop of Canterbury; Becket having been ordained a priest one day earlier. Becket immediately discarded the friendship and opposed Henry’s efforts to increase royal control over the English Church. The main clash came about when Becket refused to allow a lay court to try a priest who had been accused of rape and murder. Leniency of church courts towards priests they had convicted was commonplace; the church courts could not pass a sentence of blood, and they were unwilling to incur the expense of imprisonment. So penance was usually as far as it went.

MatterscametoaheadwhenBecketcomplainedtothePope(no longer Adrian IV, who had died, supposedly by choking on a fly in hisglassofwine)andstartedexcommunicatingHenry’ssupporters, threatening to do the same to Henry. The King’s temper exploded and his rash words led to four of his knights riding to Canterbury where they murdered Becket. The whole of Europe was outraged. Becket was declared a martyr; he would later become a saint. King Henry was forced to do penance and required to walk barefoot to Canterbury, to be scourged by 80 monks who beat him as he walked past them wearing sackcloth and ashes.

Henry also fell out with his wife, partly because of their conflicting strong personalities, but also on Henry’s side because of his lack of interest in a woman who was twelve years his senior, and on Eleanor’s side because of her husband’s large number of illegitimate children. Queen Eleanor was particularly incensed at having in the palace the son of a prostitute, a boy named Geoffrey who would later become the Archbishop of York.

The royal couple had eight children: William who died young and four more boys: Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John. There were also three girls: Maud, Eleanor and Joan. The sons would continually cause trouble.

Henry favoured his youngest child, John, and was always concerned to see to his future. When Henry was negotiating a marriage for John, he decided to give him three castles in Anjou. The oldest son, also called Henry, had already been crowned King of England so as to ensure a smooth succession on his father’s death, and he was therefore known as the Young King, although he was in reality a prince. The Young King was impatient for power, and he demanded that his father give him England, Anjou or Normandy to rule. He also objected to John being given any castles.

When Henry rejected all of the Young King’s demands, the Young King made for the court of King Louis VII of France, and his equally rebellious brothers Richard and Geoffrey followed him. Queen Eleanor argued that she had the right of gift of the territories she had brought to the marriage, and she decided to join her three sons. But she was caught before she could leave England and was imprisoned by her husband.

In time, Henry made peace with the three princes. Then a disputeoveracastlecausedtheYoungKingandhisallyGeoffrey to fall out with Richard. The Young King went on the attack and ravaged Richard’s territory of Aquitaine. Richard called on his father for support, and Henry set out with troops, heading for Limoges. On approaching the town, they were ambushed, and arrows rained down on Henry and his men. One arrow penetrated Henry’s armour, but the armour was strong, of the highest quality. Although the arrow drew blood, the wound was minor; a man with lesser armour would have been killed.

Having joined up with Richard, father and son set out to confront the Young King in the hope of forcing a settlement. As they neared his castle they were spotted, and archers on the battlements took aim and let fly their arrows at Henry and his knights. One arrow sped through the air bound for Henry. Just as

the arrow neared its target, Henry’s horse reared, raising its head high, and it was struck a fearful blow. If the horse had not lifted its head at that very moment, the arrow would have pierced the King’s breast. Another lucky escape for an English monarch.

The negotiations came to nothing. Then the Young King fell mortally ill. He died of dysentery in 1183, his only child having died in infancy.

Now King Henry had to reassess the succession. He decided to give Anjou, Maine and Normandy to the oldest surviving son, Richard; Geoffrey already ruled Brittany having married the duchess; Aquitaine was to go to the favourite son, John. The problem was that Richard had been installed as Duke of Aquitaine when he was 14 years old, and he refused to surrender it to John as part of the arrangement.

There was only one way to deal with Richard. Geoffrey and John were sent to Aquitaine with an army to force him to submit. They failed as Richard repelled the attack. Then, in 1186, Geoffrey took part in a tournament in Paris. In the ‘mock’ fighting, Geoffrey was knocked off his horse and trampled to death. Only Richard and John were left.

Seeing an opportunity for mischief, King Philip of France, who was keen to acquire Plantagenet lands, advised Richard that Aquitaine was only the start and that Henry was planning to disinherit Richard completely, leaving everything to John. As a result, Richard confronted his father and demanded formal recognition as heir to all his father’s lands. Henry refused to do anything of the sort.

With the dispute unresolved, the ageing king fell ill whilst at Le Mans (the principal city of Maine). Taking advantage of his father’s infirmity, Richard attacked with the support of King Philip. Henry had the southern part of the town set alight in an effort to halt Richard’s advance. Then, as the fire raged, the wind changed direction and Henry was forced to flee, accompanied by 70 knights. The French gave chase, eager to seize the opportunity to kill Henry, but they were slowed down whilst crossing a stream whose waters were high. That enabled Henry to make good his escape, and he reached a hilltop from where he watched his birthplace burn to the ground. It was a total disaster.

The victors summoned the exhausted Henry to discuss terms. He had to accept whatever was demanded; principally recognition of Richard as his heir, and an amnesty for those who had rebelled. Henry was therefore able to require one thing in return. He obviously needed the names of all the treasonable subjects who had fought against him and who were to receive the amnesty.

Henry retired to Chinon. The next day a horseman arrived and delivered the list of names into Henry’s hands, no one believing that this was anything more than an administrative requirement to enable the appropriate document to be prepared for Henry’s signature. They were mistaken; Henry wanted to know who was on the list. He untied the parchment, unrolled it and set his gaze at the top of the column of names.

ToHenry’scompletesurpriseandbitterdistress,thefirstname was that of his favourite child, John. This was the very son he had beenfightingforandwhomhedearlywantedtobehissuccessor. John could not have done more to kill his father if he had thrust a dagger into his heart. Henry flew into an uncontrollable rage, suffered a violent fit and collapsed on the floor.

After telling the illegitimate Geoffrey (the prostitute’s child) that he was the only true son and all the others were bastards, Henry fell into semi-consciousness, intermittently gathering his remaining strength to abuse Richard and John.

Hounded to the point of death by the son who had attacked and harassed him, and mortally wounded by the son dearest to him, Henry lost the will to live. He died a day later of a cerebral haemorrhage – killed for sure if ‘killed’ means that someone caused his death. A miserable end after having survived the earlier attempts to kill him, saved first by his armour and then by his horse.

When Richard succeeded his father, he finally achieved his ambition to rule all his mother’s and his father’s territories. However, he had absolutely no interest in England. In fact, he could speak very little English, and throughout his reign he would treat the country as little more than a source of manpower and revenue, preferring to live in his duchy of Aquitaine.

Richard was a tall man, and like most of the men in his family, he was red-haired with a wild temper, fearless and violent. No English monarch has such a romantic reputation, renowned through the ages for gallantry and virtue. Yet although he was called the Lionheart
³
, Richard’s considerable military prowess was largely employed in the slaughter of unarmed innocents.

After the death of his father, Richard travelled to London to be crowned, having released his mother from imprisonment. The coronation left London smouldering. First, the circling of a bat around Richard’s head during the ceremony was seen as an evil omen. Then mass murder took over. William the Conqueror had brought to England a number of Jewish

merchants and their families to help stimulate the economy, and he and his successors always considered it their duty to protect them. During Richard’s coronation, several Jews who had come with gifts for the new monarch were beaten to death. With no effort being made to stop them, the mob poured on to the streets and set fire to the homes of all the Jews in London, and then killed most of them as they fled. After that, the Jews in other towns were murdered; every man, woman and child in Lynn, Norwich, Stamford and York.
⁴

Having left the Jews to their fate, Richard’s attention turned to their homeland. Once crowned, he started preparations to enlist an army to go on the Third Crusade with his ally, King Philip II of France. Their mission was to re-take Jerusalem from Saladin
⁵
. Richard set out in the summer of 1190, and he made his way to Messina in Sicily where he was to meet up with Philip.

Richard disliked King Tancred of Sicily because of the way he had treated the widow of the former king; and that widow was Richard’s sister Joan. Tancred was holding Joan prisoner and would not hand over her dowry to which she was entitled under her husband’s will, and to which the new king (who was not his predecessor’s legal heir) had no right. When the citizens of Messina refused to allow Richard’s soldiers into the town or provide them with supplies, fighting broke out. Richard took the opportunity to devastate the entire city. Tancred speedily released Joan, and he later agreed to give her 20,000 ounces of gold and to send a similar amount to Richard.