Name Suffix: King
Ancestral File Number: 8WKP-WF
Henry II was bornat Le Mans in 1133. He was the eldest son of the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, by her second marriage to Geoffrey the Fair of Anjou. His parents' marriage was tempestous, and both parties were glad when politics brought a separation, with Matilda going to England to fight King Stephen, and Geoffrey of Normandy to win a heritage for young Henry.
He first came to England at the age of nine when his mother made her dramatic escape from Oxford where she was besieged by Stephen, across the ice and snow, dressed all in white, to welcome him at Wallingford. His next visit, when he was fourteen, showed his character: he recruited a small army of mercenaries to cross over and fight Stephen in England, but failed so miserably in the execution of his plans that he ended up borrowing money from Stephen to get back home. A third expedition, two years later, was almost as great a failure. Henry was not a soldier, his were skills of administration and diplomacy; warfare bored and sometimes frightened him. For the meanwhile he now concentrated on Normandy, of which his father had made him joint ruler. In 1151, the year of his father's death, he went to Paris to do homageto Louis VII for his duchy. There he met Queen Eleanor, and she fell in love with him.
Henry was by no means averse. To steal a king's wife does a great deal for the ego of a young duke; he was as lusty as she, and late in their lives he was still ardently wenching with 'the fair Rosamund' Clifford, and less salubrious girls with names like 'Bellebelle'; finally, she would bring with her the rich Duchy of Aquitaine, which she held in her own right. With this territory added to those he hoped to inherit and win, his boundaries would be Scotlandin the north, and the Pyrenees in the south.
Henry was, apart from his prospects, a 'catch' for any woman. He was intelligent, had learned Latin and couldread and possibly write; immensely strong and vigorous, a sportsman and hard rider who loved travel; emotional and passionate, prone to tears and incredible rages; carelessly but richly dressed, worried enough in later life to conceal his baldness by careful arrangement of his hair, and very concerned not to grow fat.
But now he was in the prime of youth, and in 1153, when he landed with a large force in Bristol, the world was ready to be won. He quickly gained control of the West Country and moved up to Wallingford for a crucial battle with Stephen. This was avoided, however, because in thepreparations for the battle Henry fell from his horse three times, a bad omen. Henry himself was not superstitious -- he was the reverse, a cheerful blasphemer -- but he disliked battles and when his anxious advisers urged him to heed the omen, he willingly agreed toparley privately with Stephen. The conference was a strange occasion: there were only two of them there, at the narowest point of the Thames, with Henry on one bank and Stephen on the other. None the less, they seem to have come to an agreement to take negotiations further.
That summer Stephen's son died mysteriously, and Eleanor bore Henry an heir (about the same time as an English whoreHikenai produced his faithful bastard Geoffrey). The omens clearly showed whatwas soon confirmed between the two -- that when Stephen died, Henry should rule in his place. A year later Stephen did die, and in December 1154, Henry and Eleanor were crowned in London.
Henry was only 21, but he soon showed his worth, destroying unlicensed castles, and dispersing the foreign mercenaries. He gave even-handed justice, showing himself firm, but not unduly harsh. A country racked by civil war sighed with relief. Only two major difficulties appeared: first Henry's failure in his two Welsh campaigns in 1157 and 1165, when guerillatactics utterly defeated and on the first occasion nearly killed him; second was the reversal of his friendship for Becket when
