Henry II "Plantagenet" ENGLAND, KING

                   Name Suffix: [Prince]
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-R7
Seal to Parents:  25 MAY 1940
                  

                   Name Suffix: Duke Aquitaine
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-SD
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-SD
                  

                   Name Suffix: [Princess]
Ancestral File Number: 8WKQ-28
Seal to Parents:  28 SEP 1937
                  

                   Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-VQ
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Following copied from Barry Hummel, Jr, World Connect db=siderhummel, rootsweb.com:
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Henry's elder son, Richard I (reigned 1189-99), fulfilled his main ambition by going on crusade in 1190, leaving the ruling of England to others. After his victories over Saladin at the siege of Acre and the battles of Arsuf and Jaffa, concluded by the treaty of Jaffa (1192), Richard was returning from the Holy Land when he was captured in Austria later that year. Inearly 1193, Richard was transferred to emperor Henry VI's custody.

In Richard's absence, King Philip of France failed to obtain Richard's French possessions through invasion or negotiation. In England, Richard's brother John occupiedWindsor Castle and prepared an invasion of England by Flemish mercenaries, accompanied by armed uprisings. Their mother queen Eleanor took firm action against John by strengthening garrisons and again exacting oaths of allegiance to theking. John's subversive activities were ended by the payment of a crushing ransom of 150,000 marks of silver to the emperor, for Richard's release in 1194. Warned by Philip's famous message 'look to yourself, the devil is loosed', John fled to the French court.

On his return to England, Richard was recrowned atWinchester in 1194. Five years later he died in France during a minor siege against a rebellious baron. By the time of his death, Richard had recovered all his lands. His success was short-lived. In 1199 his brother John became king andPhilip successfully invaded Normandy. By 1203, John had retreated to England, losing his French lands of Normandy and Anjou by 1205.
                  

                   Name Suffix: Earl Of Richmond
Ancestral File Number: 8WKQ-5R
Name Suffix: [DUKE OF BRITTAN
Ancestral File Number: 8WKQ-5R
                  

                   Name Suffix: [Prince]
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-X3
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-X3
                  

                   Name Suffix: [Queen Castile]
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-Z8
Name Suffix: [QUEEN OF CASTIL
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ3-Z8
                  

                   Name Suffix: [Princess]
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ4-0D
Ancestral File Number: 8XJ4-0D
                  

                   Ancestral File Number: 8XJ4-1K
Matthew Paris wrote, 'Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the presence of King John', and this pretty well sums up John's reputation--until 1944, that is. For in that year Professor Galbraith demonstrated in a lecture to an astonished world that the chief chronicle source for the reign of John was utterly unreliable. Since then bad King John has been getting better and better, until now he is nearly well again, and a leading scholar in the field has seriously warned us that the twentieth century could wellcreate it own John myth.

A man who can create so many myths, or rather havethem created about him, is clearly outstanding in some way, but the myths hidethe truth. Plainly the chroniclers who invented stories about him after his death can tell us little, and we should not take too much notice of people who condemned John for carrying out his father's (and his brother's officials'] policies and administratrive routines, nor indeed those who condemned him because ofthe bitter troubles that happened in the succeeding reign, troubles which werein no means entirely of John's making. Recent historians have turned to the administrative records of his reign, and found there a very different picture; but still the lingering doubts remain--were these records the result of John's skill and application or of those of his able staff?

John was a paunchy littleman, five feet five inches tall, with erect head, staring eyes, flaring nostrils and thick lips set in a cruel pout, as his splendid monument at Worcester shows. He had the tempestous nature of all his family, and a driving demoniac energy: Professor Barlow says that 'he prowled around his kingdom,' which is an evocative phrase, but it would be truer to say that he raced around it. He was fastidious about his person--taking more baths than several other medieval kings put together, and owning the ultimate in luxury, for that time, a dressing-gown. He loved good food and drink, and gambled a great deal, though he usually lost--the results of his typical impatience and carelessness are recorded on his expense rolls; above all things he loved women. Some say his 'elopment' was the cause of his loss of Normandy. He was generous to the poor (for instance, he remitted to them the penalties of the forest law), and to his servants; at the least he went through the motions of being a Christian king. He was extortionate,though if one considers the terrific increase in his outgoings (a mercenary soldier cost him 200 per cent more in wages than he would have in Henry II's day)one can understand some of his actions in the field. He was deeply concerned about justice, took care to attend to court business, and listened to supplicants with sympathy; he had also an urgent desire for peace in the land, saying that his peace was to be observed 'even if we have granted it to a dog.' But for all that, he had two totally unredeeming vices; he was suspicious, and enjoyed acloak-and-dagger atmosphere--simply he did not inspire trust in his subjects. Dr. Warren says of him with some justice that if he had lived in the twentieth centure he would have adored to run a secret police.

He was born at Oxford on Christmas Eve 1167. He was oblated for a monk at the abbey of Fontevrault at the age of one year, but was back at court by the time he was six--plainly he had no vocation, but he probably picked up at this early stage his fastidiousness and his passion for books: his library followed him wherever he went. He was his father's favourite, but he turned against the old man when his chance came,as he did against Richard (who had been very generous to his brother) when thelatter was in captivity in 1193. The episode was a miserable failure, but it possibly sowed the seeds of distrust for John in England, where they began to sprout luxuriantly in 1199 when Richard died and John came to the throne.

Immeditaely the challenge came: Philip Augustus, the