Henry PLANTAGENET

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Henry was 9 years old when he became king. Brought up by priests he became devoted to church, art and learning. He was a weak man, dominated by churchmen and easily influenced by his wife´s French relations. In 1264 Henry was captured during the rebellion of barons led by Simon de Montfort and was forced to set up a `Parliament´ at Westminster, the start of the House of Commons. Henry was the greatest of all patrons of medieval architecture and ordered the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in the Gothic style. Henry III was born in 1207 and succeeded his father John on th e throne of England in 1216. It was a ravaged inheritance, the s cene of civil war and anarchy, and much of the east and south ea stern England was under the control of the French Dauphin Louis . But Henry had two great protectors---his liege lord the Pope , and the aged William Marshal. The Marshal, by a combination of military skill and diplomatic a bility, saw off the Dauphin by Sep, 1217, but less than tw o years later he was dead, and a triumvirate ruled in his place : the papal legal Pandulf; the Poitevin Bishop of Winchester Pet er des Roches; and the Justiciar Hubert de Burgh. The legate dep arted in 1221; two years later Henry became of age and, rejectin g Peter, chose Hubert to be his chief counsellor. Trouble soon came, as Hubert attempted to re-asert royal authori ty. Barons, who had kept their castles undistrubed and exercise d their powers without supervison, were now called to account t o the haughty justiciar, and the party of Peter des Roches did n ot fail to underline the annoyances involved. The years 1223-4 w ere taken up with quelling rebellions. Meanwhile the situation abroad was even more disturbing: the Fre nch king Philip Augustus was eating up English lands in Gascony , and Henry's mother Isabella made a bad situation worse by he r marriage with Count Hugh of Lusignan. It was only in 1230 tha t a badly prepared English force set out for France and, after m uch squabbling, all it was able to do was make a demonstration m arch through Gascony. Hubert had already had one dismal failure in Wales in 1228, an d his arrogant attempts to build up a personal base in the Mar es provoked a Welsh raid in 1231 which did more harm to his goo d name. Hubert was thrust out of power, to be replaced by Pete r des Roches' Poitevins. But by 1234 they had upset the baronag e of England, who had never taken kindly to foreigners other tha n the Normans, and Richard Marshal combined with Edmund of Abing ton, Archbishop of Canterbury, to force the King to replace them . Henry now began his period of personal rule, and the world was t o see what sort of king he would make. He was a simple, direct m an, trustful on first impression, but bearing a life-long grudg e when people let him down. At times lavish and life-loving, h e could show another side of his nature, that wicked Angevin tem per and streak of vindictive cruelty. He had a very refined tast e, and enjoyed building and restoration work more than anythin g else. Surrounded by barons who had been proved in the hardes t schools of war, the King had the spirit of an interior decorat or; the nation could have born the expense of his artistic taste s, could have forgiven the eccentricity of it all, but Henry sho wed time and again that he was timorous as well as artistic. H e feared thunderstorms, and battle was beyond him. The Crown had some 60 castles in England, and these were in a ba d state after the troubles of John's reign and the minority. Hen ry travelled about tirelessly rebuilding them and making them mo re comfortable, spending at least ten per cent of his income o n building works. He personally instructed his architects in gre at detail, and could not wait for them to finish---it must be re ady for his return 'even if a thousand workmen are required ever y day' and the job must be 'properly done, beautiful and fine. ' In addition he built or restored twenty royal houses, decorati ng them sumptiously. The painted chamber at Westminster was 80 f t. long, 26 ft. wide, and 31 ft. high. The walls were all wainsc otted (at Winchester even the pantry and cellar were wainscotted ) and painted with pictures and proverbs. The subjects of the pi ctures varied according to the royal moods---in May 1250 the Que en borrowed a book about the crusades, and a year later the wall s at Clarendon showed Richard the Lionheart duelling with Saladi n. Wherever there were no pictures, there was the King's favouri te decor---green curtains spangled with gold stars. The floors w ere tiled, the windows glazed (and barred after 1238 when an att empted assassination scared Henry out of his wits---he even ha d the vent of the royal privy into the Thames barred over) and f ireplaces provided the ultimate in luxury. Special rooms sproute d everywhere, including the room where the royal head was washed . If his private comfort bulked large in Henry's mind, his publi c display of piety came a close second: these were neatly combin ed in the royal bedroom where a window was fitted to look into t he chapel. His greatest project was the rebuilding of Westminste r Abbey, on which he spent nearly £50,000---the equivalent of £4 ,000,000 today. He had been so thrilled with St. Louis' Sainte C hapelle that he had wanted to put it on a cart and roll it bac k to England. That was impossible, so he had to build his own. H e finished it in 1269, and proudly put up the inscription 'As th e rose is the flower of all flowers, so this is the house of hou ses.' For a while Henry had reason for pride: he married Eleanor, daug hter of the Count of Savoy, and sister of the Queen of France, t he finest match in Europe; his sister Isabella was married to th e Emperor Frederick II, and his son Edward to Eleanor of Castill e. He persuaded the Germans to elect his brother, Richard of Cor nwall, King of the Romans. On the other hand, his foreign policy was leading him into dange rs. In 1242 he foolishly allowed himself to be led into supporti ng his mother's ambitions in Poitou, and the enmity with Franc e was to continue needlessly until the settlement of 1259. Loui s IX had no desire to be his enemy---in 1254 all England was ama zed at the French King's generous gift of an elephant, which th e historian Matthew Paris went to draw in the Tower of London. In 1246 Henry's mother died (to almost universal relief) and h e generously invited his four Lusignan half-brothers to live ou t their orphanage under his roof. He gave them large incomes, bu t they took more, milking the land as hard as they could in th e last moments before bankruptcy. The English hated them for the ir avarice, price, and foreign-ness. In ecclesiastical affairs Henry's hands were hopelessly tied---t he Pope had always been his chief prop, and the King could not a fford to lose his aid. There was a strong movement for reform, b ut the papacy's desparate need for money to prosecute its war ag ainst the Hohenstauffen made reform a secondary consideration, a nd indeed frequently blocked it. But Henry may justly be critici sed for his foolishness in accepting the papal offer of the crow n of Sicily for his son Edmund in 1250. The payment was to mee t the astonomical debts of the Pope, and Richard of Cornwall ha d already wisely turned down this bad bargain, commenting that h e had been offered the moon, if he could reach it. Henry's need for money dominated most of his domestic policy. Du ring the period of his personal government he obtained what he n eeded by getting legalists and professional civil servants to ma nipulate the complex chaos of the feudal government he had inher ited. Government became a secret and centralised affair, excludi ng the barons, great and small. There are many comparisons her e with the tyranny of Chales I. In 1258 came the explosion: Parliament refused a grant unless He nry should exile his grasping half-brothers, and allow a commiss ion of enquiry. A committee was set up to control the appointmen t of Crown officials, examine and reform local government, and s upervise the affairs of the realm in general. This was a revolt, but it had many obscure roots. One cannot ass ess how deeply felt were the demands for just and equal governme nt voiced by Simon de Montfort, but certainly there were other e lements in the baronial party which were reactionary rather tha n revolutionary, wanting to return to baronial government for it s own sake. On this issue the reformers spilt, Gloucester leadin g the conservatives, and de Montfort the radicals. Henry saw hi s chance, and deftly using the ever valuable support of the Pope , shook off the Committee's control. Now came war, and the stunning defeat of the royal party at Lewe s in 1264. From this point onwards Henry was very much a broke n man, though prone to bouts of vicious anger. The initiative wa s passed to his son, the Lord Edward, who defeated de Montfort a t Evesham, where Henry was rescued, scratched and shouting 'Do n ot hurt me.' Henry longed for revenge, and disinherited the rebels, who fle d to hideouts in the fens to continue the war. The papal legat e Ottobono persuaded the King to go so far, in the Dictum of Ken ilworth of 1266, as to allow the rebels to buy back their estate s. Still not satisfied, the disinherited, under Gloucester's lea dership, took London, and Richard of Cornwall negotiated an easi er peace. In 1267 the Statute of Marlborough embodied much of wh at de Montfort had fought for, and the long years of trouble wer e over. Henry had at least survived, and his last years were happy in th at he fininshed building his patron saint's Abbey of Westminster . The wheel of fortune that decorated so many of his palaces' wa lls had come round, and all the rage and terror were done with . Henry died in 1272. [Source: Who's Who in the Middle Ages, Joh n Fines, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1995]

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Titel	Family Grimes Stammbaum
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Hochgeladen	2019-08-30 07:34:24.0
Einsender	Michael Grimes
E-Mail	oneofmanyangels@gmail.com
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