“From the Devil they Sprang and to the Devil they shall go”
“From the Devil they Sprang and to the Devil
they shall go”
Ever
since I started studying Medieval History in Sixth Form College, I became
enamoured with the Plantagenet dynasty. This dynasty is best known for ruling
England from the mid 1100’s until the end of the dynasty on the field of
Bosworth in 1485. Although by that point it would hard to argue that this
dynasty had much in association with its origins in the county of Anjou in
central France.
The
Plantagenet dynasty has a rather strange origin story, starting in the 10th
Century with the first count of Anjou Geoffrey I Greymantle, the fourth count
of Anjou was so struck by the beauty of an unnamed women washing her hair in
the river that he scooped her up on to his horse and they were hastily married
soon after. As the legend goes, this woman was inattentive in mass and always
left before the communion rites, when whispers of adultery started Geoffrey,
had guards placed on the doors and had them locked. In the presence of the
transubstantiated body of Christ the woman could bare no more and let out a
deafening shriek transforming into a winged daemon and flying from the window
never to be seen again. Other variations included that she had monstrous legs
and stomped her way through the church floor back to hell. Or that is how my
sixth form teacher told the story.
When
I looked It up further I found this: The chronicler Gerald of
Wales reported that Richard I of
England was fond of telling a tale according
to which he was a descendant of a countess of Anjou who was in fact the fairy
Melusine.
The Angevin legend told of an early Count
of Anjou who met a beautiful woman when in a far land, where he married her. He
had not troubled to find out about her origins. However, after bearing him four
sons, the behaviour of his wife began to trouble the count. She attended church
infrequently, and always left before the Mass proper. One day he had four of
his men forcibly restrain his wife as she rose to leave the church. Melusine
evaded the men and clasped the two youngest of her sons and in full view of the
congregation carried them up into the air and out of the church through its
highest window. Melusine and her two sons were never seen again. One of the
remaining sons was the ancestor, it was claimed, of the later Counts of Anjou
and the Kings of England.[1]
The
Melusine story is linked with many royal origin stories from the Middle Ages and
is linked heavily to the legend of Percival the Knight of King Arthur’s
court. As origin stories go it links the
Plantagenets to a side of medieval superstition that runs parallel to the
prevailing Christian dogma, this family had a grounding in the world of
folklore and superstition. The black temper possessed by many of the
Plantagenet kings of England was linked to the lingering blood of Melusine in
the family and even the eldest son of Geoffrey Greymantle was known for his
violent treatment of his wife and subjects and his viciousness in war, he was
aptly named Fulk Nerra (Fulk the Black) on account of his mood and temperament.
Again, it was Richard I who often said, "From
the Devil we sprang and to the Devil we shall go."
Of course, the reality is more mundane with the legend
supposedly generating from the success of the counts of Anjou who increased the
size of their holding through the tenth and eleventh centuries to entering the
higher echelons of French nobility. Afterall, what else could explain the
success of these middling nobles to be competitors to the Norman Dukes, the
Capetian Kings and the other great dukes of Champagne, Burgundy, and Brittany?
What has always seemed
intriguing about the Counts of Anjou is the number of interesting characters
that the family generated, Fulk Nerra, the count with the ferocious temper was
also a great builder of castles and four time pilgrim to the Holy Land. His son
"Geoffrey, count of the Angevins, nicknamed Martel, a treacherous man in
every respect, frequently inflicted assaults and intolerable pressure on his
neighbours." Who fought with all of his rival counts and famously
quarrelled and fought with William the Bastard prior to his death in 1060,
leaving the county of Anjou without an heir and in relative stagnation for
several years. When the Angevin star rose again in the early 12th
century with Fulk V, who abdicated his position as Count of Anjou to his son to
Geoffrey the fair in 1128 to later become the king of Jerusalem in 1131. Geoffrey the Fair through strident political
negotiating on the behalf of his father and King Henry I of England resulting
in him entering into marriage with Matilda FitzEmpress. Geoffrey’s skill as an
administrator and soldier and Matilda’s claim to the throne, political skill
learnt in the German court and stubbornness required to continue the civil war
with King Stephen laid the foundations for the eventual Angevin succession to
the English throne to 1154.
The Angevin rise to the English throne in the mid twelfth
century was successful in the regard that Geoffrey the Fair did not try to gain
the throne for himself, and Matilda relented her claim in favour of her son ,
who was more acceptable to the English Nobility. With Geoffrey securing the
Norman lands of much of the nobility Matilda could bring more of the English
nobility to her cause and the incompetence of Stephen drew the nobles into the
Angevin camp.
So within two centuries the Angevins had risen from rural
counts, who married water spirits firmly grounded in rural tradition to the
King’s of England.
I will firmly admit that my focus on the Angevin dynasty has
always been the reigns of Henry II, Richard I and King John. Who I believe
embody the spirit their Angevin predecessors, for better or worse.
The nature of the
Angevins cross continental holdings I believe makes for some of the most
interesting challenges faced by any medieval monarchs and the conflicts between
the Angevins and their French Royal counterparts the Capetians formed the
modern nations of England and France respectively.
The
undoubted Godfather of the Angevin dynasty is Henry II, the energetic, clever,
and domineering father of the Devil’s Brood. Who dominated politics in France
and the British Isles for 35 years. Henry II schooled by his mother and in the
mould of his father, was a great administrator, a capable and astute war leader
and a King who developed the infrastructure of England, Normandy and Anjou to
be expansive and capable at running a conglomerate of lands that were to be
latter dubbed the ‘Angevin Empire’.
In
the main regard Henry II never set out to be an empire builder and the crux of
his problems faced in his reign stemmed from what was to be done with his lands
when he died. The independence of the Aquitanian south never coalesced to
Capetian rule in 1130s and 1140’s and nor would it easily accept Angevin
control through the 1150’s to Henry’s death, but Henry II was capable enough to
make it work allowing his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine to hold power through him
in the Duchy in the early parts of his reign and placing capable administrators
there, allowing for effective rule on a short leash as it were.
Ultimately
Henry’s reign as the first Plantagenet king set the bar incredibly high, Henry
II I believe rose to power and consolidated his rule, so effectively that it
required the near constant dedications of himself and his most trusted advisors
to continually be itinerant and active in dealing with the running of such vast
holdings. Henry II took the initiative and scrambled effectively in times of
crisis to ensure his presence was were it would be most effectively employed
and that his most trusted men were in place and on his side to ensure his will
was carried out. As a ruler he was not without setbacks or defeats, but he was
able to respond and redirect his energies and maintain his position as the
Great Statesman of Europe, even the Becket controversy only stymied Henry’s
ambitions for a year or so, and the great rebellion of 1173-1174, only
unsteadied the Henry’s rule for a matter of months. Even if it was his failure
to ultimately resolve the familial issues that ate at the core of the
Plantagenet dynasty.
Henry’s
strong leadership over 35 years allowed for effective consolidation of power
and for England to work as an effective autonomous entity within the Angevin
holdings, just as Normandy and Anjou were able to do on the continent. Henry II
I would say was the pioneer of micromanaging on a macro scale.
Unfortunately,
the same cannot be said for his descendants, Richard I, I ultimately was a
great warrior and inherited a kingdom that was capable of running itself, and
like his father was effective at choosing the right men for the job in running
the administration. But his focus was always on the more martial and courtly
pursuits of Kingship, and to that end he was effective, he was a general in the
Roman mould, who could campaign and win battles and sieges effectively, he was
an effective leader of a coalition force on crusade who secured the crusader
states’ survival for a century. His personality varies from what I have read
with historians like John Gillingham applauding his cunning, wit and educated
style, whilst others focus on his Angevin tendencies to be quick to anger, to
hold grudges and to be excessive in his punishments.
However,
what I believe stops Richard from being a truly great leader is that his
constant warring with the rival Capetian Dynasty and his long absence on
Crusade, left the Angevin dynasty in a holding position, his campaign against
the Capetians was turning in his favour in 1199 but his unexpected death at a
minor siege over either an unearthed roman treasure hoard or minor land dispute
but an end to any hope of Richard matching his father.
And on a side note, the Victorian use of Richard
as a noble crusader and keeper of justice in the realm, made to act as
provenance for the 19th centuries imperialist expansionism and
romanticism of the middle ages has only served to muddy the views of Richard,
who I believe would embody very little of the narrative and character that
later writers have build around his character. [2]
Being King of England was useful to Richard, but I don’t believe that he
embodied England, more it was his reservoir of wealth to continue his campaigns
against the Capetians.
I
will end this article by looking at the last of the first two generations of
Plantagenet kings, John, whose reign unceremoniously took the idea of the
‘Angevin Empire’ and undermined it so fully that it would never successfully
rise again. John’s reign can be best described as one of those scenes in a
cartoon in which a character causes an accident and you hear it all the
disastrous clattering and banging happening off screen whilst we see the
characters hunched and grimaced reaction. In my early days of studying the
Angevins I will admit that I was one of those people who tried to salvage
John’s reign, but I realised that the only way to do this was by picking at
aspects of Richard’s reign and saying that John did this aspect slightly
better.
I
now know better and will fully admit that John’s reign was a disaster, he
lurched progressively from one disaster to the next, fought his ministers, the
Church and the Capetians and his own nobles with little skill or guile. In
flashes he could be successful, or at least find people who could achieve his
goals, but his constant agitation of his own nobles and the church and everyone
else for that matter meant that very few people were willing to stand by him in
times of crisis. Henry II and even Richard always had a cadre of leading
Nobles, prelates and ministers who were ready to standby them in times of
crisis, John did not. John was a king who created his own problems and
responded by enflaming the situation, then fell into a malaise as things
started to burn down around him. The loss of the Angevin holdings of Maine,
Touraine, Normandy, Brittany amongst others speaks of the levels of John’s
capabilities. These territories had withstood Capetian aggression and
encroachment whilst Richard was imprisoned in Austria but crumbled in John’s
presence.
What
is the opposite of the Midas Touch again?
The
fact that William Marshal one of the top nobles and wisest voices in court side
stepped John to maintain his continental possessions form Philip II Augustus
the King of France, highlights the fact that John lacked authority in his King
after the disasters of 1203 and 1204. As England fell into further chaos in
John’s reign with his Baron’s turning to the French Prince Louis the Lion,
later to be Louis the VIII of France, it can only be said that the greatest
service to England was his death[3].
Which at least allowed England to stabilize under the governance of the top
nobles and prelates who fortunately maintain the skills that had provided King
Henry II and Richard I with effective governance in the absence of direct
monarchic authority. John’s main achievement could therefore be said that he
helped to crystallise France and England into two separate entities which would
later form the rival nation states of the Early modern and industrial eras.
By
the time of John’s death, the Plantagenet dynasty has risen to its zenith with
territories from Scotland to the Pyrenees and then returned England back to
back to a similar position it had been on the death Henry I in 1132, but
instead of an Anglo-Norman realm it was now an Anglo-Gascon realm. Unable to
recapture the skill of Henry II later Plantagenet kings would not be able to
effectively straddle a cross channel Kingdom, even the English domination of
Paris and large sways of France in the 15th lasted less than a
generation. But I fully stand by the
idea that the Plantagenets are England’s most interesting Kings. And as a
History teacher myself I only wish they had the same position in the culture
zeitgeist as the Tudors and the Stuarts. Bernard of Clairvaux may have been
correct when he said, “From the Devil they Sprang and to the Devil they shall
go”.
MA in Renaissance and Medieval Studies, University of Liverpool
[1] Huscroft, R. (2016) Tales
From the Long Twelfth Century: The Rise and Fall of the Angevin Empire,
Yale University Press, pp. xix–xx
[2]
The statue of Richard outside the Houses of Parliament stand as testament to
this 19th century Narrative, Richard had no affinity for England,
and was supposed to have said before leaving on crusade that he would have sold
London if he could have found a buyer.
[3]
The signing of the Magna Carta doesn’t count as he immediately reneged on it
and got the Pope to declare it as signed under duress. Bad Barons leave your
tyrannical king alone!
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