Claudia Gold

Author Claudia Gold points out that Henry II had a larger European empire than Charlemagne, but people associated with him (wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, sons Richard the Lionhearted and John Lackland, and archbishop Thomas Becket) are better known? Gold speculates that if Henry had died a little younger, before the final rebellion of his sons and the battle with Philip Augustus of France, he would have been accounted one of the greatest English kings and imagines a hypothetical Shakespeare play, Henry II, performed to wild acclaim in the Globe.

After a contested rise to the throne, Henry picked up the sobriquet “King of the North Wind” due to his frequent and rapid travels around his Angevin Empire. At first he and Eleanor were helpmeets; she was left in charge and acted with all royal authority while he was away. And Henry’s main goal was to bring uniform justice. Prior to Henry, every local lord had the power of justice in his own realm and there were multiple courts that might have jurisdiction; afterward (albeit gradually) the “King’s justice” prevailed. There were uniform writs to summon defendants, royal circuit judges that traveled the realm and held courts regularly, and written records of court proceedings. Although trial by jury went back to Anglo-Saxon times, Henry regularized it; civil cases (which were almost always about land and property) were handled by a jury familiar with the situation. Criminal cases had a jury as well, but it was a “presenting jury”; it identified the accused by examining the evidence, but the actual trial took place before a judge and he pronounced the verdict. Gold holds that one of Henry’s accomplishments in streamlining the justice was making it less expensive for the people (because fewer courts were involved) and more lucrative to the Exchequer (because all court fees now went there).

And the quest for uniform justice is where Henry ran afoul of the Church and his erstwhile friend, Thomas Becket. Gold notes Becket got the glory as a saintly martyr – in the plays, the films, and the poetry – with Henry portrayed as raging tyrant. The actual situation was more nuanced. Henry wanted clergy charged with major criminal offences – rape, murder, robbery, treason, forgery or coining – to be judged in the royal courts; the Church – and Becket – wanted them judged under canon law. This might have been acceptable to Henry if canon law and royal law had similar outcomes, but an accused under canon law could prove innocence by ordeal – and the ordeal was eating a Host without choking on it; Gold notes this was hardly a deterrent. Henry proposed a compromise – the defendant would be tried under canon law but handed over to secular authorities for punishment, but Becket refused – even though this had been the arrangement under William the Conqueror and Henry I. Gold notes that “benefit of clergy” applied to anyone who was literate – not just ordained priests, monks, and nuns, but university students, doctors, lawyers, and clerks – 40000 people, or about 4% of the adult male population. Some of the crimes clergy could get away with were pretty appalling; a cleric raped a girl and murdered of her father when he came to her defense, and none other than the Archbishop of York blinded and hanged a boy who accused him of homosexuality. We know what happened – Henry made an angry comment that some of his knights interpreted as an order to kill Becket, and they did.

Gold notes that Henry was not without his flaws; he had a violent temper, and was a serial adulterer. His greatest defect was in family relations. Henry seems to have expected his family to stand together as a unit; instead they all turned against him, sometimes in outright armed rebellion. Gold notes the sons were not raised together or (usually) with Henry; he was always on the move and the boys were either left with their mother or fostered out to various nobles. When the sons came of age, Henry refused to give them any power, and removed Eleanor for her former coregent position; in fact, he had her imprisoned. In the end Richard allied with Philip Augustus of France and defeated his own father, who had to agree to humiliating terms of surrender. Henry was so ill he had to be carried in a litter, and his last words were reportedly “Oh shame!”

I remember seeing the film versions of Becket and The Lion in Winter in high school; in both Henry is portrayed unfavorably. Gold presents him in a new light. This is an enjoyable and easy read – “reads like a novel” is a cliché but it fits here. Good maps, genealogies, and a cast of characters in the front matter; some pertinent plates; a chronology, endnotes, index and an extensive bibliography at the end. Well worth it and recommended. For more on the times, see Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings and King John.… (altro)