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Henry II of England

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Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189. During his reign he controlled England, substantial parts of Wales and Ireland, and much of France (including Normandy, Aquitaine and Anjou), an area that together was later called the Angevin Empire, and also held power over Scotland and the Duchy of Brittany.

Quotes

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  • Laymen ought not to be accused save by dependable and lawful accusers and witnesses in the presence of the bishop, yet so that the archdeacon lose not his right or anything which he ought to have thence. And if there should be those who are deemed culpable, but whom no one wishes or dares to accuse, the sheriff, upon the bishop's request, shall cause twelve lawful men of the neighbourhood or the vill to take oath before the bishop that they will show the truth of the matter according to their conscience.
  • And let all the sheriffs make a list of all fugitives who have fled from their counties; and let them do this before the county courts, and they shall bring the names of these men in writing before the justices when first they come to them, in order that they may be sought throughout all England and their chattels seized for the benefit of the king.
    • Assize of Clarendon, § 18. Made by King Henry with the assent of clergy and nobility in 1166. Latin text in: William Stubbs, Select Charters, 9th ed. (1913), pp. 170–173. Translation in: A. B. White; W. Notestein, Source Problems in English History (1915), Appendix, III

Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

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  • What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!
    • Edward Grim, who was present at Thomas Becket's murder and subsequently wrote the Vita S. Thomae ("Life of St. Thomas") in about 1180. Quoted by Frank Barlow, Thomas Becket (University of California Press, 1986) p. 235. See also:
  • O wretched Man that I am, who shall deliver me from this turbulent Priest?
    • Robert Dodsley, Chronicle of the Kings of England (1740)
    • Cf. Romans 7:24: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
  • [He said] that he was very unfortunate to have maintained so many cowardly and ungrateful men in his court, none of whom would revenge him of the injuries he sustained from one turbulent priest.
  • O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this turbulent priest?
    • The Chronicle of the Kings of England (1821); expanded in footnote: "Shall this fellow, who came to court on a lame horse, with all his estate on a wallet behind him, trample on the King, the royal family, and the whole kingdom. Will none of all these lazy insignificant persons, whom I maintain, deliver me from this turbulent priest?"

Fiction

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John Schlight, Henry II Plantagenet (1973)

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All quotes from the hardcover first edition, published by Twayne Publishers
  • Henry's choice of these two men was a signal that the criteria for deciding who was a friend and who a foe had changed with the coronation and that from that moment on those who worked loyally for his program of centralization were to be his friends, while those who opposed the increase of monarchial power were his enemies, regardless of former affiliations.
    • Chapter 3, “A New Broom” (p. 52)
  • To a mind such as Henry’s Thomas’s preference for principle, even to the point of personal disloyalty, was incomprehensible. Within the black and white cavities of the king’s mind the idea was forming that Becket must have been carrying on a false front all these years in hopes of greater preferment, and that his present rejection of the secular office was an act of disloyalty and even treason.
    • Chapter 6, “The Challenge from Canterbury” (p. 93)
  • Once again Henry showed a lack of subtlety which remained his own worst enemy throughout his life. His obsession with order and precise definition smashed the interplay of fragile and tacit forces which is required for successful diplomacy. He disregarded the first law of negotiation, namely, always to give your opponent the opportunity to save face, especially when he is yielding the substance of his position.
    • Chapter 6, “The Challenge from Canterbury” (p. 101)
  • What separated the king and archbishop was more than the personality of the two antagonists. Each had become by the time of Clarendon a fierce and unyielding representative of opposing views regarding the nature and purpose of law. Germanic law, which only in the Angevin lands was maintaining its purity against the spread of the Roman concept of justice, operated pragmatically to settle disputes by appealing to earlier practices. Custom and precedent, rather than an abstract concept of “justice,” determined what was just in a given case. This explains Henry’s conservatism and obsessive search for the practices of his ancestors. By Roman (and Canon) lawyers, on the other hand, a law was deemed just not because it was aligned to the past, but because it borrowed its justness from an a priori, rational, transcendental concept of justice.
    • Chapter 6, “The Challenge from Canterbury” (pp. 103-104)
  • As a by-product of his attempt to solve the problem of law and order, the Plantagenet king was creating the foundation of English common law.
    • Chapter 7, “Storm Clouds over the Continent” (p. 115)
  • Henry II’s introduction of English authority into southern Ireland was to last exactly 750 years. Eight centuries later the native Irish in the north were still discontent with the nature of English rule.
    • Chapter 8, “Peace with the Pope” (p. 133)
  • Henry was the type of ruler who brought to every problem a preconceived solution designed to increase his own power. Most of his time and energy was then devoted to devising ways of forcing others to adopt his point of view.
    • Chapter 9, “A Family Mutiny” (p. 137)
  • The production at this time of the Dialogue of the Exchequer, which a leading historian would characterize as “one of the most wonderful things of Henry’s wonderful reign,” further suggests that Henry’s innovative days were over, for only after an institution has settled down and begun to harden is it considered worthwhile to commit such a detailed description of it to writing.
    • Chapter 10, “Death of the Young King” (pp. 151-152)
  • Of the two pillars of Henry Plantagenet’s monument, the continental fiefs of the Angevin lands and an England that was assuming some of the early trappings of nationhood, the first did not survive the life span of his sons while the second continued on with varying fortunes to become a political unit that would occupy the center of world history and turmoil for seven centuries. The Angevin realm, like its creator, foundered on the ineptitude and pettiness of Henry’s sons.
    • Epilogue (p. 177)
  • Henry Plantagenet, no less than any political leader in the second half of the present century, was confronted with such varied problems as law and order, a war weariness which brought about a military organizational revolution, economic inflation, the choice between isolation and “internationalism,” sovereignty, and even, on a personal level, women’s lib. To maintain that any of these tensions are new to the twentieth century is the highest form of self-adulation and to hold that nothing can be learned from their past appearances the height of historical nearsightedness.
    • Epilogue (p. 178)
  • To him, as to many since his time, order was synonymous with political centralization, and in effecting this centralization lies one of Henry Plantagenet’s greatest accomplishments.
    • Epilogue (p. 179)
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