In 1147, at the age of fourteen, he had come to England as Henry of Anjou. He commanded a small army of mercenaries, ready to fight for Matilda’s claim, but he did not materially benefit his mother. He was defeated at Cricklade, by the Thames, and in a characteristic act of generosity Stephen himself helped him to return to Normandy. In the final years of the conflict it was apparent to everyone that Stephen was the victor, but it was also agreed that Henry of Anjou was his natural and inevitable successor. The magnates of the land were now largely supporting his claims.
So with the aid and entreaty of prominent churchmen, an agreement was drawn up at Winchester in 1153; it was settled that Stephen would reign, but that he would recognize Henry as his heir. Henry gave homage to Stephen, and Stephen swore an oath to maintain Henry as son and successor. The custody of the important castles – Wallingford, Oxford, Windsor, Winchester and the Tower – was secured, and the pact was witnessed by the leading barons on both sides of the dispute. Matilda retired to Rouen, where she devoted her remaining years to charitable works. Sixteen years of largely futile struggle had finally been resolved. The fighting was worse than useless. It had solved nothing. It had proved nothing. In that sense, it is emblematic of most medieval conflict. It is hard to resist the suspicion that kings and princes engaged in warfare for its own sake. That was what they were supposed to do.
Stephen had sworn that he would never be a dethroned king, and indeed that fate was averted. Yet he did not enjoy his unchallenged royalty for very long. He began the process of restoring social order but, less than a year after the signing of the treaty at Winchester, he succumbed to some intestinal infection; he died in the Augustinian priory at Dover on 25 October 1154. It is possible that he was carried off by poison. There would have been many longing for his death and the rule of a young king, including the young king himself. The life and death of monarchs can be stark and dangerous.
12
The names
The names of the English have changed. Before the invasion of William I the common names were those such as Leofwine, Aelfwine, Siward and Morcar. After the Norman arrival these were slowly replaced by Robert, Walter, Henry and of course William. A feast was held in 1171, celebrated by 110 knights with the name of William; no one with another name was allowed to join them.
When Henry I married Edith of Scotland, she was called ‘Godgiva’ as a joke by his compatriots. It was a parody of an English name, both awkward and archaic. A boy from Whitby, at the beginning of the twelfth century, changed his name from Tostig to William because he was being bullied at school. The serfs and villains kept their ancient names for longer, and a record from 1114 reveals the workers on an estate as Soen, Rainald, Ailwin, Lemar, Godwin, Ordric, Alric, Saroi, Ulviet and Ulfac; the manor was leased by Orm. All these names were soon to be gone. By the first quarter of the thirteenth century the majority of the people of England had new names, many of them taken from the Christian saints of Europe whose cults were spreading through the land. So we have Thomas and Stephen, Elizabeth and Agnes.
The Normans also gave to the English the concept of the inherited surname that came to define a unified family and its property. It generally invoked a place, or piece of territory, owned by that family. Yet there was no very strong tradition of inherited surnames before the fourteenth century. Only very distinguished families had a distinctive name. Instead a person would be given a tag by which he or she would be identified – Roger the Cook, Roger of Derby, Roger son of William. Names were also often used to describe the peculiarities of the individual, such as Roger with the Big Nose or Roger the Effeminate. Mabbs was the daughter of Mabel, and Norris was the female child of a nurse.
Even the occupational names might be changed. In 1455 Matthew Oxe, on gaining his freedom from servile work, changed his name to Matthew Groom. Some ancient names survive still. So we have Cooks and Barbers and Sawyers and Millers and Smiths and Brewers and Carpenters in all of the directories.
13
The turbulent priest
So the son of Matilda, Henry of Anjou, was crowned as Henry II on 19 December 1154. He was the first Angevin king of England. His father, Geoffrey of Anjou, was also known as Geoffrey Plantagenet; this was because he wore a sprig of yellow broom, or planta genesta, when he went riding. From this little sprig grew a great dynasty that endured for more than 300 years; all of the kings of England, from Henry II to Richard III, were Plantagenet until they were supplanted by the Tudors. It was said that the family was the scion of Satan himself, and that one of the early countesses of Anjou was a daughter of the devil who fled shrieking from the sight of the consecrated host. When St Bernard of Clairvaux first saw the young Henry, he is reported to have been filled with dismay and to have said that ‘from the devil they came, and to the devil they will return’. There is much in English history that might confirm the suspicion.
Henry II was twenty-one when he was crowned. His early life had been one of battle and mastery. He became duke of Normandy at the age of sixteen and two years later, on the death of his father, he also became count of Anjou. He then married Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, and thereby became the duke of that province. He now owned a large part of France, even though he was technically subject to its king. When he ascended the throne of England, he boasted mistakenly that he had acquired an empire greater than that of Charlemagne three centuries before.
Yet he had inherited a troubled country, recovering its political balance after sixteen years of intermittent civil warfare. He was only one quarter Norman, but he had a Norman sense of authority. He wished to manifest his will by imposing order. He demanded obedience. He forced many of the great magnates to give up castles and estates that he deemed to be his property; he drove the earl of Nottingham out of the kingdom; he levelled all of the castles that had belonged to Stephen’s brother, the bishop of Winchester. In curtailing or arresting the power of individual barons, he tilted the balance of the country towards a strong central monarchy. He ordered out of the kingdom the mercenaries who had been hired by both parties during the civil wars; if they did not leave by a certain date, they were to be arrested and executed. They disappeared swiftly and suddenly.
In 1157 King Malcolm IV of Scotland came to terms with the resurgent king; he did homage for his southern lands, bordering on England, and he surrendered Northumberland, Westmorland and Cumberland that he had dominated in the uncertain reign of Stephen. Malcolm was sixteen, and Henry still just twenty-four. This was a world for young men. Henry then proceeded against Wales, and its princes tendered their homage to him. He also devised grand plans for the invasion of Ireland. He managed all this without ever fighting a formal battle. His genius, instead, lay in the siege and capture of castles.
He was restless by temperament, and impatient of any restraint; he never could sit still, and even when attending Mass he fidgeted and conversed with his courtiers. He always had to be in movement or in activity, even if the activity consisted of gambling or disputation. He often ate his food standing up, so that he might be more quickly done with it. He was stocky and strong, with the look of a huntsman or of a soldier. He had a florid complexion that burned brighter when he was vexed. Yet he was readily approachable, and there are accounts of his modest and benign demeanour when surrounded by throngs of his beseeching subjects. Some of them caught him by the sleeve, in their urge to speak to him, but he never lost his good humour. His jester was known as ‘Roland the Farter’, and ‘every Christmas he used to leap, whistle and fart before the king’.