Read Online Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse by David Maislish - Free Book Online

brothers left any children, the threat from the Blois family ended.
    Henry’s father, Count Geoffrey of Anjou, used to wear a sprig of bloom on his helmet. The plant was called the Broom Flower or planta genista ( planta genet in French), and from that came first his nickname and then years afterwards the family surname and the name of the Plantagenet dynasty.
    King Henry II ruled a vast territory. From his father he inherited Anjou, Touraine and Maine; from his mother he inherited Normandy; and from his grandfather Henry I (via Stephen and Matilda) he inherited England. Before his accession, Henry II had married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the former wife of the King of France (the marriage annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, but in truth because after 14 years of marriage she had not produced a son), and she brought Henry the lands of Aquitaine, Poitou, Gascony and Auvergne. Later, Henry inherited Brittany from his brother. As a result, Henry ruled England and the western half of present-day France.
The Angevin continental territories
    England’s growing status was enhanced when Nicholas Breakspear was elected the first and only English pope, Adrian IV, who is said to have authorised Henry to conquer Ireland.
    Short but strong, Henry had tremendous energy and intelligence as well as an impressive knowledge of languages and the law. He also had a fearsome temper. His problems came from those closest to him, and one by one they reduced him from greatness to a weak old man.
    Early in the reign, Henry appointed his friend and Chancellor, Thomas Becket, as Archbishop of Canterbury; Becket having been ordained a priest one day earlier. Becket immediately discarded the friendship and opposed Henry’s efforts to increase royal control over the English Church. The main clash came about when Becket refused to allow a lay court to try a priest who had been accused of rape and murder. Leniency of church courts towards priests they had convicted was commonplace; the church courts could not pass a sentence of blood, and they were unwilling to incur the expense of imprisonment. So penance was usually as far as it went.
    MatterscametoaheadwhenBecketcomplainedtothePope(no longer Adrian IV, who had died, supposedly by choking on a fly in hisglassofwine)andstartedexcommunicatingHenry’ssupporters, threatening to do the same to Henry. The King’s temper exploded and his rash words led to four of his knights riding to Canterbury where they murdered Becket. The whole of Europe was outraged. Becket was declared a martyr; he would later become a saint. King Henry was forced to do penance and required to walk barefoot to Canterbury, to be scourged by 80 monks who beat him as he walked past them wearing sackcloth and ashes.
    Henry also fell out with his wife, partly because of their conflicting strong personalities, but also on Henry’s side because of his lack of interest in a woman who was twelve years his senior, and on Eleanor’s side because of her husband’s large number of illegitimate children. Queen Eleanor was particularly incensed at having in the palace the son of a prostitute, a boy named Geoffrey who would later become the Archbishop of York.
    The royal couple had eight children: William who died young and four more boys: Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John. There were also three girls: Maud, Eleanor and Joan. The sons would continually cause trouble.
    Henry favoured his youngest child, John, and was always concerned to see to his future. When Henry was negotiating a marriage for John, he decided to give him three castles in Anjou. The oldest son, also called Henry, had already been crowned King of England so as to ensure a smooth succession on his father’s death, and he was therefore known as the Young King, although he was in reality a prince. The Young King was impatient for power, and he demanded that his father give him England, Anjou or Normandy to rule. He also objected to John being given any castles.
    When Henry