Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/102

Henry young king refused to ratify a grant of lands to his brother John, and fled by night from his father's court to that of his father-in-law. Louis received him as sole lawful king of the English, and all Henry's enemies broke at once into war. The young king joined the Count of Flanders in preparing a fleet for the invasion of England; but the fleet never sailed, the barons were crushed; young Henry's attempt to thwart his father's wishes respecting the appointment of a new primate by an appeal to Rome only resulted in the consecration of the elder king's favoured candidate by the pope himself; and in the autumn of 1174 father and son made peace. For nearly six years young Henry kept quiet. On All Saints' day 1179 he was present at the coronation of Philip Augustus at Reims, and as Duke of Normandy carried the crown in the procession. His tenure of the duchy was, however, merely nominal, and he still failed to understand that his father, in keeping him thus in dependence at his side, was really reserving him for higher things than his brother Richard, of whose independent position as actual ruler of Aquitaine he was bitterly jealous. The barons of Aquitaine, struggling unsuccessfully against Richard's control, wrought upon this jealousy for their own ends; Richard himself increased it by an encroachment upon land which the young king claimed as part of his Angevin heritage; and at the end of June 1182 young Henry joined the rebels at Limoges. The elder king's appearance on the scene, however, was followed by an immediate pacification, and this again by a fresh demand from his eldest son to be put in possession of his heritage, a fresh refusal, another flight of the young king to France, and his return on the promise of an increased allowance in money. At Christmas Richard's refusal to do homage to his elder brother caused another quarrel; the young king and Geoffrey followed Richard into Aquitaine, under pretence of ‘subduing his pride’ according to their father's orders, but in reality to head a rising of the whole country against both Richard and Henry. For six weeks Henry II besieged the rebels in Limoges; twice his eldest son came to him with offers of submission, but each time the offer was a feint; at last young Henry's shameless plunder of the townsfolk, and of the shrine of their patron St. Martial, opened their eyes to his real character, and on his return from an expedition to Angoulême they drove him back with insults from their gates. In the midst of a plundering raid upon the monastery of Grandmont and the shrines of Rocamadour, he was struck down by fever; he took refuge at Martel ‘in the house of Stephen, surnamed the Smith,’ and thence sent a message imploring his father to come and speak with him once more. The friends of Henry II, suspecting treachery, persuaded him not to go, but only to send a precious ring in token of his forgiveness. The young king had already made open confession of his sins; he now dictated a letter to his father, beseeching him to pardon all his fellow-rebels, to make atonement for the sacrileges which he had committed, and to bury him in the cathedral church of Rouen. Early on 11 June 1183, after repeating his confession, he begged to be wrapped once more in his cloak marked with the cross, which, rather in petulance than in piety, he had taken at Limoges; then he gave it to his friend William Marshal, charging him to bear it to the holy sepulchre in his stead. He next bade his followers strip him of his soft raiment, clothe him in a hair-shirt, drag him out of bed by a rope round his neck, and lay him on a bed of ashes; there he received the last sacraments, and there, kissing his father's ring, he died. In the selfish, faithless, unprincipled character displayed throughout young Henry's life, redeemed though it was by his deathbed repentance, it is difficult to discover the secret of the attraction which won him the friendship of such a man as William Marshal. It is hard to understand the grounds even of his general popularity, to which all the historians of the time bear witness, and which was curiously illustrated by a quarrel for the possession of his corpse. The people of Le Mans seized it on its way to Normandy and buried it in their own cathedral church, whereupon the citizens of Rouen threatened to come and reclaim it by force, and Henry II was obliged to order it to be disinterred and conveyed to Rouen for re-burial according to his son's last request. To the unthinking multitude the young king's charm probably lay in a stately, handsome person, a gracious manner, and a temper whose easy shallowness contrasted favourably, in their eyes, with the terrible earnestness of Richard. Henry and Margaret had but one child, who was born and died in 1177. 

HENRY (1235–1271), more generally called, from his father's German connections,, was the