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 England and France in the Middle Ages 233 Conqueror 1 he inherited the duchy of Normandy and the suze- rainty over Brittany. His mother, Matilda, had married the count of Anjou and Maine, so that Henry II inherited these fiefs along with those which had belonged to William the Conqueror. Lastly, he had married Eleanor, heiress of the dukes of Guienne, and in this way doubled the extent of his French lands. Henry II and his successors are known as the " Plantagenets," owing to the habit that his father, the count of Anjou, had of wearing a bit of broom (Latin, planta genista} in his helmet. So it came about that the French kings beheld a new State, under an able and energetic ruler, developing within their borders and including more than half the territory over which they were supposed to rule. A few years before Henry II died an am- bitious monarch, Philip Augustus, ascended the French throne and made it the chief business of his life to get control of his feudal vassals above all, the Plantagenets. 374. Richard the Lion-Hearted. So long as Henry II lived there was little chance of expelling the Plantagenets from France ; but with the accession of his reckless son Richard the Lion- Hearted the prospects of the French king brightened wonder- fully. Richard is one of the most famous of medieval knights, but he was a very poor ruler. He left his kingdom to take care 1 William the Conqueror, king of England (1066-1087) William II (Rufus) Henry I (1100-1135) Adela, m. Stephen (1087-1100) | count of Blois Matilda (d. 1167) I m. Geoffrey Plantagenet Stephen (1135-1154) count of Anjou I Henry II (1154-1189) the first Plantagenet king m. Eleanor of Aquitaine I I Richard Geoffrey (d. 1186) John (1189-1199) | (1199-1216) Arthur Henry III (1216-1272)