Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/33

 

17. Death of Stephen, A.D. 1154.—At last, after nineteen years of suffering, relief came. Stephen’s son died, and Henry, Matilda’s son, landed with an army in England to fight his own battles. Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, now used his influence with Stephen to put an end to this wretched strife. Stephen saw that he must, sooner or later, yield, now that he had no son to succeed him, and agreed that Henry should have the throne after his death. Not long after Stephen died, and Henry became king, peace was once more restored, and as we shall see, with peace and a strong ruler, the miseries of Stephen’s reign came to an end.

 

1. Henry II.—Henry was only twenty-one years of age when he came to the throne; but he was already a statesman and an able ruler. He was a stout, strong man, with red hair and grey eyes; and was so restless and active that he could scarcely find time to eat his meals. He loved order and good government, although his temper which was fiery and passionate, sometimes made him cruel and unjust. He ruled over England, Normandy, and Maine, his grandfather’s possessions; and, besides, had Anjou and Toursine from his father, Geoffery, Count of Anjou; Brittany, through Constance, wife of his brother Geoffery; and Poitou, Aquitaine, and Gascony by his wife Elanor, a woman who had been divorced from Louis VII., King of France. Thus Henry ruled over more French territory than the king of France himself. Henry was the first of the Plantagenets, a line of kings whose name arose from the fact that Geoffery of Anjou, Henry’s father, had worn a sprig of broom, planta genista, as his device during the crusades. Another name for the same line of kings is the Angevin, because they had for their family possessions, Anjou.

2. Henry’s Reforms.—One of the first things Henry did was to make the barons pull down their castles, so that they could no longer use them as strongholds in which to carry their plunder and