King Henry II
The great-grandson of William the Conqueror, whose knights assassinated Thomas Becket and whose family harried him to an early grave.
1154-1189
The great-grandson of William the Conqueror, whose knights assassinated Thomas Becket and whose family harried him to an early grave.
1154-1189
Henry II was the grandson of Henry I and the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, and spent much of his life in the French estates he inherited from them. Henry managed to restore order to a country torn apart by almost thirty years of civil war, but is remembered today chiefly for a bitter dispute with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
AFTER the death of Henry I, his daughter Matilda was denied the crown by her cousin Stephen, and their stubborn rivalry left England and Wales in chaos. Stephen died childless in 1154, but Matilda’s son Henry II moved quickly to restore order, both at home and in northern France. Among his many reforms, he expanded the use and role of the jury, a defining feature of English justice ever since.
However, when Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asked for greater independence from the Crown, Henry refused, and a furious argument erupted. Four of Henry’s knights, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Henry, murdered the Archbishop in his cathedral, but succeeded only in making a martyr of him.*
In 1173, Henry’s son Richard, supported by Queen Eleanor, led the first of a series of revolts against his father. At last the King, feeling weary and betrayed, fell victim to a fever and died at Chinon in France on 6th July, 1189.