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Introduction
Lord Macaulay argued that ‘bad’ King John’s reign did England a lot of good. It pulled the country away from Continental Europe, forcing the supercilious Normans in government to feel less European and more English, and to connect with their everyday countrymen after generations of neglect.
HAD John inherited the great qualities of his father,* of Henry Beauclerc,* or of the Conqueror,* nay, had he even possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard,* and had the King of France at the same time been as incapable as all the other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet must have risen to unrivalled ascendancy in Europe.
But, just at this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the death of Charlemagne,* was governed by a prince of great firmness and ability.* On the other hand England, which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English as their countrymen.
King Henry II of England, father of King Richard I and King John, ruled from 1154 to 1189. On the reign of King John (1199-1216) see our posts tagged King John (2).
King Henry I of England, a son of King William I, Duke of Normandy. He succeeded his brother William II ‘Rufus’ in 1100, and ruled until his death in 1135. There followed an accession dispute involving his daughter and heir Matilda and her cousin Stephen of Blois.
William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold Godwinson of England in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings to take the English crown. He subsequently imported Norman aristocrats to fill positions of power across the country, and brutally subdue the resistance of the English. William and his successors continued to regard the near Continent as their natural home, and French language and manners as a superior civilisation.
Stephen of Blois became King Stephen of England in 1135, amidst a protracted struggle with Henry I’s daughter and heir Matilda. He made Matilda’s son Henry his heir, and the boy became Henry II in 1154. Henry II’s son Richard ‘the Lionheart’ became King Richard I in 1189, and ruled until his death from an arrow wound in 1199. See The Lion and the Ant.
Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, King of the Franks from 768 and Holy Roman Emperor from 800 until his death in 814. Ambitious European politicians have been trying to recreate the vast empire he ruled from Aachen in modern-day Germany ever since. Macaulay felt nothing but relief that the Plantagenets failed: better a modest kingdom happy and free, he felt, than a swollen realm of subdued but seething hatreds.
King Philip II ruled from 1180 to 1223. He was King of France but wide estates in modern-day France were at the time held by the Kings of England as heirs of William of Normandy and his descendants, including Aquitaine and Normandy itself.