Born in 1155, Henry was the eldest surviving son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. On 14 June 1170, when he was 37 and his son 15, Henry II had his son topped as Henry III. This experiment with co-kings proved a short-lived failure. The younger Henry was afforded much less authority than his father, which, mixed together with his lack of lands and revenue, led him to insurgent repeatedly. After Henry II’s dying, English kings returned to designating, however not crowning, an inheritor.
The concept of affiliate kingship is straightforward: the monarch crowns their designated inheritor throughout their lifetime to make sure the succession after dying and forestall an influence vacuum. Affiliate kingship was a function of rule in a number of European kingdoms and was the norm in France, with the Capetian dynasty (987-1328) crowning affiliate kings till Philip II Augustus in 1180. These junior kings acted like apprentices, studying the way to rule ‘on the job’, by collectively presiding over royal councils, announcing on authorized disputes, and main army expeditions. The system proved remarkably profitable in guaranteeing a easy succession in a turbulent kingdom.
Affiliate kingship, nevertheless, was not practised in England; as a substitute, the king would designate an inheritor (usually, however not at all times, the eldest son), who could be topped after the monarch’s dying. This might trigger instability: Henry I’s succession was disputed in 1100, as was that of his daughter Matilda in 1135. Certainly, it was these 15 years of ‘anarchy’ and civil warfare, triggered when Stephen was topped as a substitute of Matilda, that doubtless inspired Henry II to import the apply of co-kings.
The final word image of royal energy was the Nice Seal. It was the visible embodiment of royal authority and connected to all authorities paperwork to offer them legitimacy. Nice Seals in England adopted a normal format. On one facet the king could be enthroned in majesty holding a sword in a single hand and an orb within the different; on the opposite facet the king could be on horseback, often depicted as a knight. We’d anticipate to see the younger Henry’s seal take the identical form; nevertheless, his seal is sort of totally different. He’s depicted on a throne holding an orb in a single hand and a sceptre – as a substitute of a sword – within the different. Roger of Howden information that it was Henry II who had the seal made and would due to this fact have been concerned in selecting the sceptre. A sword on a seal usually represented army authority, and so with the sceptre Henry was signifying that his son’s authority was subordinate to his personal. Moreover, younger Henry’s seal is one-sided. The rationale for this distinction is unclear. It might symbolize the French affect on the apply of affiliate kingship. Capetian royal seals have been usually single-sided with the king enthroned holding orb and sceptre. The English wanted a approach to distinguish between the seals of the young and old Henrys; as they didn’t have their very own system, they adopted the French fashion which additionally enabled a transparent distinction between father and son.
With few estates of his personal, not sufficient cash to pay for his lavish life-style, and feeling that his father didn’t give him sufficient authority as a co-king, the younger Henry selected to insurgent in 1173 and 1183. The Nice Revolt of 1173-74 noticed the Angevin empire engulfed by battle, because the Younger King – as he got here to be referred to as by his contemporaries – united Henry’s many enemies. The revolt in 1183 was a extra native affair, with the Younger King becoming a member of rebels in Aquitaine attempting to overthrow his brother Richard’s (and thereby Henry II’s) rule. Every revolt nevertheless was a failure: in 1174 Henry II was triumphant on all fronts, whereas the Younger King’s closing revolt collapsed together with his dying from dysentery on 11 June 1183.
In its quick aftermath, the dying of this extravagant and fashionable Angevin was enormously lamented. Gervase of Tilbury, for instance, wrote that: ‘When Henry died, heaven was hungry, so all of the world went begging’. But inside a number of years of his dying, chroniclers have been recording fairly totally different views of the younger Henry. Gerald of Wales referred to as him ‘the refuge of the wretched and of evil doers’ and wrote that he was ‘hooked on martial video games’, whereas his brother Richard, who would go on to be referred to as ‘Lionheart’, was involved with ‘severe pursuits’. Whereas such criticisms have been written in the course of the reign of Richard I (who didn’t have one of the best of relationships together with his brother) the chroniclers had been contemporaries of the Younger King, and we should always not merely discard the feedback as a approach for the chroniclers to ingratiate themselves with the brand new regime. Henry’s common betrayal of his circle of relatives and the looting of spiritual websites to pay for his rebellions have been ghastly acts within the eyes of contemporaries and this definitely affected the way in which he was remembered.
On 28 October 1216 King John’s son was topped as King Henry III. Why had the Younger King misplaced the title of Henry III that he had held in life? Partly it was because of his lack of royal symbols. His seal didn’t conform to that of different English kings and confirmed him as being lower than a full king. He didn’t construct any church buildings or castles, or mint cash that would stamp his title into the minds of his topics. Nor did he have the kids who might proceed his line. Most significantly, Henry pre-deceased his father. Even the French, who efficiently included co-ruling into their political system, have been uncertain what to do when the co-king died first, with some surviving manuscripts giving them regnal numbers, and others not. With Henry being the one co-king of England, and the experiment being a complete failure, the English discovered it greatest to miss Henry and let him fade into obscurity.
James Barnaby is the writer of Non secular Battle at Canterbury Cathedral within the Late Twelfth Century (Boydell and Brewer, 2024).
