Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 64, February, 1863

Of all the royal races of the Middle Ages, no one stands out more boldly on the historic page than the Plantagenets, who ruled over England from 1154 to 1485, the line of descent being frequently broken, and family quarrels constantly occurring. They were a bold and an able race, and if they had possessed a closer resemblance to the Hapsburgs, they would have become masters of Western Europe; but their quarrelsome disposition more than undid all that they could effect through the exercise of their talents. On the female side they were descended from the Conqueror; and, as we have seen, the Conqueror's family was one in which sons rebelled against the fathers, and brother fought with brother. Matilda, daughter of Henry I., became the wife of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and from their union came Henry II., first of the royal Plantagenets. Now the Angevine Plantagenets were "a hard set," as we should say in these days. Dissensions were common enough in the family, and they descended to the offspring of Geoffrey and Matilda, being in fact intensified by the elevation of the House to a throne. Henry II. married Eleanora of Aquitaine, one of the greatest matches of those days, a marriage which has had great effect on modern history. The Aquitanian House was as little distinguished for the practice of the moral virtues as were the lines of Anjou and Normandy. One of the Countesses of Anjou was reported to be a demon, which probably meant only that her husband had caught a Tartar in marrying her; but the story was enough to satisfy the credulous people of those times, who, very naturally, considering their conduct, believed that the Devil was constant in his attention to their affairs. It was to this lady that Richard Cocur de Lion referred, when he said, speaking of the family contentions, "Is it to be wondered at, that, coming from such a source, we live ill with one another? What comes from the Devil must to the Devil return." With such an origin on his father's side, crossing the fierce character of his mother, Henry II. thought he could not do better than marry Eleanora, whose origin was almost as bad as his own. Her grandfather had been a "fast man" in his youth and middle life, and it was not until he had got nigh to seventy that he began to think that it was time to repent. He had taken Eleanora's grandmother from her husband, and a pious priest had said to them, "Nothing good will be born to you," which prediction the event justified. The old gentleman resigned his rich dominions, supposed to be the best in Europe, to his grand-daughter, and she married Louis VII., King of France, and accompanied him in the crusade that he was so foolish as to take part in. She had women-warriors, who did their cause immense mischief; and unless she has been greatly scandalized, she made her husband fit for heaven in a manner approved neither by the law nor the gospel. The Provençal ladies had no prejudices against Saracens. After her return to Europe, she got herself divorced from Louis, and married Henry Plantagenet, who was much her junior, she having previously been the mistress of his father. It was a mariage de convenance , and, as is sometimes the case with such marriages, it turned out very inconveniently for both parties to it. It was not unfruitful, but all the fruit it produced was bad, and to the husband and father that fruit became the bitterest of bitter ashes. No romancer would have dared to bring about such a scries of unions as led to the creation of Plantagenet royalty, and to so much misery as well as greatness. There is no exaggeration in Michelet's lively picture of the Plantagenets. "In this family," he says, "it was a succession of bloody wars and treacherous treaties. Once, when King Henry had met his sons in a conference, their soldiers drew upon him. This conduct was traditionary in the two Houses of Anjou and Normandy. More than once had the children of William the Conqueror and Henry II. pointed their swords against their father's breast. Fulk had placed his foot on the neck of his vanquished son. The jealous Eleanora, with the passion and vindictiveness of her Southern blood, encouraged her sons' disobedience, and trained them to parricide. These youths, in whose veins mingled the blood of so many different races,—Norman, Saxon, and Aquitanian,—seemed to entertain, over and above the violence of the Fulks of Anjou and the Williams of England, all the opposing hatreds and discords of those races. They never knew whether they were from the South or the North: they only knew that they hated one another, and their father worse than all. They could not trace back their ancestry, without finding, at each descent, or rape, or incest, or parricide." Henry II. quarrelled with all his sons, and they all did him all the mischief they could, under the advice and direction of their excellent mother, whom Henry imprisoned. A priest once sought to effect a reconciliation between Henry and his son Geoffrey. He went to the Prince with a crucifix in his hand, and entreated him not to imitate Absalom.

"What!" exclaimed the Prince, "would you have me renounce my birthright?"

"God forbid!" answered the holy man; "I wish you to do nothing to your own injury."

"You do not understand my words," said Geoffrey; "it is our family fate not to love one another. 'T is our inheritance; and not one of us will ever forego it."

That must have been a pleasant family to marry into! When the King's eldest son, Henry, died, regretting his sins against his father, that father durst not visit him, fearing treachery; and the immediate occasion of the King's death was the discovery of the hostility of his son John, who, being the worst of his children, was, of course, the best-beloved of them all. The story was, that, when Richard entered the Abbey of Fontevraud, in which his father's body lay, the corpse bled profusely, which was held to indicate that the new king was his father's murderer. Richard was very penitent, as his elder brother Henry had been, on his death-bed. They were very sorrowful, were those Plantagenet princes, when they had been guilty of atrocious acts, and when it was too late for their repentance to have any practical effect.

Richard I. had no children, and so he could not get up a perfect family-quarrel, though he and his brother John were enemies. He died at forty-two, and but a few years after his marriage with Berengaria of Navarre, an English queen who never was in England. When on his death-bed, Richard was advised by the Bishop of Rouen to repent, and to separate himself from his children. "I have no children," the King answered. But the good priest told him that he had children, and that they were avarice, luxury, and pride. "True," said Richard, who was a humorist,—"and I leave my avarice to the Cistercians, my luxury to the Gray Friars, and my pride to the Templars." History has fewer sharper sayings than this, every word of which told like a cloth-yard shaft sent against a naked bosom. Richard certainly never quarrelled with the children whom he thus left to his friends .

King John did not live long enough to illustrate the family character by fighting with his children. When he died, in 1216, his eldest son, Henry III., was but nine years old, and even a Plantagenet could not well fall out with a son of that immature age. However, John did his best to make his mark on his time. If he could not quarrel with his children, because of their tender years, he, with a sense of duty that cannot be too highly praised, devoted his venom to his wife. He was pleased to suspect her of being as regardless of marriage-vows as he had been himself, and so he hanged her supposed lover over her bed, with two others, who were suspected of being their accomplices. The Queen was imprisoned. On their being reconciled, he stinted her wardrobe, a refinement of cruelty that was aggravated by his monstrous expenditure on his own ugly person. Queen Isabella was very handsome, and perhaps John was of the opinion of some modern husbands, who think that dress extinguishes beauty as much as it inflames bills. Having no children to torment, John turned his disagreeable attentions to his nephew, Arthur, Duke of Brittany, who, according to modern ideas, was the lawful King of England. The end was the end of Arthur. How he was disposed of is not exactly known, but, judging from John's character and known actions, we incline to agree with those writers who say that the uncle slew the nephew with his own royal hand. He never could deny himself an attainable luxury, and to him the murder of a youthful relative must have been a rich treat, and have created for him a new sensation, something like the new pleasure for which the Persian king offered a great reward. Besides, all uncles are notoriously bad, and seem, indeed, to have been made only for the misery of their nephews and nieces, of whose commands they are most reprehensibly negligent. We mean to write a book, one of these days, for the express purpose of showing what a mistake it was to allow any such relationship to exist, and tracing all the evil that ever has afflicted humanity to the innate wickedness of uncles, and requiring their extirpation. We err, then, on the safe side, in supposing that John despatched Arthur himself,—not to say, that, when you require that a delicate piece of work should be done, you must do it with your own hand, or you may be disappointed. John did the utmost that he could do to keep up the discredit of the family; for, when a man has no son to whip and to curse, he should not be severely censured for having done no more than to kill his nephew. Men of large and charitable minds will take all the circumstances of John's case into the account, and not allow their judgment of his conduct to be harsh. What better can a man do than his worst?