A people who had suffered these things must certainly have sighed for a strong government, by whatever hand it should be wielded; and miserable though the reign had been, it tended towards the consolidation of nationality.
Born 1133 = Eleanor. | | +-------+-------+--+------------------+-----+------------------+ | | | | | | Henry. | Geoffrey = Constance John Matilda = Henry | d.1182. | | of Brittany. the Lion | Richard. | of Saxony. | Arthur. | | +------------------------------------+ | +-----------+-----------+ | | Eleanor = Alphonso IX. Joanna = William II., King of Sicily.
_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._ | | | Malcolm IV., | Louis VII., 1137. | Frederic I., | Alphonso VIII., 1134. 1153. | Philip Augustus, | 1152. | Sancho III., 1157. William, 1165. | 1180. | | Alphonso IX., 1158.
POPES.--Adrian IV., 1154. Alexander III., 1159. Lucius III., 1181. Urban III., 1185. Gregory VIII., 1187. Clement III., 1187.
_Archbishops._ | _Chief-Justices._ | _Chancellors._ | | Theobald, 1139-1161. | Robert, Earl of | Thomas à Becket, Thomas à Becket, | Leicester, 1154-1167. | 1154-1162. 1162-1170. | Richard de Lucy, | Ralph de Warneville, Richard, 1174-1184. | 1154-1179. | 1173-1181. Baldwin, 1185-1190. | Ranulf Glanville, | Geoffrey, the King’s | 1180-1189. | son, 1181-1189.
[Sidenote: Main objects of Henry’s reign.]
The consolidation of the nation was the great work of Henry of Anjou. He brought to it great gifts, sagacity, masterful courage, a legal and judicial mind; while his training, as the prince of widely extending countries, prevented the intrusion of petty local interests into his views for his people’s good. The lessons of the last reign were not lost on him. Before all things he desired a strong government and good order. In pursuing these objects he took for his model his grandfather and great-grandfather, and worked out in greater and more systematic detail the policy they had begun. And though in his efforts to subordinate the Church he may seem to have run counter to the legislation of his great-grandfather, it will be seen that in many points his policy was really the same. In the earlier part of his reign work lay ready to his hand, and the compromise at Winchester had already marked out his line of action. He could not immediately come to England, being detained by an insurrection in Guienne. But when he had settled this, and, by a humility of bearing he knew well how to feign, secured the friendship of Louis VII., he crossed the Channel, and at once proceeded with his reforms.