Two kings of England tried to have their sons crowned during their own lifetime. One failed; the other succeeded.
Eustace
The oaths sworn to Matilda did not have their intended effect. Stephen seized the throne, his reign as king of England beginning in December 1135. He did not go to Normandy until March 1137, Orderic Vitalis reporting that Louis VI invested him as duke in May.138 Henry of Huntingdon and Robert of Torigni both state that Stephen’s
135 William of Malmesbury seems to have them swear straight after the bishops.
136 That Roger played such a role is supported by Henry of Huntingdon, who uses the verb predictare when describing the bishop’s part in the ceremony (HH, pp. 700–01).
137 The detail about Adeliza is not matched elsewhere. McGurk has argued that John’s revised account shares detail with William of Malmesbury’s: ‘namely, that Archbishop William swore first of all, and King David first of the laity, and that the relative precedence of Earl Robert and Count Stephen was an issue’ (JW, III, 182–83, n. 7). However, where William has Robert and Stephen both claiming precedence and arguing about it, John has Robert insisting that Stephen precede him. William’s patron was Robert of Gloucester. It could be argued that William’s account would be more accurate here, reporting what Robert had told him. However, it could contrarily be that William made up the argument to push the importance of his patron or to set up the later narrative of conflict between Stephen and Robert.
son Eustace did homage for the duchy.139 Though no sources mention any oaths being sworn to either the king or his son, it is possible that submissions were made to both at Stephen’s Easter court at Rouen.140 Stephen left Normandy in 1137 and did not return. After a gradual conquest of the duchy, Rouen fell to Count Geoffrey of Anjou on 23 April 1144. At this point he may have been invested as duke.141 It is clear that he planned to pass the duchy to his son Henry, and at some point between November 1149 and March 1150 Henry was invested as duke.142 Again, although no sources mention oaths being sworn to Henry, it is possible that they were.
Stephen envisaged establishing a lasting royal dynasty in England: his foundation of Faversham Abbey seems to have been in part designed as a huge royal mausoleum, ‘without parallel elsewhere’.143 In England, he also took an unprecedented step in attempting to have his eldest son Eustace consecrated as co-king. Henry of Huntingdon reported that this attempt came at a council in April 1152.144 It failed because of papal prohibition. However, he may have succeeded in having elites do oaths to Eustace as an heir. The Annals of Waverley report that in London in 1152, ‘the earls and barons of the whole of England submitted themselves to Eustace with faith and oath’ (‘Eustachio … fide et jusjurando universi comites atque barones Angliae se subdiderunt’).145 This was probably at the same council.146 That the account neither explicitly mentions homage nor seems to imply that it was done may carry significance. The louder silence of ecclesiastics not submitting may also represent a reality—the papal prohibition of the crowning probably extended to submitting to him as heir as well. Although submissions may have been made to Eustace, they were seemingly weaker than those made to William Adelin (and Matilda), lacking
139 HH, pp. 708–09; Robert of Torigni, Chronica, p. 132.
140 For Stephen’s early movements in Normandy, see Edmund King, King Stephen (New Haven, CT, 2010), pp. 70–73.
141 David Crouch notes that this is the point that Robert of Torigni begins to refer to him as duke, although some charters from 1143 also use the title. See David Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–54 (Harlow, 2000), p. 195 and n. 15.
142 W. L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), pp. 32 and 38, n. 2.
143 Brian Philp, Excavations at Faversham, 1965: The Royal Abbey, Roman Villa and Belgic Farmstead (Crawley, 1968), p. 15; Stephen Church, ‘Aspects of the English Succession, 1066–1199: The Death of the King’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 29 (2007), 17–34 (30).
144 HH, pp. 758–59. This may be an eyewitness account (see ibid., p. lvi).
145 Annales Monasterii de Waverleia, in Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, II, 129–411 (234). This portion of the annals was written in a hand that was late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century. Roger of Torigni’s Chronica is the principle source for the annals at this point, though additions are made in the annalist’s own language from 1138. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of the statement. See Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, II, xxxi and xxxv).
146 For the attempt at anointing Eustace, see also Garnett, Conquered England, pp. 264–65. He also argues that bishops and abbots could not have sworn any corresponding fidelitas, because of the papal prohibition of the anointing.
homage and the support of the Church. Regardless, Eustace died in 1153. Though Stephen had a surviving son, he came to an agreement with Henry, Matilda’s son, making him heir to the kingdom. This arrangement will be discussed towards the end of the chapter. That Henry II became king and enjoyed a long reign may explain why only one source mentions the oaths that seem to have been sworn to Eustace.
Henry the Young King
Prior to 1173, securing the English succession appeared to be one of Henry II’s main aims. Considering the difficulties his mother Matilda had faced in securing a succession guaranteed by oaths and the comparative ease with which Henry himself had succeeded after the interlocking homages of 1153 and 1154,147 it is unsurprising that he was concerned with the mechanics of ensuring that his own successor was of his line.
1155
According to Robert of Torigni, on 10 April 1155, less than six months into the reign,
King Henry, at Wallingford, made the leading men of the English kingdom swear fealty to William his firstborn son, concerning the kingdom of England, and, if the same boy were to meet with an untimely death, to his brother Henry.
Henricus rex, apud Warengefort, fecit optimates Anglici regni jurare fidelitatem Willelmo primogenito suo, de regno Angliae; et si idem puer immatura morte occumberet, Henrico fratri suo.148
Fealty was thus sworn not only to Henry’s eldest son, but also to his second son Henry, conditional on the elder brother’s death. William was not yet two at the time of the oath. His brother Henry was less than two months old. That oaths were sworn to such young heirs and to two of them marks a change from the practices we have examined thus far. It is likely that there were already signs that William’s health was poor—he was to die the following year. It is possible that Henry II, anticipating the loss of his eldest son, wished to hammer home that his offspring would inherit the kingdom and to quash in advance any claims that Stephen’s surviving son, also named William, might make. This William was about twenty years old and, as a result of the Winchester agreement of 1153, the
147 See below, pp. 83–87.
148 Robert of Torigni, Chronica, p. 184. Gervase of Canterbury reports the same events, stating that ‘England was sworn to the king and his heirs, to William … and to the little boy Henry, if William died’ (‘ubi adjurata est Angli regi et haeredibus suis, Willelmo … et Henrico puerulo si Willelmo fataliter accidisset’) (GC, Chronica, 162), again demonstrating the different types of language used to describe these commitments to heirs. The dating of 3 April by Matthew Strickland seems to be a mistake; Robert of Torigni dates it to ‘the Sunday after the octaves of Easter, namely the fourth ides of April’ (10 April) (Matthew Strickland, Henry the Young King, 1155–1183 (New Haven, CT, 2016), p. 19).
foremost baron in England. Henry was clearly concerned about his second cousin. In 1157, he took advantage of a clash in East Anglia between William and Hugh Bigod to confiscate all of William’s English and Norman lands, only handing back to him his maternal and paternal inheritance.149
Matthew Strickland has highlighted the importance of the site where the oaths were sworn to the two infants. Wallingford had been an important Angevin stronghold during the civil war and had been the site of negotiations between Henry and Stephen in 1153. In Strickland’s words, ‘a place indelibly associated with civil strife now witnessed a promise of lasting peace in the recognition of the heirs to a new king’.150 That the oaths to the young Henry do not seem to have been renewed in the immediate aftermath of his brother’s death implies that the 1155 ceremony was considered to have created a sufficient bond for securing the dynasty.
1162
It was not until 1162 that submissions were again made to Henry. Stephen’s son William died in 1159. For the first time since the Conquest, there were no immediate rival heirs to the throne.151 Ralph of Diss reports that,
The bishops [and] abbots of the whole of England swore fealty to Henry, the firstborn son of the king, on the king’s order. Moreover, Thomas the chancellor did homage to him first of all, saving faith to the king while he lived and wished to be in charge of the kingdom.
Episcopi, abbates totius Angliae mandato regis fidelitatem juraverunt Henrico primogenito filio suo. Thomas autem cancellarius primus omnium ei fecit homagium, salva fide regis quamdiu viveret et regno praeesse vellet.152
In this account it is explicit that leading ecclesiastics swore fealty to the young Henry. In the statement that Thomas Becket did homage ‘primus omnium’, it is implicit that other elites also submitted in this way. It is interesting that Becket swore first among the laymen. Though this could be because of his position as chancellor, it is perhaps more
149 For William’s career, see Thomas K. Keefe, ‘William, earl of Surrey (c. 1135–1159)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [http://www.odnb.com/view/article/46707]. Matthew Strickland has also pointed to the potential threats of Henry II’s own younger brothers, Geoffrey and William, but this was mainly confined to the continent (Strickland, Henry the Young King, p. 19).
150 Strickland, Henry the Young King, p. 19.
151 Matthew Strickland has noted that Henry of Champagne and Theobald V of Blois (Stephen’s nephews) might press a claim (ibid., p. 30). They were not, however, pressing such a potential claim in the early 1160s. It could be argued that during the two-year period when Henry I was king after the death of Robert Curthose, there were no rival heirs to Matilda.
likely that it was because he was about to become archbishop of Canterbury. These were, on the face of it, homages to an heir in a similar way to those to William Adelin almost half a century earlier. Diss places his account after the death of Richard, bishop of London, on 4 May 1162 (‘iiii nonas Mai’). He also places the oaths before his account of the council at Westminster where Becket’s election was confirmed, dated 23 May.153 It would appear that the oaths were sworn at some point between these two dates. That Diss refers to Becket as cancellarius in the account further suggests that it was before his election. As R. W. Eyton pointed out long ago, the submissions to Henry the infant almost certainly came at the same council where Becket’s election was confirmed.154 These submissions were part of a wider plan to have the young Henry crowned. In June 1161 the king had obtained a mandate from Pope Alexander III to allow Roger, archbishop of York, to crown the boy. By 1162, Henry II planned to have Becket, as the new archbishop of Canterbury, crown his son. Matthew Strickland has explored the reasons for this plan: securing the dynasty; contemporary exemplars, most importantly in Capetian France, but also in Germany, Byzantium, the kingdom of Jerusalem, and Sicily; and royal status linked to the general policy Henry pursued since 1154 of restoring royal authority.155 The immediate prompt for beginning this process seems to have simply been that the young Henry had reached the minimum age required for coronation. He had turned seven on 28 February 1162. In 1059, King Henry I of France had his son Philip crowned at this age, and, in 1172, Archbishop Henry of Champagne suggested that Louis VII’s son Philip, aged seven, ought to be crowned.156
That the homage commitment to the young Henry entailed the odd provision that fides was to be saved to the father whilst ‘he wished to be in charge of the kingdom’ implies that the king may have pictured a concrete transfer of power, or of aspects of royal authority. It does not seem that he envisioned retirement in the model of some earlier Norman dukes, either because of age (he was not yet 30) or to a monastery. Instead it seems that he planned for a regency government, based around Becket as archbishop, chancellor, and guardian of the young king, allowing him to concentrate on continental
153 Ibid., pp. 306–07. This is before his ordination and consecration at Canterbury, dated 2 and 3 June respectively.
154 R. W. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II (London, 1878), p. 56. 155 See Strickland, Henry the Young King, pp. 40–48.
156 This suggestion was refused. See ibid., p. 41, n. 62 (p. 342). It should be noted that Frederick Barbarossa’s heir was crowned at the age of four (Andrew W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge, MA, 1981), p. 74).
affairs.157 Strickland has noted a possible parallel with Henry II’s father handing control of Normandy to him when he reached an appropriate age, and has also pointed to a crown-wearing at Easter 1158, where the king and queen vowed not to be crowned again.158 It is also possible that Henry had departure for a crusade in mind.159
These submissions seem to have been renewed. Robert of Torigni reports that in 1163:
In the month of January, King Henry travelled to England, himself and the queen, and with great joy he was received by almost all the leading men of the country, who were awaiting him on the coast. Indeed already, Henry, his son, had gone before, and just as he did in Normandy, so he received the homages and fealties of the barons and knights in England.
Mense Januario, rex Henricus transivit in Angliam, ipse et regina, et cum magno gaudio susceptus est ab omnibus fere proceribus patriae, qui eum in littore exspectabant. Jam enim Henricus, filius ejus, praecesserat, et sicut in Normannia fecerat, sic in Anglia homagia et fidelitates baronum et militum suscepit.160
This account could be read as still referring to the submissions of 1162, though one might expect susceperat rather than suscepit. However, it is more likely that Robert is reporting a renewal of the oaths on Henry II’s return to England. Later in 1163, further submissions came at Woodstock. Diss reports that, on 1 July, the king of Scots and various Welsh princes ‘did homage to the king of the English and Henry, his son’ (‘fecerunt homagium regi Anglorum et Henrico filio suo’).161 This seems to be the first time that submissions from other British rulers were made to the heir to the English throne. That the oaths came before the coronation itself highlights that this was still an adapted version of Norman practice. They were submissions to an heir, not a king.162
While we can see that what had been Norman practice was being used in England, our sources are again silent regarding whether Norman elites submitted to the young Henry. It seems likely that oaths were sworn to him around the same time that he did homage to Louis VII for Normandy, in 1160. This was at the tender age of five, just prior to his
157 Strickland, Henry the Young King, p. 47.
158 Ibid., p. 47: ‘in this context, it is possible that as early as 1158 Henry II had already begun to envisage young Henry taking over the ceremonial dimensions of the kingship of England when he reached a suitable age.’
159 For Henry’s plans for a crusade as early as 1163, see ibid., p. 75. 160 Robert of Torigni, Chronica, p. 216.
161 Ralph of Diss, Ymagines Historiarum, I, 311.
marriage to the French king’s daughter Margaret.163 This arrangement would parallel that made by Henry I in the 1110s with his son William Adelin, although to a much younger heir. It is also possible that submissions were made in 1162, at the Easter council at Falaise, before Becket and the boy left for England.