Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/18

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Henry II
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Henry III

outlines have been preserved to our own day. It was through his “constitutions” and his “assizes” that it came to pass that all over the world the English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household became transformed into ministers of state. It was he who gave England a foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred years.’ ‘Indirectly and unconsciously, his policy did more than that of all his predecessors to prepare England for the unity and freedom which the fall of his house was to reveal.’

[Notices of events in Henry's life before his accession to the crown can only be picked out here and there from Robert of Torigni (Chronicle, ed. Delisle, Soc. de l'Hist. de Normandie; Contin. Will. Jumièges, in Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Scriptt.), Hen. Huntingdon, l. viii (ed. Arnold, Rolls Ser.), the Gesta Stephani (ed. Howlett, in Chronicles of Stephen, &c., vol. iii.), and the last pages of the English Chronicle (ed. Thorpe). From his coronation to the close of his struggle with the church information has to be extracted from the letters of Gilbert Foliot and John of Salisbury (ed. Giles, Patres Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ) and the vast store of Materials for Hist. of Archbishop Becket (ed. Robertson and Sheppard), supplemented by Ralph de Diceto and Gervase of Canterbury (ed. Stubbs). From 1169 onwards our primary authorities are the Gesta Henrici (wrongly ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough) and Roger of Howden (ed. Stubbs), while R. Diceto is of increased importance. Henry's dealings with Ireland are recorded in Gerald de Barri's Expugnatio Hiberniæ (Gir. Cambr. Opera, vol. v. ed. Dimock), and in an Anglo-Norman poem (ed. F. Michel); his dealings with Wales, in Gerald's Itin. Kambriæ (Opera, vol. vi. ed. Dimock), and in the Annales Cambriæ and Brut y Tywysogion (ed. Williams ab Ithel). The Scottish war of 1173–4 has its special chronicler in Jordan Fantosme (ed. Michel, Surtees Soc., and Howlett, Chron. of Stephen, &c., vol. iii.). William of Newburgh (ed. Hamilton, Engl. Hist. Soc., and Howlett, as above, vol. i.) is a valuable contributor to the history of the whole reign. The Draco Normannicus (ed. Howlett, as above, vol. ii.) is more curious than really useful. For Henry's continental policy and wars we have, besides Robert of Torigni's Chronicle, the assistance of an Aquitanian writer, Geoffrey of Vigeois (Labbe, Nova Bibliotheca MSS. Libr., vol. ii.), and two French ones, Rigord and William of Armorica (Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. v.). From these two last, and Gerald's De Instructione Principum (Anglia Christiana Soc.), the story of the king's last days has been worked out in detail by Bishop Stubbs in his preface to Rog. Howden, vol. ii. Henry's person and character are described by Gerald (De Instr. Princ.), W. Map (De Nugis Curialium, ed. Wright, Camden Soc.), Ralph Niger (ed. Anstruther, Caxton Soc.), and Peter of Blois (Epistolæ, ed. Giles). His buildings &c. may be traced in Dugdale's Monasticon, Sainte-Marthe's Gallia Christiana, Stapleton's introduction to the Norman Exchequer Rolls (Soc. Antiqu.), the Chroniques d'Anjou, edited by Marchegay and Salmon (Société de l'Histoire de France), the Cartulaire de l'Hôpital St. Jean d'Angers (ed. C. Port), the Revue de l'Anjou, vol. xii. (1874), and the essay on the Home of our Angevin Kings in Green's Stray Studies. The Tractatus de Legibus Angliæ, which passes under R. Glanville's name, throws light on the king's legal reforms; the Pipe Rolls 1–4 Hen. II (ed. Hunter) have been published by the Record Commission, those of 5–12 Hen. II by the Pipe Roll Soc.; other documents for the history of his government are to be found in Bishop Stubbs's Select Charters, as well as in Gesta Hen., Rog. Howden, Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i., the Liber Niger Scaccarii (ed. Hearne), and the appendices to Lord Lyttelton's Hist. of Hen. II. Lyttelton's own work is, in the words of a more modern authority, ‘a full and sober account of the time.’ An elaborate Itinerary of Henry II has been compiled by the Rev. R. W. Eyton. Dr. Stubbs has dealt with the constitutional side of the reign in Constit. Hist., chapters xii. xiii., and preface to Gesta Hen., vol. ii.; and with its more general aspects in Early Plantagenets, cc. ii–v., and preface to Rog. Howden, vol. ii. J. R. Green's Hist. of the English People, bk. ii. ch. iii., Short History, ch. ii. secs. 7, 8, and Stray Studies, pp. 361–381, are studies of Henry's character and career designed to form part of the groundwork for a history of the Angevin kings. Henry's claims to a place among English statesmen have also been vindicated in a monograph by Mrs. Green. A general account of the reign appears in England under the Angevin Kings, by the writer of this article.]

K. N.

HENRY III (1207–1272), called Henry of Winchester, king of England, elder son of John [q. v.] by his queen Isabella [q. v.] of Angoulême, was born at Winchester on 1 Oct. 1207, and was named after his grandfather, Henry II (Wendover, iii. 219; Ann. Winton. p. 80). In 1209 his father caused an oath of fealty to be taken to him throughout England. When John lay on his deathbed at Newark in October 1216 he again declared him his heir, and all present took an oath to him. John's death on the 18th completely changed the position of the two contending parties in England [see under John, king]. The king's adherents may be said to have become the constitutional party, while the barons of the opposition ceased to appear as the upholders of the national cause against an intolerable tyrant, and were committed to an attempt to deprive an innocent child of his inheritance, and to place a foreign prince, Louis of France, on the throne. A similar change was effected