THE naval expeditions of Henry II. are not of great interest, although at least one of them, that having for its object the completion of the conquest of Ireland, was of extreme importance.
The king was in Normandy at the moment of his accession and did not come to England until six weeks after Stephen's death. Having settled his English inheritance he proceeded to France in 1156 to do homage for his French possessions, and to recover Anjou from his brother Geoffrey of Nantes, Earl of Martel, who had seized it, but who soon submitted and relinquished his claims in return for an annual pension of one thousand pounds.
In the following year the king began naval preparations on considerable scale against Wales, in order to put a stop to border raids and to piracies which had become troublesome, but the Welsh made the requisite concessions before hostilities actually broke out.
The death of Geoffrey of Nantes, in 1158, induced Conan IV. of Brittany to take possession of the County of Nantes in defiance of the claims of Henry II., whereupon the latter, apparently in 1159, fitted out a large fleet and army, and, crossing the Channel, not only compelled Conan to abdicate, but also obliged him to betroth his daughter Constance to Henry's infant son Geoffrey, known thence-forward as Geoffrey of Brittany. Thus Brittany was, for the time, practically made a part of the king's continental dominions. The campaign, and an unsuccessful expedition against Toulouse, detained Henry abroad until 1163. No naval operations of any moment occurred, however, during the period; nor do we read of much naval activity having been shown by England until 1167, when the country was threatened with a formidable invasion by the Counts of Boulogne and Flanders, who are said to have collected six hundred ships for the purpose. Henry was again abroad, but Richard de Lucy, one of the Justiciars or Regents, and a most able and devoted minister, promptly assembled so large a military force on the south coast that the attempt was abandoned, although there seems to have been no naval force ready and able to dispute the passage of the enemy. Probably because he realised how narrowly he had escaped
