4. A Dynasty Founded Amidst Massive Strife
In the first half of the twelfth century, England was plunged into a bitter and chaotic civil upheaval that came to be known as The Anarchy. It pitted the reigning monarch, King Stephen, against his predecessor’s daughter, Matilda. The conflict saw numerous ups and downs, and devastated England. It finally came to a negotiated end in 1153, after Stephen agreed to designate Matilda’s son, Henry Plantagenet, as his heir. The latter ascended the throne as Henry II after Stephen’s end in 1154, and founded the Plantagenet Dynasty which ruled England for centuries.
Henry II (1133 – 1189) was probably England’s most transformative monarch. His reign, from 1153 to 1189, saw the laying of some basic foundations that shaped England ever since. He was born to Matilda, daughter of England’s King Henry I, and Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. Henry became ruler of Anjou and Normandy after his father’s demise in 1151. A year later, he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, Europe’s greatest heiress, and added her duchy to his holdings. When he succeeded to the English throne in 1154, he became Europe’s greatest monarch, and ruled what came to be known as the Angevin Empire, whose territories stretched from the Scottish border to the Spanish Pyrenees.