Little Arthur's history of England

It is a pity that we must think of the bad things belonging to Henry’s reign.

I dare say you remember the chapter in which I told you how the Angles and Saxons became Christians, and that a bishop of Rome sent Augustine and some companions to teach the people. Now the bishops of Rome called themselves popes, to distinguish themselves from other bishops; and, as most of the good men who taught the different nations to be Christians had been sent from Rome, the popes said they ought to be chief of all the bishops and clergymen in every country.

This might have been right, perhaps, if they had only wanted to know that everybody was well taught. But they said that the clergymen were their servants, and that neither the kings nor judges of any country should punish them, or do them good, without the pope’s leave. This was foolish and wrong. Although clergymen are in general good men, because they are always reading and studying what is good, yet some of them are as wicked as other men, and ought to be judged and punished for their wickedness in the same manner.

And so King Henry thought.

But the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose name was Thomas Becket, thought differently.

This Becket wanted to be as great a man as the king, and tried to prevent the proper judges from punishing wicked clergymen, and wanted to be their judge himself. And there were sad quarrels between the king and Becket on that account.

At last, one day, after a very great dispute, Henry fell into a violent passion, and said he wished Becket was dead. Four of his servants, who heard him, and wished to please him, went directly to Canterbury, and, finding Archbishop Becket in church, they killed him with great cruelty.

You may think how sorry King Henry was that he had been in such a passion; for, if he had not, his servants would never have thought of killing Becket. It gave the king a great deal of trouble before he could make the people forgive the murder of the archbishop. And this was one of the very bad things in Henry’s life.

There was another bad thing, which perhaps caused the king more pain than the killing of Becket. It was owing, mostly, to something wrong which the king had been persuaded to do when he was very young.

You shall hear. I told you how very rich King Henry was; the thing that first made him so was his early marriage to one of the richest ladies in the world, although she was very ill-tempered, and in all ways a bad woman. It is said that she was handsome; but I am sure she must have been wicked, for she was once married to a French king, who found her out in such wicked actions, that he sent her away, and gave her back all her money and estates, as he did not choose to have so bad a wife.

Now Henry, instead of choosing a good wife, when only nineteen years old married this bad woman for her riches.

Her name was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and she had four sons, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John. She brought up these children very badly, and, instead of teaching them to love their father, who was very kind to them, she encouraged them to disobey him in everything. When her son Henry was only sixteen, she told him he would make a good king, and never rested till his good-natured father caused him to be crowned king, and trusted a great deal more to him than was right; till at last young Henry became so conceited that he wanted to be king altogether, and, by the help of this wicked mother, and of the King of France, he got an army and made war against his father.

However, he did not gain anything by his bad behaviour, and soon afterwards he became very ill, and died without seeing his father; and, when he was dying, he begged his servants to go and say to the king his father that he was very sorry indeed for his wickedness, and very unhappy to think of his undutiful behaviour. The king was even more unhappy than the prince had been, for he loved his son dearly.

I am sorry to say the other three sons of Henry and Eleanor did not behave much better. Richard was as violent in temper as his mother, but he had some good qualities, which made his father hope he might become a good king when he himself was dead. But Queen Eleanor, with the help of the King of France, contrived to make Richard and his brother Geoffrey fight against their father. As for John, though he was too young to do much harm himself while King Henry lived, yet he became as wicked as the rest when he grew up. Geoffrey married Constance, Princess of Brittany, but he died soon after. He had only one son, named Arthur about whom I will tell you more in a short time.

Now Henry’s great fault, in marrying a bad woman because she was rich, brought the greatest punishment with it, for she taught her children to be wicked, and to rebel against their father. And there is nothing in the world so unhappy as a family where the children behave ill to their parents.

I beg now, my dear little Arthur, that you will take notice, that all the good belonging to Henry’s reign concerns the country. While he was doing his duty, being kind to his subjects, repairing the mischief done in the civil wars, and taking care that justice was done, and that learning and learned men were encouraged, he was happy.

His bad actions always hurt himself. If he had not given way to his passion, Thomas à Becket would not have been killed by his servants, and he would not have suffered so much sorrow and vexation.

And if he had not married a woman whom he knew to be wicked, his children might have been comforts to him instead of making war upon him; and they might have been better kings for England after his death.

Henry the Second has often been called Henry Plantagenet. His father was the first person in his family to whom that name was given, and I will tell you why.

When people went to battle long ago, to keep their heads from being wounded, they covered them with iron caps, called helmets; and there were bars like cages over their faces, so that their best friends did not always know them with their helmets on. Therefore, they used to stick something into their caps, by which they might be known; and Henry’s father used to wear in his helmet a branch of broom, called planta genista, or shortly Plantagenet; and so he got his name from it.