CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST YEARS OF HENRY II.
1183–1189.

The unexpected death of the young king was a catastrophe almost equally overwhelming to both parties in the war. Henry himself, when the news was brought to him by the prior of Grandmont, whither the body had been taken to be prepared for burial,[1087] went almost out of his mind with grief.[1088] For a moment indeed friends and foes alike seemed incapable of anything but mourning. Hero or saint could scarcely have won a more universal tribute of affection and regret than was showered upon this young king who, so far as we can see, had done so little to deserve it. Stern voices like that of Bertrand de Born, accustomed only to the bitterest tones of sarcasm, insult and angry strife, melted suddenly into accents of the deepest tenderness and lamentation.[1089] Sober-minded churchmen and worldly-wise courtiers, though they could not deny or excuse the dead man’s sins, yet betrayed with equal frankness their unreasoning attachment to his memory.[1090] As his body, arrayed in the linen robe which he had worn at his coronation—its white folds, hallowed by the consecrating oil, made to serve for a winding-sheet—was borne on an open bier upon the shoulders of his comrades-in-arms from Grandmont northward through Anjou, the people streamed forth from every castle and town and village along the road to meet it with demonstrations of mourning and tears;[1091] and at Le Mans, where it was deposited for a night in the cathedral church, the bishops and citizens forcibly took possession of it, refused to give it up, and buried their beloved young king then and there by the side of his grandfather Geoffrey Plantagenet.[1092].

The political tide, however, turned as soon as he was gone. The Aquitanian league suddenly found itself without a head; for Geoffrey of Britanny, although the wiliest and most plausible of all the king’s sons, was also the most generally distrusted and disliked.[1093] The league broke up at once; on Midsummer-day Ademar of Limoges surrendered his citadel and made his peace;[1094] and most of the other rebels soon followed his example. By the end of the month Henry, having razed the walls of Limoges and garrisoned with his own troops the castles which had submitted to him, could venture to set out for Normandy;[1095] while King Alfonso of Aragon, who had come to the help of his father’s old ally, found nothing left for him to do but to join Richard in an expedition against the one baron who still persisted in his rebellion—Bertrand de Born.[1096] If Bertrand’s story may be believed, it was Alfonso’s treachery which, after a week’s siege, compelled him to surrender Hautefort.[1097] What followed shewed plainly that the Aquitanian revolt was at an end. Richard made over Hautefort to Constantine de Born, the troubadour’s brother and lifelong rival;[1098] Bertrand, instead of calling his fellow-barons to avenge him as of old, threw himself upon the generosity of his conqueror, and addressed Richard in a sirvente entreating that his castle might be restored to him. Richard referred him to his father; Bertrand then hastened to the king, who greeted him sarcastically with an allusion to one of his own earlier sirventes: “You were wont to boast of possessing more wits than you ever needed to use—what has become of them now?” “Sire, I lost them on the day that you lost your son.” Henry burst into tears; Bertrand was forgiven, indemnified for the losses which he had sustained during the siege, and dismissed with a charter securing to him from that time forth the sole possession of Hautefort.[1099] As a natural consequence, his lyre and his sword were thenceforth both alike at the service of the ducal house to whom he had hitherto been such a troublesome and dangerous foe.

On his northward march Henry met with no opposition. The young king had drawn to himself followers from all parts of the Angevin dominions, as well as from those of the French Crown;[1100] but they had all been drawn by a purely personal attraction, or by the hope of gain; their action had no political significance; and the greater barons, warned by their experience of ten years before, had remained entirely aloof from the whole movement. On reaching Le Mans, indeed, Henry found the old jealousy between Normandy and Maine on the point of breaking out over his son’s dead body; the clergy and people of Rouen, indignant at being defrauded of their young king’s dying bequest, were threatening to come and destroy the city of Le Mans and carry off his body by force. Henry was obliged to cause it to be disinterred and conveyed to Rouen for re-burial,[1101] while he himself returned to Angers to meet Richard and to receive Geoffrey’s submission.[1102] The quarrel between the Cenomannians and the citizens of Rouen was however only the smallest part of the troubles which arose from the young king’s death. As Margaret’s only child had died in infancy, her brother Philip of France at once demanded the restoration of her dowry, and especially the fortress of Gisors. Henry refused to give it up; conference after conference was held without result;[1103] at last, in December, a compromise was made, Henry consenting to do homage to Philip for all his transmarine dominions and to pay a money-compensation for Gisors, which was to be left in his hands henceforth as the dowry not of Margaret, but of her sister Adela, Richard’s affianced bride.[1104]

But a far worse difficulty remained. All Henry’s schemes for the distribution of his territories were upset by the death of his heir, and it was necessary to devise some new arrangement. It really seems as if Henry’s first thought about the matter was that now at last he could provide as he chose for his darling “Lackland”; for he at once bade the English justiciar Ralf de Glanville bring John over to meet him in Normandy. As soon as they arrived he sent for Richard and unfolded his plan. Richard was now the eldest son; if he lived, he must in due time succeed his father as head of the Angevin house. Henry had clearly no mind to venture a second time upon the dangerous experiment of crowning his heir during his own life. But, although we have no actual statement of his intentions, it seems plain that he did intend to place Richard, in every respect short of the coronation, in the same position which had been held by the young king. Under these circumstances, if the continental dominions of the Angevin house were to be redistributed among the three surviving brothers, there was only one possible mode of redistribution. Geoffrey could not give up Britanny, for he was now actually married to its duchess;[1105] but Richard, in consideration of his prospects as future king of England, duke of Normandy and count of Anjou, might fairly be asked to surrender to his youngest brother the duchy of Aquitaine. So at least it seemed from Henry’s point of view. Richard however saw the matter in another light. Not because he loved Aquitaine, but because he hated it—because for eight years he had fought unceasingly to crush it beneath his feet—now that it lay there prostrate, he could not let it escape him. Richard was generous; but to give up to other hands the reaping of a harvest which he had sown with such unsparing labour and watered with such streams of blood, was a sacrifice too great for his generosity in his six-and-twentieth year. He met his father’s demand with a request for time to think it over; that evening he mounted his horse and rode straight for Poitou; and thence he sent back a message that so long as he lived, no one but himself should ever hold the duchy of Aquitaine.[1106]