Henry II
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
king of England. He was the first of the long line of Plantagenet kings. He ruled 1154-89. His mother was English, his father was a French count. He held more than half of France. In fact, he regarded himself as a French monarch with English possessions across the channel. For all that, he is considered one of the best rulers England has had. He adopted the far-reaching measure of substituting royal courts of justice for local ones. Judges traveled throughout his dominions, holding court, with the beginnings of a jury system. It has been possible ever since Henry's day, therefore, for plaintiffs to seek justice before a court less likely to be influenced by local prejudices; in other words, to escape local tyranny. The Irish owe him no love, however, for in his reign English rule was extended over that island. The reign of Henry is made memorable by his contest with Thomas a Becket. Henry IV (1050-1106), emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and king of Germany. The principal event of his reign was a struggle with Hildebrand, known in papal history as Gregory VII. Henry was obliged finally to give in to the pope. See Canossa Henry IV (1553-1610), king of France. He ascended the throne in 1589. He is known in history as Henry of Navarre. He became the head of the Huguenot party on the death of the Prince de Conde in 1569. He married Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX of France, in 1572. Subsequent to the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he put an end to the civil wars of France by embracing the Roman Catholic religion. In this way he secured the adherence of the Roman Catholics, and was crowned by the united nation at Chartres in 1594. To secure his old followers, he published the Edict of Nantes April 15, 1598. He was assassinated by a fanatic named Ravaillac. See Catharine De Medici; St. Bartholomew; Edict Of Nantes; St. Peter'S
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 summary of Henry II still largely holds: his itinerant royal justices and the inquests of the Assize of Clarendon (1166) are still treated as the foundation of the English common law, and his quarrel with Thomas Becket, murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, is still the reign's defining drama. Two things have shifted. Modern historians are more careful than Aiton about the "beginnings of a jury system" — the twelfth-century sworn inquest was a panel of local men reporting on facts, not a trial jury weighing evidence, and the modern criminal jury took centuries more to form; and they now usually describe his sprawling cross-Channel holdings as the "Angevin Empire" rather than treating him simply as a French monarch with English possessions. The line about the Irish owing him no love reads very differently after 1922, when most of the island left the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State, leaving the six counties of Northern Ireland behind.
Written for this edition, 2026.