HENRY AND ENGLAND. 1154–1157.
The Christmas 1154 coronation of Henry Fitz-Empress was as epochal for England as 1066: the first uncontested succession since the Norman Conquest, ending 19 years of anarchy. The 22-year-old faced rebuilding the state’s decayed legal and administrative machinery, but his youth was an asset: he carried no preconceived political theories, party pledges, or local ties. Thick-set, broad-chested, with tawny cropped hair and a “lion-like” face, he had superhuman restless energy, riding dawn to dusk with swollen, bruised feet, rarely sitting except at meals or on horseback, even discussing business in a whisper during church rites. His secretary Peter of Blois complained tracking him was as hard as following an eagle in the air or a serpent on a rock, while his clerks compared his court to the infernal regions for unannounced departures that left couriers searching remote woods for squalid lodgings they fought over with pigs. Yet he was a tireless ruler, the most learned crowned head in Christendom, fluent in Latin and French.
His core administration drew on Henry I’s surviving officials. Richard de Lucy, justiciar for 25 years, shared the role with Earl Robert of Leicester, son of Henry I’s Count Robert of Meulan. Nigel, bishop of Ely, was reinstated as treasurer. The chancellorship went to Thomas Becket, selected by the frail Archbishop Theobald for his past loyalty. Fifteen years older than the king but sharing his interests, Thomas became the second most powerful man in England. Tall, elegant, and regal, he contrasted with Henry’s rough hands and careless appearance. His lavish household—52 clerks, fresh rushes, gold and silver plate, and decent meals for the lowest servants—drew more followers than the king’s, as barons sent sons to be educated there. Henry felt no jealousy, visiting Thomas uninvited to eat and play like schoolboys, once stealing his scarlet vair-lined mantle during a winter ride through London to give to a poor man.
Henry’s first manifesto restored all liberties and customs from Henry I’s reign. At Bermondsey Christmas court, he ordered the expulsion of Flemish mercenaries and demolition of unlicensed castles, both without incident. He abolished fiscal earldoms, reclaimed royal demesne lands and fortresses alienated during Stephen’s reign, and forced William of Aumale of Holderness to submit by January 1155 at York; William Peverel of the Peak fled to a monastery. A March 1155 London council confirmed the peace. Two western barons, Roger of Hereford and Hugh of Mortemar, revolted immediately: Roger submitted to his kinsman Bishop Gilbert of Hereford within a week. Henry kept Easter at Wallingford, securing succession for his eldest son William, then his infant six-week-old son Henry as heir, before marching against Hugh, besieging Cleobury, Wigmore, and Bridgenorth on the site of Henry I’s defeat of Robert of Bellême fifty years prior, forcing Hugh’s surrender on July 7 1155.
Hugh Bigod and Stephen’s son William of Blois (holding Pevensey and Norwich) submitted after Henry summoned the 1157 Whitsuntide council to Bury St Edmund’s, giving up the castles for their fathers’ pre-royal estates. By autumn 1155, peace was secure enough for Henry to plan a papal-backed Irish conquest for his brother William, but Empress Matilda disapproved, so in January 1156 he sailed for Anjou to crush Geoffrey’s rebellion. The 1156 Pipe Roll showed Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland sent no accounts (held by the Scottish king), with total revenue only a third of 1130. It recorded the first scutage, a new impost on ecclesiastical estates to fund the Anjou war, assessed per knight’s fee; there was little initial resentment as the sum was small and thought a one-off, though it was fully developed three years later under Thomas. Henry returned after Easter 1157, secured East Anglia, then moved against Scotland and Wales, refusing to honor a boyhood oath letting Malcolm of Scotland keep three shires conquered by King David.
For his first Welsh campaign, Owen of North Wales had banished his brother Cadwallader, who appealed to Henry. A Northampton council ordered an expedition using a modified levy, where every two knights equipped a third for triple the standard 40-day service. The host assembled near Chester, but Henry took a coastal route to surprise the Welsh, only to be routed at the narrow Consilt pass. The constable Henry of Essex, hearing a cry that the king had fallen, dropped the royal standard and fled, but Henry rallied, cut through ambushes, and forced Owen to withdraw. He fortified Rhuddlan, and Owen, fearing being trapped between army and fleet, did homage and gave hostages, bringing the South Welsh princes under his authority. Malcolm met Henry at Chester, surrendered the three disputed shires plus Newcastle, Bamborough, and Carlisle, and did homage for his English fiefs as his grandfather had for Henry I. The year closed with a feast at Lincoln, and the last traditional English crown-wearing took place at Worcester Easter, when Henry and Eleanor laid their crowns on the altar and vowed never to wear them again, probably from impatience of court pageantry, marking the end of a lesser era before Henry plunged into six years of continental wars.
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