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Seventh Episode of Siggie presenting her take on the history of the monarchs of England in the context of her favorite topic….herself. Here she discusses the reign of Henry II and his relationship with Archbishop Thomas Beckett, and the reigns of Henry’s sons Richard I and John. These Kings controlled the “Angevin Empire,” which included much of France, but lost most of it.

Here’s where we get to the inspiration for Robin Hood with Henry and Eleanor’s

sons, John and Richard, Richard the Lionheart.

Henry appointed his closest friend… This is a time when, when it’s better to 

have an enemy rather than a friend. He appointed his closest friend, Thomas

Beckett, as Archbishop of Canterbury, in an attempt to wrestle power from the

church because Henry II was seriously power hungry, power crazed.

But Beckett was surprisingly unflinchingly loyal to the church and

the higher power above… much higher than he considered Henry II. So anyway,

Henry wasn’t exactly a fan of this and Beckett lost his life. Henry spent his

final days at war with his sons. He was a real likeable guy. His best friend he

ended up basically killing because he wasn’t the one that was revered. It was

God that was revered. He didn’t like that at all.

And then yeah, then then again another power struggle with his sons.

So, this brings us to King Richard the First or Richard the Lionheart, a

nickname that was given during the Crusades when he earned a reputation as

a skilled warrior. Richard declared war against his father

and his older brother. He was well-liked despite raising taxes. He pardoned the

boy who inflicted his fatal wounds. I mean, he had his good points and

he had his bad points. But anyway, he reigned in the House of Plantagenet from 1189 for

1199, and that takes us to Richard’s brother, John, who became King John. He reigned

from 1199 to 1216. He was regarded as bad because he imposed seriously strong

whopping taxes. Get this… taxes to finance his unsuccessful wars in France. Can

you believe it? “Give me all this money. Yeah, invest in me. Invest in my wars in

France that I’m going to lose. But just give me the money and then yeah

whatever. Look, look… It’s kind of like the stock

market. You invest, it goes up, it goes down. You know, and then you never really

know what you’re gonna get. The same with me!” But in this case what they got was

screwed because he had unsuccessful wars in France. King John was forced to sign

the Magna Carta, the Great Charter in 1215, which limited

power.

(Stay tuned for Episode 8 for more Plantagenet drama…)