1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Henry Fitz Henry

HENRY FITZ HENRY (1155–1183), second son of Henry II., king of England, by Eleanor of Aquitaine, became heir to the throne on the death of his brother William (1156), and at the age of five was married to Marguerite, the infant daughter of Louis VII. In 1170 he was crowned at Westminster by Roger of York. The protests of Becket against this usurpation of the rights of Canterbury were the ultimate cause of the primate’s murder. The young king soon quarrelled with his father, who allowed him no power and a wholly inadequate revenue, and headed the great baronial revolt of 1173. He was assisted by his father-in-law, to whose court he had repaired; but, failing to shake the old king’s power either in Normandy or England, made peace in 1174. Despite the generous terms which he received, he continued to intrigue with Louis VII., and was in consequence jealously watched by his father. In 1182 he and his younger brother Geoffrey took up arms, on the side of the Poitevin rebels, against Richard Cœur de Lion; apparently from resentment at the favour which Henry II. had shown to Richard in giving him the government of Poitou while they were virtually landless. Henry II. took the field in aid of Richard; but the young king and Geoffrey had no scruples about withstanding their father, and continued to aid the Aquitanian rising until the young king fell ill of a fever which proved fatal to him (June 11, 1183). His death was bitterly regretted by his father and by all who had known him. Though of a fickle and treacherous nature, he had all the personal fascination of his family, and is extolled by his contemporaries as a mirror of chivalry. His train was full of knights who served him without pay for the honour of being associated with his exploits in the tilting-lists and in war.

The original authorities for Henry’s life are Robert de Torigni, Chronica; Giraldus Cambrensis, De instructione principum, Guillaume le Maréchal (ed. P. Meyer, Paris, 1891, &c.); Benedict, Gesta Henrici, William of Newburgh. See also Kate Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (1887); Sir James Ramsay, Angevin Empire (1903); and C. E. Hodgson, Jung Heinrich, König von England (Jena, 1906).