UNIT SIX

THE SECULAR STATE BEGINS

ENGLAND

HENRY II AND JOHN

Introduction

For modern nations to begin, they had to get out of feudalism and leave it behind. This was because feudalism stressed local government instead of central government. Local government meant that every manor about did as it pleased and the manors weren't working together toward any common goal. Local government led to more divisiveness instead of more unity. Modern nations needed unity to move ahead, to make progress. Nations that did not move out of feudalism remained hopelessly divided; some of these nations did not achieve unity until the 19th century. To get out of feudalism, a strong king had to take control of the country.

Getting out of feudalism was not easy. There were big obstacles to it. One of these obstacles was the nobles and the fact that they liked feudalism as it was. It gave them freedom to do as they pleased and power over the people on the manor. Naturally, they did not want to give this up. Remembering that the nobles and knights were the armed members of the society will help you see the magnitude of this obstacle. The other enormous obstacle was the church. The church asserted that its authority was above the king's; that, in fact, he had to do what the church said, and that if he didn't, he could be excommunicated same as anyone else; if he made the church too mad, the church could put an interdict over the entire country, which deprived everyone of the sacraments, except baptism and last rites. The church was also a problem in that its lands (which were considerable) were not able to be taxed, the church could and did hide fugitives from the law, and the clergy lived according to a different law than the government's. Clergy lived according to canon law, and they could not be prosecuted in a regular court of law if they committed a crime. Also, the higher clergy were appointed by the Pope and were responsible to him, not the king. Because neither group wanted the king to succeed, the nobles and the clergy supported each other against him.

On the other hand, the craftsmen and the merchants wanted the king to succeed and to get a handle on things. They supported the king in his fights against the nobles and the church.

There was yet another problem. Everyone wanted the country to be unified, and they wanted the king to control the nobles and to try to limit the power of the church. However, there was the possibility that a king would come along who would abuse his power. How would the peoples' rights be protected against someone like this? There is a fine line between control and abuse; also a fine line between being overly controlled and having too much freedom. Humans have struggled for centuries with this problem and the struggle continues today.

The kings we will study in this chapter both faced the issues described above. They had to dealt with nobles, the church, and one particularly had to deal with the rights issue. Again, we are studying England because what England did about these issues influenced what happened to us here in the United States. The church and state problem, the nobles and the state problem and the rights problem came up everywhere, so please don't ever think it was particular to England. We will begin our study with Henry II.

The story of Henry II

Henry II was William the Conqueror's great grandson. His mother was Matilda who was William's granddaughter and his father was Geoffrey of Anjou. With Henry II, the family became known as 'Plantagenet' after the flower that they wore on their shields. Henry was stocky, broad-shouldered and had red hair. He was a determined and intense man. Whatever he did, he did with enthusiasm and passion, whether it be the work of government or being the leader of a hunting party. He seemed tireless; in fact, his court had a hard time keeping up with him. By twelfth century standards, Henry was well educated. He could read and write, and he could speak other languages. Henry had spent some time in France as a child. He married Eleanor of Aquitaine who was certainly his equal in the intelligence and education department; she also was intense and determined and did things with passion! For her day, Eleanor was quite the 'liberated' woman. She expected men to do her bidding and she was not at all afraid to tell them off if they displeased her. She expected to have some say in Henry's government and did; he wasn't always pleased with that, as we shall see. Henry also had to contend with his mother who was very much still alive when he became king. She was proud and domineering and expected her son to listen to her.

Henry had inherited and /or acquired by marriage a lot of land in France as well as what he had in England. In France, he owned Normandy, Maine, Brittany, Aquitaine, and Anjou. The French kings did not like this fact - that a king of England should have any of their land, so they were always trying to get the land away from England and put it back with the rest of France, so Henry fought wars in France as well as governing England. He had his problems in England ,too; the king before him had neglected the government, and nobles had put up castles for which they had not gotten permission. It was up to Henry to get those taken down, which he did without delay.

Henry had some great new ideas. One was for controlling the nobles. Henry said that he would accept money in exchange for feudal military service. This money was called scutage. This was a sensible idea. It got revenue for Henry to spend, it lessened the number of armed men who could revolt against him, and the nobles took better care of the manors. When Henry needed soldiers in France, he hired them in France instead of sending armies across the Channel. Henry also wanted to reform the law system throughout England. He wanted all trials held in the king's courts, so that justice would be more likely to be fair, and so that the fines, if there were any, came into the treasury. He wanted there to be fair application of laws, and he wanted for trials to be solved by the use of evidence rather than by the ordeal. He set up a system of juries . Juries then were people who would have reason to know more about whether the alleged criminal had really done the crime, and were more a way for Henry to gather evidence than to decide a verdict, as juries do today. The ordeal was an old and traditional way to decide guilt or innocence. You did something painful to the accused person and if he survived it, that meant he was innocent because God had obviously saved him! For example, they might throw you in the river. (No one swam then) If you floated and didn't drown, you were innocent. Or you might have to walk on hot coals until your feet blistered. If your feet recovered and didn't get infected, you were innocent! Henry thought this was superstitious and wanted to get rid of this system. To try to enforce fair justice, Henry himself traveled about the kingdom and tried cases himself.

The fact that the clergy was not subject to the law of the kingdom really irked Henry. Henry wanted a standard set of laws in England that applied to everyone equally. It offended his sense of fairness that the church had different laws, and that clergy were tried in different courts. It also offended him that the church hid fugitives from his justice. Here is where Henry ran full length into stubborn opposition, and Henry didn't take it well. He wasn't used to 'no' for an answer.

The opposition came from a man who was, as far as Henry knew, his best friend. The man's name was Thomas Becket. Henry and Thomas had known each other forever, it seemed. They had grown up together. They had hunted together, partied together, dated girls together. If anyone should understand his position, Henry thought, it should be Thomas. Also, Henry thought Thomas owed him one. Maybe two. Henry had appointed Thomas to be his chancellor - royal chaplain and chief secretary, which was no small job, and he'd also been instrumental in Thomas Becket's getting to be Archbishop of Canterbury - the highest bishop in England. Henry kind of expected Becket to support his views on the church courts issue. In fact, this was one reason Thomas had been chosen. Well, Thomas did not support Henry! Henry forgot perhaps that Thomas was as intense and as determined as he was. Thomas wasn't about to back down from what he truly thought, any more than Henry was. Once he became Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas became very religious. He informed Henry that his duty to the church came before his duty to the kingdom and their old friendship. Henry refused to believe Thomas was serious. But Thomas was. When Henry announced his intention to reform the church courts, Thomas Becket would have none of it. The two men had a serious fight and Thomas Becket went to France and lived as a monk for awhile. Henry was hurt and angry at his friend. He felt betrayed and misunderstood.

In 1170 Henry went to France and met Thomas. Thomas got his way over the church courts issue, and it looked as though the quarrel was patched up. Thomas came back to England. He immediately excommunicated three bishops for doing things that only he, Thomas, was allowed to do. This action made Thomas unpopular with the nobles. One noble in particular decided to harass Thomas by hunting on Thomas' land and insulting him. Thomas got angry at him and excommunicated him even though he had promised Henry he wouldn't bother Henry's chief nobles. When Henry heard what had happened he threw a fit and said, ' Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?'

Well, someone overheard Henry and took him literally. Four knights stole into Becket's cathedral and killed him while he was at prayer. When Henry heard of it, he was grief-stricken and regretted what he had said. Everyone blamed him for Thomas' death and waited for God to punish him. Henry could not stand how badly he felt, so he went to visit Thomas Becket's tomb to show sorrow and repentance. He walked barefoot through the streets of Canterbury and had himself whipped. However, he did not feel much better, and the rest of his life was sad. His family fought and split up; in one instance, he had to fight his own sons in war. Henry died in 1189, heartbroken.

Henry had some success and some failure in dealing with the problems listed at the beginning of this chapter. He was able to reduce the power of his nobles a little by taking away their means of making war on him. He worked to give his country a standard set of laws. But he was not able to make much progress reducing the power of the church.

The Story of John

John was the youngest son of Henry and Eleanor. He might not have been king except that his older brother Richard died from an injury that became infected. John had the misfortune to succeed his brother, who had been enormously popular with the English people. Richard had been handsome and adventuresome, and Richard won wars. That was important. For a king to gain respect, he had to win wars. Richard had cost England a pretty penny, however. Richard had gone off to the Crusades, and on the way back, Richard was taken hostage by the Emperor of Austria. Part of the reason for this was that Richard did not marry the King of France, Philip’s, daughter, whom he had promised to marry and instead went off with another woman. Philip and the Austrian Emperor had plotted together to do this to Richard, to teach him a lesson. The Emperor of Austria asked a big ransom for Richard, but the English loved him so much they got the money together, and he was released. The result of this little adventure for John, however, was that the English were in no mood to come up with extra money and John needed it. John, in spite of the money he collected, did not win wars! He also got in trouble with the church; in fact, he got his whole country in trouble with the church. On the other hand, John did stay home and try to take care of his kingdom instead of running off to foreign adventures like his brother had. He was well educated, intelligent and tried to rule his country well. He saw that laws were carried out, judged disputes and watched the work of public officials.

It is hard to tell what kind of ruler John really was, because we have no unprejudiced accounts of his reign. You have to remember who would have been educated enough to write books then. Basically, books were written by clergy. The clergy, for reasons we're about to go into, did not like John. Therefore, it's doubtful that John was written about fairly.

You will remember from the material on Henry that the Plantagenet family held lots of land in France. You will also remember that the King of France did not like this and was constantly trying to get his land back. Henry II and Richard had lost some of the French land, and John lost a lot. John was determined to get his French land back. However, wars cost money. John tried to pay for his wars by raising the amount of certain fees people paid. One of these fees was the relief, which was a sort of inheritance tax. When a son took over his dead father's estate, he would pay this relief. The other fee was the scutage, which you learned about earlier. Nobles paid scutages to get out of doing feudal military service. This made the nobles (both these fees hit them the hardest) mad at John, and they accused him of going against the customs of the country.

At this same time, John also got in trouble with the church. The Pope did not like John's appointment to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury and refused to accept him. Instead the Pope appointed Stephen Langton, whom John refused to accept, saying that it was usual for the king to have a say in who was appointed. The Pope would not give in. In 1208, he put the entire country of England under an interdict, which meant all the churches were locked and the only services held were Baptism and the Last Rites. This was expected to make John come to terms pretty quickly, since his subjects were bound to put pressure on him to do something. Religion was the main force in peoples' lives, and they were being denied the sacraments, which they believed they had to have to go to heaven when they died. John had no intention of giving in quickly. In fact, he took some monastery land, (which he could sell and get money from) and he forced a number of clergymen to leave England. The Pope replied to this by excommunicating John. In 1213, John gave in, and the Pope lifted the excommunication. A year later, the Pope lifted the interdict. I think you can see, however, that the people would be really mad at John for getting them in all this trouble. The clergy were also mad, which explains John's bad reviews in the history books.

John's troubles were not over. John made a determined effort in 1214 to get back some of his French land. He had an ally this time, and he thought he could win this time. John again needed money. This time when he raised the fees, he faced noble rebellion. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked the rebels to draw up a list of grievances and present them to the king. The nobles accused John of "breaking the customs and traditions of the realm"; they demanded that he stop and make a promise to keep the customs in the future. John was furious and rejected the demands. The nobles decided to fight John. John was unable to keep the nobles from occupying London. On June 15, 1215, there were meetings at Runnymede to make peace.

John was forced to sign a document known to history as Magna Carta, which is Latin for Great Charter. In it he promised not to charge higher amounts of money for scutage until his nobles had agreed to it. Reliefs were set at a certain amount. All free men were to have a jury trial and the king was denied the right to sell or deny justice to anyone. The English church was given the right to obey the Pope. A committee of 25 nobles was formed to watch John and see that he kept his promises. John signed the Magna Carta, but had no intentions of keeping the promises he had made. In September, he started war against the nobles. He did not live to see the end of this war. He died in 1216. Few people mourned John. However, the Magna Carta was never forgotten. It is one of the most important documents in English, and by extension, the United States' history. It is important because it set a precedent. This was the first time a group of people had forced a king (and by extension, any government) to sign a paper which gave the people rights against their government's becoming too powerful. It doesn't seem like much in itself, but in time, other documents like it would list more rights; therefore, it put in process the idea that governments do not have unlimited power over their people. The Magna Carta is one of the ancestors of the American Bill of Rights.

John's reign also shows the problems that a king governing in the 12th century had with nobles and church. John was unable to control his nobles and he was not able to lessen the power of the church. However, the precedent set by the Magna Carta was a very positive one, and the idea that people have rights that their government cannot take away will grow larger and bear fruit in the 17th and 18th century with the English Petition of Rights in 1628, the English Bill of Rights in 1688, and in the American Bill of Rights in 1789. So, you could say, by being such a negative leader, John actually accomplished something very positive!

 

 

Chapter Questions and Outline

Rise of the Secular State (title of outline)

 

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