The Kingdom of East Francia: Formation of the Carolingian Empire

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Carloman, Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne, Charles Martel, Charles the Great, Emperor of the Romans, King of the Franks, King of the Lombards, Kingdom of East Francia, Pepin III the Short, Pope Leo III, Pope Stephen II, Pope Zachary

Before we can discuss the Kingdom of East Francia I would like to discuss the Carolingian Empire and how the Kingdom of East Francia became part of that great empire.

The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to transfer the Roman Empire from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe. The Carolingian Empire is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.

Nomenclature

The term “Carolingian Empire” is a modern convention and was not used by its contemporaries. The language of official acts in the empire was Latin. The empire was referred to variously as universum regnum (“the whole kingdom”, as opposed to the regional kingdoms), Romanorum sive Francorum imperium (“empire of the Romans and Franks”), Romanum imperium (“Roman empire”), or even imperium christianum (“Christian empire”).

Charles Martel (c. 688 – October 22, 741) was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and Pepin’s mistress, a noblewoman named Alpaida.

Charles, also known as “The Hammer” (in Old French, Martel), successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father’s work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul.

His son and successor Pepin III the Short (c. 714 – September 24, 768), also called the Younger was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. He was the first Carolingian to become king.

The younger was the son of the Frankish prince Charles Martel and his wife Rotrude, Pepin’s upbringing was distinguished by the ecclesiastical education he had received from the monks of St. Denis. Succeeding his father as the Mayor of the Palace in 741, Pepin reigned over Francia jointly with his elder brother Carloman. Pepin ruled in Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence, while his older brother Carloman established himself in Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia.

The brothers were active in suppressing revolts led by the Bavarians, Aquitanians, Saxons, and the Alemanni in the early years of their reign. In 743, they ended the Frankish interregnum by choosing Childeric III, who was to be the last Merovingian monarch, as figurehead King of the Franks.

Being well disposed towards the church and papacy on account of their ecclesiastical upbringing, Pepin and Carloman continued their father’s work in supporting Saint Boniface in reforming the Frankish church, and evangelizing the Saxons.

After Carloman, who was an intensely pious man, retired to religious life in 747, Pepin became the sole ruler of the Franks. He suppressed a revolt led by his half-brother Grifo, and succeeded in becoming the undisputed master of all Francia.

Giving up pretense, Pepin then forced King Childeric III into a monastery and had himself proclaimed King of the Franks with support of Pope Zachary in 751. The decision was not supported by all members of the Carolingian family and Pepin had to put down a revolt led by Carloman’s son, Drogo and again by Grifo.

As king, Pepin embarked on an ambitious program to expand his power. He reformed the legislation of the Franks and continued the ecclesiastical reforms of Boniface. Pepin also intervened in favour of the papacy of Pope Stephen II against the Lombards in Italy. In the midsummer of 754, Stephen II anointed Pepin afresh, together with his two sons, Charles and Carloman.

The ceremony took place in the Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris, and the Pope formally forbade the Franks ever to elect as king anyone who was not of the sacred race of Pepin. He also bestowed upon Pepin and his sons the title of ‘Patrician of Rome’.

Pepin died during a campaign, in 768 at the age of 54. He was interred in the Basilica of Saint Denis in modern-day Metropolitan Paris. His wife Bertrada was also interred there in 783. Charlemagne rebuilt the Basilica in honor of his parents and placed markers at the entrance.

The Frankish realm was divided according to the Salic law between his two sons: Charlemagne and Carloman I.

Charlemagne: or Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus; German: Karl der Große; April 2, 747 – January 28, 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the Emperor of the Romans from 800.

Charlemagne, King of the Franks, King of the Lombards, Emperor of the Romans

Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire around three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire. He was canonized by Antipope Paschal III—an act later treated as invalid—and he is now regarded by some as beatified (which is a step on the path to sainthood) in the Catholic Church.

Charlemagne was the eldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. He was born before their canonical marriage. He became King of the Franks in 768 following his father’s death, and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I until the latter’s death in 771.

As sole ruler, he continued his father’s policy towards protection of the papacy and became its sole defender, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain. He also campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianizing them (upon penalty of death) which led to events such as the Massacre of Verden.

He reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Charlemagne has been called the “Father of Europe” (Pater Europae), as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the classical era of the Roman Empire, as well as uniting parts of Europe that had never been under Frankish or Roman rule.

His reign spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church viewed Charlemagne less favourably, due to his support of the filioque and the Pope’s preference of him as emperor over the Byzantine Empire’s first female monarch, Irene of Athens. These and other disputes led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054.

Charlemagne died in 814 after contracting an infectious lung disease. He was laid to rest in the Aachen Cathedral, in his imperial capital city of Aachen.

He married at least four times, and had three legitimate sons who lived to adulthood. Only the youngest of them, Louis the Pious, survived to succeed him. Charlemagne is the direct ancestor of many of Europe’s royal houses, including the Capetian dynasty, the Ottonian dynasty, the House of Luxembourg, the House of Ivrea and the House of Habsburg.

July 20, 1031: Death of Robert II, King of the Franks

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Beatrice of Burgundy, Constance of Arles, Fulk III of Anjou, Hugh Capet, King of the Franks, Pope Sergius IV, Pope Sylvester II, Robert II, Robert the Pious, Rollo of Normandy, William III of Aquitaine

Robert II (March 27, 972 – July 20, 1031), called the Pious or the Wise, was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second monarch from the House of Capét. He was born in Orléans to Hugh Capét, King of the Franks and Adelaide of Aquitaine, the daughter of Guillaume III, Duke of Aquitaine and Adele of Normandy, daughter of Rollo of Normandy.

Robert II distinguished himself with an extraordinarily long reign for the time. His 35-year-long reign was marked by his attempts to expand the royal domain by any means, especially by his long struggle to gain the Duchy of Burgundy. His policies earned him many enemies, including three of his sons. He was also known for his difficult marriages: he married three times, annulling two of these and attempting to annul the third, prevented only by the Pope’s refusal to accept a third annulment.

Robert II, King of the Franks

Immediately after the coronation of Hugh Capét, the new Frankish King began to push for the coronation of his son Robert as a co-ruler. “The essential means by which the early Capetians were seen to have kept the throne in their family was through the association of the eldest surviving son in the royalty during the father’s lifetime,” Andrew W. Lewis has observed, in tracing the phenomenon in this line of kings who lacked dynastic legitimacy.

Hugh’s claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Borrel II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, and that the stability of the country necessitated a co-king, should he die while on expedition. Ralph Glaber, however, attributes Hugh’s request to his old age and inability to control the nobility.

Modern scholarship has largely imputed to Hugh the motive of establishing a dynasty against the claims of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this is not the typical view of contemporaries and even some modern scholars have been less sceptical of Hugh’s “plan” to campaign in Spain. Robert was eventually crowned on December 25, 987. A measure of Hugh’s success is that when Hugh died in 996, Robert continued to reign without any succession dispute, but during his long reign actual royal power dissipated into the hands of the great territorial magnates.

Marital problems

As early as 989, having been rebuffed in his search for a Byzantine princess, Hugh Capét arranged for Robert to marry Rozala, the recently widowed daughter of Berengar II of Italy, many years his senior, who took the name of Susanna upon becoming queen. She was the widow of Arnulf II of Flanders, with whom she had two children.

Robert II divorced her within a year of his father’s death in 996. He then married Bertha, daughter of Conrad of Burgundy, around the time of his father’s death. She was a widow of Odo I of Blois, but was also Robert’s second cousin. For reasons of consanguinity, Pope Gregory V refused to sanction the marriage, and Robert was excommunicated. After long negotiations with Gregory’s successor, Pope Sylvester II, this marriage was annulled.

Finally, in 1001, Robert entered into his final and longest-lasting marriage—to Constance of Arles, the daughter of Guillaume I of Provence. Her southern customs and entourage were regarded with suspicion at court. After his companion Hugh of Beauvais, count palatine, urged the king to repudiate her as well, knights of her kinsman Fulk III, Count of Anjou had Beauvais murdered in 1008.

Coat of Arms of Robert II, King of the Franks

The king and Bertha then went to Rome to ask Pope Sergius IV for an annulment so they could remarry. After this was refused, he went back to Constance and fathered several children by her. Her ambition alienated the chroniclers of her day, who blamed her for several of the king’s decisions. Constance and Robert remained married until his death in 1031.

Piety

Robert II was a devout Catholic, hence his sobriquet “the Pious.” He was musically inclined, being a composer, chorister, and poet, and made his palace a place of religious seclusion where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes. Robert’s reputation for piety also resulted from his lack of toleration for heretics, whom he harshly punished.

He is said to have advocated forced conversions of local Jewry. He supported riots against the Jews of Orléans who were accused of conspiring to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Furthermore, Robert reinstated the Roman imperial custom of burning heretics at the stake.

The Excommunication of Robert the Pious, oil on canvas by Jean-Paul Laurens, 1875, currently at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. In reality, the excommunication of the king was never promulgated by the Pope.

The kingdom Robert inherited was not large and, in an effort to increase his power, he vigorously pursued his claim to any feudal lands that became vacant, usually resulting in war with a counter-claimant. In 1003, his invasion of the Duchy of Burgundy was thwarted, and it would not be until 1016 that he was finally able to get the support of the Church to be recognized as Duke of Burgundy.

The pious Robert II made few friends and many enemies, including three of his own sons: Hugh, HenrI, and Robert. They turned against their father in a civil war over power and property. Hugh died in revolt in 1025. In a conflict with Henri and the younger Robert, King Robert II’s army was defeated, and he retreated to Beaugency outside Paris, his capital. Robert II died in the middle of the war with his sons on July 20, 1031 at Melun. He was interred with Constance in Saint Denis Basilica and succeeded by his son Henri, in both France and Burgundy

June 13: Birth of Charles the Bald in 823. Birth of Charles the Fat in 839. Both Carolingian Emperors

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Carolingian Emperor, Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, Charles The Fat, Charles the Great. Charles the Simple, King of the Franks, Kingdom of West Francia, Royal numbering

Charles the Bald (June 13, 823 – October 6, 877), also known as Charles II, was a 9th-century king of West Francia (843–877), king of Italy (875–877) and emperor of the Carolingian Empire (875–877).

Charles the Bald was a grandson of Charlemagne and the youngest son of Louis I the Pious, King of the Franks, King of Aquitaine and Emperor of the Carolingian Empire and his second wife Judith of Bavaria, the daughter of Count Welf of Bavaria and Saxon noblewoman Hedwig.

Emperor Charles the Bald

No surviving sources provide a record of Judith’s exact date and year of birth. Judith was probably born around 797. Most girls in the Carolingian world were married in adolescence, with twelve years as the minimum age, though her marriage to the 41-year-old King Louis occurred in 819, when she was probably around 22 years old.

After a series of civil wars during the reign of his father, Louis the Pious, Charles succeeded, by the Treaty of Verdun (843), in acquiring the western third of the empire.

Charles the Fat (June 13, 839 – January 13, 888), also known as Charles III was the emperor of the Carolingian Empire from 881 to 888. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, Charles was the youngest son of Louis the German and Hemma, and a great-grandson of Charlemagne. He was the last Carolingian emperor of legitimate birth and the last to rule over all the realms of the Franks.

Emperor Charles the Fat

Over his lifetime, Charles became ruler of the various kingdoms of Charlemagne’s former empire. Granted lordship over Alamannia in 876, following the division of East Francia, he succeeded to the Italian throne upon the abdication of his older brother Carloman of Bavaria who had been incapacitated by a stroke.

Crowned emperor in 881 by Pope John VIII, his succession to the territories of his brother Louis the Younger (Saxony and Bavaria) the following year reunited the kingdom of East Francia. Upon the death of his cousin Carloman II in 884, he inherited all of West Francia, thus reuniting the entire Carolingian Empire.

Nickname and number

The nickname “Charles the Fat” (Latin Carolus Crassus) is not contemporary. It was first used by the Annalista Saxo (the anonymous “Saxon Annalist”) in the twelfth century. There is no contemporary reference to Charles’s physical size, but the nickname has stuck and is the common name in most modern European languages (French Charles le Gros, German Karl der Dicke, Italian Carlo il Grosso).

His numeral is roughly contemporary. Regino of Prüm, a contemporary of Charles’s recording his death, calls him “Emperor Charles, third of that name and dignity” (Latin Carolus imperator, tertius huius nominis et dignitatis).

Further on Royal Numbering

All of the numbering of the French kings follow the numbering that began with the Carolingian Dynasty. There is not any real discrepancy in the numbers except with the name Charles.

In 768 Charlemagne became co-king of the Franks along with his brother Carloman. However, Charlemagne was technically not his real name. It is an Anglicized version of his given name plus his sobriquet. His name was simply Charles.

To history, and even his contemporaries, he was known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus) It is the Latin form of his name and sobriquet that have been Anglicized and combined and passed down to posterity as Charlemagne.

There were a few successor to Charlemagne that also held the name Charles and similarly were known by their name along with their sobriquet. Adding to the confusion was the fact that titles and territories were in a constant state of flux. Here is a list of the Carolingian kings/emperors with their titles and sobriquet’s.

Charles the Bald, King of West Francia, 840-877, Carolingian Emperor, 875-877

Charles the Fat, King of East Francia, 882-887. King of West Francia 884-887, Carolingian Emperor, 881-887.

Charles the Simple, King of West Francia, 898-922.

I have seen some lists where Charles the Bald is listed as Charles I of France and where Charlemagne is listed as simply Charlemagne instead of Charles I of France.

Although they were both technically Kings of the Franks, which would eventually evolve into the modern Kingdom of France, they are generally counted as French monarchs which causes confusion with the numbering of the French monarchs named Charles.

If Charlemagne is counted as Charles I of France (which I think he should be) then Charles the Bald should be counted as Charles II of France.

Instead, if the Kingdom of West Francia is considered the start of the Kingdom of France then the number of Kings named and Charles is accurate. Charles the Bald would be counted as Charles I of France, Charles the Fat would be counted as Charles II of France and Charles the Simple would be counted as Charles III of France.

The problem with that is then the number of Kings named Louis would be inaccurate as Louis the Pious is counted as Louis I of France who reigned prior to the creation of the Kingdom of West Francia.

In some lists of the Kings of France both Charles the Fat and Charles the Simple are listed as Charles III of France.

The lists where Charles the Bald is listed as Charles I of France they list Charles the Fat as Charles II of France. There are some lists that omit Charles the Fat entirely. After Charles III the Simple there would not be another King of France by that name until 1322 a full 400 years! Even then Charles IV was known by his sobriquet as Charles the Fair.

In the end all of these mistakes are difficult to reconcile and I have just come to accept that the numbering for the name of Charles is simply off by one.

May 23, 1052: Birth of King Philippe I of the Franks

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Anna Yaroslavana of Kiev, Bertha of Holland, Excommunication, Grand Prince of Kiev and Prince of Novgorod, King of the Franks, Philippe I, Pope Urban II, Yaroslav the Wise

Philippe I (May 23, 1052 – July 29, 1108), called the Amorous, was King of the Franks from 1060 to 1108. His reign, like that of most of the early Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it reached in the reign of his father and he added to the royal demesne the Vexin and Bourges.

Early life

Philippe was born May 23, 1052 at Champagne-et-Fontaine, the son of King Henri I and his wife Anna Yaroslavana of Kiev, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev and Prince of Novgorod, and his second wife Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden.

Unusual for the time in Western Europe, the name Philippe was of Greek origin, being bestowed upon him by his mother. Although he was crowned king at the age of seven, until age fourteen (1066) his mother acted as regent, the first queen of France (Franks) ever to do so. Baldwin V of Flanders also acted as co-regent.

Personal rule

Following the death of Baldwin VI of Flanders, Robert the Frisian seized Flanders. Baldwin’s widow, Richilda, requested aid from Philippe, who was defeated by Robert at the battle of Cassel in 1071.

Philippe first married Bertha of Holland in 1072. Bertha was the daughter of Count Floris I of Holland and Gertrude of Saxony. Bertha had six siblings and both of her parents came from large families. Her father ruled a territory vaguely described as “Friesland west of the Vlie”, which is where Bertha spent her childhood.

Although the marriage produced the necessary heir, Philippe fell in love with Bertrade de Montfort, the wife of Fulk IV, Count of Anjou.

He repudiated Bertha (claiming she was too fat) and married Bertrade on May 15, 1092. In 1094 following the synod of Autun, he was excommunicated by the papal representative, Hugh of Die, for the first time; after a long silence, Pope Urban II repeated the excommunication at the Council of Clermont in November 1095.

Several times the ban was lifted as Philippe promised to part with Bertrade, but he always returned to her; in 1104 Philippe made a public penance and must have kept his involvement with Bertrade discreet. In France, the king was opposed by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, a famous jurist.

Philippe appointed Alberic first Constable of France in 1060. A great part of his reign, like his father’s, was spent putting down revolts by his power-hungry vassals. In 1077, he made peace with William the Conqueror, King of the English and Duke of Normandy who gave up attempting the conquest of Brittany.

In 1082, Philippe I expanded his demesne with the annexation of the Vexin, in reprisal against Robert Curthose’s attack on William’s heir, William Rufus. Then in 1100, he took control of Bourges.

It was at the aforementioned Council of Clermont that the First Crusade was launched. Philippe at first did not personally support it because of his conflict with Pope Urban II. Philippe’s brother Hugh of Vermandois, however, was a major participant.

Death

Philippe died in the castle of Melun and was buried per his request at the monastery of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire – and not in St Denis among his forefathers. He was succeeded by his son, Louis VI, whose succession was, however, not uncontested.

Louis’s half-brother, Philippe, Count of Mantes, prevented him from reaching Rheims, and so Daimbert, Archbishop of Sens, crowned him in the cathedral of Orléans on August 3. Ralph the Green, Archbishop of Rheims, sent envoys to challenge the validity of the coronation and anointing, but to no avail.

November 18, 1180: Accession of Philippe II of France

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Angevin Empire, Ingeborg of Denmark, John of England, King of the Franks, Philip II of France, Pope Celestine III, Prince Louis of France, Valdemar I of Denmark

Philippe II Auguste (August 23, 1165 – July 14, 1223) King of France from November 18, 1180 to 1223. Philippe was thecof King Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne, he was originally nicknamed Dieudonné (God-given) because he was a first son and born late in his father’s life. Philippe was given the epithet “Augustus” by the chronicler Rigord for having extended the crown lands of France so remarkably. Philippe II’s predecessors had been known as Kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philippe became the first French monarch to style himself “King of France”.

After a twelve-year struggle with the Plantagenet dynasty in the Anglo-French War of 1213–1214, Philippe succeeded in breaking up the large Angevin Empire presided over by the crown of England and defeated a coalition of his rivals (German, Flemish and English) at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214. This victory would have a lasting impact on western European politics: the authority of the French king became unchallenged, while the English King John was forced by his barons to assent to Magna Carta and deal with a rebellion against him aided by Philippe’s son Prince Louis, the First Barons’ War. The military actions surrounding the Albigensian Crusade helped prepare the expansion of France southward. Philippe did not participate directly in these actions, but he allowed his vassals and knights to help carry them out.

Philippe II transformed France from a small feudal state into the most prosperous and powerful country in Europe. He checked the power of the nobles and helped the towns free themselves from seigneurial authority, granting privileges and liberties to the emergent bourgeoisie. He built a great wall around Paris (“the Wall of Philippe II Augustus”), re-organized the French government and brought financial stability to his country.

He was married on April 28, 1180 to Isabelle of Hainaut, the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut, and Margaret I, Countess of Flanders, who brought the County of Artois as her dowry.

Marital problems

After the early death of Isabella of Hainaut in childbirth in 1190, Philippe decided to marry again. On August 15, 1193, he married Ingeborg, daughter of King Valdemar I of Denmark. She was renamed Isambour, and Stephen of Tournai described her as “very kind, young of age but old of wisdom.”

Philippe, however, discovered on their wedding night that she had terribly bad breath, and he refused to allow her to be crowned queen. Ingeborg protested at this treatment; Philippe’s response was to confine her to a convent. He then asked Pope Celestine III for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation and consanguinity. Philippe had not reckoned with Isambour, however; she insisted that the marriage had been consummated, and that she was his wife and the rightful Queen of France. The Franco-Danish churchman William of Paris intervened on the side of Ingeborg, drawing up a genealogy of the Danish kings to disprove the alleged impediment of consanguinity.

In the meantime, Philippe had sought a new bride. Initial agreement had been reached for him to marry Margaret of Geneva, daughter of William I, Count of Geneva, but the young bride’s journey to Paris was interrupted by Thomas, Count of Savoy, who kidnapped Philippe’s intended new queen and married her himself instead, claiming that Philippe was already bound in marriage. Philippe finally achieved a third marriage in June 1196, when he was married to Agnes of Merania from Dalmatia. Their children were Marie and Philippe, Count of Clermont, and, by marriage, Count of Boulogne.

Pope Innocent III declared Philippe Augustus’ marriage to Agnes of Merania null and void, as he was still married to Ingeborg. He ordered the king to part from Agnes, and when he did not, the Pope placed France under an interdict in 1199. This continued until September 7, 1200. Due to pressure from the Pope and from Ingeborg’s brother King Valdemar II of Denmark, Philippe finally took Isambour back as his wife in 1201, but it would not be until 1213 that she would be recognized at court as Queen.

Philippe II fell ill in September 1222 and had a will made, but carried on with his itinerary. Hot weather the next summer worsened his fever, but a brief remission prompted him to travel to Paris on July 13 1223, against the advice of his physician. He died en route the next day, in Mantes-la-Jolie, at the age of 58.

His body was carried to Paris on a bier. He was interred in the Basilica of St Denis in the presence of his son and successor by Isabella of Hainaut, Louis VIII, as well as his illegitimate son Philippe I, Count of Boulogne and John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem.

Edgar Ætheling, Uncrowded King of the English

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Edgar the Ætheling, King of the English, King of the Franks, Malcolm III of Scotland, Norman Conquest, Philip I of France, Robert Curthose, William II of England, William II of Normandy, William Rufus, William the Conqueror

1066 – Following the death of Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan; he is never crowned, and concedes power to William the Conqueror two months later.

Edgar Ætheling or Edgar II (c. 1052 – 1125 or after) was the last male member of the royal house of Cerdic of Wessex (see House of Wessex family tree). He was elected King of England by the Witenagemot in 1066, but never crowned.

Edgar was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, where his father Edward the Exile, son of King Edmund Ironside, had spent most of his life, having been sent into exile after Edmund’s death and the conquest of England by the Danish king Cnut the Great in 1016.

Edgar II the Ætheling, King of the English

His grandfather Edmund, great-grandfather Æthelred II the Unready, and great-great-grandfather Edgar the Peaceful were all kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown. Edgar’s mother was Agatha, who was described as a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor or a descendant of Saint Stephen of Hungary, but whose exact identity is unknown.

Edgar was his parents’ only son but had two sisters, Margaret and Cristina. In 1057 Edward the Exile arrived in England with his family, but died almost immediately. Edgar, a child, was left as the only surviving male member of the Royal House of Wessex apart from the king. However, the latter made no recorded effort to entrench his great-nephew’s position as heir to a throne that was being eyed by a range of powerful potential contenders, including England’s leading aristocrat Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, and the foreign rulers Duke William II of Normandy, Sweyn II of Denmark and Harald III of Norway.

Succession struggle

When King Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Edgar was still in his early teens, considered too young to be an effective military leader. This had not been an insurmountable obstacle in the succession of previous kings. However, the avaricious ambitions that had been aroused across north-western Europe by the Confessor’s lack of an heir prior to 1057, and by the king’s failure thereafter to prepare the way for Edgar to succeed him, removed any prospect of a peaceful hereditary succession.

War was clearly inevitable and Edgar was in no position to fight it, while he was without powerful adult relatives to champion his cause. Accordingly, the Witenagemot elected Harold Godwinson, the man best placed to defend the country against the competing foreign claimants, to succeed Edward.

Following King Harold II’s death at the Battle of Hastings against the invading Normans in October, some of the Anglo-Saxon leaders considered electing Edgar king. The new regime thus established was dominated by the most powerful surviving members of the English ruling class: Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ealdred, Archbishop of York, and the brothers Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria.

The commitment of these men to Edgar’s cause, men who had so recently passed over his claim to the throne without apparent demur, must have been doubtful from the start. The strength of their resolve to continue the struggle against William of Normandy was questionable, and the military response they organised to the continuing Norman advance was ineffectual.

When William crossed the Thames at Wallingford, he was met by Stigand, who now abandoned Edgar and submitted to the invader. As the Normans closed in on London, Edgar’s key supporters in the city began negotiating with William. In early December, the remaining members of the Witan in London met and resolved to take the young uncrowned king out to meet William to submit to him at Berkhamsted, quietly setting aside Edgar’s election. Edgar, alongside other lords, did homage to King William at his coronation in December.

There are some historians that regard Edgar the Ætheling as a legitimate King of the English as Edgar II whose reign lasted for two short months making his reign the shortest reign in British history. Generally the reign of William the Conqueror is marked as starting on Christmas Day 1066 and not on October 14, the day of the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold II Godwinson.

William kept Edgar in his custody and took him, along with other English leaders, to his court in Normandy in 1067, before returning with them to England. Edgar may have been involved in the abortive rebellion of the Earls Edwin and Morcar in 1068, or he may have been attempting to return to Hungary with his family and been blown off course; in any case, in that year he arrived with his mother and sisters at the court of King Malcolm III of Scotland. Malcolm married Edgar’s sister Margaret, and agreed to support Edgar in his attempt to reclaim the English throne. When the rebellion that resulted in the Harrying of the North broke out in Northumbria at the beginning of 1069, Edgar returned to England with other rebels who had fled to Scotland, to become the leader, or at least the figurehead, of the revolt.

Late in the year of 1069, William fought his way into Northumbria and occupied York, buying off the Danes and devastating the surrounding country. Early in 1070, he moved against Edgar and other English leaders who had taken refuge with their remaining followers in a marshy region, perhaps Holderness or the Isle of Ely, and put them to flight. Edgar then returned to Scotland.

Edgar remained there until 1072, when William invaded Scotland and forced King Malcolm to submit to his overlordship. The terms of the agreement between them included the expulsion of Edgar. He therefore took up residence in Flanders, whose count, Robert the Frisian, was hostile to the Normans. However, he was able to return to Scotland in 1074.

Shortly after his arrival there, he received an offer from Philippe I, King of the Franks (France), who was also at odds with William, of a castle and lands near the borders of Normandy from where he would be able to raid his enemies’ homeland. He embarked with his followers for France, but a storm wrecked their ships on the English coast. Many of Edgar’s men were hunted down by the Normans, but he managed to escape with the remainder to Scotland by land. Following this disaster, he was persuaded by Malcolm to make peace with William and return to England as his subject, abandoning any ambition of regaining his ancestral throne.

After King William’s death in 1087, Edgar supported William’s eldest son Robert Curthose for the Englishthrone, who succeeded him as Duke of Normandy, against his second son, William Rufus, who received the throne of England as William II. Edgar was one of Robert’s three principal advisors at this time. The war waged by Robert and his allies to overthrow William ended in defeat in 1091. As part of the resulting settlement between the brothers, Edgar was deprived of lands which he had been granted by Robert.

Back in Europe, Edgar again took the side of Robert Curthose in the internal struggles of the Norman dynasty, this time against Robert’s youngest brother, who was now Henry I, King of England. He was taken prisoner in the final defeat at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106, which resulted in Robert being imprisoned for the rest of his life. Edgar was more fortunate: having been taken back to England, he was pardoned and released by King Henry.

Edgar’s niece Edith (renamed Matilda), daughter of Malcolm III and Margaret, had married Henry in 1100. Edgar is believed to have travelled to Scotland once more late in life, perhaps around the year 1120. He lived to see the death at sea in November 1120 of William Adeling (Ætheling), the son of his niece Edith and heir to Henry I. Edgar was still alive in 1125, according to William of Malmesbury, who wrote at the time that Edgar “now grows old in the country in privacy and quiet”. Edgar died some time after this contemporary reference, but the exact date and the location of his grave are not known.

According to a 1291 Huntingdon Priory Chronicle, Edgar had one child, Margaret Lovel, who was the wife of firstly Ralph Lovel II, of Castle Cary and secondly of Robert de Londres, both of whom had estates in southern Scotland.

There are two references to an “Edgar Adeling” found in the Magnus Rotulus Pipae Northumberland (Pipe rolls) for the years 1158 and 1167. Historian Edward Freeman, writing in The History of the Norman Conquest of England, says that this was the same Edgar (aged over 100), a son of his, or some other person known by the title Ætheling.

August 28, 932: Birth of Richard I, Duke of Normandy

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Duchy of Normandy, King of the Franks, Louis IV of France, Richard I of Normandy, Rollo of Normandy, William the Conqueror

Richard I (August 28, 932 – November 20, 996), also known as Richard the Fearless, was the count of Rouen from 942 to 996. Dudo of Saint-Quentin, whom Richard commissioned to write the “De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum” (Latin, “On the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of Normandy”), called him a dux. However, this use of the word may have been in the context of Richard’s renowned leadership in war, and not as a reference to a title of nobility. Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end of his reign, the most important Norman landholders held their lands in feudal tenure.

Birth

Richard was born to William Longsword, princeps (chieftain or ruler) of Normandy, and Sprota, a Breton concubine captured in war and bound to William by a more danico marriage. He was also the grandson of the famous Rollo. William was told of the birth of a son after the battle with Riouf and other Viking rebels, but his existence was kept secret until a few years later when William Longsword first met his son Richard. After kissing the boy and declaring him his heir, William sent Richard to be raised in Bayeux. Richard was about ten years old when his father was killed on December 17, 942. After William was killed, Sprota became the wife of Esperleng, a wealthy miller. Rodulf of Ivry was their son and Richard’s half-brother.

With the death of Richard’s father in 942, King Louis IV of the Franks installed the boy, Richard, in his father’s office. Under the influence of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders, the king took him into Frankish territory and placing him in the custody of the count of Ponthieu before the king reneged and seized the lands of the Duchy of Normandy. He then split up the duchy, giving its lands in lower Normandy to Hugh the Great. Louis IV thereafter kept Richard in close confinement at Lâon, but the youth escaped from imprisonment: with assistance of Osmond de Centville, Bernard de Senlis, Ivo de Bellèsme, and Bernard the Dane.

In 946, at the age of 14, Richard allied himself with the Norman and Viking leaders in France and with men sent by King Harald I Bluetooth of Denmark. A battle was fought after which Louis IV was captured. Hostages were taken and held until King Louis recognised Richard as Duke, returning Normandy to him. Richard agreed to “commend” himself to Hugh, the Count of Paris, Hugh resolved to form a permanent alliance with Richard and promised his daughter Emma, who was little more than a girl, as a bride; the marriage would take place in 960.

Louis, working with Arnulf, persuaded Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor to attack Richard and Hugh. The combined armies of Otto, Arnulf, and Louis were driven from the gates of Rouen, fleeing to Amiens and being decisively defeated in 947. Peace ensued, with Louis dying in 954, 13 year old Lothair becoming king. The middle-aged Hugh appointed Richard as guardian of his 15-year-old son, Hugh Capet in 955.

In 962, Theobald I, Count of Blois, attempted a renewed invasion of Rouen, Richard’s stronghold, but his troops were summarily routed by Normans under Richard’s command, and forced to retreat before ever having crossed the Seine river. Lothair, the king of the West Franks, was fearful that Richard’s retaliation could destabilize a large part of West Francia so he stepped in to prevent any further war between the two. In 987, Hugh Capet became King of the Franks.

For the last 30 years until his death in 996 in Fécamp, Richard concentrated on Normandy itself, and participated less in Frankish politics and its petty wars. In lieu of building up the Norman Empire by expansion, he stabilized the realm and reunited the Normans, forging the reclaimed Duchy of his father and grandfather into West Francia’s most cohesive and formidable principality.

Richard’s first marriage in 960 was to Emma, daughter of Hugh the Great, and Hedwige of Saxony. They were betrothed when both were very young. She died after March 19, 968, with no issue.

According to Robert of Torigni, not long after Emma’s death, Duke Richard went out hunting and stopped at the house of a local forester. He became enamored with the forester’s wife, Seinfreda, but she was a virtuous woman and suggested he court her unmarried sister, Gunnor, instead.

Gunnor became his mistress and her family rose to prominence. Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, may have been involved in a controversial heresy trial. Gunnor was, like Richard, of Viking descent, being a Dane by blood. Richard finally married her to legitimize their children:

Richard died of natural causes in Fecamp, France, on November 20, 996.

It was reported that the remains in his grave were not his.
Relationships with France, England and the Church Richard used marriage to build strong alliances. His marriage to Emma of Paris connected him directly to the House of Capet. His second wife, Gunnor, from a rival Viking group in the Cotentin, formed an alliance to that group, while her sisters formed the core group that were to provide loyal followers to him and his successors.

His daughters forged valuable marriage alliances with powerful neighboring counts as well as to the king of England. Emma married firstly Æthelred the Unready and after his death in 1016, the invader, Cnut the Great. Her children included Edward the Confessor, Alfred Aetheling and with Cnut, Harthacnut, so completing a major link between the Duke of Normandy and the Crown of England that would add validity to the claim by William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

Richard also built on his relationship with the church, undertaking acts of piety, restoring their lands and ensuring the great monasteries flourished in Normandy. His further reign was marked by an extended period of peace and tranquility.

July 20, 1031: Death of Robert II, King of the Franks.

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Bertha of Burgundy, Constance of Arles, Fulk III of Anjou, Hugh Capet, King of the Franks, Pope Sergius IV, Pope Sylvester II, Robert II, Robert II of France, Rollo of Normandy, William III of Aquitaine

Robert II (March 27, 972 – July 20, 1031), called the Pious or the Wise, was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second monarch from the House of Capet. He was born in Orléans to Hugh Capet, King of the Franks and Adelaide of Aquitaine, the daughter of Guillaume III, Duke of Aquitaine and Adele of Normandy, daughter of Rollo of Normandy.

Robert II distinguished himself with an extraordinarily long reign for the time. His 35-year-long reign was marked by his attempts to expand the royal domain by any means, especially by his long struggle to gain the Duchy of Burgundy. His policies earned him many enemies, including three of his sons. He was also known for his difficult marriages: he married three times, annulling two of these and attempting to annul the third, prevented only by the Pope’s refusal to accept a third annulment.

Robert II, King of the Franks

Immediately after the coronation of Hugh Capet, the new Frankish King began to push for the coronation of his son Robert as a co-ruler. “The essential means by which the early Capetians were seen to have kept the throne in their family was through the association of the eldest surviving son in the royalty during the father’s lifetime,” Andrew W. Lewis has observed, in tracing the phenomenon in this line of kings who lacked dynastic legitimacy.

Hugh’s claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Borrel II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, and that the stability of the country necessitated a co-king, should he die while on expedition. Ralph Glaber, however, attributes Hugh’s request to his old age and inability to control the nobility.

Modern scholarship has largely imputed to Hugh the motive of establishing a dynasty against the claims of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this is not the typical view of contemporaries and even some modern scholars have been less sceptical of Hugh’s “plan” to campaign in Spain. Robert was eventually crowned on December 25, 987. A measure of Hugh’s success is that when Hugh died in 996, Robert continued to reign without any succession dispute, but during his long reign actual royal power dissipated into the hands of the great territorial magnates.

Marital problems

As early as 989, having been rebuffed in his search for a Byzantine princess, Hugh Capet arranged for Robert to marry Rozala, the recently widowed daughter of Berengar II of Italy, many years his senior, who took the name of Susanna upon becoming queen. She was the widow of Arnulf II of Flanders, with whom she had two children.

Robert II divorced her within a year of his father’s death in 996. He then married Bertha, daughter of Conrad of Burgundy, around the time of his father’s death. She was a widow of Odo I of Blois, but was also Robert’s second cousin. For reasons of consanguinity, Pope Gregory V refused to sanction the marriage, and Robert was excommunicated. After long negotiations with Gregory’s successor, Pope Sylvester II, this marriage was annulled.

Finally, in 1001, Robert entered into his final and longest-lasting marriage—to Constance of Arles, the daughter of Guillaume I of Provence. Her southern customs and entourage were regarded with suspicion at court. After his companion Hugh of Beauvais, count palatine, urged the king to repudiate her as well, knights of her kinsman Fulk III, Count of Anjou had Beauvais murdered in 1008.

Coat of Arms of Robert II, King of the Franks

The king and Bertha then went to Rome to ask Pope Sergius IV for an annulment so they could remarry. After this was refused, he went back to Constance and fathered several children by her. Her ambition alienated the chroniclers of her day, who blamed her for several of the king’s decisions. Constance and Robert remained married until his death in 1031.

Piety

Robert II was a devout Catholic, hence his sobriquet “the Pious.” He was musically inclined, being a composer, chorister, and poet, and made his palace a place of religious seclusion where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes. Robert’s reputation for piety also resulted from his lack of toleration for heretics, whom he harshly punished.

He is said to have advocated forced conversions of local Jewry. He supported riots against the Jews of Orléans who were accused of conspiring to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Furthermore, Robert reinstated the Roman imperial custom of burning heretics at the stake.

The kingdom Robert inherited was not large and, in an effort to increase his power, he vigorously pursued his claim to any feudal lands that became vacant, usually resulting in war with a counter-claimant. In 1003, his invasion of the Duchy of Burgundy was thwarted, and it would not be until 1016 that he was finally able to get the support of the Church to be recognized as Duke of Burgundy.

The pious Robert II made few friends and many enemies, including three of his own sons: Hugh, HenrI, and Robert. They turned against their father in a civil war over power and property. Hugh died in revolt in 1025. In a conflict with Henri and the younger Robert, King Robert II’s army was defeated, and he retreated to Beaugency outside Paris, his capital. Robert II died in the middle of the war with his sons on July 20, 1031 at Melun. He was interred with Constance in Saint Denis Basilica and succeeded by his son Henri, in both France and Burgundy.

Favorite Crown #7: Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Part I.

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Achen, Charlemagne, Charles II The Bald, Charles the Great, Crown of Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, Imperial State Crown., King of the Franks, King of the Romans

The Coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor was a ceremony in which the ruler of Western Europe’s then-largest political entity received the Imperial Regalia at the hands of the Pope, symbolizing both the pope’s right to crown Christian sovereigns and also the emperor’s role as protector of the Roman Catholic Church. The Holy Roman Empresses were crowned as well.

Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire

The papal coronation was required to acquire the Imperial title until 1508, when Pope Julius II recognized the right of Germanic monarchs elected by the prince-electors to use the Imperial title. Emperor Charles V became the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by a pope, by Clement VII at Bologna, in 1530. Thereafter, until the abolition of the empire in 1806, no further crownings by the Pope were held. Later rulers simply proclaimed themselves Imperator Electus Romanorum or “Elected Emperor of the Romans” after their election and coronation as German king, without the ultimate formality of an imperial coronation by the Pope in Rome.

In crowning the Emperor two separate coronation rituals developed: German and Roman Ritual.

German Ritual

The German coronation ceremony first required the electors to meet at Frankfurt, under the presidency of the Elector-Archbishop of Mainz, who formally summoned the electors and who always had the right of the last vote. Once a candidate was selected, the new emperor was led to the high altar of the cathedral and seated. He was then conducted to a gallery over the entrance to the choir, where he seated himself with the electors while proclamation was made of his election. The coronation itself took place on a subsequent day.

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

If the coronation was performed (as it usually was before 1562) at the Palatine Chapel at Aachen, (now the Aachen Cathedral), then the Archbishop of Cologne, as diocesan, was the chief officiant, and was assisted by the two other clerical electors, the Archbishop of Mainz and the Archbishop of Trier.

Roman ritual

The Roman imperial coronation evolved over the thousand years of the empire’s existence from an originally very simple ritual (but which by its very simplicity paralleled and most clearly demonstrated its origins in its Byzantine counterpart) to one of increasing complexity. The oldest manuscript of the Roman imperial coronation ritual is found in the 9th century Gemunden Codex and while it is uncertain for whom (if anyone) the ritual described in it was intended to be used in it we come the closest to seeing the very types of forms which would have been used for Charlemagne himself.

It is unclear as to which crown was used for either the German royal coronation or the Roman imperial coronation. Lord Twining (author wrote the authoritative book History of the Crown Jewels of Europe) suggests that when the German royal coronation still took place at Aachen, the silver-gilt crown on the reliquary bust of Charlemagne was used, since the Imperial Crown or Reichskrone is made of gold. This is reinforced by medieval sources that refer to the Iron Crown of Italy, the silver crown of Germany and the gold crown of the Roman Empire.

Twining indicates that it is also unclear as to what crown was used for the imperial coronation in Rome, and indicates that the Imperial Crown might have been worn by the emperor-elect for his formal entry into the city of Rome, with another gold crown, perhaps provided by the pope, being used in the actual imperial coronation ritual itself. One of these latter crowns, specifically that used for the imperial coronation of Friedrich II, may be the Byzantine style closed crown found in the tomb of his mother, Constance of Sicily, in the Cathedral of Palermo.

Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire

The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire was the Crown of the Holy Roman Emperor from the 11th century to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire or Reichskrone, probably made for the coronation of Otto the Great in 962 at the workshops of the imperial monastery of Reichenau, was also later mistakenly identified as the Crown of Charlemagne and as such appeared on the escutcheon of the Arch-Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire and at the top of the coat of arms of the Habsburg emperors at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

Charlemagne (Charles the Great) Emperor of the West

The crown was used in the coronation of the King of the Romans, the title assumed by the Emperor-elect immediately after his election. It was made in the late 10th or early 11th century. Unlike many other crowns, it has an octagonal rather than a circular shape, and is constructed from eight hinged plates. The plate in the front of the crown is surmounted by a cross, with a single arch linking it to a plate at the rear of the crown. The crown is kept in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg in Vienna, Austria.

History

The crown was made probably somewhere in Western Germany, either under Otto I (with additions by Conrad II), under Conrad I, or under Conrad III during the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The first preserved mention of it is from the 12th century—assuming it is the same crown, which seems very probable.

Most of the Kings of the Romans of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned with it. Along with the Imperial Cross, the Imperial Sword, and the Holy Lance, the crown was the most important part of the Imperial Regalia. During the coronation, it was given to the new king along with the scepter and the Imperial Orb. The Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire, especially the Imperial Crown, were kept from 1349–1421 in Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), where the Carlstein Castle was built to protect them. Between 1424–1796 they were all kept in Nuremberg, Franconia—and could only leave the city for the coronation.

Currently, the crown and the rest of the Imperial Regalia are exhibited at the Hofburg in Vienna.

An identical copy is in Aachen in Germany in the Krönungssaal of Charlemagne’s former palace, now the town hall. There are also copies of the crown and regalia in the historic museum of Frankfurt, as most of the later Emperors were crowned in the cathedral of the city, as well in the fortress of Trifels in the Electorate of the Palatinate, where the Imperial Crown was stored in medieval times. The newest authorised copy is kept in the Czech castle of Karlštejn along with a copy of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas.

The Crown of Charlemagne

The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire is often mistakenly referred to as the Crown of Charlemagne. However the Crown of Charlemagne was used to crown the Kings of the Franks and later Kings of France.

Charlemagne’s was probably created as a simple circlet of four curved rectangular jewelled plates for Charles II the Bald, the grandson of Charlemagne, but later, four large jewelled fleur-de-lis were added to these four original plates, probably by Philippe II Augustus around 1180 and surmounted by a cap decorated with precious stones. At this time a similar but open crown, the one of the queen, existed too. One of them was melted down in 1590 by the Catholic League during the siege of Paris. The remaining crown was used up to the reign of King Louis XVI, who was crowned in 1775 in the Cathedral in Reims. The crown of Jeanne d’Évreux was then used for the coronation of the queens.

May 18, 1152 – The future Henry II of England marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. Conclusion

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Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, King of England, King of France, King of the English, King of the Franks, King Stephen of England, Louis VII of France, royal wedding

After the marriage between Eleanor and Louis VII, Eleanor traveled to Poitiers, two lords —Theobald V, Count of Blois, and Geoffrey, Count of Nantes, brother of Henry Curtmantle, now called, Henry II, Duke of Normandy — tried to kidnap and marry her to claim her lands. Despite the annulment with Louis VII, Eleanor remained Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right making her a very wealthy, powerful and desirable woman.

Henry II, King of the English, Duke of Normandy

As soon as she arrived in Poitiers, Eleanor sent envoys to Henry II, Duke of Normandy and future King of the English, asking him to come at once to marry her. On May 18, 1152 (Whit Sunday), eight weeks after her annulment, Eleanor married Henry “without the pomp and ceremony that befitted their rank.”

Eleanor was related to Henry even more closely than she had been to Louis VII: they were cousins to the third degree through their common ancestor Ermengarde of Anjou, wife of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy and Geoffrey, Count of Gâtinais, and they were also descended from King Robert II of the Franks. A marriage between Henry and Eleanor’s daughter Marie had earlier been declared impossible due to their status as third cousins once removed. It was rumored by some that Eleanor had had an affair with Henry’s own father, Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou, who had advised his son to avoid any involvement with her.

The marriage instantly reignited Henry’s tensions with Louis VII: it was considered an insult, it ran counter to feudal practice and it threatened the inheritance of Louis and Eleanor’s two daughters, Marie and Alix, who might otherwise have had claims to Aquitaine on Eleanor’s death. With his new lands, Aquitaine and Normandy combined, Henry now possessed a much larger proportion of France than Louis. Louis organised a coalition against Henry.

Fighting immediately broke out again along the Normandy borders, where Henry of Champagne and Robert captured the town of Neufmarché-sur-Epte. Louis’s forces moved to attack Aquitaine. King Stephen of the English responded by placing Wallingford Castle, a key fortress loyal to Henry along the Thames Valley, under siege, possibly in an attempt to force a successful end to the English conflict while Henry was still fighting for his territories in France. Henry moved quickly in response, avoiding an open battle with Louis in Aquitaine and stabilising the Norman border, pillaging the Vexin and then striking south into Anjou against Geoffrey, capturing one of his main castles (Montsoreau). Louis fell ill and withdrew from the campaign, and Geoffrey was forced to come to terms with Henry.

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine

In November 1152 the King Stephen and Duke Henry II of Normandy ratified the terms of a permanent peace. Stephen announced the Treaty of Winchester in Winchester Cathedral: he recognised Henry as his adopted son and successor, in return for Henry paying homage to him; Stephen promised to listen to Henry’s advice, but retained all his royal powers; Stephen’s son William would pay homage to Henry and renounce his claim to the throne, in exchange for promises of the security of his lands; key royal castles would be held on Henry’s behalf by guarantors whilst Stephen would have access to Henry’s castles; and the numerous foreign mercenaries would be demobilised and sent home. Henry and Stephen sealed the treaty with a kiss of peace in the cathedral. The peace remained precarious, and Stephen’s son William remained a possible future rival to Henry. Rumors of a plot to kill Henry were circulating and, possibly as a consequence, Henry decided to return to Normandy for a period.

On October 25, 1154, King Stephen died and Henry became king of the English. Eleanor was crowned queen by the archbishop of Canterbury on December 19, 1154. She may not have been anointed on this occasion, however, because she had already been anointed in 1137. Over the next 13 years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joan. John Speed, in his 1611 work History of Great Britain, mentions the possibility that Eleanor had a son named Philip, who died young. His sources no longer exist, and he alone mentions this birth.

Eleanor’s marriage to Henry was reputed to be tumultuous and argumentative, although sufficiently cooperative to produce at least eight pregnancies. Henry was by no means faithful to his wife and had a reputation for philandering. Henry fathered other, illegitimate children throughout the marriage. Eleanor appears to have taken an ambivalent attitude towards these affairs. Geoffrey of York, for example, was an illegitimate son of Henry, but acknowledged by Henry as his child and raised at Westminster in the care of the queen.