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Princes Predators and Plantagenets

Princes Predators and Plantagenets

The behaviour of modern princes is a lot better than it used to be, given the excesses of some modern characters, that is. 

In the times of our present storylines princes and kings were left largely to make their presence on the earth know in some largely unpleasant ways.

Take the Henrys of England as an example.
Henry I — is suspected of planning the assassination of his brother, William II, in order to secure the Crown of England for himself.

William was killed by a crossbow bolt in the New Forest, ‘by accident,’ by a known marksman, Walter Tirel, on the 2nd of August 1100. This was some few weeks after the illegitimate son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, named Richard, perished in a similar fashion.

It was a Friday and by Sunday evening Henry had raided the exchequer in Winchester, galloped off to London, and by Sunday night had persuaded the Bishop of
London to anoint and proclaim him King of England.
That Robert, the eldest son of the conqueror was on his way back from the Holy land with his newly wed Duchess and nominated to succeed his dead brother William, whenever he passed on, seemed of little importance to the eager young Henry.

Nor was there ever an inquiry into the death of a king – very strange.
Henry II – it is accepted had a furious dispute with Archbishop Thomas Becket which led directly to some of Henry’s more eager knights cutting down the Archbishop in his own,
Canterbury, cathedral.
However there are more odd behaviours to lay at Henry’s door. During his life, and marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry so alienated his wife and sons that they plotted to get rid of him, they did not succeed. But dear Henry had some final nasties to lay upon his family. He sent his wife to live in the Tower of London and took his son, Richard’s, teenage
betrothed to his bed as his mistress. That Richard refused to marry the girl when the time came was unsurprising.

Then Richard’s death left the youngest brother, John beneath the crown of England, a sad period for that country as John managed to lose most of England’s possessions on the
continent to France. An empire which had once stretched from the border of Scotland and encompassed the principality of Wales then Ireland – gone.

Not only that, during John’s short reign of incompetence his trademark when arriving at some lord’s manor or castle was to expect to find that lord’s wife left in the bed.
He also robbed the dowager queen, Berengaria of her rightful pensions and lands due to her as a former Queen of England.
Which brings us neatly to Berengaria’s own story. qv.

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