The Conquering Family

I
BEGAN
these books of English history with the hope of carrying the series forward, under the general title of The Pageant of England to a much later period than the last of the Plantagenet kings. Pressure of other work made it impossible, however, to produce them at the gait I had hoped to achieve. And now the factor of time has intruded itself also. Realizing that my earlier objective cannot be reached, I have decided to conclude with the death of Richard III and to change the covering title to A History of the Plantagenets.

This has made necessary some revision in getting the four volumes ready for publication. The first five chapters in the initial book, which began with the Norman Conquest and covered the reigns of William the Conqueror, William (Rufus) the Second, and Henry the First, had to be dropped. The first volume in this complete edition of the four begins with the final scenes in the reign of Henry the First whose daughter married Geoffrey of Anjou and whose son succeeded in due course to the throne of England as Henry the Second, thus beginning the brilliant Plantagenet dynasty. The title of the first volume has been changed to
The Conquering Family
. In addition to the deletion of the early chapters, a few slight cuts and minor revisions have been made throughout the series. Otherwise the four books are the same as those published separately under the titles,
The Conquerors
,
The Magnificent Century
,
The Three Edwards
, and
The Last Plantagenets
.

THOMAS B. COSTAIN

T
HE
Angevin country begins between Normandy and Brittany and continues down through Maine and Anjou. In the Middle Ages this fair and romantic land was dotted with towns and castles of great interest and importance. Here were the castles of Chinon, stretching like a walled city along a high ridge, here was Angers with its many-towered and impregnable castle, here also the famed abbey of Fontevrault where many great figures of English history are buried. Here in the spring and early summer the hedges and fields were yellow with a species of gorse (it still grows in profusion) called the
planta genesta
. It was in an early year of the twelfth century that a handsome young man named Geoffrey, son of the Count of Anjou, fell into the habit of wearing a sprig of the yellow bloom in his helmet. This may be called the first stage in the history of the conquering family who came to govern England, and who are called the Plantagenets.

The Angevin country had been ruled through the Dark Ages by a turbulent, ambitious, violent, and brave family. Strange stories are told about these ancestors of the English kings. The men were warriors who held the belief that forgiveness could be bought for all their wicked deeds, with the result that they were active Crusaders (one of them becoming King of Jerusalem) and they donated many beautiful chapels and shrines to the Church. Some of the women were quite as violent as their husbands but all of them seem to have been beautiful. There was, for example, the forest maiden Melusine who married Raymond de Lusignan, the head of one of the great Angevin families, after getting his promise that he would never see her on Saturdays. It was a happy marriage until the husband’s curiosity led him to hide himself in her boudoir. He found then, to his horror, that from the waist down she had taken on the form of a blue and white serpent. The wife died as a result of this revelation but her spirit continued to haunt the Lusignan castle, causing much fear by the sound of her swishing tail. There was another called the witch-countess who was forced to go to mass by four of her husband’s
knights and who vanished into thin air at the Consecration, leaving them all holding corners of her outer robe, from which came a strong odor of brimstone. Finally there was Bertrade, the supremely beautiful but disdainfully wicked countess who ran away to live with the French king in what was called, even in those dissolute days, a life of sin.

The Counts of Anjou and their lovely but wicked wives gained such an unsavory reputation over the centuries that the people of England were appalled when they found that one of them was to become King of England. This was young Henry, the grandson of England’s Henry I and of the Count of Anjou, and there was much angry muttering and shaking of heads. But the half of young Henry which was English predominated over the half which was Angevin. He proved a strong and able king and, although some who followed him displayed more of the wild and picturesque half of their blood inheritance, the days of their rule in England were fruitful and spectacular. The men were kingly and their women were lovely. They created an empire and they fought long and terrible wars and enriched the island with the booty they brought back. The English people were so proud of them that they often forgave their wickednesses and their peccadilloes.

It was low country, much of it lying in the valley of the imposing Loire, and the land was fertile. It followed that the natives devoted themselves largely to agriculture. They raised crops of wheat and rye and oats, and on all the little streams running in all directions the stones of the millers ground out fine flour. The fields where the
planta genesta
grew were good for pasture, and the cattle which browsed there were fat and the horses had good bones and glossy coats. The knights of France depended much on the Angevin fields for the chargers they rode into battle. Some vineyards covered the hillsides and excellent light wines were produced.

While the nobility wrangled and fought and led forays into each other’s territory, and committed all manner of barbarities, the stolid peasants went on plowing their land and tending their stock, and paid as little attention as possible to the menacing activities of the gentry. Ironically enough, it was not until the Counts of Anjou removed themselves to England to reign there as the Plantagenets that the stout peasantry found their land torn by family strife and the march of conquering armies.

In the Angevin provinces of France today there is little memory left of those stirring days. The name Plantagenet does not stir any recognition, although a nod can sometimes be won with the mention of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. The long stretch of Chinon’s walls is still to be seen and
it is sometimes possible to find a guide who will lead the way to a spot in a tiny chapel where great Henry II died. The merest glimpse may be had because of the ruined walls and the high weeds, in which might lurk serpents with blue and white tails. Mirabeau is a rather quiet town with nothing left of the castle where that wise old harridan, Eleanor of Aquitaine, held out against Arthur and his Breton forces until her blackavised and black-hearted son John came to her rescue. It was at Mirabeau that the unfortunate Arthur was captured and carried off into the dark captivity from which he never emerged. Chaluz is too far away for any recollection to continue of the random arrow which took the life of the lion-hearted Richard. Poitiers is so far south, and the victory that the Black Prince won there was so humiliating to the French, that all memories of it have gone with the fleeting winds.

But every mile of this rather humid and pleasant countryside, and every twist of the narrow roads where horse-drawn carts are still more often seen than touring motor cars, invoke memories for those who want to refresh their knowledge of the first years of that fascinating family known as the Plantagenets.

H
ENRY I
of England, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, became a saddened man when his only son was drowned in the wreck of
La Blanche Nef
off the Norman coast. He had no appetite, he sat alone and stared at nothing, his temper was so fitful that the people of the court tried to keep out of his way, he did not pay any attention even to affairs of state, which was the surest indication of the mental condition into which this most painstaking of rulers had fallen. His chief minister, Roger of Salisbury, began to take it upon himself to govern and to issue writs “on the King’s part and my own.” This was too much for the rest of the royal entourage, who, of course, hated Roger. A concerted effort was made to bring the sorrowing man back to an interest in life, and he was finally persuaded, much against his will, to marry again in the hope of having a male heir to take the place of his lost William.