24. Henry II Accomplished Much Despite Having to Fight His Own Family Nonstop
What is perhaps most remarkable about the achievements of Henry II is that he accomplished them during an exceptionally tumultuous reign in which he had to repeatedly go to war against his own family. Henry’s wife and children kept raising armed rebellions against him. He spent much of his reign fighting his own Plantagenet brood, going to war against family members in 1173, 1181, and 1184. That infighting set a pattern of Plantagenet intra-familial rivalry that endured for centuries.
Henry commissioned a painting depicting him as an eagle with three of its young tearing it apart with their beaks and talons, while a fourth hangs back, waiting for an opportunity to pluck out its parent’s eyes. He died in 1189 of a broken heart upon learning that his youngest and favorite child, the hitherto loyal and obedient John (of Robin Hood and Magna Carta fame or infamy), had finally betrayed him and joined his brothers in yet another war against their father. John had been the fourth eaglet, patiently waiting on the sidelines in the painting.
