5. England’s Demonic Dynasty
King Richard I the Lionheart once said of his Plantagenet family: “From the Devil we sprang, and to the Devil we shall return“. Many contemporaries agreed there was something demonic about England’s Plantagenet Dynasty (1154 – 1485), who named themselves after the planta geneste, or common broom, and went at everything full tilt. They were known for their manic energies, and an inability to just sit still. They revolutionized and remade England, dominated the British Isles, conquered Wales, cowed Scotland, and subdued Ireland.
The Plantagenets created an empire that stretched from Ireland to the Spanish border, and devastated France in the Hundred Years’ War. Europe proved too small, so they exported their manic energies to the Middle East, where they wreaked havoc during the Crusades. They were also known for their fierce intra-familial rivalries, which ultimately doomed and brought their dynasty to a dramatic end. Where others tried to take them down, and failed, the Plantagenets proved quite capable of taking themselves down.
