2. From the Start, Members of This Dynasty Were at Each Other’s Throats
Henry II’s legal system provided a degree of stability and predictability rare in the medieval world, and rarer still as subsequent jurists and future governments strengthened and solidified it. Much of Britain’s future success as a trading, industrial, and imperial giant, rested upon the foundations laid by Henry II’s twelfth-century legal reforms. English – later British – entrepreneurs, secure in their property and trusting their legal system, could conduct business with a confidence that gave them an edge over foreign competitors who operated in less secure and stable investment environments. The future British Empire, built on commerce, owed much to Henry. What is perhaps most remarkable is that he did all that amidst a tumultuous reign in which he had to repeatedly go to battle against his own family.
Henry’s wife and children raised numerous armed rebellions against him. As a result, he spent much of his reign fighting his own Plantagenet brood, and battled his family members in 1173, 1181, and 1184. Henry commissioned a painting that depicted 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 perished 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), had finally betrayed him and joined his brothers in yet another dispute against their father. John had been the fourth eaglet that patiently waited on the sidelines in the painting.
