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English Historical Review Vol. CXIX No. 483 EHR(A5)/0013–8266/3027/954 ᭧ Oxford University Press 2004, all rights reserved

Marriage as Tactical Response: Henry II and the Royal Wedding of 1160

ON 2 November 1160, at Neubourg in , a wedding took place that had significant consequences for the political status quo in England

and France. The husband was Henry, eldest surviving son of Henry II Downloaded from and Eleanor of . The wife was Margaret, elder daughter of Louis VII of France from his second marriage, to . It is remarkable that the union took place at all, considering the numerous barriers, both theoretical and practical, that stood in its way. The couple

were related within the seven forbidden degrees, and had not expressed http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ formal consent to their marriage, as the Church demanded.1 More problematic, however, and more noteworthy to contemporary com- mentators, was the age of the husband and wife. Henry and Margaret ‘were still little children, crying in the cradle’, he only five years of age, she a mere two.2 They had already been betrothed for two years at the time of their wedding. By anyone’s standards, the youth of the couple should have been an impediment to their nuptials. Yet Henry II press-ganged the children into service as pawns in his diplomatic chess at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 game, their union orchestrated for purely political ends. These facts, at least, are well enough known. Historians have explained the marriage as a ploy by Henry II to regain control of Margaret’s dowry, the coveted castles of the Norman ; as a response to a renewed alliance between Louis and the -Champagne; or as a consequence of Henry’s supposed ambitions to gain the throne of France for himself or his descendants.3 Relevant as they may be, none of these views can fully explain the timing of the event. A re-examination of chronicle and documentary evidence can shed light upon shorter-term reasons for the timing of the marriage (especially concerning the consanguinity issue) that have been neglected. I wish also to make some brief observations on the use of marriage in the twelfth century as a political tool, but in a ‘tactical’ rather than a ‘strategic’ context. Strategy refers here to the implementation of a

1. On the children’s relationship, see p. 6. 2. Roger of Howden, Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. William Stubbs, R[olls] S[eries] LI, i, (London, 1868) p. 218. Translations are mine unless otherwise specified. 3. John T. Appleby, Henry II – The Vanquished King (London, 1962), pp. 68–70; G. W. S. Barrow, Feudal Britain – The Completion of the Medieval Kingdoms 1066–1314 (London, 1956), p. 169; Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings (Oxford, 2000), pp. 46–7; Jacques Boussard, Le gouvernement d’Henri II Plantagenét (, 1956), pp. 423–4; George P. Cuttino, English Medieval Diplomacy (Bloomington, 1985), p. 40; John Gillingham, The (London, 1984), p. 28; A. L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087–1216 (Oxford, 1951), pp. 323–4; J. H. Ramsay, The Angevin Empire: or the Three Reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and John (AD. 1154–1216) (London, 1903), pp. 23–4; W. L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), p. 90.

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AND THE ROYAL WEDDING OF 1160 955 deliberate plan, often lengthy in its preparation and negotiation, which produced a definite and predictable advantage for both parties to a marital alliance. This process has been well documented in the twelfth-century context.4 By contrast, tactical marriage was often far shorter in its gestation period, and was undertaken just as much to obstruct or counter the political programme of a rival as it was to promote one’s own agenda. What defines tactical marriage is its reactive and confrontational quality, its function as a response to events. The twelfth century has been cast as an era of opposition between Downloaded from competing views of the way marriage should work, pitting an increasingly dominant Church against fathers and families wishing to oversee the destinies of children and other close relatives.5 Diplomatic, economic and property-related motivations for arranging marriages often clashed with spiritual priorities.6 Yet as a result of diverse clerical http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ opinions surrounding the issues of consent and consanguinity, there remained much room for autonomous action in the lay community.7 Doubts over the exact definition of an age of consent for marital partners played into the hands of secular leaders.8 So too did inconsistent application by Church powers of rules on marriage within the forbidden

4. For the importance of marriage in twelfth-century French politics, see Georges Duby, at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 Medieval Marriage – Two Models from Twelfth-Century France, trans. Elborg Forster (Baltimore and London, 1978), and The Knight, the Lady and the Priest – The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, trans. Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth, 1983). A relevant recent collection of studies is Theodore Evergates (ed.), Aristocratic Women in Medieval France (Philadelphia, 1999). For England, see J. C. Holt, ‘Politics and Property in Early Medieval England’, Past and Present, lvii (1972), 3–52, and ‘Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, xxxii–v (1982–5). A more general approach can be found in Christopher Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989). John Gillingham, ‘Love, Marriage and Politics in the Twelfth Century’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, xxv (1989), 292–303, argues for the possibility of emotional attachments even within overtly political marriages. 5. Duby, Medieval Marriage, p. 3. For a dissenting view, see David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1985), p. 86. A recent contribution arguing for the importance of political motives in papal decisions on marriage is provided by David d’Avray, ‘Lay Kinship Solidarity and Papal Law’, in Pauline Stafford, et al. (ed.), Law, Laity, and Solidarities: Essays in Honour of Susan Reynolds, (Manchester and New York, 2001), pp. 188–99. 6. On property considerations in twelfth-century marriage, see Michael Sheehan, ‘The Influence of Canon Law on the Property Rights of Married Women in England’, Medieval Studies, xxv (1963), 109–24 (reprinted in Michael Sheehan, Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies (Toronto, 1996), pp. 16–30); Diane Owen Hughes, ‘From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe’, Journal of Family History, iii (1978), 262–96; Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 66–7 and Appendix II; and Herlihy, pp. 98–111. 7. For differing emphases among canon lawyers (especially Gratian and ) on the need for consent, see John T. Noonan, Jr., ‘Power to Choose’, Viator, iv (1973), 419–34; Michael Sheehan, ‘Choice of Marriage Partner in the : Development and Mode of Application of a Theory of Marriage’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, NS i (1978), 1–33 (reprinted in Sheehan, Marriage, Family, and Law, pp. 87–117); and James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago and London, 1987), pp. 235–9 and 262–6. 8. See Charles Duggan, ‘Equity and Compassion in Papal Marriage Decretals to England’, in Willy Van Hoecke and Andries Welkenhuysen (ed.), Love and Marriage in the Twelfth Century (Leuven, 1981), pp. 59–87; Charles Donahue Jr., ‘The Canon Law on the Formation of Marriage and Social Practice in the Later Middle Ages’, Journal of Family History, viii (1983), 144–58; and Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, pp. 332–5.

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956 MARRIAGE AS TACTICAL RESPONSE: HENRY II degrees of physical or spiritual relationship.9 Betrothals functioned as little more than statements of intent, agreements that could be easily revoked if diplomatic priorities were to change, or if the impediments of canon law intervened.10 In 1158, during a period of peace between Henry II and Louis VII, the two monarchs had arranged for just such a betrothal. Their children were to be married at some future point, with the castles of the Norman Vexin as the newborn Margaret’s dowry.11 After an ostentatious embassy led by chancellor concluded the negotiations, Henry Downloaded from himself came to Paris later in the year to collect Margaret, whose custody he had arranged as part of the deal.12 The betrothal epitomized a strategic marital pact: it represented a public agreement between two families to undertake a mutually beneficial exchange of assets in the future, with the transaction personified by the family members who http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ would be united in wedlock.13 Relations deteriorated in 1159, especially during Henry’s unsuccessful attempt to capture Toulouse, which Louis opposed in person.14 An eventual truce late in the year led to a formal peace agreement in May 1160. Louis once again pledged the Vexin and its castles as Margaret’s dowry. The French king retained tenure of the at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012

9. For the calculation of relationships, see Constance B. Bouchard, ‘Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, Speculum, lvi, ii (1981), 268–87 (especially 269–70); and Elizabeth Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination (Oxford, 2001), pp. 26–41. In cases of affinity, a married couple (or those who had indulged in adultery or fornication) were deemed to become one flesh and one blood (based on St Paul’s reference to unitas carnis, the unity of flesh). Godparents and godchildren formed a similar spiritual union. 10. On the Church’s attitude to betrothal, see Michael Sheehan, ‘Marriage Theory and Practice in the Conciliar Legislation and Diocesan Statutes of Medieval England’, Mediaeval Studies, xl (1978), 425–31 (reprinted in Sheehan, Marriage, Family, and Law, pp. 137–44); and Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, pp. 190 and 275. 11. , in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. Richard Howlett, RS LXXXII, iv (London, 1882), p. 196; and the Continuatio Beccensis, ibid. p. 318. The Norman half of the Vexin, the disputed borderland between Normandy and the Ile de France, had long been a bone of contention between the Capetian kings and Norman dukes. The three castles in question were Gisors, Néaufle, and Chaˆteauneuf. See Bartlett, England under Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 46–7; Cuttino, English Medieval Diplomacy, p. 40; Poole, Domesday Book to Magna Carta, pp. 323–4. 12. Torigni, Chronicles, p. 196; Continuatio Beccensis, p. 319; Ralph of Diceto, Ymagines historiarum, ed. William Stubbs, RS LXVIII, i (London, 1876), p. 302. 13. Margaret’s dower was to consist of the city of Lincoln, 1000 pounds, and 300 knights’ fees in England; the city of Avranches, two castles, 1000 pounds, and 200 knights’ fees in Normandy (Continuatio Beccensis, p. 319). In practice, however, Henry II would retain control of all these assets while also gaining the benefit of Margaret’s dowry, the Vexin and its castles. The benefits to Louis were, instead, the confirmation of peace with a more powerful rival, and the marriage’s potential as a dynastic safety net (a precaution invalidated by the birth of Philip Augustus in 1165). 14. See Richard Benjamin, ‘A Forty Years War: Toulouse and the Plantagenets, 1156–96’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, lxi (1988), 271–85; and Jane Martindale, ‘“An Unfinished Business”: Angevin Politics and the Siege of Toulouse, 1159’, Anglo-Norman Studies, xxiii (2000), 115–54.

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AND THE ROYAL WEDDING OF 1160 957 territory in the meantime, and appointed three to act as custodians of the Vexin castles for three years.15 Events developed rapidly after the death of Louis’s second wife, Constance of Castile, in childbirth during September 1160. Within a fortnight, Louis announced his intention to take a third wife, Adela of Blois-Champagne.16 Lambert of Waterlos gives a tantalizing glimpse of Henry’s state of mind, noting that ‘the English King, having got wind of this marriage, and moved by anger, attempted to counter it by every means’.17 Before the wedding could be celebrated on 13 November, Downloaded from Henry responded by having the two young children in his care married at Neubourg on the second of that month. The sudden, tactical nature of the marriage contrasted sharply with the orderly, strategic betrothal. In line with the requirements of Margaret’s dowry, the Knights Templar handed over the Vexin castles to Henry.18 Indignant, Louis and his new http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ brothers-in-law of the house of Blois-Champagne attacked Henry’s holdings in Touraine, but the Angevin monarch captured the important castle of Chaumont on the Loire, putting an end to Capetian resistance.19 Henry had been able to gain a dispensation for the marriage of the children, despite their extreme youth, from three cardinals travelling in France as legates to gain support for the new pope, Alexander III, against the schismatic Victor IV.20 This is usually seen as the price of Henry II’s at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012

15. The text of the agreement is recorded in R[ecueil des] H[istoriens des Gaules et de la] F[rance], XVI (Paris, 1814), pp. 21–2, assigning it to May 1160, and in L. Delisle and E. Berger, (ed.), Recueil des actes d’Henri II, I, (Paris, 1909), pp. 251–3. A date of October 1160 has also been suggested. I find three reasons for supporting the earlier date. Robert of Torigni (Chronicles, pp. 207–8) mentions two 1160 agreements between the monarchs, but whereas peace is ‘made’ (pax facta est) in May it is merely ‘confirmed’ (pactum. . .confirmaverunt) in October. The document fixes the Templars’ custodianship of the castles for three years following the next festival of the Assumption. Since this falls on 15 August, an agreement in May seems more logical. Thirdly, given what we know of Henry’s anger at the announcement of Louis’s betrothal to Adela (see below) it seems unlikely that he would be concluding new peace agreements at the later date. Warren appears to favour May (Henry II, p. 88) though Holt and Vincent prefer October (J. C. Holt and N. Vincent, eds, The Letters and Charters of King Henry II (1154–1189), (Oxford, forthcoming). I am grateful to the editors of the English Historical Review for the opportunity to view selections from this new edition). 16. Diceto, Ymagines, p. 303; Torigni, Chronicles, pp. 207–8; Lambert of Waterlos, RHF, XIII (Paris, 1786), p. 517. She is sometimes referred to as Alice of Blois-Champagne. 17. Lambert, pp. 517–18. 18. The Knights Templar, Robert of Pirou, Tostes of St Omer, and Richard of Hastings, earned the wrath of Louis VII and banishment from France for this action. Henry, on the other hand, ‘receiving them favourably, enriched them with many honors’. Howden, p. 218. See also Diceto, pp. 303–4; Torigni, p. 208; Gervase of Canterbury, Opera historica, ed. William Stubbs, RS LXXIII, i (London, 1879), p. 167; William of Newburgh, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, RS LXXXII, i, p. 159. 19. Diceto, Ymagines, p. 304; Torigni, Chronicles, p. 208. 20. Diceto, Ymagines, p. 304. The letter providing the dispensation is recorded in RHF, XV (Paris, 1808), pp. 700–1. The legates were Henry of Pisa, cardinal priest of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo (1151–66); Oddo, cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano (1152–74); and William of Pavia, cardinal priest of S. Pietro in Vincoli (1158–76). Duby (Medieval Marriage, p. 128, note 96) mistakenly assigns the dispensation to 1156, rather than 1160, basing his comment on a vague sentence in the anonymous Historia gloriosi regis Ludovici VII (RHF, XII (Paris, 1781), p. 127). Given that Margaret had not even been born in 1156, this is rather a surprising error.

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958 MARRIAGE AS TACTICAL RESPONSE: HENRY II support for Alexander, and was probably granted at a joint Anglo- French council at Beauvais in July 1160.21 The cardinals’ letter of dispensation is a masterpiece of tortured logic and hypocritical self-justification, providing a measure of the desperation with which they were pursuing their cause. Despite implying (as subtly as possible) in the first half of their argument that the marriage of two children aged five and two is completely opposed by canon law, the cardinals then allow for exceptions Downloaded from in the interests of peace and concord, in the interests of the calm and tranquillity of both kings and of each kingdom, and also in the interests of the prestige of the Churches of God, which seem to be especially powerful under those kings and in those kingdoms.22 http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ These appear particularly broad and pliable exceptions to so (suppos- edly) intractable a rule as a ban on child marriage. This clearly suggests that Henry’s ability to extort concessions was strong, and that the dispensation was therefore likely to have been given during the heat of the debate at Beauvais. It was the kind of murky political horse-trading (most probably conducted on the margins of the conference and without Louis’s knowledge) that in later centuries would be undertaken in the anonymity of smoke-filled rooms. Yet Henry had not put the prized at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 letter to immediate use. The peace agreement of May had not allowed the marriage to proceed until three years had elapsed. But two provisos were attached to this clause. If Margaret were to die within three years, the Vexin would stay in Louis’s possession. Alternatively, if the two children were married in the interim with the consent of the Church, then the dowry could be handed over straight away.23 Here, then, is revealed the importance of the dispensation: not only did it overcome the impediment of marriage between two minors well below the age of consent, but it triggered a clause in the recent deal between Henry and Louis that allowed the English monarch to speed up his plans to recover the Vexin. Henry could, of course, have simply waited for three years and gained the territory by means of the original clause in the agreement. But this was not his style. William of Newburgh refers to Henry as morae impatiens, ‘impatient with delay’ over the return of the Vexin.24 Furthermore, the risk of two-year-old Margaret dying in the interim, thus invalidating the

21. Frank Barlow, ‘The English, Norman and French Councils called to deal with the Papal Schism of 1159’, ante, li (1936), 264–8 (reprinted in Frank Barlow, The Norman Conquest and Beyond (London, 1983), pp. 297–301) argues for later recognition. He is convincingly rebutted by Mary Cheney, ‘The Recognition of Pope Alexander III: Some Neglected Evidence’, ante, lxxxiv (1969), 474–97. See also Dorothy Whitelock, et al. (ed.), Councils and Synods with other documents relating to the English Church, I, ii (Oxford, 1981), pp. 835–41. 22. RHF, XV, pp. 700–1. 23. RHF, XVI, p. 21; Delisle and Berger, Henri II, I, p. 251. 24. Newburgh, Chronicles, p. 159.

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AND THE ROYAL WEDDING OF 1160 959 agreement, could not be ignored. Louis, too, may simply have reneged, given the ease with which betrothals could be broken off. It seems likely, then, that Henry bargained for the clause concerning Church approval to be inserted into the agreement of May, with the deliberate intention of seeking a dispensation, marrying the children, and regaining the Vexin at an early opportunity. One reason for not having the children married immediately after Beauvais was that, while Henry had Margaret of France in his custody at Neubourg, his son was still in England. This problem was remedied in Downloaded from September, when Henry ordered Queen Eleanor to sail from England to Normandy, bringing young Henry with her.25 The prince performed homage to Louis VII for Normandy in October, and was now conveniently ensconced near his infant bride-to-be.26 But one further problem remained. Since two of their parents, Louis VII and Eleanor of http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ Aquitaine, had been proven to share a connection in the fourth and fifth degrees, Louis’s daughter and Eleanor’s son were, by definition, related in the fifth and sixth degrees.27 In practical, political terms, such a distant link was no longer an automatic impediment to marriage, as may have been the case earlier in the twelfth century.28 The problem in this case, however, was that the connection must have been blindingly obvious to all interested parties, given the extremely high profile of Louis and Eleanor’s separation on the basis of their relationship in 1152.29 The at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 hypocrisy of proceeding with the marriage of their children by other partners, when their own marriage had been deemed incestuous, must

25. Torigni, Chronicles, p. 207. 26. Ibid. p. 208. The homage in October accompanied a reconfirmation of the May peace treaty between the monarchs (see note 15). Even if the acceptance of homage suggests recognition by Louis that young Henry was mature enough to marry (and this is uncertain) it does not imply consent that his own two-year-old daughter had reached marriageable age. On the significance of homage performed by dukes of Normandy (or their sons) to kings of France, see C. Warren Hollister, ‘Normandy, France, and the Anglo-Norman Regnum’, in his Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World (London, 1986), pp. 17–57 (especially pp. 50–1). 27. There were four generations back from Louis, and five generations from Eleanor, to their common ancestor, Robert II of France. Young Henry and Margaret were thus clearly related within the seven forbidden degrees. On the relationship of Louis and Eleanor, see Constance B. Bouchard, ‘Eleanor’s Divorce from Louis VII: The Uses of Consanguinity’, in Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons (ed.), , Lord and Lady (New York, 2002), pp. 223–5. 28. Duby (Medieval Marriage, pp. 25–7) cites two letters to from Ivo, Bishop of , and Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, that take a particularly firm stand against marriages between remote cousins; he also notes (ibid. p. 65) that consanguinity became less of a concern for Church authorities as the century progressed, with the emphasis shifting more to preserving the indissolubility of matrimonial unions. Henry and Eleanor’s own marriage was technically incestuous, but had not been successfully challenged. See also Bouchard, ‘Consanguin- ity and Noble Marriages’, 284–6. 29. Consanguinity had been no more than an excuse to bring an end to a marriage of fifteen years that had not yet produced a male heir for the Capetian line. Louis and Eleanor’s relationship had not stood in the way of their marriage in 1137. Only in 1152 was it convenient to raise the issue when both parties wished to have their union annulled. On the legal background, see James A. Brundage, ‘The Canon Law of Divorce in the Mid-Twelfth Century: Louis VII c. Eleanor of Aquitaine’, in Wheeler and Parsons, Eleanor of Aquitaine, pp. 213–21. See also Duby, Medieval Marriage, pp. 54–62; and The Knight, the Lady and the Priest, pp. 189–98.

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960 MARRIAGE AS TACTICAL RESPONSE: HENRY II surely have raised ethical questions among several of the senior prelates who were involved on both occasions. Nonetheless Hugh, Archbishop of , who had been present at the Council of Beaugency that deliberated on the annulment in March 1152, was the recipient of the cardinals’ letter of dispensation in 1160.30 It seems probable either that he himself presided over the ceremony in which young Henry and Margaret were married, or that, as the senior Norman cleric, he gave the final approval for the event once the dispensation was in his hands. Yet the cardinals’ dispensation provided no excuse whatsoever for Downloaded from such shamefaced double standards, since it was offered on the basis of age alone. Their letter makes no mention of the consanguinity of the young couple.31 Therefore, the potential remained to challenge the marriage of young Henry and Margaret on account of their relationship. Louis and Eleanor’s own separation provided a precedent. They had http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ been separated on the grounds of consanguinity in 1152 despite the fact that Pope Eugenius III had blessed and confirmed their marriage in October 1149, forbidding any future mention of their kinship.32 Now, in 1160, if Louis changed his mind for any reason and wished to renege on his earlier agreement to allow the children to be married, he need only raise the barrier of consanguinity, as he had done at Beaugency. Perhaps (though we cannot say for certain) this had always been a safety measure with which to end the betrothal if relations with the Plantagenets should at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 deteriorate. If so, Louis invalidated this security mechanism at the moment he announced his own betrothal to Adela of Blois-Champagne. For the French king and his new bride were themselves related within the forbidden degrees, meaning that the threat of a consanguinity accu- sation against young Henry and Margaret was now more likely to rebound in Louis’s own face.33 He could no longer risk broaching the issue as a tactic against Henry II, without raising the possibility of having his own faults exposed. The problem was not so much that consanguin- ity (especially in the remoter degrees) was still considered a barrier to

30. On the Council of Beaugency, see the Historia gloriosi, p. 127. 31. RHF, XV, p. 700. 32. John of Salisbury, Memoirs of the Papal Court, trans. Marjorie Chibnall (London, 1956), p. 61. 33. Ralph of Diceto comments that ‘Samson, Archbishop of , was unwilling to anoint [Adela] as queen, because he had separated Adela’s sister from Philip, brother of the aforementioned king [Louis], on account of consanguinity’ (Diceto, Ymagines, p. 303). While this comment is not corroborated by many other contemporary voices, French chroniclers were probably reluctant to record inconvenient details that may have cast doubt on the marriage of the parents of Philip Augustus. Even if Ralph’s is the only version of this important detail, the specific nature of the comment (rather than a vague accusation of a distant relationship) does lend credence to his story. Archbishop Samson had also been present at the council of Beaugency in 1152, so was perhaps unwilling to sanction (by anointing Adela as queen) a second incestuous marriage for his monarch, when he had been involved in dissolving an earlier one. Nonetheless, the marriage of Louis and Adela duly went ahead. Robert of Torigni (Chronicles, p. 207) records the death of Louis’s brother Philip, dean of , in September 1160. It is harder to identify the bride from whom Philip was separated, though the Historia gloriosi (p. 129) does list five daughters (including Adela) among the children of Theobald IV of Blois-Champagne.

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AND THE ROYAL WEDDING OF 1160 961 marriage in the normal run of events, but rather that it remained a technical offence, a useful tactical weapon with which to oppose the marriages of those whose plans one wished to hinder. To make matters even more complicated, both marriages created a tangle of relationships that stood in technical breach of the rules concerning affinity.34 Young Henry’s mother (Eleanor) and Margaret’s father (Louis) had been married to each other: strictly speaking, this prohibited their close blood relatives (such as their children from later marriages) marrying one another. In the case of Louis and Adela, Louis Downloaded from had already betrothed his two daughters by Eleanor (Marie and Alix) to Adela’s brothers, the counts Henry I of Champagne and Theobald V of Blois, respectively.35 Though these betrothals would not reach fruition in marriage until 1164, technically Louis could not pursue his own marriage to Adela while her brothers were set to marry the king’s http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ daughters. By doing so, the French monarch made himself the brother-in-law of his own sons-in-law-to-be, thus sacrificing respect for the principle of unitas carnis on the altar of political expediency. The point is not that these relationships stopped the marriage of Louis and Adela proceeding. Clearly they did not: chroniclers reflect the prevailing view that the monarch should take another wife for his own well-being, and to father a much needed son.36 But, given the emphasis on matters of relationship and lineage in the upper echelons of at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 contemporary society (and the debate surrounding Louis’s separation from Eleanor), we can be sure that knowledge of the complications posed by the union of Louis and Adela existed, even if whispered in hushed tones. On the basis both of consanguinity and of affinity, Louis’s action presented Henry II with an enormously valuable tool in the ongoing rivalry between the two monarchs.37 Henry’s longer-term strategic plan was clearly to facilitate the marriage of his son to Margaret, as soon as the opportunity arose, in order to regain control of the Vexin castles. What was stopping him bringing the two children together before November 1160? The two

34. See note 9. 35. Torigni, Chronicles, p. 222; and Historia gloriosi, p. 128. (See genealogical table for clarification.) 36. The Historia gloriosi (p. 129), heavily apologist in tone, quotes St Paul’s dictum that it is better to marry than to burn, then continues: ‘[Louis] was afraid that the would cease to be governed by an heir born of his own seed. Therefore, both for his own well-being and, looking to the future, for the protection of the state, he joined to himself in marriage Adela, daughter of Theobald [IV]. . .of Blois’. Gervase (p. 167) also notes that Louis was ‘moved by the desire for a male child’. 37. Several precedents existed for bringing proposed or actual marriages to an end by raising accusations of consanguinity, among which the separation of Louis and Eleanor was the most obvious example. Henry I of England had convinced Pope Calixtus II to overturn the marriage of Henry’s nephew and rival, William Clito, to Sibylla of in 1124. The couple were related only in the sixth degree. See , The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, trans. Marjorie Chibnall, VI (Oxford, 1980), pp. 165–7; C. Warren Hollister and Thomas K. Keefe, ‘The Making of the Angevin Empire’, Journal of British Studies, xii (1973), 11; Sandy Burton Hicks, ‘The Impact of William Clito upon the Continental Policies of Henry I of England’, Viator, x (1979), 12.

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962 MARRIAGE AS TACTICAL RESPONSE: HENRY II major impediments were the couple’s youth, and their relationship within the forbidden degrees. The papal dispensation extorted from the cardinals overcame the first barrier, while Louis’s tactical blunder in choosing a relative as his third wife (even if the marriage to Adela promised the Capetians several offsetting benefits) partially resolved Henry’s own consanguinity problem. Of course it did not alter the fact that the children were related; but from a political point of view, it meant Louis could no longer safely accuse Henry of breaching the canonical restraints on incestuous unions. Downloaded from Even so, the consanguinity problem had not gone away entirely. Other interests, apart from those representing Louis, could challenge the children’s marriage on the basis of their relationship.38 Any resolution of the papal schism could mean that a dispensation that so egregiously breached social norms and canonical strictures in allowing the marriage http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ of two young children might be rescinded (since Henry’s ability to gain leverage by transferring his support to the antipope would be elimin- ated). After the death of Queen Constance in September, and Louis’s rapid betrothal to Adela, the prospect of a potentially hostile realign- ment of forces on Normandy’s border, in the form of a coalition between the houses of Capet and Blois-Champagne, also made the repossession of the Vexin more urgent.39 Bearing these factors in mind, more satisfactory reasons for the timing of young Henry’s marriage to at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012 Margaret emerge. There is no reason to question the larger strategic motivation of control of the Norman Vexin. But from a tactical perspective, the extraordinary speed with which Henry reacted to Louis’s announcement of his own remarriage is more fully explained by the implications of the consanguinity issue. The timing of the children’s marriage depended on Henry’s tactical astuteness in taking advantage of the French king’s relationship to his own new bride. If the betrothal of 1158 and its reconfirmation in May 1160 set forth the strategic plan, the marriage itself was strongly tactical in nature. Firstly, it was confrontational: it achieved the furthering of political aims not by orderly agreement, but by outfoxing an opponent, by acting in a provocative manner that was highly likely to create conflict. Here, Henry showed his flexibility: conciliation with Louis had taken him so far in recovering the Vexin, but direct challenge and potential conflict

38. Senior figures in the Church could challenge the match purely on a point of principle. St had done so in 1147 when warning Louis VII against marrying his elder daughter by Eleanor to the son of Geoffrey, count of Anjou (none other than the future Henry II, then aged 14!) citing the impediment of consanguinity. See The Letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. B. S. James (London, 1953), p. 474. See also note 28. 39. Henry II and Theobald V of Blois had concluded a temporary alliance of convenience during 1159 (Continuatio Beccensis, p. 324), negated by the renewal of relations between Theobald and Louis.

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AND THE ROYAL WEDDING OF 1160 963 were now more likely to prove advantageous. The politics of opportun- ism demanded an open mind with regard to methods and means.40 Secondly, the marriage was reactive. When the betrothal of the children was originally negotiated in 1158, Henry II could not have foreseen the circumstances that would allow him to bring about their marriage at such a young age: a papal schism, the death in childbirth of the French queen, and her husband’s rapid remarriage with a bride to whom he was already related. Responding to circumstances (including those that may at first have appeared highly unfavourable) and turning them to one’s Downloaded from own advantage was the key to tactical success. The marriage of Henry and Margaret is far from the only contempor- ary example of such a ‘tactical’ event. One could also cite the marriages of William Atheling and Matilda of Anjou in 1119;41 their siblings Matilda of England and Geoffrey of Anjou in 1128;42 both of William http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ Clito’s marriages during the ;43 Henry II and Eleanor in 1152;44 and John of England and Isabella of Angoulême in 1200.45 Closely related to the events described in this article were the betrothals of the brothers Henry I of Champagne and Theobald V of Blois to the elder daughters of Louis VII in 1153.46 All of these shared the combination of confrontation and reactiveness that set them apart from the more usual and more broadly defined strategic unions created for diplomatic or at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012

40. By way of comparison, on Henry’s conciliatory and pragmatic approach to restoring royal authority after 1154, see Graeme J. White, Restoration and Reform 1153–1165: Recovery from Civil War in England (Cambridge, 2000); and Emilie Amt, The Accession of Henry II in England – Royal Government Restored 1149–1159 (Woodbridge, 1993). 41. This brought to an end the conflict between William’s father, Henry I of England, and Fulk V of Anjou. See William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998), II, pp. 735 and 759; Abbot , The Deeds of Louis the Fat, trans. Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead (Washington, D. C., 1992), p. 116; Hollister and Keefe, ‘Making of the Angevin Empire’, 8–10. 42. Despite its later dynastic consequences (including the birth of Henry II) this was largely a short-term reaction by Henry I of England to William Clito’s bid for the contested comital seat of Flanders in 1127 (see next note). See Orderic Vitalis, VI, p. 391; William of Malmesbury, Historia novella, trans. K. R. Potter, ed. Edmund King (Oxford, 1998), pp. 8–11; and Hollister and Keefe, ‘Making of the Angevin Empire’, 14–15. 43. The first was to Sibylla of Anjou (see note 37); the second to Jeanne de Montferrat, Louis VI’s sister-in-law. The latter was designed by the French monarch to strengthen William Clito in his quest for power in Flanders. See Suger, p. 140; and Gesta normannorum ducum, trans. Elisabeth M. C. Van Houts, II (Oxford, 1995), p. 225. 44. While partly strategic, in that it joined the dominions of Henry II to those of the dukes of Aquitaine, this celebrated marriage in 1152, coming so soon after Eleanor’s separation from Louis VII, was undoubtedly a tactical response to recent events. See Torigni, p. 165, Newburgh, p. 93; Gervase, p. 149. 45. See H. G. Richardson, ‘The Marriage and of Isabelle of Angoulême’, ante, lxi (1946), 289–314; F. A. Cazel, Jr., and Sidney Painter, ‘The Marriage of Isabelle of Angoulême’, ante, lxiii (1948), 83; W. L. Warren, (London, 1961), pp. 68–9; N. Vincent, ‘Isabella of Angoulême: John’s Jezebel’, ch. 8 in S. D. Church, ed., King John: New Interpretations, (Woodbridge, 1999). 46. These betrothals were possibly a response to Eleanor’s remarriage to Henry II. See Theodore Evergates, ‘Louis VII and the Counts of Champagne’, in Michael Gervers, ed., The and the (New York, 1992), pp. 109–17, and above, p. 8.

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964 MARRIAGE AS TACTICAL RESPONSE: HENRY II property-related reasons. Yet not all were as politically fruitful to their instigators as was the marriage of Henry and Margaret. This is because, paradoxically, successfully executed tactical marriage required a third element: careful preparation. To be the master of Fortune, rather than her slave, opportunism by itself was not enough. To respond swiftly and effectively to unforeseen circumstances, to solve, as it were, the puzzle of tactical politics, one had to have the pieces close at hand, ready to be deployed on the board immediately. The recovery of the Vexin was achieved only after several years of laying the necessary Downloaded from groundwork. This was the essence of tactical political manouevre: to be ready and able to act in fulfilment of a wider strategic plan, as soon as the most propitious moment arrived. Naturally, not all such manoeuvres were successful, nor did confrontation always bring rewards. But in November 1160, with his son married and the Vexin regained, Henry II’s http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ tactical gamble paid off handsomely. at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library on February 22, 2012

University of Auckland, New Zealand LINDSAY DIGGELMANN

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