page_title: Henry II of England
section_title: Acquisition of Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine
hierarchical_section_title: Henry II of England / Early reign (1150–1162) / Acquisition of Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine
caption_attribution_description: English: France in early-mid 12th century; data from W.L. Warren, "Henry II", p.10
context_page_description: Henry II, also known as Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 to his death. He was the first king of the House of Plantagenet. King Louis VII of France made him Duke of Normandy in 1150. Henry became Count of Anjou and Maine upon the death of his father, Geoffrey of Anjou, in 1151. His marriage in 1152 to Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII had recently been annulled, made him Duke of Aquitaine. He became Count of Nantes by treaty in 1185. Before he was 40 he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and the western half of France—an area that would later come to be called the Angevin Empire. At various times, Henry also partially controlled Scotland, Wales and the Duchy of Brittany.
  Henry became actively involved by the age of 14 in the efforts of his mother Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, and Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later.
context_section_description: By the late 1140s the active phase of the civil war was over, barring the occasional outbreak of fighting. Many of the barons were making individual peace agreements with each other to secure their war gains and it increasingly appeared as though the English Church was considering promoting a peace treaty. On Louis VII's return from the Second Crusade in 1149, he became concerned about the growth of Geoffrey's power and the potential threat to his own possessions, especially if Henry could acquire the English crown. In 1150, Geoffrey made Henry the Duke of Normandy and Louis responded by putting forward King Stephen's son Eustace as the rightful heir to the duchy and launching a military campaign to remove Henry from the province. Henry's father advised him to come to terms with Louis and peace was made between them in August 1151 after mediation by Bernard of Clairvaux. Under the settlement Henry did homage to Louis for Normandy, accepting Louis as his feudal lord, and gave him the disputed lands of the Norman Vexin; in return, Louis recognised him as duke.
  Geoffrey died in September 1151, and Henry postponed his plans to return to England, as he first needed to ensure that his succession, particularly in Anjou, was secure. At around this time he was also probably secretly planning his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, then still the wife of Louis. Eleanor was the Duchess of Aquitaine, a land in the south of France, and was considered beautiful, lively and controversial, but had not borne Louis any sons. Louis had the marriage annulled and Henry married Eleanor eight weeks later on 18 May. The marriage instantly reignited Henry's tensions with Louis: it was considered an insult, it ran counter to feudal practice and it threatened the inheritance of Louis and Eleanor's two daughters, Marie and Alix, who might otherwise have had claims to Aquitaine on Eleanor's death. With his new lands, Henry now possessed a much larger proportion of France than Louis. Louis organised a coalition against Henry, including Stephen, Eustace, Henry I, Count of Champagne, and Robert, Count of Perche. Louis's alliance was joined by Henry's younger brother, Geoffrey, who rose in revolt, claiming that Henry had dispossessed him of his inheritance. Their father's plans for the inheritance of his lands had been ambiguous, making the veracity of Geoffrey's claims hard to assess. Contemporaneous accounts suggest he left the main castles in Poitou to Geoffrey, implying that he may have intended Henry to retain Normandy and Anjou but not Poitou.
  Fighting immediately broke out again along the Normandy borders, where Henry of Champagne and Robert captured the town of Neufmarché-sur-Epte. Louis's forces moved to attack Aquitaine. Stephen responded by placing Wallingford Castle, a key fortress loyal to Henry along the Thames Valley, under siege, possibly in an attempt to force a successful end to the English conflict while Henry was still fighting for his territories in France. Henry moved quickly in response, avoiding open battle with Louis in Aquitaine and stabilising the Norman border, pillaging the Vexin and then striking south into Anjou against Geoffrey, capturing one of his main castles (Montsoreau). Louis fell ill and withdrew from the campaign, and Geoffrey was forced to come to terms with Henry.
caption: Northern France around the time of Henry's birth
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