page_title: Angevin kings of England
section_title: Contemporary opinion
hierarchical_section_title: Angevin kings of England / Legacy / Contemporary opinion
caption_attribution_description: English: Tombs of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in Fontevraud Abbey
context_page_description: The Angevins were a royal house of French origin that ruled England in the 12th and early 13th centuries; its monarchs were Henry II, Richard I and John. In the 10 years from 1144, two successive counts of Anjou in France, Geoffrey and his son, the future Henry II, won control of a vast assemblage of lands in western Europe that would last for 80 years and would retrospectively be referred to as the Angevin Empire. As a political entity this was structurally different from the preceding Norman and subsequent Plantagenet realms. Geoffrey became Duke of Normandy in 1144 and died in 1151. In 1152 his heir, Henry, added Aquitaine by virtue of his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Henry also inherited the claim of his mother, Empress Matilda, the daughter of King Henry I, to the English throne, to which he succeeded in 1154 following the death of King Stephen.
  Henry was succeeded by his third son, Richard, whose reputation for martial prowess won him the epithet "Cœur de Lion" or "Lionheart". He was born and raised in England but spent very little time there during his adult life, perhaps as little as six months.
context_section_description: The chronicler Gerald of Wales borrowed elements of the Melusine legend to give the Angevins a demonic origin, and the kings were said to tell jokes about the stories.
  Henry was an unpopular king, and few grieved his death; William of Newburgh wrote during the 1190s, "In his own time he was hated by almost everyone". He was widely criticised by contemporaries, even in his own court. Henry's son Richard's contemporary image was more nuanced, since he was the first king who was also a knight. Known as a valiant, competent and generous military leader, he was criticised by chroniclers for taxing the clergy for the Crusade and his ransom; clergy were usually exempt from taxes.
  Chroniclers Richard of Devizes, William of Newburgh, Roger of Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto were generally unsympathetic to John's behaviour under Richard, but more tolerant of the earliest years of John's reign. Accounts of the middle and later years of his reign are limited to Gervase of Canterbury and Ralph of Coggeshall, neither of whom were satisfied with John's performance as king. His later negative reputation was established by two chroniclers writing after the king's death: Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris. The latter claimed that John attempted to convert to Islam, but this is not believed by modern historians.
caption: Tomb of Henry and Eleanor in Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon in Anjou, France
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