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Medieval Succession: When Henry II’s Empire Imploded
When Succession first aired, audiences were transfixed by its portrait of a modern dynasty at war with itself: scheming heirs, a manipulative patriarch, and a fortune vast enough to make loyalty negotiable. But centuries before Logan Roy was terrifying his children in glass-walled boardrooms, another ruthless family feud was playing out across medieval Europe.
In 1173, the most powerful man in Christendom—King Henry II of England—faced a rebellion led not by rivals or barons, but by his own wife and sons. Chroniclers called it the Great Rebellion; historians often dub it the Revolt of the Eaglets, after the young “eagles” who turned on the parent bird.
And just like in Succession, the real question was: who inherits the empire?
Bloodbath at the Lionheart’s Coronation
We remember Richard the Lionheart as a crusader king, a warrior who fought Saladin, and whose name resounded across Christendom. But for England’s Jews, his reign began in fire and betrayal.
Benedict of York’s story embodies that betrayal. Beaten at the doors of Westminster Hall, baptised by a friend who meant him no harm, denied even a grave among his people, his fate symbolises the peril of being both essential and despised in medieval England.