Princes Without Power: Why Henry the Young King Rebelled
People, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce People, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Princes Without Power: Why Henry the Young King Rebelled

On 14 June 1170, in Westminster Abbey, England witnessed a rare spectacle: a king crowned in his father’s lifetime. The boy was Henry, eldest surviving son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. At just fifteen, he was anointed, crowned, and hailed as rex iunior — the Young King.

It should have been the beginning of a glittering reign. Instead, it became the seed of betrayal.

Did you know? Henry the Young King’s coronation feast is covered in Lady of Lincoln.

A King Without a Kingdom

Despite the grandeur of his coronation, the Young King had no real authority. His father ruled with a firm hand and was unwilling to share power. Henry II kept hold of the castles, the revenues, and the decision-making. The son was left with ceremony but no substance.

Contemporaries pitied him. William of Newburgh remarked that the lad “was king in name only, while his father held the reins of government.” Others saw a prince who enjoyed the tournaments and glittering life of a knight but lacked the lands and soldiers that made a medieval ruler truly powerful.

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Why the Plantenet Angevins Ruled Half of Europe
TimePeriods, EnglandAndAngevinEmpire Rachel Elwiss Joyce TimePeriods, EnglandAndAngevinEmpire Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Why the Plantenet Angevins Ruled Half of Europe

When most people think of medieval kings, we generally think of one monarch, one kingdom, and then the people below him.. But Henry II of England—first of the Angevin kings—was no ordinary ruler. By the 1170s, he commanded more territory than any other monarch in Christendom, stretching from the wild hills of Northumberland to the sunlit vineyards of Aquitaine. He was king in only England—he was the Norman and Aquitainian duke, the count of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. But is was all his dominion, and it was so vast that chroniclers called it an “empire,” though it was stitched together by marriage, inheritance, and sheer force of will.

So how did a French count’s son come to rule half of Europe?

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