Medieval Succession: When Henry II’s Empire Imploded
People, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce People, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Medieval Succession: When Henry II’s Empire Imploded

When Successionfirst 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 inSuccession, the real question was: who inherits the empire?

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Reginald FitzUrse: The Bear Knight Who Slayed a Saint
Biographies, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce Biographies, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Reginald FitzUrse: The Bear Knight Who Slayed a Saint

On 29 December 1170, four armed knights pushed through the freezing rain towards Canterbury Cathedral. Their leader was Reginald FitzUrse—a man whose very name meant “son of the bear.” He would live up to it in every sense: fierce, proud, and dangerously impulsive.

When Thomas Becket fell beneath their swords that night, FitzUrse’s roar echoed through the nave. It was he who first laid hands on the archbishop, striking the blow that turned a quarrel between king and church into one of the most shocking crimes of the Middle Ages.

A Knight of the King’s Household

Little is known of FitzUrse’s early life. He came from a respectable Somerset family, holding lands at Willeton and Barham. Like many younger sons of the gentry, he found advancement in royal service. By the 1160s he was one of Henry II’s household knights—trusted, well-paid, and fiercely loyal to the king who rewarded courage and obedience above all else.

That loyalty, however, would prove fatal.

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The Shadow of Becket: How a Murder Shook the Kingdom
People, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce People, HistoricalEvents Rachel Elwiss Joyce

The Shadow of Becket: How a Murder Shook the Kingdom

For years, the quarrel between Henry II and Thomas Becket raged. Becket fled to France in 1164, finding refuge with King Louis VII—the same Louis who still burned with resentment against Henry II for marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine. The dispute became as much about politics as faith: two monarchs using one archbishop as a pawn.

In 1170, Henry and Becket made a fragile peace. The archbishop returned to England to cheers from the faithful. But within weeks, their conflict flared again when Becket excommunicated bishops loyal to the crown.

It was then, in a moment of fury, that Henry uttered the words chroniclers would never forget—perhaps not verbatim, but in essence:

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

Four knights took him at his word.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen, Duchess, and Mother of Rebels
Biographies, WomeninHistory Rachel Elwiss Joyce Biographies, WomeninHistory Rachel Elwiss Joyce

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen, Duchess, and Mother of Rebels

When their sons grew to manhood, Eleanor encouraged them to demand their inheritance. Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey wanted lands to rule; Henry II refused. In 1173, when the princes fled to France, Eleanor supported them. Chroniclers later claimed she disguised herself as a man to join them—an image that has haunted legend ever since.

Her rebellion failed. Henry II’s forces captured her later that year while she travelled through Poitou. For the next sixteen years she was kept under guard, a queen turned prisoner. Yet even captivity could not erase her influence: her sons would continue to fight in her name.

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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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