Hello and welcome to the History of England, episode 43, the Greatest of all Monks.

Now if you're a medieval king of a major European empire, I imagine you don't expect an

easy life and certainly Henry didn't get one.

In the end was not the problem of ruling an empire or the eminuity of the French king

that brought him down, it was his own flesh and blood.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as that.

In Louis of France he had a doggie depotment at least, and in Louis's son Philip, he had

an unscrupulous and brilliant one who would in the end bring the Andre of Indynastie down.

First of all, a quick reprise of the basic facts, just to remind ourselves.

Henry of course has married Eleanor of Appetain in 1152 when he was 19 and Eleanor 30.

Their marriage, as far as can be told, would appear to have started pretty well.

There's no way of knowing how close they were, of course, but the speed with which Eleanor

chose Henry after she got her divorce from Louis suggests they'd plan the thing together.

And as further evidence, there's the impressive number of children.

Eleanor would have ten children in all, two by Louis and eight by Henry.

The sons who survived in all of age were, Henry, Richard, Jeffrey and then the youngest John.

But at some point, their marriage forced the pieces, and this is more than usually relevant

since Eleanor is at the centre of all her children's revolts.

From the start, their marriage was repeated to be turbulent, and he'd got a thing that

the odds are heavily in favour of the odds battle to.

Eleanor would prove more than independent with Louis, and Henry was hardly a pushover

himself.

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