Hadrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear), 1154-1159; Alexander III., 1159-1181. Reorganisation of the Kingdom-The great Scutage-The Becket Quarrel-Judicial Reforms-Conquest of Ireland-Abortive Revolt of the BaronsQuarrels in the Royal Family. THE acquisition of the English crown made Henry II. the monarch of greatest consequence in Europe. He was king of England, with feudal rights over the sub-king of Scotland and the prince of North Dominions Wales; he was duke of Normandy, count of Anjou and of Henry II. Maine; and in right of his wife he was duke of Aquitaine, which gave him not only the actual rule of Poitou, Perigord, Querci, Limousin, and Gascony, but also a suzerainty more or less real over all the countries which lay west of the Rhone, chief among which was the county of Toulouse. To these extensive dominions he virtually added the duchy of Brittany, through the marriage of his son Geoffrey to its heiress Constance in 1160. After this event he had in his hands the mouths of the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne, and with them command over the greater part of the coasting trade of France. These possessions would have made any prince powerful; but Henry owed their acquisition mainly to his own character, and the energy and skill with which he had made the most of the advantages he derived from his birth. Henry's gifts, both of mind and body, were clearly to be traced to his ancestry. The bent of his mind was Angevin, and showed the same eagerness and thoroughness, combined with versatility, that His Charhad long been characteristic of the counts of Anjou. His acter. body, strong, thick-set, and sinewy, might have been derived from either |