l relations
of the country they wrought no change at all. On the contrary, these
were developed on a still larger scale, owing to the complicated
family connexions which so peculiarly characterise that epoch. From
the county of Anjou which, like the dominion of the Capets, had been
formed in the struggle against the invasion of the Normans, a
sovereign arose who had the right to rule the Norman conquests, the
son of the Conqueror's granddaughter, Henry Plantagenet. He had
become, though not without appeal to the sword, which his father
wielded powerfully on his behalf, master of Normandy, and had then
married Eleanor of Poitou, who brought him a great part of South
France: he then succeeded more by fair means than by force in
establishing his right to the throne of England. Henry was the first
to establish in France the power of the great vassals, by which the
crown was long in danger of being overthrown. The Kings of Castille
and Navarre submitted to his arbitration. And under a sovereign whose
grandfather had been King of Jerusalem, and one of the mightiest
rulers of that Western kingdom established in the East, the
tendencies, which had led so far, could not fail to extend themselves
to the utmost in all their spheres of action? The hierarchic and
chivalrous spirit of Continental Europe, which under the Normans had
seized on England, was much strengthened by the accession of the
Plantagenets. It thus came to pass that after the disastrous loss of
Jerusalem, the knights of Anjou and of Guienne, from Brittany (for
Henry had added this province also to his family possessions) and from
Normandy, gathered together in London, and took the Cross in company
with the English. England formed a part of the Plantagenet Empire--if
we may apply this word to so anomalous a state--and contributed to its
extension, even though no interest of its own was involved. But
towards such a result the relations which this alliance established
between England and Southern Europe had long tended. Not seldom was
the military power of the provinces over the sea employed for
enterprises that aimed at the direct advantage of England itself.
Whether and when the German element without this influence would have
become master of the British group of islands none could say. The
English dominion over Ireland in particular is derived from Henry II,
and his alliance at that time with the Papacy; he crossed thither
under the Pope's authorisation: at the Po