During the 12th century England, a young and enthusiastic prince stepped foot onto the beaches of southern England, bent on restoring the imperial dynasty of his ancestors. Henry II had inherited the fiery will of his maternal Norman lineage. Drawing from the impressive rules of his ancestors, Henry I and William the Conqueror, Henry II aggressively inherited his control of England, secured his rule of Normandy, and expanded his vast dominion under a cohesive central authority. His military achievements were only safeguarded through his political wisdom and cemented through his reformative policies. The significant changes made during Henry’s reign were made possible by the tumultuous atmosphere of England before his ascension to the throne. …show more content…
Many barons decided to revoke their oaths to Matilda, not wanted to be ruled by an Angevin lord, nor a woman reared in a foreign, German imperial court. Henry’s nephew Stephen was a safe choice for many, for he was raised in Henry’s court and was grandson of William the Conqueror. His wife Matilda was niece of Queen Edith-Matilda, making his children fit to inherit the kingdom by means of Anglo-Saxon and Norman royal bloodlines. Stephen’s usurpation of the throne was made possible by Matilda’s absence during her father’s death and by the support Stephen had gathered from many of the Anglo-Norman nobility. Yet his grasp of the crown was not made without reaction. Almost immediately, civil war had erupted in Normandy, then in England, after supporters of Matilda, such as her half-brother Robert of Gloucester rose in defiance against Stephen. This subsequent period of civil war later became known as The Anarchy. Lasting until 1154, this period has been marked by disorder, lawlessness, and the dissolution of central authority in England. It was during this period of confusion and a weak crown in which local lords began to expand their power and control. The Anarchy was, in part, both a product and an outcome of vigorous sectionalism, local growth, and the independent situation of the