By the will of Henry I. his daughter Maud or Matilda, wife of Geoffrey Plan tagenet, Count of Anjou, who had first been married to Henry V., Emperor of Germany, was declared his successor. But Stephen, son of the Count of Blois, and of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, raised an army in Normandy, landed in England, and declared himself king. After years of civil war and blood shed it was agreed that Stephen should continue to reign during the remainder of his life, but that he should be suc ceeded by Henry, son of Matilda and the Count of Anjou. Stephen died in 1154, and Henry Plantagenet ascended the throne with the title of Henry II., being the first of the Plantagenet or Angevin kings. A larger dominion was united under his sway than had been held by any previous sovereign of England, for at the time when he became King of England he was already in the posses sion of Anjou, Normandy, and Aquitaine.
Henry II. found far less difficulty in restraining the license of his barons than in abridging the exorbitant privileges of the clergy, who were supported by the primate Becket. The king's wishes were formulated in the Constitutions of Clar endon (1164), which were at first ac cepted and then repudiated by the pri mate. The assassination of Becket, how ever, placed the king at a disadvantage in the struggle, and after his conquest of Ireland (1171) he submitted to the Church and did penance at Becket's tomb. Henry was the first who placed the common people of England in a situa tion which led to their having a share in the government. The system of frank pledge was revived, trial by jury was instituted by the Assize of Clarendon, and the Eyre courts were made perma nent by the Assize of Nottingham. To curb the power of the nobles he granted charters to towns, thus laying the foun dation of a new order in society.
Richard I., called Cceur de Lion, who in 1189 succeeded his father, Henry II., spent most of his reign away from Eng land. Having gone to Palestine to join in the third crusade he proved himself an intrepid soldier. Returning homeward in disguise through Germany, he was made prisoner by Leopold, Duke of Austria, but was ransomed by his subjects. In the meantime John, his brother, had aspired to the crown, and hoped, by the assistance of the French, to exclude Richard from his right. Richard's presence for a time restored matters to some appearance of order; but having undertaken an ex pedition against France, he received a mortal wound at the siege of Chalons, in 1199.
John was at once recognized as King of England, and secured possession of Normandy; but Anjou, Maine, and Tou raine acknowledged the claim of Arthur, son of Geoffrey, second son of Henry II. On the death of Arthur, while in John's power, these four French provinces were at once lost to England. John's opposi tion to the Pope in electing a successor to the see of Canterbury in 1205 led to the kingdom being placed under an inter dict; and the nation being in a disturbed condition, he was at last compelled to re ceive Stephen Langton as archbishop, and to accept his kingdom as a fief of the papacy (1213). His exactions and misgovernment had equally embroiled him with the nobles. In 1213 they re fused to follow him to France, and on his return defeated, they at once took measures to secure their own privileges and abridge the prerogatives of the crown. King and barons met at Runny mede, and on June 15, 1215, the Great Charter (Magna Charta) was signed. It was speedily declared null and void by the Pope, and war broke out between John and the barons, who were aided by the French king. In 1216, however, John died, and his turbulent reign was suc ceeded by the almost equally turbulent reign of Henry III.
During the first years of the reign of Henry III. the abilities of the Earl of Pembroke, who was regent until 1219, kept the kingdom in tranquillity; but when, in 1227, Henry assumed the reins of government he showed himself in capable of managing them. The Charter was three times reissued in a modified form, and new privileges were added to it, but the king took no pains to observe its provisions. The struggle, long main tained in the great council (hencefor ward called Parliament), reached an acute stage in 1263, when civil war broke out. Simon de Montfort, who had laid the foundations of the House of Com mons by summoning representatives of the shire communities to the Mad Parlia ment of 1258, had by this time engrossed the sole power. He defeated the king and his son Edward at Lewes in 1264, and in his famous Parliament of 1265 still further widened the privileges of the people by summoning to it burgesses as well as knights of the shire. The escape of Prince Edward, however, was followed by the battle of Evesham (1265), at which Earl Simon was defeated and slain, and the rest of the reign was un disturbed.