Jean Flori says Henry II was a paedophile: is he justified?
A few days ago I took his Richard the Lionheart: King and Knight out of my university library. I confess so far I have only been able to skim it, but my attention was caught by his unqualified characterisation of Henry as a “paedophile” on the basis of his alleged relationship with Alys of France.
Flori says:
- p 44: that in 1177 “Alice had now been in Henry’s custody for seven years and the expected marriage had not been celebrated; the situation was beginning to look suspicious and it was being said that Henry had made the little girl his concubine.”
- p 58: “Henry II, who had probably made Alice his concubine while she was still a child…”
- p 380-1: “In Alice’s case there were rumours at a very early stage of guilty relations with Henry II. Many chroniclers refer to them. In the thirteenth century, the Minstrel of Rheims was familiar with the main lines of the story, though he confused Richard with his brother and saw the ‘misdeed’ of Alice and the ‘faithless’ Henry II (who debauched the little girl when his son was in Scotland) as the cause of the Young King’s death:
‘But during this period, the faithless King Henry took such advantage of the little girl that he knew her carnally. But when Henry Curtmantle had returned and learned the truth of this, he was so angry that he took to his deathbed, and he died of it. And the little girl was sent back again tot his side of the sea, and she landed in the country of Ponthieu, where she stayed for a long time; because she dared not show herself to her brother, King Philip, because of her misdeed.’
According to Gerald of Wales, Henry II seduced the daughter of his suzerain, still a little girl, when she was in his care and this misconduct contributed to the hatred between him, Eleanor and his sons … We cannot take on trust everything recounted by this scandalmonger with a predilection for ‘spicy’ stories, with which he liked to illustrate his moralising assertions. But other chroniclers, without being so specific, also refer to Henry’s behaviour with the child in a way which effectively presents him as a paedophile. Richard of Devizes simply alludes in veiled terms to the ‘suspect custody’ provided by the king, but the usually well-informed Roger of Howden is very specific about how Richard, at Messina, finally gave Philip Augustus is reasons for not marrying his sister:
‘The king of England said that it was quite impossible for him to marry his sister because his father, the king of England, had slept with her and had a son by her,; sand he brought forward numerous witnesses who were ready to prove it in many ways.’”
OK, let’s unpick these statements.
1. As far as I know - and Flori shows - it was only in 1177 that concerns started to be voiced about Alice. By then she was 16, and of course in 12th-century terms had been marriageable for four years (which was precisely why Philip and his council were concerned that she hadn’t been married years ago). Even by 21st-century standards she would have reached the age of consent in nearly all of Europe and most of North America. I don’t think any reasonable person would call it ‘paedophilia’ for an older man to desire a nubile 15-or-16-year-old*, however wrong it would be for him to act on that desire, especially if he were her guardian.
2. I have access to a copy of the 1990 Robert Levine translation of the Minstrel of Rheims, which includes this snippet of the original Old French:
‘…et vinrent à Londres, et trouverent le roi Henri qui merveilles fist grant fest de la venue à la pucele. Mais Henriiz ses fiuz au Court Mantel, n’estoit mie adonc en Engleterre; ains estoit en Escoe où il avoit grant besoigne à faire. En ces entrevaus li desloiaus rois Henriz ala tant entour la damoisele que il jut charneument à li….’
Now, the words ‘pucele’ and ‘damoisele’ could of course be applied to a pre-pubertal princes; but in themselves they carry no such connotation, and Flori’s translating of ‘damoisele’ as ‘little girl’ is just dishonest*. The more so as the Minstrel also says that the Young King had heard of the beauty and refinement of Philip’s sister and asked Henry to ask Philip for her hand on his behalf, which certainly implies a grown-up maiden and not a child. There is no way the Minstrel’s story can be read as a folk-memory of Henry’s having seduced Alys in her childhood.
3. On Flori’s own showing, Richard of Devizes and Roger of Howden have nothing to say about at what age Henry seduced Alys; only that he did.
4. I don’t have access to Gerald of Wales’s De Principiis Instructione (the reference Flori gives is III, 2, p 252): if anyone here has, can they report exactly what he says? Does he really describe Alys as a “little girl” when Henry first hit on her, or say this began before 1177?
Unless the answer to no 4 is yes, I don’t think Flori has a leg to stand on. Even if we take all the chroniclers’ allegations about Alys being Henry’s mistress as documented fact - which he himself admits we can’t - they still don’t show or even imply that this relationship began before Alys was a physical and (at least in 12th-century terms) legal adult.
I must say that in this book Flori seems to be unhealthily keen to find paedophilia. In a footnote to his discussion of homosexuality in chivalric society he writes (p 395):
‘It is in my view quite mistaken to deduce from the story of the games King Stephen, who held him prisoner, played with William [Marshal], then still a little boy, that ‘tender relations’ existed between them, and ask: “Should we exclude from the attitudes natural to these warriors love for little boys?” Of course we should not exclude them, but no more should we deduce them from accounts which in no way suggest them.’
Indeed we shouldn’t. But is anybody except Flori himself raising the possibility in the first place? It would never occur to me to draw any other inference from the story of King Stephen sparing young William’s life and then joining in his games, than that Stephen was a kindly type with a soft spot for kids. Are there really any historians who suggest that Stephen had ‘tender relations’ (what a creepily icky phrase!**) with William? Or is this purely Flori’s own idea?
What makes me think it might be, is the bizarre suggestion he makes (p 116) that Humphrey of Toron and the eleven-year-old Isabella of Jerusalem “may have married for love”. There no conceivable reason to think this - no chronicler suggests anything of the kind, and of course the feelings of underage princesses and teenage heirs to important fiefs weren’t consulted when arranging their marriages. Just how creepy is it to invent the idea of an eleven-year-old girl “marrying for love”?
* I’m aware of course that there are lots of people around, including some historians, who would. But I hold that being attracted to a physically mature young person isn’t paedophilic.
** Obviously I realise that this is a translation, and if anyone has the original French edition I’d be glad to know what word he does use here, and whether the translation conveys the same sense as the original French.