Royal Control During the Reign of King Henry II, Research Paper Example

Strictly speaking, in the medieval times the concept of statehood was viewed with strong suspicion giving the fact that tensions were unusually high because of the conflicting competition for supremacy between the Church on the one hand and the monarchy on the other hand. A trend that persisted up to the time King Henry the second ascended the throne of England. His enthronement was met with the challenge of finding a workable approach to addressing this problem, bearing in mind that the fate of his reign depended largely on his ability to deal this with this challenge appropriately or not.

Therefore this essay contends that unlike any other king in the history of England, King Henry II did carry out an expansionist policy that was built on an inherent desire to proliferate secularism in the legal system of his kingdom as part of a strategic goal of cowing the church hierarchy to his submission.

Medieval England existed during a rather precarious period in the annals of humanity defined by an insatiable desire for conquest. Achieving this meant the resort to violence as the most viable method of implementing territorial expansionist policies. It is in the light of this that King Henry II was quick to ensure the ability of the monarchy to be the sole custodian of the legitimate apparatus of violence as part of national policy. The reason was simply because, King Henry II understood the times he lived in so much that he could take no chances. A rule based system of violence and subjugation was the order of the day. King Henry II came consolidated his rule over England by creating a relationship between he and his subjects based on standard law, for which he believed that the Church had to submit to.

The England of King Henry II as in the wish of the King had to be governed by secular laws with the law of the Church playing a subordinating role to the ultimate laws of the land. It is this move that is considered as the first step towards undermining the supremacy of the Church as an authority in his bid to consolidate his firm grips on the kingdom under his reign. In other words, the clergy folks and the lay all had to be governed by the universal law of the land with specific exceptions of privileges given to the clergy to be selective in their compliance to especially the secular laws that specifically contravened the canon law of the Church. In the one sense King Henry did not want to be seen to be sending very threatening signals at a premature stage of his reign. To some extent it can be said to be an attempt to alley the fears of the faithful.

Conflicting messages seems to be sent by King Henry II with regards to his relationship with the church, citing for instance the announcement of the sixteen constitutions at Clarendon Palace on January 1164 aimed cardinally at limiting ecclesiastical dogmatic dictatorship from the Vatican. The Church did indeed protest against the creeping maneuvering of King Henry II, but could not stop him from seeking to consolidate his power in England.

Works Cited

Jackson J.Spielvogel. Western civilization, volume 2. Wadsworth Publishing: 2006