Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany

Geoffrey II
Duke of Brittany
Reign July 1181 – 19 August 1186
Predecessor Conan IV
Successor Constance
Spouse Constance, Duchess of Brittany
Issue
Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany
Maud/Matilda
Arthur I
House House of Plantagenet
Father Henry II
Mother Eleanor of Aquitaine
Born 23 September 1158(1158-09-23)
Died 19 August 1186(1186-08-19) (aged 27)
Paris, France
Burial Notre Dame de Paris
Religion Roman Catholicism

Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond (23 September 1158 – 19 August 1186) was Duke of Brittany between 1181 and 1186, through his marriage with the heiress Constance. Geoffrey was the fourth son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine.[1]

Contents

Family

He was a younger maternal half-brother of Marie de Champagne and Alix of France. He was a younger brother of William IX, Count of Poitiers, Henry the Young King, Matilda, Duchess of Saxony and Richard I of England. He was also an older brother of Queen Eleanor of Castile, Queen Joan of Sicily and John of England. He was also the half-brother of his father's illegitimate sons Geoffrey, archbishop of York, William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury and Morgan, provost of Beverley.

King Henry arranged for Geoffrey to marry Constance, the heiress of Brittany. Geoffrey was invested with the duchy, and he and Constance were married in July 1181.[2] Geoffrey and Constance would have three children, one born after Geoffrey's death:

  1. Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (1184–1241)
  2. Maud/Matilda of Brittany (1185 – before May 1189)
  3. Arthur I, Duke of Brittany (1187–1203)

Life

Geoffrey was fifteen years old when he joined the first revolt against his father, and was later reconciled to Henry in 1174, when he participated in the truce at Gisors (when Richard was absent) and later, when Richard reconciled at a place between Tours and Amboise. Geoffrey prominently figured in the second revolt of 1183, fighting against Richard, on behalf of Henry the Young King.

Geoffrey was a good friend of Philip II of France, and the two statesmen were frequently in alliance against King Henry. Geoffrey spent much time at Philip's court in Paris, and Philip made him his seneschal. There is evidence to suggest that Geoffrey was planning another rebellion with Philip's help during his final period in Paris in the summer of 1186. As a participant in so many rebellions against his father, Geoffrey acquired a reputation for treachery. Gerald of Wales said the following of him: He has more aloes than honey in him; his tongue is smoother than oil; his sweet and persuasive eloquence has enabled him to dissolve the firmest alliances and his powers of language to throw two kingdoms into confusion.

Geoffrey also was known to attack monasteries and churches in order to raise funds for his campaigns. This lack of reverence for religion earned him the displeasure of the Church and also of the majority of chroniclers who were to write the definitive accounts of his life.

Death

Geoffrey died on 19 August 1186, at the age of twenty-seven, in Paris. There is also evidence that supports a death date of 21 August 1186.[3] There are two alternative accounts of his death. The more common first version holds that he was trampled to death in a jousting tournament. At his funeral, a grief-stricken Philip was said to have attempted jumping into the coffin. Roger of Hoveden's chronicle[4] is the source of this version; the detail of Philip's hysterical grief is from Gerald of Wales.

In the second version, in the chronicle of the French Royal clerk Rigord, Geoffrey died of sudden acute chest pain, which reportedly struck immediately after his speech to Philip, boasting his intention to lay Normandy to waste. Possibly, this version was an invention of its chronicler; sudden illness being God's judgement of an ungrateful son plotting rebellion against his father, and for his irreligiosity. Alternatively, the tournament story may be an invention of Philip's to prevent Henry II's discovery of a plot; inventing a social reason, a tournament, for Geoffrey's being in Paris, Philip obscured their meeting's true purpose.

Marie of Champagne, with whom Geoffrey had gotten on well, was present at the requiem for her half-brother and established a mass for the repose of his soul.[5]

Geoffrey was buried at Notre Dame de Paris Cathedrale, but his tombstone was destroyed in the 18th century before the French revolution.[6]

Fictional portrayals

With a character closely resembling that given by Gerald of Wales above, Geoffrey appears as a major character in the James Goldman play The Lion in Winter. In the 1968 film version of the play, Geoffrey was played by John Castle and in the 2003 TV film version by John Light. He was also portrayed by Austin Somervell (as a teenager) and Martin Neil (as an adult) in the BBC TV series The Devil's Crown (1978), which dramatised the reigns of his father and brothers.

He appears as an ally of his brother Richard the Lionheart in the game Empires: Dawn of the Modern World. he also appeared in robin hood starring Russell Crowe

Ancestry

See also

References

  1. ^ Britannica Online
  2. ^ Warren, Wilfred Lewis, King John, (University of California Press, 1973), 574.
  3. ^ Marie-Aline de Mascureau, Chronologie, published originally in Aliénor d’Aquitaine. Revue 303, hors-série no 81, p. 218-223, Nantes 2004, in Edmond-René Labande, Pour une image véridique d’Aliénor d’Aquitaine, edited with a preface by Martin Aurell of la Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest-Geste edition of 2005. ISBN 2-84561-224-9, p. 142
  4. ^ Hoveden on The 1183 Revolt
  5. ^ Kelly, Amy (1950). Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. p. 226. 
  6. ^ Destroyed tombs at Notre-Dame de Paris

Sources

External links

Preceded by
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1181–1186		 Succeeded by
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