Other Events:

• Occupation: Queen of France

Family/Spouse: Foulques DE ANJOU, IV. Foulques (son of Geoffrey DE PERCHE, II and Ermengarde DE ANJOU) was born about 1043 in Anjou, Normandy, France; died on 14 Apr 1109 in Anjou, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Also Known As: The Younger
• Occupation: Count of Anjou, King of Jerusalem
• Cause of Death: Crushed by his falling horse

Notes:

In 1143, while the king and queen were in Acre, Fulk was killed in a hunting accident. His horse stumbled, fell, and Fulk's skull was crushed by the saddle, "and his brains gushed forth from both ears and nostrils", as William of Tyre describes. He was carried back to Acre, where he lay unconscious for three days before he died. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Though their marriage started in conflict, Melisende mourned for him privately as well as publicly. Fulk was survived by his son Geoffrey of Anjou by his first wife, and Baldwin III and Amalric I by Melisende.
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Fulk was "a ruddy man, like David... faithful and gentle, affable and kind... an experienced warrior full of patience and wisdom in military affairs." His chief fault was an inability to remember names and faces.

Fulk married Countess Ermengarde LA FLÈCHE-DE BAUGENCY in 1110. Ermengarde (daughter of Count Elias LA FLÈCHE-DE BAUGENCY, I and Matilda MNU) was born about 1096; died on 12 Oct 1126. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

m1 Alain Fergant

Family/Spouse: Guillaume D’AQUITAINE. Guillaume (son of William D’AQUITAINE, VIII and Hidegarde BOURGOGNE) was born on 22 Oct 1071 in Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France; died on 10 Feb 1127 in Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Also Known As: The Handsome, The Fair
• Noteworthy: Founder of the Plantagenet dynasty
• Occupation: Count of Anjou, Touraine, & Maine, Duke of Normandy
• Cause of Death: Fever

Notes:

Geoffrey was the elder s/o Foulques V d'Anjou and Eremburga de La Flèche, daughter of Elias I of Maine. He was named after his great-grandfather Geoffrey II, Count of Gâtinais.
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By his marriage to the Empress Matilda, daughter and heiress of Henry I of England, Geoffrey had a son, Henry Curtmantle, who succeeded to the English throne as King Henry II (1154-1189) and was the first of the Plantagenet dynasty to rule England; the name "Plantagenet" was taken from Geoffrey's epithet. His ancestral domain of Anjou gave rise to the name Angevin for three kings of England (Henry II his son and heir, and Henry's sons Richard and John), and what became known as the Angevin Empire in the 12th century.
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Geoffrey died suddenly on 7 September 1151. According to John of Marmoutier, Geoffrey was returning from a royal council when he was stricken with fever. He arrived at Château-du-Loir, collapsed on a couch, made bequests of gifts and charities, and died. He was buried at St. Julien's Cathedral in Le Mans France.

Family/Spouse: Holy Roman Empress Matilda Maude MNU. Matilda (daughter of King Henry BEAUCLERC, I and Queen Empress Matilda Edith MNU) was born about 7 Feb 1102; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Rouen, Seine Inferieure, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Occupation: 8th Count of Poitou, 10th Duke of Aquitaine

Family/Spouse: Aénor DE CHÂTELLERAULT. Aénor was born about 1103 in Châtellerault, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France; died in Mar 1130 in Talmont-sur-Gironde, Saintonge, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Also Known As: Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes
• Cause of Death: Bleeding ulcer

Notes:

Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his royal grandfather, Henry I.
Ruled as Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, King of England (1154–89) and Lord of Ireland; at various times, he also controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany.
Henry was the s/o Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois, and was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled.
Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153: Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later.
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Henry was suffering from a bleeding ulcer that would ultimately prove fatal. He made a forced march north to Alençon, from where he could escape into the safety of Normandy. Suddenly, however, Henry turned back south towards Anjou, against the advice of his officials. The weather was extremely hot, the King was increasingly ill and he appears to have wanted to die peacefully in Anjou rather than fight yet another campaign. Henry evaded the enemy forces on his way south and collapsed in his castle at Chinon. Philip and Richard were making good progress, not least because it was now obvious that Henry was dying and that Richard would be the next king, and the pair offered negotiations. They met at Ballan, where Henry, only just able to remain seated on his horse, agreed to a complete surrender: he would do homage to Philip; he would give up Alice to a guardian and she would marry Richard at the end of the coming crusade; he would recognise Richard as his heir; he would pay Philip compensation, and key castles would be given to Philip as a guarantee.
Henry was carried back to Chinon on a litter, where he was informed that John had publicly sided with Richard in the conflict. This desertion proved the final shock and he finally collapsed into a fever, only coming to for a few moments during which he gave confession. Henry died on 6 July 1189, aged 56; the King had wished to be interred at Grandmont Abbey in the Limousin, but the hot weather made transporting his body impractical and he was instead buried at the nearby Fontevraud Abbey.
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Henry was not a popular king and few expressed much grief on news of his death. Writing in the 1190s, William of Newburgh commented that "in his own time he was hated by almost everyone"; he was widely criticized by his own contemporaries, even within his own court. Many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, however, had major long-term consequences. His legal changes are generally considered to have laid the basis for English Common Law, with the Exchequer court a forerunner of the later Common Bench at Westminster. Henry's itinerant justices also influenced his contemporaries' legal reforms: Philip Augustus' creation of itinerant bailli, for example, clearly drew on the Henrician model. Henry's intervention in Brittany, Wales and Scotland also had a significant long-term impact on the development of their societies and governmental systems.

Henry married Queen Eleanor AQUITAINE on 11 May 1152 in Bordeaux, Gironde, Aquitaine, France. Eleanor (daughter of Guillaume D’AQUITAINE and Aénor DE CHÂTELLERAULT) was born before 1122 in Chateau De Belen, Bordeau, Acquitaine, France; died on 31 Mar 1204 in Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Eleanor of Aquitaine (French: Aliénor/Éléonore; 1122 or 1124 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages and a member of the Ramnulfid dynasty of rulers in southwestern France. She inherited the Duchy of Aquitaine from her father, William X, in 1137, and later became queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189).
She was the patron of literary figures such as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn.

Eleanor married King Henry PLANTAGENET, II on 11 May 1152 in Bordeaux, Gironde, Aquitaine, France. Henry (son of Count Geoffrey PLANTAGENET, V and Holy Roman Empress Matilda Maude MNU) was born on 5 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, Maine, Normandy [France]; died on 6 Jul 1189 in Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, Centre, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]