Bertrade de MONTFORT

Bertrade married Fulk IV 'the Rude' COUNT OF ANJOU in 1089. Fulk (son of Geoffrey II "Alberic" COUNT OF GATINAIS and Ermengarde DE ANJOU) was born about 1043 in Anjou, Pays-de-la-Loire, France; died on 14 Apr 1109 in Anjou, Pays-de-la-Loire, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Foulques exerted his control over his vassals and was later caught up in dynatic quarrels between the French and English kings. In 2218, his son Georggrey Plantagenet married Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, and became the progenitor of England's branch of the Angevin dynasty. Fulk visited Palestine in 1120 and returned in 1129 to marry Melisend, daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. Fulk became King of Jerusalem on Baldwin II's death in 1131 and spent the first year of his reign settling a dispute in Antioch (Turkey) and putting down a revolt led by his wife's lover, Hugh de Le Puiset. In 1137, he allied himself with the Byzantines against a Turkish leader, 'Imad ad-Din Zangi, of Mosul (Iraq) and in 1140 helped the Muslims of Damascus ward off Zangi's armies. He protected Jerusalem in the south by constructing a series of fortresses, including Krak of Moab.

Source:
Encyclopedia Brittanica online.

Fulke married Ermengard OF MAINE in 1109. Ermengard was born about 1096 in Pays de la Loire, France; and died. [Group Sheet]

Matilda married William Adelin OF ENGLAND. William (son of Henry I 'Beauclerc' KING OF ENGLAND and Matilda OF SCOTLAND) was born on 5 Aug 1103; died on 25 Nov 1120. [Group Sheet]

Geoffrey married Matilda PRINCESS OF ENGLAND on 22 May 1128 in Cathedral of St. Julian of Le Mans, Le Mans, Sarthe, Pays de la Loire, France. Matilda (daughter of Henry I 'Beauclerc' KING OF ENGLAND and Matilda OF SCOTLAND) was born on 7 Feb 1102 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Abbey de Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France; was buried in Sep 1167 in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Henry II. Plantaganet, first Plantaganet King of England (1154-1189), known as Curt Mantel, was born at Le Mans, France, on March 15, 1133. At eighteen in 1151 he was invested with the Duchy of Normandy, his mother's heritage, and within a year became also, by his father's death, Count of Anjou; while in 1152 he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of William X, Duke of Aquitaine (see his ancestral lineage elsewhere in Vol. I.), and divorced wife of King Louis VII. of France, added Poitou and Guienne to his dominions. In January 1153 he landed in England, and in November a treaty was agreed to whereby Henry was declared successor to King Stephen; he was crowned in 1154 and ruled until his death in 1189. He confirmed the laws of his grandfather, King Henry I, reestablished the exchequer, banished the foreign mercenaries, demolished the hundreds of castles erected in Stephen's reign, and recovered the royal estates. The whole of 1156 he spent in France, reducing his brother, Geoffrey of Nantes, who died in 1158, and having secured his territories, he spent the next five years warring and organizing his possessions on the Continent. Henry's objective was that of all Norman kings, to build up the royal power at the expense of the barons and the church. From the barons his reforms met with little serious opposition; with the clergy he was less successful. To aid him in reducing the church to subjection, he appointed his chancellor, Thomas a Becket to the see of Canterbury. Henry compelled him and the other prelates to agree to the 'Constitution of Clarendon', but Bechet proved a sturdy churchman, and the struggle between him and the monarch terminated only by his murder. In 1174 Henry did penance at Bechet's tomb, but he ended by bringing the church to subordination in civil matters. Meanwhile he organized an expedition to Ireland. The English Pope, Adrian IV, had in 1155 given Henry authority over the entire island of Ireland; and a number of Norman-Welsh knights had gained a footing in the country, among them Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, styled Strongbow, who in 1155 married the heiress of Leinster and assumed rule as the Earl of Leinster. Henry was jealous at the rise of a powerful feudal baronage in Ireland, and during his stay there (1171-1172) he broke the power of Richard Strongbow and the other nobles.

Henry was raised in the French province of Anjou and first visited England in 1142 to defend his mother's claim to the disputed throne of Stephen. His continued possessions were already vast before his coronation. He acquired Normandy and Anjou upon the death of his father in September 1151, and his French holdings more than doubled with his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitane (ex-wife of Louis VII of France). In accordance with the Treaty of Wallingford, a sucession agreement signed by Stephen and Matilda in 1151, Henry was crowned in October 1154. The continental empire ruled by Henry and his sons included the French counties of Brittany, Maine, Poitou, Touraine, Gascony, Anjou, Aquitane and Normandy. Henry was technically a feudal vassal of the King of France, but, in reality owned more territory and was more powerful than his French lord. Although King John (Henry's son) lost most of the English holdings in France, English kings laid claim to the French throne until the fifteenth century. Henry also extended his territory in the British Isles in two significant ways. First, he retrieved Cumbria and Northumbria from Malcolm IV of Scotland and settled the Anglo-Scot border in the North. Secondly, although his success with Welsh campaigns was limited. Henry invaded Ireland and secured an English presence on the island. English and Norman barons in Stephen's reign manipulated feudal law to undermine royal authority. Henry instituted many reforms to weaken traditional feudal ties and strengthen his position. Unathorized castles built during the previous reign were razed. Monetary payments replaced military service as the primary duty of vassals. The exchequer was revitalized to enforce accurate record keeping and tax collection. Incompetent sheriffs were replaced and the authority of royal courts was expanded. Henry empowered a new social class of government clerks that stabilized procedure--the government could operate effectively in the king's absence and would subsequently prove sufficiently tenacious to survive the reign of incompetent kings. Henry's reforms allowed the emergence of a body of common law to replace the disparate customs of feudal and county courts. Jury trials were initiated to end the old Germanic trials by ordeal or battle. Henry's systemanic approach to law provided a common basis for development of royal institutions throughout the entire realm. Henry's plans of dividing his myriad lands and titles evoked treachery from his sons. At the encouragement, and sometimes because of the treatment of their mother, they rebelled against their father several times, often with Louis VII of France as their accomplice. The deaths of Henry, the Young King, in 1183 and Georffrey in 1186, gave no respite from his children's rebvellious nature. Richard, with the assistance of Phillip II Augustus of France, attacked and defeated Henry on July 4, 1189 and forced him to accept a humiliating peace. Henry II died two days later, on July 6, 1189.

Henry II's contemporaries were Louis VII (King of France, 1137-1180), Thomas Beckett (Archbishop of Canterbury), Pope Adrian IV, Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor) 1152-1190. Henry II, first of the Angevin kings, was one of the most effective of all England's monarchs. He came to the throne amid the anarch of Stephen's reign and promptly collard his errant barons. He refind Norman government and created a capable, self-standing bureaucracy. His energy was equaled by his ambition and intelligence. He survived wars, rebellion, and controversy to successfully rule one of the Middle Ages' most powerful kingdoms.

Henry married Eleanor OF AQUITAINE on 18 May 1152 in Bordeaux Cathredal, Bordeaux, Gironde, France. Eleanor (daughter of Duke William X Toulousan OF AQUITAINE and Aenor Chatellerault DE ROUCHEFOUCAULD) was born on 6 Dec 1122 in Chateau de Belin, Guinne, France; died on 1 Apr 1204 in Mirabell Castle, Poitiers, France; was buried in Fontevruad Abbey, Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, Maine-et-Loire, Anjou, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

It is through Geoffrey that the Plantaganet line from France was brought into the British royalty (see the lineage of the Counts of Anjou elsewhere). He died in 1151. After Geoffrey's death Matilda lived in Normandy, charitable and respected. Matilda died in 1167. Geoffrey was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry.