Two historical chaps
seem to get a lot more praise than I think they deserve. To balance
that, in a small measure, I wrote this about Marcus Aurelius and
Henry II.
Marcus Aurelius was the
last emperor of the Golden Age of Imperial Rome, and was succeeded by
his son (possibly) Commodus. Both men will be relatively well-known
as they feature in the entertaining film Gladiator. Marcus Aurelius
also left a lasting impression on the Romans as a great emperor and a
virtuous man.
However, he is
dramatically overrated. Imperial Rome’s Golden Age happened because
each emperor nominated an adopted, rather than actual, son to succeed
him (or sons, Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius both succeeded
Antoninus Pius). Marcus Aurelius chose otherwise, although there is
doubt over whether Commodus was his son (possible this was fuelled by
the latter’s horrendousness which made others want to disassociate
the pair). Regardless, Marcus Aurelius, lauded as wise, left the
empire in the hands of a murderous, bloodthirsty, incestuous mad
bastard.
This did not have a
positive impact on the Roman Empire.
Under the emperors from
Nerva to Marcus Aurelius, men of high status and talent benefited.
Emperors were unafraid of rivals and could promote the best men to
the highest ranks, and such men were unafraid of tyranny or jealousy,
and could make fortunes and achieve success without fearing their
imminent execution. It was a great virtuous circle.
Commodus rather ruined
this by his bad habit of killing those at the top. This meant that
skilled men were lost and those who might have succeeded to their
posts were reluctant to do so for fear of the same happening to them.
When Commodus was
brought down, Pertinax succeeded him but was almost immediately
murdered for trying to rein in the Praetorian Guard (despite the term
being used today for politically loyal diehards, the Guard probably
killed more emperors than it saved). Didius Julianus won the auction
for the purple, only to be crushed by the ruthless Septimius Severus.
Severus, whilst not
renowned as a bastion of morality, did restore some measure of
stability after winning the civil war. But his eldest son was as bad
as Commodus (Antoninus Caracalla, who discovered that repeatedly
threatening to murder your own bodyguard and then unjustly killing
his brother does not enhance one’s life expectancy). With the sad
exception of Alexander Severus, the Empire underwent great tumult in
the Crisis of the Third Century and never again [in the West] had the
prosperity, stability, and power it had enjoyed in the Golden Age.
In short, Marcus
Aurelius buggered it up by nominating as his successor a lunatic.
Henry II was an
imperious king who ruled over England and substantial territories in
what is today France. He also had the short-termist constitutional
delinquency Blair had in meddling with lopsided devolution (which
went from killing Scottish nationalism stone dead to an independence
referendum in a couple of decades), and was thoroughly inept at
running his own family.
Henry had two problems.
He was a poor father and he had a weird feudal relationship with the
king of France. Henry was king of England, but also held territories
such as Normandy and Aquitaine. Problem was this meant he was, as
lord of some of his territories, a tenant-in-chief who owed fealty to
the king of France (in the same way the Earl of Norfolk owed fealty
to the king of England).
This was a bugger’s
muddle and no mistake, because if France and England went to war
(which did, very occasionally, happen) the king of France could
theoretically call on the king of England to serve him in the war
against the king of England.
At the same time, the
king of England was the full equal of the king of France, as
sovereign of a kingdom.
Henry II fudged this in
a masterstroke of ill-conceived ambiguity of which the EU would be
proud. He swore fealty in vague terms only for the French lands, and
parcelled the continental territories off to his sons (his eldest,
also called Henry, got Normandy, Richard got Aquitaine, Geoffrey got
Brittany, and John got nothing which earnt him the nickname Lackland.
He later was so fearsome in war he got a second nickname: Softsword,
possibly making him the only king in English history to have two
epithets, both of which were mocking).
However, this is where
the first problem, of weak fatherhood, comes in. All his sons were
ambitious and he was neither able/willing to promise them what was
their due, nor was he powerful enough to overwhelm them into
submission. After Young King Henry (his son, who was given the title
but not the authority of a king during the reign of Henry II) died,
Richard, then eldest, wanted to be named heir.
You would’ve thought
an eldest son in a feudal society being named heir would be
straightforward. But Henry II refused. Ultimately, Richard did
inherit (he became the Lionheart) but not before the brothers united
to fight against their father. Philip Augustus, the wily French king,
played this sort of game very well, exploiting familial rivalry to
weaken Henry II and siding with the rebellious sons (this was
repeated when Richard was away on Crusade/captured and John
rebelled).
Henry II died
relatively young, worn out by stress and exhaustion, most of it
brought on himself. Richard inherited anyway, but the prime
beneficiary of Henry’s foolishness was the French king. John later
lost practically all the continental possessions (it turns out the
nobles were unwilling to fight for a king whose prime achievements
were extortion and cruelty).
By different turns,
Marcus Aurelius and Henry II caused serious damage to their realms
through failure of succession. Marcus Aurelius conferred the purple
on a murderous maniac, and Henry II needlessly prevaricated with the
simplest of acknowledgements, causing unnecessary war. Both in their
power could have easily averted these crises, the former by sticking
to the adoptive principle, the latter by taking the obvious step of
naming his eldest son as his heir.
This does, however,
highlight an important point. The family dramas of clashing
personalities which can make a home fraught are not limited to those
of humble station, and, in a time when monarchs exercised true power,
these things could and did cause war within and between nations.
Thaddeus
