History UsefulNotes / TheHouseOfPlantagenet

His skeleton was found in 2012-2013 under a car park in Leicester. They were verified as his bones by matching mitochrondrial DNA from multiple enatic descendants of his sister, Anne of York. However, his Y-chromosomal DNA was tested against the only surviving agnatic line of his male-line ancestor Edward III - the illegitimate Dukes of Beaufort - and was found not to be a match, indicating at least one episode of false paternity somewhere along the line. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a hunchback but suffered from a severe form of scoliosis which may have made one of his shoulders higher than the other. A [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21328380 facial reconstruction]] using his skull was made possible.

Richard's main achievement in his reign was improving conditions in Northern England, where he was pretty popular, too. In fact, he generally improved conditions for the lower orders and was loved for it by some, while said actions antagonised the nobility. He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last English king to die in battle, and was succeeded by Henry Tudor as Henry VII, who beat him with foreign support (he was a Lancastrian, though several others had better claims). Through marriage, Henry VII united York and Lancaster into UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor. The last Plantagenet claimant to the throne -- Edward, Earl of Warwick and nephew of both Edward IV and Richard III by their brother George, Duke of Clarence -- was executed in 1499.

His skeleton was found in 2012-2013 under a car park in Leicester. They were verified as his bones by matching mitochrondrial DNA from multiple enatic descendants of his sister, Anne of York. However, his Y-chromosomal DNA was tested against the only surviving agnatic line of his male-line ancestor Edward III - the illegitimate Dukes of Beaufort - and was found not to be a match, indicating at least one episode of infidelity somewhere along the line. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a hunchback but suffered from a severe form of scoliosis which may have made one of his shoulders higher than the other. A [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21328380 facial reconstruction]] using his skull was made possible.

His skeleton was found in 2012-2013 under a car park in Leicester. They were verified as his bones by DNA from a descendant of his sister's. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a hunchback but suffered from a severe form of scoliosis which may have made one of his shoulders higher than the other. A [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21328380 facial reconstruction]] using his skull was made possible.

At 6'4", the tallest Monarch in English history. During his first reign, was pretty much a puppet for his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick ("the {{Kingmaker}}"). Warwick resented the growing power Edward's wife and her family had over him, and led an army against him, allowing Henry VI to reclaim the throne in the process. In a repeat of Henry IV, Edward landed on the coast and gathered support for his cause. Warwick and Henry's son were killed in battle, and Henry was quietly disposed of, leaving the cause of Lancaster to be championed by an obscure nobleman with only a tenuous claim to the throne, Henry [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]].

* ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' is also set during the reign of Richard I, albeit in a WorldOfFunnyAnimals [[AnthromorphicAnimalAdaptation version]].

->''What I love about the Plantagenet story is that it's more shocking, more brutal, and more astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction.''

* ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'' is also set during the reign of Richard I, albeit in a WorldOfFunnyAnimals version.

* ''Film/OutlawKing'' follows UsefulNotes/RobertTheBruce during his rise to the throne of Scotland. Edward I Longshanks, being King of England and Hammer of the Scots, is the primary antagonist, with the Prince of Wales Edward II as the DragonAscendant when the old man croaks.

At 6'4", the tallest Monarch in English history. During his first reign, was pretty much a puppet for his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick ("the {{Kingmaker}}"). Warwick resented the growing power Edward's wife and her family had over him, and led an army against him, allowing Henry VI to reclaim the throne in the process. In a repeat of Henry IV, Edward landed on the coast and gathered support for his cause. Warwick and Henry's son were killed in battle, and Henry was quietly disposed of, leaving the cause of Lancaster to be championed by an obscure nobleman with only a tenuous claim to the throne, Henry [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]]. Perhaps England's last true warrior king, and an underrated one at that; Edward IV has the rare distinction of being undefeated in battle. It is telling that once his father, previous champion and claimant to the English throne, had been killed in combat in 1460, he was able to win and take the throne outright within a year; after his death, in 1483, the House of York lost the throne within two years.

At 6'4", the tallest Monarch in English history. During his first reign, was pretty much a puppet for his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick ("the {{Kingmaker}}"). Warwick resented the growing power Edward's wife and her family had over him, and led an army against him, allowing Henry VI to reclaim the throne in the process. In a repeat of Henry IV, Edward landed on the coast and gathered support for his cause. Warwick and Henry's son were killed in battle, and Henry was quietly disposed of, leaving the cause of Lancaster to be championed by an obscure nobleman with only a tenuous claim to the throne, Henry [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]]. Perhaps England's last true warrior king, and an underrated one at that; Edward IV has the rare distinction being undefeated in battle. It is telling that once his father, previous champion and claimant to the English throne, had been killed in battle in 1460, he was able to win and take the throne outright within a year; after his death, in 1483, the House of York lost the throne within two years.

At 6'4", the tallest Monarch in English history. During his first reign, was pretty much a puppet for his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick ("the {{Kingmaker}}"). Warwick resented the growing power Edward's wife and her family had over him, and led an army against him, allowing Henry VI to reclaim the throne in the process. In a repeat of Henry IV, Edward landed on the coast and gathered support for his cause. Warwick and Henry's son were killed in battle, and Henry was quietly disposed of, leaving the cause of Lancaster to be championed by an obscure nobleman with only a tenuous claim to the throne, Henry [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Tudor]].

->'''Nickname''': ''Crookback'' [[note]] due to his arched shoulder[[/note]]

Son of Henry II, appointed '''co-regent''' with his father, following the French tradition — he’s often described as the “junior king”. Because he predeceased his father, is not counted as Henry III, and it's often forgotten that he was ever King at all, inasmuch as, though he reigned, he never ruled, unlike his brother…

A small-scale pogrom kicked off around his coronation and he was forced to order the Jews of England to be left alone. An account of the massacre used the word ''[[OlderThanYouThink holocaustum]]'' to describe it.

->'''Nicknames''': ''Henry Curtmantle'' (French: ''Court-manteau''); ''Henry Plantagenet''; ''Henry [=FitzEmpress=]'' [[note]](inferring that Henry was the illegitimate son of Empress Matilda; other sources/historians however suggest Henry himself later took it as an AppropriatedAppellation in honor of her lifelong efforts to have him crowned)[[/note]]

Had no ''legitimate'' heirs,[[note]]He did have one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. His only known claim to fame is ''allegedly'' getting revenge for Richard's death.[[/note]][[labelnote:further note]]The saddest part about this is that Richard ''was'' married. He spurned Princess Alys for Berengaria of Navarre; it's part of why he fell out with Philip Augustus, Alys' half-sister. They were split up on their return from the Third Crusade. Her trip actually ended up being longer than Richard's, despite his imprisonment and ransom. She wouldn't get back to France until after Richard had died; it's ambiguous whether she ever saw England, but she certainly never made it there while he was alive.[[/labelnote]] so the throne went to his younger brother...

Had no ''legitimate'' heirs,[[note]]He did have one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. His only known claim to fame is ''allegedly'' getting revenge for Richard's death.[[/note]][[labelnote:further note]]The saddest part about this is that Richard ''was'' married. He spurned Princess Alys for Berengaria of Navarre. They were split up on their return from the Third Crusade. Her trip actually ended up being longer than Richard's, despite his imprisonment and ransom. She wouldn't get back to England until after Richard had died, and there's evidence she never did.[[/labelnote]] so the throne went to his younger brother...

Had no ''legitimate'' heirs,[[note]]He did have one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. His only known claim to fame is ''allegedly'' getting revenge for Richard's death.[[/note]] so the throne went to his younger brother...

Had no ''legitimate'' heirs, so the throne went to his younger brother...

** The sequel ''Literature/WorldWithoutEnd'' jumps ahead two centuries, beginning with the death of Edward II and covering the lengths his wife goes to cover up her involvement.
* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' is a FantasyCounterpartCulture inspired by medieval England. The Targaryen family is based on the Plantagenets (with a few Capetian-Valois thrown in). The "devil's brood" becoming "The Blood of the Dragon" (with literal dragons under their command). Several [[PosthumousCharacter posthumous characters]] are based on them: Jaehaerys I (Henry II), Daeron the Young Dragon (Richard I and Henry V), Prince Rhaegar (Edward the Black Prince) and Queen Rhaenyra (Empress Matilda). The Baratheon family, descendants of Targaryens via a recent marriage are based on the Yorkist-Plantagenets -- King Robert (Edward IV), Renly (George Clarence) and Stannis (Richard III).
* The novel ''The Lady Royal'' by Molly Costain Haycraft is a fictionalized history of the family of Edward III, with the title character being his eldest daughter Isabel. The life of the princess is framed chiefly as a medieval romance, with many historical details being exaggerated or even invented for the story. (The title "Lady Royal," which Isabel's parents give her as a sort of promotion from "Princess Royal," is entirely fictitious; "Princess Royal" was not a title given to the King's eldest daughter until the reign of Charles I, and "Lady Royal" has never been a title at all.)
* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book Megamorphs #3, the first thing Visser Four does when he gets control of the Time Matrix is attempt to assassinate Henry V at Agincourt. (Tobias catching the arrow he fires at Henry alerts him to the fact that the 'Andalite bandits' are hunting him.) The Animorphs are confused as to ''why'' he would do this, until Visser Four's host, John Berryman, explains: he's an actor, and would quote Shakespeare's ''Henry V'' at Four as an act of rebellion, and since it would be too hard to pinpoint a time and place to kill Shakespeare, Four elected to kill Henry V instead so Shakespeare wouldn't write ''Henry V'' and John would shut up.

His skeleton was found in 2012-2013 under a car park in Leicester. They were verified as his bones by DNA from a descendant of his sisters. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a hunchback but suffered from a severe form of scoliosis which may have made one of his shoulders higher than the other. A [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21328380 facial reconstruction]] using his skull was made possible.

Highly unpopular, he was murdered, supposedly by having a red-hot poker applied as an enema, though most historians think it was the less dramatic method of [[VorpalPillow smothering with a pillow]]. Point being that, with English monarchs having assumed divine right, regicide was both high treason and a crime against God; to pull it off you needed a ''damn'' good reason, an impregnable position, or to make it look like natural causes. Now, most of the poisons of the day could leave certain external signs that even the crude physicians of the day might recognise. As did smothering. But with dissection and autopsy forbidden by religious decree, Edward's alleged cauterised bowel would have left no external signs other than a sudden attack of terminal peritonitis. Well, that's what his wife Isabelle (the "She-Wolf of France") and her lover hoped, as they planned to [[EvilMatriarch rule though her fourteen-year-old son]]...

Richard's main achievement in his reign was improving conditions in Northern England, where he was pretty popular, too. In fact, he generally improved conditions for the lower orders and was loved for it by some, while said actions antagonised the nobility. He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last English king to die in battle, and was succeeded by Henry Tudor as Henry VII, who beat him with foreign support (he was a Lancastrian, though several others had better claims). Through marriage, Henry VII united York and Lancaster into UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor. The last Plantagenet claimant to the throne -- and the last legitimate male-line descendant of Henry II, son of Empress Matilda -- was executed in 1499.

Richard's main achievement in his reign was improving conditions in Northern England, where he was pretty popular, too. In fact, he generally improved conditions for the lower orders and was loved for it by some, while said actions antagonised the nobility. He was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last English king to die in battle, and was succeeded by Henry Tudor as Henry VII, who beat him with foreign support (he was a Lancastrian, though several others had better claims). Through marriage, Henry VII united York and Lancaster into UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor. The last Plantagenet claimant to the throne was executed in 1499.

->'''Consort''': n/a (13 when he died)

Had the job two months, but was never crowned. His uncle had him imprisoned and had Edward IV's marriage invalidated, making him illegitimate and disqualified for the throne. Disappeared from the Tower of London, along with his younger brother. May or may not have been murdered by his own uncle, later Richard III.

Stabilized England after the chaos of the Civil War between his mother Matilda and her cousin King Stephen (Matilda was the designated heir but, you know, she was a chick, plus married to Anjou, whose house was the traditional enemy of the House of Normandy, leading to the Civil War for all but 5 years of Stephen's disputed reign). Thanks to a combination of inheritance, marriage, conquest and treaties, ruled what would be later called the Angevin Empire (named for Anjou in western France), which comprised England, parts of Wales and Ireland, and the western half of modern France, stretching in all from the Scottish Border to the Pyrenees. It was less of a unified empire, and more of a collection of territories which happened to have the same overlord (though he still paid homage to the King of France for the French territories, it was pretty much lip service), but still damn impressive.

Part of the broader House of Anjou (hence the term "Angevin"), which was noted for having its members turn up just about everywhere you look in medieval European history, much like the Habsburgs would later on (though the Angevins didn't quite reach the same scale). They also got the nickname "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Devil's Brood]]" from an old legend that they were descended from a union between some past Count of Anjou and the daughter of {{Satan}} himself, which offered as good an explanation as any for the family's leanings toward violence and infighting. (Interestingly, the Plantagenets themselves did little to discourage the legend.) The etymology of "Plantagenet" remains unclear; one of many popular theories suggests the blossom of common broom, a bright yellow ("gold") flowering plant, ''genista'' in medieval Latin, as the source of the nickname. [[note]]The Chinese decided to go with this story; "Plantagenet" is translated as "Jin que hua" ("金雀花"; "common broom") in Chinese.[[/note]]

Part of the broader House of Anjou (hence the term "Angevin"), which was noted for having its members turn up just about everywhere you look in medieval European history, much like the Habsburgs would later on (though the Angevins didn't quite reach the same scale). They also got the nickname "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Devil's Brood]]" from an old legend that they were descended from a union between some past Count of Anjou and the daughter of {{Satan}} himself, which offered as good an explanation as any for the family's leanings toward violence and infighting. (Interestingly, the Plantagenets themselves did little to discourage the legend.)

Pretty much controlled by everyone around him, including his wife. His regents handled the emergence of UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc and the concept of France as a unified nation pretty badly, and the previous King of France's son was restored to the throne in 1431. Though saintly in character (indeed, in the early 16th century he was England's foremost folk saint), generally considered weak-willed, and mentally ill in his later years.

After the Hundred Years war ended in 1453 with England only holding Calais, the nobles descended from the second and fourth sons of Edward III, who had been given land in and title of York, started the rebellion known as the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses. They seized the throne in 1461. Henry got it back in 1470, but not for long, and according to legend had his skull smashed in while in prison, returning the throne to...