I remember this fact(?) from my reading about four decades ago but haven’t been able to find reference to it after some extensive googling and dogpiling:
When King John reneged on his promise to honor the Magna Carta (1215), the English barons were so disgusted that they invited King Philip II Augustus of France to send his son Louis (later Louis VIII of France) with an army to become King of England. Philip obliged, of course, and the French invasion, supported by a substantial portion of the English nobility, was quite successful at first. Within a few months of the invasion in 1216, the French and their English allies held most of southeastern England, including the city of London.
After John’s death in 1216, however, the English had a change of heart and, under the leadership of William the Marshall, rallied around John’s young son, Henry. They forced the French army to retreat and Henry was crowned as King Henry III in 1217.
So far so good: my memory and the various online encyclopedia agree so far. However, I remember clearly that Louis was given a formal coronation at Westminster Cathedral on Christmas Day, 1216 and thus became Louis le Premier, King of England. The summaries I’ve seen online leave that fact out, if in fact it is true.
Does anyone have a link to source that mentions this?
Apparently it is not. My paper sources don’t mention it and this source says:
Louis landed in England in the Isle of Thanet on 21 May 1216 and claimed the English throne by the hereditary right of his wife, Blanche of Castile, who was King John’s niece, and his own right by the choice of the barons. He reached London on 2 Jun 1216, and at once received the homage of the barons and of the mayor. Although Westminster Abbey was in Louis’s power, he was never crowned because the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, who should have officiated, was abroad at the papal court, and there was not a single bishop available to perform anointing.
Thanks, Tamerlane, for your quick and on-point response.
The reason I remember this so vividly is that the author pointed out the significance of the date: exactly 150 years to the day after the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066. And this was indeed a work of NON-fiction… :dubious:
I’m going to spend some time in real-world libraries, hunt down this book I read back in the 60’s and see if he listed a bibliography of primary sources. Is it possible that there is a debate here, on nationalistic grounds? French sources say yes and British sources say no?
As you can tell, this is bugging me and I intend to get to the bottom of it.
