Geoffrey V of Anjou was born on August 24th, 1113. He was the eldest son of Foulques V d’Anjou and Eremburga de La Flèche, daughter of Elias I, Count of Maine. Geoffrey was the heir to several important titles and properties that took up a good chunk of southern France. And it did not hurt that he grew into a good-looking, strapping young lad as well. He was often called Geoffrey le Bel for his good looks, or Geoffrey Plantagenet, for the yellow sprig of broom blossom (genêt) that he habitually wore in his hats.
Thanks to some good publicity, King Henry I of England heard enough good things about Geoffrey to decide he was worthy of marrying the king’s only surviving legitimate child, dowager Empress Matilda, the widow of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. Matilda was less than thrilled to be marrying a teenager who eleven years younger than herself.They married in 1128. Matilda was 26, Geoffrey was 15. The marriage was unhappy – Matilda left him shortly after the marriage for England and had to be persuaded to return – but it produced three healthy boys which was frankly the whole point, to old King Henry I. Their eldest son, named Henry after his grandfather, would become Henry II of England through his mother as well as Count of Anjou through his father.
There was a nasty little civil war first, nicknamed “The Anarchy,” because English nobility really did not want a woman running England. Matilda had to fight her first cousin, Stephen, who was less directly in the line of succession but was born with that all-important Y chromosome. The Anarchy was ended when all parties agreed that Stephen could be king in his lifetime, but he would leave the kingdom to Matilda’s sons. So in the end Geoffrey V was the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty and the Angevin dynasty, which would rule over the united kingdom of England and more than half of France, through the 1200s. It was so large that it got upgraded to Empire status! The Angevin Empire, after their original title as overlords of Anjou.
There’s lots of things that resulted from this one marriage between Matilda and Geoffrey. The War of the Roses, the 100 Years’ War, the Magna Carta…. and all because a blue-blooded 26-year-old was forced to marry another blue-blood who just happened to be 15-years-old.
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