house of Plantagenet

house of Plantagenet, royal house of England, which reigned from 1154 to 1485 and provided 14 kings, 6 of whom belonged to the cadet houses of Lancaster and York. The royal line descended from the union between Geoffrey, count of Anjou (died 1151), and the empress Matilda, daughter of the English king Henry I.

Although well established, the surname Plantagenet has little historical justification. It seems to have originated as a nickname for Count Geoffrey and has been variously explained as referring to his practice of wearing a sprig of broom (Latin genista) in his hat or, more probably, to his habit of planting brooms to improve his hunting covers. It was not, however, a hereditary surname, and Geoffrey’s descendants in England remained without one for more than 250 years, although surnames became universal outside the royal family.

Some historians apply the name house of Anjou, or Angevin dynasty, to Henry II (who was also count of Anjou) and his 13 successors; other historians label only Henry II and his sons, Richard I and John, as the Angevin kings and, for want of a better name, label their successors, notably Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III, as Plantagenets. The first official use of the surname Plantagenet by any descendant of Count Geoffrey occurred in 1460, when Richard, duke of York, claimed the throne as “Richard Plantaginet.”

Edward III’s numerous children and their marriages greatly affected English history. Edward’s heir, the “Black Prince,” left an only son, who succeeded his grandfather as Richard II, on whose death (1399) this line became extinct. Lionel, the next surviving son of Edward III, left an only child, Philippa, who married the earl of March, in whose heirs was the right to the succession. But John of Gaunt, the next son, who had married the heiress of Lancaster and had been created duke of Lancaster in consequence, refounded the Lancastrian line, which obtained the throne in the person of his only son by her, Henry IV, on the deposition of Richard II. The next son of Edward III, Edmund of Langley, who was created duke of York (1385), founded the Yorkist line, and was father of two sons, Edward, second duke, who was slain at Agincourt, and Richard, earl of Cambridge, who by marrying the granddaughter and eventual heiress of Lionel’s daughter, Philippa, brought the right to the succession into the house of York.

Between their son and Henry VI (grandson of Henry IV) and the sons and heirs of these rivals was fought out the dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses, which proved fatal to several members of both houses. It did not end until the last Yorkist king, Richard III, was defeated at Bosworth Field in 1485 by Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII and founder of the house of Tudor.

The legitimate male issue of the Plantagenet line became extinct with the execution in 1499 of Edward, earl of Warwick, grandson of Richard, duke of York.