Henry II, his wife Eleanor and their children Richard and John were the most astonishing of all the family firms to have run the enterprise of Britain. They did so with a furious energy that either entranced or appalled their subjects. And like many family firms, they had a capacity for both creation and self-destruction. What their intelligence built, their passions destroyed. They were called the Angevins, named after the French-speaking province of Anjou. At the height of their power, they were the masters of everything that counted in Christendom. Their England was the linchpin of an empire that stretched from the Scottish borders to the Pyrenees. Much bigger than France itself. Not since the Romans, and never again, has England been quite so European.


亨利二世与妻子埃莉诺 儿子理查和约翰，在所有统治英国的王族中，若论惊世骇俗，无出其右，臣民对他们那种疯狂的劲头，态度截然相反，崇敬有之，畏惧亦有之。与很多王族相同的是，他们既能建功立业，也能自我毁灭。卓绝的成就，终究毁于狂热的激情，人们称其为安茹王朝。此名取自法语区的安茹，在其权力巅峰时期，他们统治了所有基督教国家。庞大的帝国以英格兰为根基，英格兰，诺曼底，布列塔尼，安茹，阿基坦，从苏格兰边境延伸到庇里牛斯山，比法国本土面积大很多。自罗马时代后，英格兰再也没有与欧洲大陆有过如此亲密接触。