Plantagenet

The Plantagenets came from the French county of Anjou, named from Count Geoffrey V, who wore a yellow broom sprig, planta genista, in his hat, nicknamed Plantagenet. Geoffrey married Henry I's heiress, Empress Matilda, in 1128, conquered Normandy in 1144, and their son Henry inherited the English crown in 1154 as Henry II.

Henry and his sons Richard I and John, often called the Angevins, ruled from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees, but John lost Normandy and Anjou and had to accept Magna Carta in 1215. Edward I conquered Wales in 1283. Under Edward III, who ruled in 1337, Middle English became the language of government and his French claim opened the Hundred Years' War.

After Richard II's 1399 deposition, the crown passed between Lancaster and York, their rivalry the Wars of the Roses. Richard III died at Bosworth Field in 1485, ending the dynasty; victor Henry VII married Elizabeth of York and founded the Tudor line, every later English monarch carrying Plantagenet blood.