Plantagenet

Plantagenet, the surname of an Angevin family which in 1154 succeeded in the person of Henry II. to the throne of England on the extinction of the Norman dynasty in the male line, and reigned till 1485, when the battle of Bosworth gave the crown to the family of Tudor. The name was first adopted by Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, husband of Matilda, the daughter of Henry I., from the badge of a sprig of broom (planta genista) which he wore in his bonnet; and Henry I. is the only king to whom Mr Freeman would allow the name. The Plantagenet kings were Henry II., Richard I., John, Henry III., Edward I.-III., Richard II., Henry IV.-VI., Edward IV.-V., and Richard III. See the separate articles on these names; also, for the great struggle between its two rival branches, the article ROSES (WARS OF THE). Miss Norgate's England under the Angevin Kings (2 vols. 1887) is an altogether admirable history of the Plantagenet period as far as the reign of John.