Philip Augustus: the Plantagenets’ greatest rival
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Why is Philip Augustus considered the Plantagenets’ greatest enemy?
King Philip of Augustus was the Plantagenet's ultimate enemy. A ruler with an iron fist and sharp political instincts, he consistently exploited the squabbles of the English dynasty, all while transforming France into a dominant power in Western Europe. Speaking to Emily Briffitt for this episode of the History Extra podcast, historian and author Catherine Hanley reveals the cunning yet ruthless tactics he employed against the English kings to become medieval England's most formidable foe.
Today we are going to be talking all about your book Nemesis. Now, your title Nemesis immediately casts Philip Augustus as the plantagenist's greatest enemy. So I wanted to ask you, as the first question in this episode, what makes him such a shadowy figure in the English version of the history? When we look at English history
from an English point of view, we tend to concentrate very much on Henry II, Henry II's sons, their disputes with each other, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and so on. And Philip just sort of pops up every so often as an antagonist at various points and does something and then sort of disappears again until the next bit in the story. And if you look really carefully, it's actually Philip causing. Quite a lot of it. You know, use whatever metaphor you like. He's poking the hornet's nest. He knows exactly where to stick the needle in. But he actually caused and certainly exacerbated a lot of this enmity within the Plantagenet family. And I just wanted to explore that from his point of view. So we do get a new and different.
Portrait of Philip, I hope, but we also get a slightly different way of looking at Henry the
Second and his boys. He seems the disruptor in this story. Now, Kath, I get the impression that you think Philip is more interesting than perhaps the Plantagenets in this story. Is that correct?
Well, yes, I mean one has to admit one's own bias. I do think he's more interesting, but it's also that he's understudied. I mean, he's not particularly, you know, an admirable person, but he's almost certainly the cleverest person ever. to have sat on a European throne, and the way in which he used his intelligence and his skills, starting off from a very disadvantageous position, to make France the powerhouse of Western Europe.
How can you not want to study that? It's an incredible story and one that sounds completely transformative in terms of Capetian France. So we should go back to those early beginnings and talk about Philip before he came to the throne.
Yeah, so Philip was born in eleven sixty five, and his birth was very, very much welcomed because his father, Louis the Seventh, was forty five, the father of four daughters, and five years into what had been a hitherto barren third marriage, Now the Capations have been inheriting the French throne in serene father-son succession since the year nine eighty seven, and Louis really doesn't want to be the one who stops this. So when a son is finally born to him, the celebrations are incredible. But on the other hand, the pressure that was put on Philip, you know, right from the moment he was in his cradle, from when he learnt to walk and talk. He was the king's only son, and he remained the king's only son.
And he was the great hope of France. He had to have a very intensive education in terms of politics and governance and military matters and kingship. All of this was sort of drummed into him to make sure that he was gonna be ready and And as it happened, that was good because he did inherit the throne at
a very young age. Something that listeners might find different from, say, the Plantagenets is that the Capetians crowned their successor while the older king or the older monarch is still on the throne. Did that happen with Philip?
Yes, it did. It was originally planned to take place in the summer of eleven seventy nine, when Philip was thirteen, but he fell very, very ill. In fact his life was despaired of. At which point Louis the Seventh actually became the only reigning French king to set foot on English soil because he travelled to England to pray at the shrine of Sir Thomas Becket.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is Philip Augustus considered the Plantagenets’ greatest enemy?
0:04–10:17
2
How did Philip’s early education and junior‑king coronation shape his rule?
10:17–19:53
3
What domestic factions did Philip manipulate to secure power in France?
19:53–29:19
4
How did the Third Crusade alliance with Richard I affect Anglo‑French relations?
29:19–38:17
5
Why was the Battle of Bouvine a turning point for Philip’s campaign against the Plantagenets?
38:17–42:25
6
How did Philip conquer Normandy and dismantle the Anglo‑Norman realm?
42:25–44:22
7
What role did the Magna Carta crisis play in Philip’s strategy against King John?
44:22–46:58
8
What is Philip Augustus’s lasting legacy for France and medieval Europe?
46:58–47:17