Henry, Count of Montescaglioso

Henry, born Rodrigo, was the son of Marguerite de l'Aigle, the queen of García Ramírez of Navarre, and brother or half-brother of Queen Margaret of Sicily. He was never acknowledged as a son by the Navarrese king and he was widely considered a bastard, though his sister did not treat him as such and he certainly never acted as anything but the son of a king.

He arrived in Sicily in 1166, after the death of William I, when his sister, the late king's wife and the new king's mother, assumed the regency. Margaret made him change his Spanish name to Henry, more palatable to the local nobility. He was, according to Hugo Falcandus, the Sicilian chronicler, short, swarthy, and altogether unpleasant in appearance. Falcandus also records that "he would spend wildly, with neither forethought nor consideration" and he squandered his money in Palermo and went off to Messina. There, too, he gambled and fell in with ne'er-do-wells so that the queen was forced to grant him the counties of Montescaglioso and the Principate in Apulia to get him to leave the island. She planned to marry him to an illegitimate daughter of Roger II of Sicily, but these plans fell through.

In Summer 1167, however, Henry returned to Palermo at the instigation of his friends, who thought he, as a prince, deserved the place of Richard, Count of Molise, that of chancellor. By the summer, however, Stephen du Perche, his and Margaret's cousin, had replaced Richard. Stephen quickly befriended Henry, but the latter's Spanish friends (milites hispanos) still tried to incite him. As Falcandus records:

Quibus ille Francorum se linguam ignorare, que maxime necessaria esset in curia, nec eius esse, respondebat, industrie ut oneri tanto sufficeret; cancellario curam hanc rectissime debere committi, qui discretus esset et prudens summeque nobilis, regi quoque nichilominus ac regine non dubia propinquitate coniunctus.

[He responded that he was ignorant of French, which was most necessary at court, and that his experience was not sufficient; that he should commit to the government of the chancellor, who was wise and prudent, as well as noble, despite his affair with the queen.]

Eventually, the rumours of incest convinced the count of Montescaglioso to act. He began to tell his nephew, the king, of Margaret's actions, but to no effect. Soon, a conspiracy against detested Stephen had drawn him in. When Stephen moved the court temporarily to Messina, Henry demanded in council to received the principality of Taranto, of which his nephew had deprived Simon, bastard son of Roger II, and all of Simon's other lands. Then, Gilbert, Count of Gravina, another cousin of Henry and Margaret, rose in council and denounced the count, accusing him of treason, a fact he had admitted to a Messinan judge a short while earlier. Henry was promptly arrested and interned in Reggio di Calabria. His Spanish friends were given a day to leave Sicily. They did.

This first conspiracy against Stephen was not the last, nor was it the last time Henry was to revolt. The Messinans hated Stephen and soon rose the standard of insurrection. Capturing Odo Quarrel, a comrade of Stephen's, and seven galleys, they rowed into Reggio and demanded Henry's release. Henry entered Messina as the leader of a rebellion against the chancellor he had once supported so staunchly. He permitted the Messinans to execute Odo and could not prevent a massacred of all Frenchmen in the city. This rebellion spread and soon Stephen was toppled and forced to leave for the Holy Land. Henry reentered Palermo triumphant with twenty four galleys. The queen, saving face, however, bribed him to leave for Spain. This he probably did, for he never appears in Sicilian history again. Henry has not been treated kindly by historians, he is usually described as a stupid lowlife, but his impact on Sicilian history through effecting the fall of both Stephen du Perche and the regency of Margaret is undeniable.

Sources

• Norwich, John Julius. The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194. Longman: London, 1970.
• History of the Tyrants of Sicily at Patrologia Latina.