The Conquering Family Quotes

“The counts of Anjou and their lovely, but wicked wives gained such an unsavory reputation over the centuries that the people of England were appalled when they found that one of them was to be King of England. This was young Henry, the grandson of Henry I and of the Count of Anjou, and there was much angry muttering and shaking of heads.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Conquering Family

“The Angevin country begins between Normandy and Brittainy and continues down through Maine and Anjou. In the Middle Ages, this fair and romantic land was dotted with towns and castles of great interest and importance. Here were the castles of Chinon, stretching out like a walled city along a high ridge, here also the famed abbey of Fontevrault where many great figures of English history are buried. Here in the spring and early summer the hedges and fields were yellow with a species of gorse (it still grows in profusion) called the planta genesta. It was an early year of the twelfth century that a handsome young man named Geoffery, son of the Count of Anjou, fell into the habit of wearing a sprig of the yellow bloom in his helmet. This may be called the first stage of the history of the conquering family who came to govern England, and who are called the Plantagenets.”
― Thomas B. Costain, The Conquering Family