Keeping up appearances: penance and peace-making in the Plantagenet family at the end of the "War Without Love", 1174-5.

This article examines the processes by which the sons of Henry fitz Empress were received back into high Plantagenet society after spending eighteen months in rebellion against their father (February 1173 to September 1174). My central argument is that Henry had a plan for the reintegration of his boys into their previous positions. That plan, however, met the reality that the separate political communities of the Plantagenet world were unwilling to see the boys received back into their father's favour without going through the public ceremonies of penance demanded of those seeking reconciliation. I further argue that the problems that confronted Henry in his reintegration plan of 1174-5 are only revealed when we examine separately the remarkably full contemporary accounts of the process. In this article, therefore, I also have insights to offer concerning the methodologies employed by Roger of Howden and Ralph of Diss in the composition of their works.