The young Henry FitzEmpress, future Henry II, made a brief and inconclusive visit to England in 1142 to support his mother's cause. Too young to command effectively and lacking resources, he was eventually ransomed by Stephen who paid for his return passage to Normandy -- a remarkable act of chivalric generosity or shrewd calculation that contrasted with the general brutality of the Anarchy. The visit began Henry's education in English politics.
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