Philip II was King of France for more than 40 years during a dynamic, turbulent time in the Middle Ages.

He was born Aug. 21, 1165, in Gonesse. His father was the reigning Frankish monarch, King Louis VII. When Philip was 13, he got lost during a royal hunt and came down with a high fever. A desperate Louis went on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Becket, at Canterbury, England. (Louis had known Becket and had supported him in his struggles against England's King Henry II. Having been informed that his son was safe and sound, he returned home. He had a stroke on the return trip; from that stroke sprung the paralysis that dominated his last year.

Louis saw Philip crowned when the latter was 14. A few months after that, in April 1180, Louis married Isabelle of Hainaut. Part of Isabelle's dowry was the County of Artois. Louis and Isabelle had three children together, the first of whom was named Louis, born in 1187. Isabelle died in 1190 and passed on the County of Artois to young Louis.

King Philip II had gone to war with Philip, Count of Flanders in 1181 over another county, the Vermandois. The Flanders count had some powerful allies on his side, but the king had a larger armed force, including 2,000 knights. They met on the field of battle near Amiens but did not come to blows because Philip of Flanders called for peace. King and count agreed to partition the disputed territory.

The king next went to war with King Henry II of England. The first instance of disagreement was the death of Henry II's son, also named Henry (the Young King), who was married to Philip's sister Margaret. The agreement between the two monarchs that resulted in the marriage also resulted in a marriage agreement, which stipulated that the dowry should return to France if the marriage produced no children. Henry and Margaret did indeed produced no children. Philip cited the terms of the marriage agreement. Henry finally agreed only when Philip found another husband for his sister, King Béla III of Hungary.

In 1186, Henry II's fourth son, Geoffrey, died. At the time, Geoffrey was Duke of Brittany, a part of what had been Frankish territory but was then part of Henry's Angevin Empire. The English and French kings disagreed on who should rule in Brittany and came to blows over it. Further, the two monarchs had arranged another marriage, of Henry's son Richard to Philip's other sister, Alys, who was all of 8 when the marriage contract was cemented. Henry kept delaying the marriage, and Philip took umbrage and found another reason to fight.

It wasn't exactly all-out war, but fighting did accompany the disagreements. At the same time, Henry's sons Richard and John had rebelled against their father, and Philip encouraged this rebellion. Henry's death in 1189 ended the rebellion and the England-France conflict.

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