A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

Chapter V: Introduction (4)

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The most important appointments were the two archbishoprics. For his new Primate he selected Lanfranc, an Italian priest, at this time Abbot of the little monastery at Bec, whose learning and importance were such that he had already been offered and had refused the Primacy of Normandy. It was not without much show of opposition on his part that he accepted the Archbishopric of Canterbury; but, when once appointed, he proved himself a most efficient instrument in carrying out the plans of the King. To the other vacant bishoprics, in almost every case, chaplains of the King were appointed. The changes thus begun were carried out gradually during the whole reign, and were in fact an offshoot of the great movement for the revival of the Papacy being carried out in Europe by Hildebrand. Having first, for the purposes of centralization, established the supremacy of the See of Canterbury over that of York, Lanfranc set on foot the habit of holding separate ecclesiastical councils after the great National Meetings had been dissolved; the bishops withdrew from the county court, and established ecclesiastical courts of their own; as far as possible regular canons were put in the place of the secular canons, of whom many of the chapters consisted; and although the archbishop had sufficient sense to tolerate those of the clergy who were already married, for the future such marriages were strictly prohibited.

[Sidenote: But William still head of the Church.]

[Sidenote: The change good on the whole.]

The effect of such legislation was to separate the clergy from the laity, and to connect the Church much more nearly with Rome. This policy, which in after times was the source of so much evil, was rendered harmless during the reign of William by his great power and decision. He always claimed the position of supreme head of the Church in England, nor would he suffer any encroachments from the Papal See. On more than one occasion he exhibited this determination. To the end of his reign he insisted upon giving the ring and staff to his bishops. He would not allow any of his soldiers to be excommunicated without his leave, and when Hildebrand, occupying the Papal throne as Gregory VII., demanded that he should both pay Peter’s pence and declare himself the Pope’s man, he replied, the money he would pay, as his predecessors had, that the homage he would refuse, as he had neither himself promised it, nor had his predecessors paid it. In many respects the change was doubtless for the better. The bishops were on the whole more learned men, and education was improved. The spirit of self-denial for the sake of the Church, and the consequent establishment of foundations and cathedrals, was revived, and the Church, brought into better discipline, was more able to play its proper part of mediator and peace-maker in an age of violence. The distribution of patronage was not, however, without its dark side. In many instances ecclesiastical position was given in reward of services to men qualified rather to be soldiers than clergymen; and complaints exist of the tyrannical manner in which these soldier-abbots or bishops behaved to their English inferiors.

[Sidenote: Final struggle against the Normans under Hereward. 1070.]

[Sidenote: William conquers him. 1071.]

The conquest of England was completed, as we have seen, in 1070. But it was six years more before William enjoyed the throne in peace. The remnant of the conquered nation gathered around a national hero, called Hereward, in the Fen country. His origin is not certain, but he seems to have been a Lincolnshire man who had been deprived of his property by a Norman intruder. He first appears as assailing with a host of outlaws the monastery of Peterborough, where one of those soldier abbots just mentioned, Turold by name, had been lately appointed. He is next heard of when, in 1071, the Earls Edwin and Morkere, who had seen the destruction of their old earldoms, while living in inglorious ease, half prisoners half guests at the Norman court, at length awoke from their lethargy and attempted to renew the war. Edwin was killed as he fled, stopped by the flooding of some river; Morkere succeeded in joining the insurgents at Ely. Hereward’s fastness was known by the name of the Camp of Refuge. There were collected many of the noblest of the old English exiles; and legend speaks of the presence of several people who were undoubtedly not there; but, at all events, Æthelwine, the deposed Bishop of Durham, was with the patriots.

The attack was intrusted to William of Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Ivo of Taillebois, under the superintendence of William himself, who came to Cambridge. The difficulties of the situation were overcome by the building of a great causeway across the fens. The defence of the camp is described as lengthened and heroic, but before the end of the year it seems to have been captured, and Morkere and Æthelwine both prisoners. Hereward himself escaped, and in 1073 is mentioned as leading the English contingent in William’s attack on Maine. The legend describes how, while living in peace with the king, he was surprised at his meals by a band of Normans, and after a terrific combat, in which he slew fifteen or sixteen Frenchmen, was finally overpowered by numbers. In sober fact, his end seems to have been peaceful, as he appears in Domesday Book as holding property both in Worcester and Warwick.

[Sidenote: Wales held in check by the Earls of Chester and Shrewsbury.]

From the English William had no further trouble; with the neighbouring kingdoms he had still some difficulties. With the Britons in Wales, the old Earls of Mercia and the house of Leofric had had friendly connection; but all sign of this had ceased upon the Conquest. The wars carried on against them were however local in character; for, contrary to his usual practice, William had established upon the West March two palatine counties of Chester and Shrewsbury. In these counties the whole of the land belonged to the earl and his tenants, and the king had no domain. They were, therefore, like the great feudal holdings of France. Chester he at first placed in the hands of Gerbod the Fleming, his stepson, and, upon his withdrawal to the Continent, in those of Hugh of Avranches, surnamed Lupus, a man of whom the chroniclers speak much evil as at once licentious and tyrannical. Together with his lieutenant, Robert of Rhuddlan, he waged continual war with the Welsh. The same task fell to Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, who took advantage of the disputes among the Welsh Princes, and succeeded so far as to build and hold, far in Wales, the castle of Montgomery, called after his own property in the neighbourhood of Lisieux in Normandy.

[Sidenote: Scotland’s savage invasions.]

Malcolm Canmore had throughout appeared as the supporter of the conquered English, and at his court the exiles had been constantly received. This did not prevent him from pushing his ravages into the Northern counties; nor did they cease when he received Eadgar Ætheling and his sisters on their flight to the North (1070). This was followed by acts of extraordinary barbarity. Gospatric, who had found favour with William, and accepted the Earldom of Northumberland, attempted a counter invasion into the Scotch district of Cumberland. In rage at this Malcolm gave orders to spare neither sex nor age. The old and the infants were slaughtered, the able-bodied men and maidens were carried off into slavery, so that there were few Scotch villages where there were not English slaves. Malcolm, however, grew milder under the influence of his wife Margaret, Eadgar’s sister, and the effect of the presence of the numerous English, either refugees or slaves, was such that the Lowlands became thoroughly Anglicised.

[Sidenote: William makes Malcolm swear fealty. 1072.]

In 1072, William himself revenged the inroad of the year 1070, by marching into Scotland and receiving the oath of fealty of Malcolm at Abernethy on the Tay. It is mentioned that the last great noble who had held out against him, Eadric the Wild, accompanied him on this expedition, which marks not only the Conquest of England, but the assumption on the part of William of that Imperial position in Great Britain which the great English kings had held.

[Sidenote: Trouble in Normandy. 1075.]

His foreign neighbours also gave William some trouble. The province of Maine, which he had conquered in 1063, threw off his allegiance. The citizens of Le Mans had risen in insurrection against their lords, and formed themselves into a free commune; but Geoffrey of Mayenne, a nobleman whose help they had sought, betrayed the burghers in their efforts to reduce one of the neighbouring nobility, and they were obliged to call in the assistance of Fulk of Anjou, who had claims upon the province. William reduced Le Mans, but was obliged to make a peace with Fulk, who had strengthened himself by an alliance with the Bretons; and, by the treaty of Blanchelande, William’s son Robert took the government of Maine, but did homage for it to Anjou.

[Sidenote: Conspiracy of Norman nobles suppressed. 1076.]

[Sidenote: Waltheof executed. 1076.]

While affairs on the Continent were thus occupying his attention, in 1075 a conspiracy of his own nobles in England broke out. Ralph of Gwader (or Wader), the son of Ralph the Staller and a Breton lady, had been intrusted with the Earldom of Norfolk. Roger, the son of William Fitz-Osbern, had succeeded to the Earldom of Hereford. These two nobles sought to ally their houses, and, against the will of William, Ralph married Emma, Roger’s sister. At the bridal feast Waltheof of Nottingham, the one remaining English Earl, was present, and there a conspiracy was entered into, apparently on account of the strong hold which William kept over his nobles, and in the interests of more perfect feudalism. The kingdom was to be divided among the three earls, one of whom was to be king. Waltheof had been well treated by the King, and married to his niece Judith. His conscience seems to have pricked him, and he confessed all to Lanfranc, at that time governing England. The conspiracy was at once suppressed; Norwich alone, under Emma, the new married bride, made a brave defence. Ralph fled to Brittany. Roger was taken prisoner, and spent his life in captivity. Waltheof was at first received into favour, but afterwards, it is believed at the instigation of his wife, he was tried before the Witan and found guilty of death. The sentence was executed in secret outside the town of Winchester. During his imprisonment the Earl’s penitence had been deep, and it was while still on his knees uttering the Lord’s Prayer that the impatient executioner smote off his head. The national hero, dying in this religious state of mind, speedily became the national saint. His remains were removed to Crowland, which he had much benefited, and miracles were worked at his tomb. The confiscation of the property of these two earldoms, and the death of Queen Edith, the widow of the Confessor, threw great property into the hands of William, who did not reappoint to the earldoms.

[Sidenote: Quarrels between William and his sons.]

[Sidenote: Reconciliation at Gerberoi. 1079.]

From this time onward William lived generally in Normandy, leaving England to the care of Lanfranc and Odo of Bayeux. The great success of his reign had indeed been reached, and the remaining years were disturbed by constant disputes with his sons and with his suzerain the King of France. Already, when pursuing Ralph of Gwader on his retreat into Brittany, and besieging him in the town of Dol, he had found himself checked by the union of Philip of France with Alan Fergant of Brittany, and had found it advisable to marry his daughter Constance to that nobleman as the price of peace. So, too, to lessen the jealousy the King of France might naturally have felt at his vassal’s great aggrandisement, he had made the Norman barons swear fealty to his son Robert as his heir, and had caused him to do homage in his place for Maine. Robert desired to make this nominal position real; and, as a part of the same feudal movement perhaps which produced the conspiracy of 1075, he demanded Normandy and Maine of his father. His demand was refused; and when, during an expedition of William against the Count of Mortagne, an accidental quarrel arose between Robert and his brothers, in company with many of the younger nobility he broke into open rebellion. With these, after an unsuccessful attempt at Rouen, he fled to Hugh of Neufchâtel. Beaten thence, he wandered from court to court, assisted by his mother Matilda, against William’s will. At length he found an ally in Philip, who established him in 1079 in Gerberoi, near the borders of Normandy. It was there that father and son met face to face, and that William was unhorsed by Robert. The siege of Gerberoi had to be raised, and William underwent the humiliation of seeking a reconciliation with his son, a reconciliation which was of short duration, as in 1080 Robert again fled from court.

[Sidenote: Odo’s oppressive government.]

In all directions ill success was attending William. He had been defeated at Dol and at Gerberoi; his son Robert in the period between his two quarrels had failed in an expedition against Scotland; he had just lost his son Richard in the New Forest; and in 1083 he lost his wife, to whom he was deeply attached. Meanwhile Odo had been ruling with extreme severity. In suppressing an insurrection in Northumberland he had been guilty of extortion and of cruel punishment even of the innocent. In his general government he seems to have been extremely avaricious. In the year 1082 his wealth and pride had risen to such a point that he thought of attaining to the Papacy. This he intended to secure by violent means. He purchased a magnificent palace in Rome to win the favour of the people, and even collected an army, in which Hugh of Chester took service, to cross the Apennines. William met him and apprehended him at the Isle of Wight; nor could the complaints of the Pope, which we cannot conceive to have been very earnest, produce any effect. He was seized, as the King affirmed, not as Bishop but as Earl of Kent, and remained in prison till the King’s death. Odo’s oppressions had been very severe, and the condition of England no doubt had become much worse since the complete subjugation of the country, and now, in addition to a famine which had just wasted the country, a heavy direct tax was laid on all land, and worse than that, a vast host of foreign mercenaries was quartered on all the King’s tenants, for a great danger was threatening.

[Sidenote: Cnut’s threatened invasion. 1084.]

[Sidenote: The Domesday Book. 1085.]

Cnut was on the throne of Denmark. He had been one of the commanders in Swend’s disastrous expeditions; he had married Adela the daughter of Robert of Flanders, one of William’s chief Continental enemies, and had now determined to invade England. He had induced the King of Norway to join him, and their combined fleets were expected. William took ruthless precautions against his enemies. The old tax of the Danegelt was reimposed, and all the land along the coast was laid waste. The people were even ordered to shave and change their dresses, that the Danes might not easily recognize them. Disputes among the leaders, and the death of Cnut, prevented the invasion. But it was probably the difficulties which William had found in collecting his taxes and troops on this occasion which induced him to set on foot the great survey which produced the Domesday Book. For this purpose commissioners were appointed, who went through England, and in each shire inquired of the sheriff, priests, reeves, and representatives of the inhabitants, the condition of the land and its value, as compared with what it had been in the reign of the Confessor. The whole of this great work was completed in one year. On its completion a great assembly was held on Salisbury Plain. It was, in fact, a vast review, attended by no less than 60,000 persons. In this assembly was passed the important ordinance which ordered that every man should be not only the man of his immediate lord, but also the man of the king. This was in direct opposition to the usual rule in feudal countries. The whole assembly took the oath to William. This great piece of work, which rendered England one nation, was a fitting conclusion to William’s reign.

[Sidenote: William’s death and burial. 1087. Sept. 9.]

In the following year a war broke out for the possession of the Vexin claimed by the King of France. Angered by a coarse jest of that monarch, William entered the country and ruthlessly ravaged it, and at the destruction of the town of Mantes, his horse stepped upon a burning coal and threw him forward upon the pummel of the saddle; the bulk of the King aggravated the injury, which in a few days caused his death. Before he died he released his prisoners. No sooner had the breath left his body than his attendants are said to have fled. He owed his burial not to his son, but to the kind offices of a neighbouring knight, and when brought to his Church of St. Stephen’s at Caen, it was not till the clergy had paid the price of the grave that Anselm Fitz-Arthur, whose property had been seized to make room for the Church, would allow his body to be buried.

WILLIAM II.

1087-1100.

CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.

POPES.--Urban II., 1088. Pascal II., 1099.

[Sidenote: 1087.]

While the late King was on his deathbed, he had been induced to declare his wishes with regard to his kingdoms. In pursuance, perhaps, of a wise policy, and with the wish to keep up and increase the nationality of England, he gave his hereditary dominions to his son Robert, England to his second son William. He told his son Henry to bide his time, and gave him £5000 in money.

[Sidenote: William is crowned by Lanfranc, and appeases the English.]

[Sidenote: Opposition of the Normans checked. 1088.]

William at once hurried to England to secure his succession, and, winning the support of Lanfranc, was in less than three weeks crowned by him. At Winchester he found the King’s treasure, from which he distributed gifts among the churches in England, and a sum of money for the poor in every shire. A promise of laws more just and mild than their forefathers had known, attached the English to him for a time. Thus supported by the Church and by the conquered people, who could not but rejoice at the separation of England from Normandy, it was only the Norman Baronage he had to fear.

In Normandy the character of the new Duke Robert, who was a mere knight-errant, induced the great nobility to get rid of the royal garrisons from their castles, and otherwise to establish their feudal independence. A similar movement was begun in England, where Odo of Bayeux, liberated at the late King’s death, had returned to his county of Kent, and now found himself at the head of a strong party who disliked the separation of their conquered possessions from their hereditary property. Among the adherents of the party we find such names as the two great bishops, Geoffrey of Coutances and William of Durham, Robert, Count of Mortain, Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, his son Robert of Belesme, and Hugh of Grantmesnil, with others. Odo occupied the castle of Rochester, and against it William led a body of English, collected by a threat that all who had remained behind should be proclaimed “nithing,” or worthless. The efforts of the discontented barons in other parts of England were checked, and finally the castle of Rochester was captured. Odo of Bayeux and the Normans of the garrison were allowed to march out, which they did amid the revilings of the besiegers, and to retire to France. The King thus secured his position in England.

[Sidenote: Lanfranc dies. Ralph Flambard succeeds him. 1089.]

He had hitherto been kept in some restraint by the influence of Lanfranc; but when that prelate died in 1089, his coarse, licentious, sceptical and avaricious character began to display itself. His chief minister was Ralph Flambard, a Churchman, who, like many others, was of low parentage, but who seems to have recommended himself to William by his skill as a financier. One of the plans attributed to him was a more accurate completion of the Domesday survey, and the measurement of the hides of land there returned. This would have been harmless enough, but there must have been many other more flagrant exactions, though very likely covered by some form of law, to account for the hatred with which he was regarded. Although his office is not mentioned, he was probably justiciary.

[Sidenote: William’s quarrels with his brothers in Normandy. 1090.]

While England was groaning under the exactions of this man, so that “men would rather wish to die, than to live under his power,” the attention of the King was chiefly engaged in intrigues with the nobles of Normandy. The easy character of Duke Robert, and the rising anarchy among the nobles, afforded abundant opportunity. On one occasion it was the citizen Conan of Rouen with whom he was in correspondence; and when this plot was discovered, and Prince Henry, at that time acting with Duke Robert, had thrown the traitor from the cathedral tower, it was a quarrel between Grantmesnil and Curci on the one side, and Robert of Belesme on the other, which gave him an opportunity of mixing in the affairs of the duchy. In 1091, however, the brothers came to an agreement, and a treaty was made at Caen, by which they engaged that the survivor should succeed to the possessions of his brother; and meanwhile Eu, Fécamp, Mont S. Michel, Cherbourg, and some other territories, were given to William, who in return promised to conquer Maine for Robert. Twelve barons of either party swore to the observance of this treaty.

[Sidenote: Feb. 1091.]

[Sidenote: Henry obtains Domfront.]

Prince Henry, finding himself completely ignored by this arrangement, took possession of the rock of St. Michel, and bade defiance to his brothers. After a siege of some duration he was driven thence; but in the general anarchy of the duchy he found a home at Domfront, where the citizens begged him to be their lord, on the condition that he would not give them up to any other. It is doubtful whether he could have kept possession of this strong place, had not William’s attention been engaged by the affairs of Scotland.

[Sidenote: War with Scotland. 1091.]

[Sidenote: 1093.]

Malcolm had renewed hostilities, and William found it necessary to march in person against him. His expedition was not successful. The weather destroyed a fleet which accompanied it, and, by its inclemency, caused much loss to his army. His presence, however, was sufficient in some degree to overawe Malcolm; a compromise was effected; Malcolm again did homage, and received back certain properties in England of which he had been deprived, and which were perhaps manors which had been given him as resting-places when he came to do homage to his suzerain. At the same time, William turned aside into the district of Cumberland, which was a dependency of the Scotch crown. He re-established Carlisle, and filled the county with peasants brought from the South of England from destroyed villages in the neighbourhood of Winchester. In this he disregarded the interests of the Scotch King, the immediate lord of the country, who therefore complained, and was invited to meet William at the next assembly at Gloucester. There, on the refusal of William to do him justice, a new quarrel broke out, and Malcolm was shortly afterwards killed, while invading England, at Alnwick, by Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland.

[Sidenote: Continued war with Wales. 1094.]

In the neighbourhood of Wales, too, fighting was almost perpetual. Not only did the great Earldoms of Shrewsbury and Chester increase their borders, but many knights took advantage of the frequent civil divisions of the Welsh to push westward and set up their castles. The course of the war had lately been in favour of the Welsh rather than of the Normans, and in 1095 William thought it necessary to lead an army against them. His attempt was not successful, nor was a repetition of it two years later more so. The nature of the ground was too difficult for the advance of a great army, and William, thus a second time repelled, had again to trust to the self-interest and courage of individual Norman settlers. This plan he strengthened by granting to Normans portions of land as yet unconquered. Thus two members of the house of Montgomery, brothers of Hugh, Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger and Arnulf, did homage for lands in Powys and Dyfed, and Hugh de Lacy for lands to the west of Herefordshire. This guerilla warfare was successful, and Hugh of Chester was just succeeding in winning back Anglesey, which had been taken from him, when an invasion of Magnus of Norway checked for the time the Norman success. The Earl of Shrewsbury, while assisting Hugh of Chester, lost his life, and was succeeded by Robert de Belesme, his brother. On the whole, the English frontier constantly advanced, and the border counties were thronged with castles either of the great Earls or of individual adventurers.

[Sidenote: Troubles in Normandy. 1094.]

[Sidenote: Conspiracy of Mowbray crushed.]

[Sidenote: William obtains Normandy from Robert. 1096.]

[Sidenote: Size of his dominions at his death, 1100.]

Intrigues and irregular fighting had meanwhile been constant in Normandy. In 1094 King Philip of France had been called in by Robert, but nothing of importance arose from this. But it gave rise to a curious act of extortion on the part of William, who summoned 20,000 men from England, evidently the old English County Militia, and on their arrival at the coast dismissed them, taking from them the ten shillings a head, viaticum, or journey-money, they had received from their counties. In 1095 a great conspiracy of the nobles in England, headed by Mowbray of Northumberland, came to light. Mowbray threw himself into Bamborough castle, which could not itself be taken, but immediately opposite to it another castle, called Malvoisin, was raised, and the garrison of this “ill-neighbour” found means to decoy Mowbray out of his stronghold and to take him prisoner. The danger which threatened William was thus got over; while the following year the object of his wishes came into his hands, when Robert, eager to join a crusade which had just been preached, pledged Normandy to him for the sum of £6,666. His new situation as ruler of Normandy brought William into hostility with the neighbouring countries, and especially with Maine, where Hélie de la Fléche made head against him, and, with the assistance of Fulk IV. of Anjou, succeeded in beating him off from Le Mans. William’s power was now, in spite of this repulse, very great, and the King of France, with whom he became involved in war in 1097 on the old subject of the Vexin, looked with anxiety at the growth of his great vassal, especially when a close friendship arose between him and the Duke of Poitiers and Guienne. This conjunction, giving the English King a grasp of France all round the seaboard, made men believe that his ambition reached to the throne of France, especially as Philip had but one son, Louis. The strange death of William put an end to all such thoughts. He was hunting in the New Forest, whither he had been warned not to go, and there met his death; whether by an accidental arrow from the bow of Walter Tyrrel, or falling forward upon the point of an arrow as he stooped over his prey, or slain by the hands of some of those whom his cruelty and avarice had made his implacable enemies, is uncertain. The flight of his attendants, and the unceremonious treatment of his corpse, seemed to favour the last supposition.

[Sidenote: Causes of William’s inferiority to his father.]

In spite then of his unamiable character; of the difficulties which had beset him from his somewhat questionable title; of the natural impulse towards feudal isolation of his barons; of troublesome neighbours; and occasional want of success in his expeditions; Rufus had on the whole succeeded in his plans, as far as his external circumstances were concerned. It was in his domestic government, especially with regard to the Church, that his inferiority to his great father is most obvious. Unlike the Conqueror, he was unable to see, or if he saw, to care for the national advantages which sprung from a well-organized Church. With a similar determination to be a perfect king in his own dominions, he asserted that opinion by violent acts against the Church itself, by appointments of the worst description, and by a life from which all show of decency was banished. As long as Lanfranc lived, he kept some restraint upon himself, but upon his death he began to show his real temper.

[Sidenote: Disputes with the Church.]

[Sidenote: Bishoprics left vacant.]

[Sidenote: Repenting after illness, he makes Anselm Archbishop.]

[Sidenote: Anselm unwillingly accepts. 1093.]

[Sidenote: Anselm’s reforms.]

[Sidenote: William opposes him.]

It was a critical time in the history of the Church. The quarrel about investitures was raging in Europe. The skill of Lanfranc and the power of the Conqueror had, as we have seen, prevented the quarrel from reaching England during that King’s reign; and to the end of Gregory’s life, 1085, he had kept up friendly, even flattering, relations with the English King. When Henry IV. had, in 1080, raised the Anti-Pope Guibert to the Papal throne under the name of Clement III., Lanfranc had contrived not to commit himself to either party, but, on the whole, it is probable, that during his life the regular Popes, Victor III. and Urban II., who succeeded him in 1088, were acknowledged in England. On his death advantage was taken of the Schism practically to acknowledge neither Pope, and to leave the abbeys and bishoprics vacant. Indeed, we are told that it was openly asserted that it was a privilege of the King of England to acknowledge the Pope or not as he pleased. Thus for four years the archbishopric was unfilled, along with several other important ecclesiastical preferments, and the want of discipline in the Church grew worse and worse. Ralph Flambard, as administrator of the diocese of Lincoln, was unlimited in his extortions. The Norman Church dignitaries marched between lines of armed men to church. The Bishop of Wells demolished the houses of the canons to build his own palace, and even the religious and moral scruples of the English monks were laughed at by their licentious superiors. In 1093 the King fell very ill, and for the time became repentant and religious; he proceeded to listen to the wishes of his people and fill up the vacant appointments. The most important of these was the archbishopric. For this post he selected Anselm of Aosta, Abbot of Bec. This man was a Piedmontese, who had been attracted to Normandy by the fame of Lanfranc, and had entered the Abbey of Bec under him. Upon Lanfranc’s removal to Caen he was made Prior, and afterwards Abbot. Both his character and attainments commanded the veneration of the age; and at the present time he had been invited by Hugh the Fat, Earl of Chester, to come over and assist him in establishing a Benedictine abbey at Chester. For this purpose, and charged with a mission from his monastery, he was induced much against his will to come to England. In the first access of the King’s repentance--after issuing a royal proclamation promising afresh the freedom of captives, the good laws of King Edward, and the punishment of evil-doers--he proceeded so far to action as to appoint Anselm Archbishop. It was not without something like actual violence that Anselm was forced to accept the Episcopal staff. The great importance of the primacy and Anselm’s view of the King’s character are well shown by some words that are attributed to him: “England’s plough is drawn by two supereminent oxen, the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury.... Of these oxen one is dead, and the other, fierce as a savage bull, is yoked young to the plough, and in place of the dead ox you would yoke me a poor feeble old sheep with the wild bull.” The feeble old sheep, however, was a very decided ecclesiastic. He insisted at once upon the restoration of the whole of the lands of the See of Canterbury, more even than Lanfranc had held. He declared that he would publicly acknowledge Pope Urban. And when, after his consecration, on his presenting the King with £500 of silver, the King demanded £1000, he withdrew his intended present and distributed all to the poor. Nor was it as a defender of ecclesiastical rights that he was pre-eminent. He set himself to check as far as it was possible the shameless and abominable vice that was rampant in England. Among other signs of the degraded licentiousness of the times was the effeminate foppery of the courtiers. Against their long hair and sharp-peaked shoes the Archbishop was never weary of inveighing. The King’s absence from England put an end for a time to the disputes between the Archbishop and the King, but upon his return Anselm demanded leave to obtain his pall from Pope Urban. This open acknowledgment of the Pope William wished to avoid, and at a council, summoned to consider the matter, the deposition of Anselm appears to have been suggested. The bishops, creatures of the King, basely deserted their chief; and the wisdom of the Baronage of England, under the guidance of Robert, Count of Mellent, who throughout this and the preceding reign appears as the good adviser to the sons of the Conqueror, alone saved him from that disgrace. Unable to refuse Anselm’s wish absolutely, the King contrived to persuade the Pope to send _him_ the pall, but Anselm stoutly refused to receive it from secular hands, and ultimately triumphed so far as to be allowed to take it himself from the high altar of the Cathedral of Canterbury. For the moment the primate was triumphant, the cowardly bishops sought his absolution. Bishoprics which fell vacant were at once filled up. The Irish and Scotch prelates acknowledged Anselm’s superiority. But William, cunning and implacable, was not to be thus foiled. If the churchman could not be touched, the feudal tenant could; and Anselm was accused of insufficient performance of his duty in supplying military followers for an expedition into Wales. In 1097, unable to withstand the royal violence, he left England, and made his way to Rome. He there was present at two great councils, that of Bari in 1098, where the orthodox doctrine as to the Holy Ghost was established; and one at Rome in 1099, where a curse was laid on all laymen who conferred ecclesiastical investitures and upon all churchmen who received them. Upon William’s death Anselm returned to England.

HENRY I.

1100-1135.

CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.

POPES.--Pascal II., 1099. Gelasius II., 1118. Calixtus II., 1119.
Honorius II., 1124. Innocent II., 1130.

[Sidenote: Henry secures the Crown. 1100.]

[Sidenote: He conciliates all classes.]

Henry had been hunting in the New Forest when his brother William was killed, and rode at once to Winchester to secure the King’s treasure. As the rights of primogeniture had not yet been established, and he was very obviously a fitter man to be King than his brother Robert, the slight opposition offered by the treasurer was speedily overruled, and the Sunday following (August 5, 1100) he was crowned at Westminster. To secure his position, however, he found it necessary to conciliate all parties. The Church he won by the immediate filling of vacant sees, and by the recall of the exiled Anselm. William Giffard, the chancellor of Rufus, was made Bishop of Winchester; Girard of Hereford, Archbishop of York; while both Norman and Saxon laity were bound to him by a charter, by which he laid some constitutional restrictions upon the despotism established by his father. In that charter he promised to abolish all oppressive duties, and to confine his demands to his just claims as feudal lord; rendering the same agreement obligatory on his tenants towards their vassals. False coining was checked, the right of leaving personal property by will granted, and the law of King Edward, which meant the old institutions of the country, re-established. He likewise thought it well to win the heart of the people by marrying a Princess of English descent, Matilda, niece of Eadgar Ætheling, daughter of Margaret and Malcolm of Scotland. Further to show his disapproval of his brother’s policy, he arrested Ralph Flambard, who, however, found means to escape to Normandy, and was made Bishop of Lisieux.

[Sidenote: His policy.]

Henry had thus declared the policy he intended to pursue, the policy of his father rather than of his brother. He meant to be at once a friend and master of the Church, and a national sovereign of the English, a character which became a prince who had been born in that country. That position implied a power much more centralized than that of a feudal suzerain; and in England his chief policy was directed throughout his reign to upholding his mastery over the Church and over refractory barons who aimed at more perfect feudalism. He was in heart however a Norman, and, in pursuit of his objects, did not shrink from using his English subjects with great severity. Similarly, his chief foreign difficulties were produced by his wish to win the Duchy of Normandy, and having won it to rule it in the same masterful spirit in which he ruled England. We find then in his reign ecclesiastical disputes, disputes with the feudal barons of both England and Normandy, wars for the conquest of the duchy, and consequent complications with his suzerain the King of France. Mixed with these are stories, chiefly from Saxon sources, of cruel and unjust exactions and acts of injustice, tolerated, if not ordered, against his Saxon subjects.

[Sidenote: His supporters.]

[Sidenote: His opponents.]

His views found supporters in the two sons of that Roger de Beaumont, to whom his father had left the regency of Normandy when he first came to England. These were the two great Earls, Robert, Count of Mellent,[6] afterwards Earl Leicester, and his younger brother Henry, Earl of Warwick, the elder of whom had received no less than ninety-one manors from the Conqueror, and was the most influential and wisest statesman of the day. On the other hand, he was constantly opposed by his brother Robert, a military prince of the feudal type, and Robert de Belesme of the House of Montgomery, possessor of the Earldoms of Alençon in France and of Shrewsbury in England, and by right of marriage of the county of Ponthieu.

[Sidenote: Robert of Normandy seeks the English Crown. 1101.]

Robert heard of his brother’s accession to the throne while on his journey home from the Holy Land. He had served with credit throughout the first crusade, especially at Dorylæum and at Ascalon. He had declined the offer of the crown of Jerusalem, and on his return home had married Sibylla, the daughter of Geoffrey of Conversana. He was a man of extravagant and profligate habits, and speedily squandered the fortune which his wife had brought him, but the entreaties of English exiles, and of those discontented nobles who longed for an easier rule than they could expect from Henry, roused him to assert his claim to the English crown. Robert of Belesme and his brothers, Walter Giffard, Robert Malet, Ivo of Grantmesnil, even William of Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, closely connected with the royal house, joined his party.

[Sidenote: Withdraws without bloodshed.]

[Sidenote: Henry attacks his partisans.]

[Sidenote: Defeat of Belesme. Establishment of royal power in England.]

But the English were true to the King. Fitz-Hamon, Bigot, and the Earl of Mellent, added their influence to the same side. It was probably chiefly the talents of Mellent, and the threat of excommunication from Archbishop Anselm, which brought about a peaceful solution of the difficulty. A treaty was arranged by which Robert renounced his claims in exchange for the Cotentin and 3000 marks a year. It was also stipulated that a complete amnesty should be extended to the partisans of either prince in his brother’s country. It was not Henry’s intention however to carry out this part of the stipulation, and no sooner had Robert left the country than the King proceeded to take steps against the two leaders of his brother’s faction, Ivo of Grantmesnil and Robert of Belesme. Ivo had been a crusader, and was one of those who had fled from the siege of Antioch, being let down the wall with a rope. He had thus earned the title among the witty Normans of the “Rope-dancer,” and finding his credit gone he withdrew from England. His share in the earldom of Leicester was given to Robert of Mellent, who subsequently acquired the rest of the earldom. Alarmed by these measures of the King, William de Warrenne induced Robert foolishly to come over to England to negotiate for the safety of his partisans. His position there was one of great jeopardy, and he was glad to retire, having renounced his money payment, but having secured the restitution of William in his Earldom of Surrey, of which he had been deprived. The withdrawal of Robert from the contest allowed Henry to turn his undivided attention to the destruction of Robert de Belesme, the head of the Norman party in England. From him he won the castles of Nottingham and Tickhill, and subsequently that of Bridgenorth, to which he had retreated. When many of the barons combined to seek his pardon, Henry, still resting on the support of the English, refused to listen to them, and proceeded to win from him his last stronghold, the Castle of Shrewsbury. Upon this Belesme withdrew with his two brothers into Normandy, and the disaffection of the aristocracy was permanently checked.

[Sidenote: Belesme received in Normandy. Consequent invasion of the Duchy. 1105.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Tenchebray. 1106.]

It had been stipulated that the brothers should not receive each other’s exiles. In spite of this Robert of Normandy, enraged at the persecution of his partisans, restored to Belesme his continental property. Henry consequently on his side continued his measures against Robert’s partisans. He first banished the Count of Mortain, Earl of Cornwall, who claimed also the Earldom of Kent in succession to Odo of Bayeux, the possession of which would have rendered him the most powerful noble in England, and then proceeded to Normandy to continue his attacks upon Belesme. He alleged not only the reception of his exiles, but the general misgovernment of Robert, as an excuse for his proceedings; and in truth, under that Prince, Normandy had become a scene of anarchy. As an instance of this it is mentioned, that on his arrival a church was pointed out to him full of property sent there for safety from the hands of the marauding barons. He captured the towns of Caen and Bayeux, and found allies in the persistent enemies of the Dukes of Normandy, Fulk Count of Anjou, and Hélie de la Fléche, who had succeeded in regaining the County of Maine. With Count Robert of Flanders also he renewed friendly relations. With such support he proved too strong for the Norman Duke, and before the Castle of Tenchebray a battle was fought, on the anniversary of the battle of Hastings, which ended in favour of the King. Duke Robert himself, the Count of Mortain, and Eadgar Ætheling, who had been serving with the Duke, were taken prisoners. Eadgar was liberated, and died in peace in England some years after; but Duke Robert and the Count of Mortain were imprisoned for the rest of their lives. Normandy and England were thus again united.

[Sidenote: Wars with France. 1107.]

[Sidenote: Louis upholds William Clito as claimant to the Duchy.]

[Sidenote: End of the war. Treaty of Gisors. 1113.]

The possession of Normandy brought Henry into more immediate contact with France. Louis VI. was upon the throne of that kingdom, the first of those great kings to whom the monarchy owed its ultimate triumph over feudalism. It was natural that he should look with jealousy on the vast strength of his great vassal, and should attempt to curtail that power which the supineness of his predecessor had allowed to accumulate. A constant border warfare was the consequence, rendered the more possible by the doubtful position of such counties as Maine, Evreux, the Vexin, Blois, and Alençon, the counts of which were for ever changing their allegiance. Louis had no difficulty in finding a pretender to the Norman Duchy whom he might use as his instrument in opposing the English King. William, the son of Robert, had fallen into Henry’s hands, and had been by him intrusted to the care of Hélie de St. Saen. In 1110, in connection apparently with a movement of disaffected nobility (for Braiose, Malet, and Bainard are mentioned as being exiled at that time), Hélie fled with the young Prince, and sought to raise all the neighbouring princes in his cause. Their efforts were not successful. Henry’s arch-enemy, Robert of Belesme, fell into the King’s hands at Bonneville, where he had presented himself with extraordinary effrontery, trusting that a message with which he was charged from the King of France would give him the security due to an ambassador. The same year Theobald of Blois, acting for Henry, defeated the French King at Puysac. And when Henry himself succeeded in capturing the town of Alençon, and in attaching the Count of Anjou to his interests, by giving him his heir, William the Ætheling, as a husband for his daughter, Louis found it desirable to conclude a peace at Gisors, by which he resigned his claim of suzerainty over Maine, Belesme, and Brittany, and left entirely unmentioned the rights of William, son of Robert. There followed a period of some years, during which Henry was able to live in tolerable peace in England.

[Sidenote: Prince William acknowledged heir.]

His position was, indeed, unusually strong. His son was contracted to the daughter of the Earl of Anjou; his natural daughter to Conan, son of Alan Fergant of Brittany; and, in the following year, his daughter Adelaide or Matilda was married to the German Emperor Henry V. He took this opportunity of securing the succession to his son William, to whom, in the years 1115-1116, he succeeded in inducing the barons both of England and Normandy to promise their allegiance. But this cessation of hostilities was not of long duration.

[Sidenote: Renewal of the war.]

[Sidenote: Depression of Henry.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Brenneville, and complete prosperity. 1119.]

The causes of war had not been removed. There was still chronic disaffection among the Norman barons, who disliked the firmness of Henry’s rule; constant jealousy upon the part of the French King; and the Pretender William, the Clito as he is called, was an ever-ready instrument for their hands. Thus the border warfare was renewed, and we hear of the disaffection, not only of the King’s great barons, but of his allies, both Robert of Flanders and Fulk of Anjou adopting William’s cause. Other distresses likewise came upon Henry. He lost his wife Matilda, and his firm and sagacious minister, Robert of Mellent. But, in 1118, prosperity again returned to him. The Count of Flanders was killed in an attack upon the Count of Eu. Money or negotiation won back the friendship of Fulk, and in the following year a battle between a few knights at Brenneville, at which both Henry and Louis were present in person, was regarded as so decisive a victory for the English, that, by the mediation of Pope Calixtus, a new Treaty was arranged, and William’s interest completely disregarded. Thus was triumphantly closed the second of Henry’s wars in France.

[Sidenote: Death of Prince William and its consequences. 1120.]

At this period of his greatest prosperity a blow fell upon Henry from which he is said never to have recovered. He was returning in triumph to England, when a certain Thomas Fitz-Stephen, whose father had conveyed the Conqueror to England, claimed the privilege of conveying the royal party. To gratify him, Prince William, with the king’s natural daughter Matilda, the Countess of Perche, and other young nobles, consented to embark in his ship called the “Blanche Nef.” They remained behind the rest of the fleet and celebrated the occasion in festivity, which ended in the drunkenness of the crew. As they rode upon the harbour of Barfleur in the moonlight they suddenly struck upon the rocks of the Ras de Catte, and there was barely time for the young Prince to escape in a boat from the sinking ship. The cries of his sister are said to have induced William to return towards the wreck, when the hurried rush of the despairing crew capsized his boat, and all on board were drowned. Of the whole crew of the ship one only, Berold, a butcher of Rouen, survived, owing his safety to the warmth afforded him by his rough garb of undressed sheepskins. With fear and trembling the news was broken to Henry by the young son of Count Theobald of Blois. Henry is said to have fallen fainting from his seat, and from that time onwards never to have relaxed into a smile.

[Sidenote: Insurrection of the Duke of Anjou.]

[Sidenote: Death of William Clito.]

The death of Prince William was not only a domestic misfortune. By it was broken also the tie which bound the Count of Anjou to Henry’s interests. It was a natural jealousy of his great neighbour, the Norman Duke, which had induced Fulk to act in alliance with Henry. When Robert’s imprisonment put Henry on the throne of Normandy, he in turn became the object of Fulk’s enmity. The state of the Duchy, where a disaffected party constantly existed, afforded him ample opportunity of giving effect to that enmity. Thus, in 1124, Henry was again recalled to Normandy to suppress a rebellion in favour of William Clito, who was supported by Anjou. Not only Anjou but France was inclining to join the rebels, and it was only by instigating his son-in-law the Emperor to attack France that Henry could manage to make head against his opponents. As it was, however, a fortunate surprise by which all the leaders fell into his hands enabled him to crush the rebellion, and again induced the foreign powers to desert William. The King of France indeed did not wholly give him up; but in 1127, after investing him with several important territories, he brought him forward as a claimant to the throne of Flanders, to which he had a claim through his grandmother, Matilda, the Conqueror’s wife, who was a daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders. Against him Henry supported the claims of Diederik or Dirk, Count of Alsace, the last count’s nephew, and his rightful heir. The matter came to war, and in July 1128, before Alost, Prince William was wounded, and died of his wounds. Henry was thus rid of his most formidable opponent.

[Sidenote: Attempt to secure the succession to Matilda.]

It remained for him to secure the succession for his daughter Matilda, and he induced all the great men of England to acknowledge her, and swear to support her claims. The list of those who swore was headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, followed by the King’s nephew, Stephen of Boulogne, and his natural son, Robert of Gloucester. They always declared that they accepted the oath on the condition that she should not be married to a foreigner without their consent, and therefore many of them held themselves absolved from their oath, when she was betrothed and ultimately married to Geoffrey, son of the Count of Anjou.

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A History of England, Period I. Mediæval MonarchyChapter V: Introduction (4)

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