Chapter X: Henry and France (1)

1156–1161.

Formidable as was the task of England’s internal reorganization, it was but a small part of the work which lay before Henry Fitz-Empress. His accession brought the English Crown into an entirely new relation with the world at large. The realm which for ages had been counted almost as a separate sphere, whose insularity had been strong enough to survive even the Norman conquest and to turn the conqueror’s own native land into a dependency of the conquered island, suddenly became an unit in a vast group of states gathered into the hands of a single ruler, and making up altogether the most extensive and important empire in Christendom. Among the earlier kings of England Cnut is the only one whose dominions were at all comparable in extent to those of Henry II. But the empire of Cnut and that of Henry differed widely in character and circumstances. Cnut’s northern empire was to a certain extent homogeneous; its members had at least one thing in common besides their common allegiance--they were all, geographically and politically, almost as completely severed from the rest of Europe as England herself. It was only as an indirect consequence partly of his territorial power, but still more of his personal greatness, that Cnut and his realms came into connexion with central and southern Europe. In Henry’s case, on the contrary, such a connexion was rendered inevitable by the geographical position of his continental territories. They lay in the very heart of western Christendom; they covered the largest and some of the fairest regions of Gaul; they positively surrounded on two sides the domains of the French Crown to which they owed a nominal homage; they touched the borders of Spain, and they went very near to those old Burgundian lands which formed the south-western march of Germany and the north-western march of Italy. Again, Cnut’s territories were all perfectly independent of any ruler save himself; no rival power disputed his claims to any one of them; no other sovereign had any pretension to receive homage from him. Henry, on the other hand, was by the possession of his Gaulish fiefs placed in direct personal connexion with the French king who was not merely his neighbour but also his overlord. A like connexion had indeed existed between the Norman kings of England and the French kings as overlords of Normandy. But Henry’s relations with France were far more complex and fraught with far weightier political consequences than those of his Norman predecessors. He held under the king of France not a single outlying province, but--at the lowest reckoning--not less than five separate fiefs, all by different titles and upon different tenures, which were yet further complicated by the intricate feudal and political relations of these fiefs one with another.

Normandy was the least puzzling member of the group; Henry had inherited it from his mother, and held it on the same tenure as all her ancestors from Hrolf downwards. About Anjou, again--the original patrimony of the heirs of Fulk the Red--there could hardly be any question; and the old dispute whether Maine should count as an independent fief of the Crown or as an underfief of Normandy or of Anjou was not likely to be of any practical consequence when the immediate ruler of all three counties was one and the same. Yet all these had to be treated as separate states; each must have its special mention in the homage done by Henry to Louis; each must be governed according to its own special customs and institutions. So, too, must the other appendage of Anjou--Touraine, for which homage was still owed to the count of Blois, and where he still possessed a few outlying lands which might easily be turned into bones of contention should he choose to revive the ancient feud. Lastly, over and above all this bundle of family estates inherited from his father and his mother, Henry’s marriage had brought him the duchy of Aquitaine:--that is, the immediate possession of the counties of Poitou and Bordeaux; the overlordship of a crowd of lesser counties and baronies which filled up the remaining territory between the Loire and the Pyrenees; and a variety of more or less shadowy claims over all the other lands which had formed part of the old Aquitanian kingdom, and whose feudal relations with each other, with Poitou and with the Crown of France were in a state of inextricable confusion:--added to which, there was a personal complication caused by the two marriages of Eleanor, whereby her second husband owed homage to the first for the territories which he held in her name. Without going further into the details of the situation, we can easily see that it was crowded with difficulties and dangers, and that it would require the utmost care, foresight and self-restraint on the part of both Henry and Louis to avoid firing, at some point or other, a train which might produce an explosion disastrous to both alike.

Henry’s chief assistant in the management of his continental affairs was his mother, the Empress Matilda. Still closer to his side, indeed, stood one who in after-years shewed herself gifted with far greater administrative sagacity, and who had already acquired considerable political experience as queen of France and duchess of Aquitaine. As yet, however, Henry was likely to derive less assistance from the somewhat dangerously quick wit of his wife than from the mature wisdom of his mother. Matilda had been a harsh, violent, impracticable woman; but there was in her character an element of moral and intellectual grandeur which even in her worst days had won and kept for her the devotion of men like Miles of Hereford and Brian Fitz-Count, and which now in her latter years had fairly gained the mastery over her less admirable qualities. She had inherited a considerable share of her father’s talents for government; she had indeed failed to use them in her own behalf, but she had learned from her failure a lesson which enabled her to contribute not a little, by warnings and suggestions, to the success of her son. In England, where the haughtiness of her conduct had never been forgiven, whatever was found amiss in Henry’s seems to have been popularly laid to her charge.[1401] In Normandy, however, she was esteemed far otherwise. From the time of her son’s accession to the English crown she lived quietly in a palace which her father had built hard by the minster of Notre-Dame-des-Prés, outside the walls of Rouen;[1402] taking no direct share in politics, but universally held in profound respect by reason of her dignified and pious life, and of the influence which she was known to exercise upon the mind and policy of the young duke. His first step on the tidings of Stephen’s death had been to hold a consultation with her; so long as she lived, her opinions and her wishes were an element never absent from his calculations before entering upon any serious undertaking; and if he did not formally leave her as regent of the Norman duchy, yet he trusted in great measure to her for the maintenance of its tranquillity and order during his own absence beyond the sea.

[1401] “Nos autem illi doctrinæ [sc. maternæ] fidenter
imputamus omnia quibus erat tædiosus” [rex]. W. Map. _De Nug.
Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

[1402] _Draco Norm._, l. iii. cc. 1, 2, vv. 37–66 (Howlett,
_Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp. 712–714).

A personal visit was, however, necessary to make sure of his ground with the king of France. As soon, therefore, as matters in England were sufficiently composed, early in 1156 Henry went to Normandy;[1403] Louis came to meet him on the border, and shortly afterwards, at a second meeting, received a repetition of his homage for all his French fiefs, including the duchy of Aquitaine.[1404] It was time; for to every one of those fiefs, except Aquitaine and Normandy, there was a rival claimant in the person of his brother. The story went that Geoffrey Plantagenet as he lay dying at Château-du-Loir had made the bishops and barons around his bed promise that they would not suffer him to be laid in the grave till his eldest son had sworn to abide by the contents of a will which he had just executed. When they called upon Henry to take the oath, he hesitated a long while; at last, seeing no other means of getting his father buried in peace, with a burst of tears he swore as he was required. After the funeral the will was read; and Henry found himself thereby pledged to make over the whole of his patrimonial territories--Anjou, Touraine and Maine--to his brother Geoffrey, as soon as the addition of the English crown to his Norman coronet should put him in complete possession of his mother’s heritage. Till then Geoffrey was to be content with three castles, Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau. For the moment Henry dissembled his vexation; the contingency contemplated in the will was still in the unknown future. But before it came to pass Geoffrey, as we have seen, provoked his brother’s ill-will by using his three castles as a basis of rebellion. Henry on his part sought and obtained a papal absolution from the extorted oath, and flatly refused to keep it.[1405] Hereupon Geoffrey again began stirring up a revolt whose suppression was one of the chief objects of Henry’s visit to the continent in 1156. The brothers met at Rouen, but they could not agree; Geoffrey hurried back to fortify his three castles, and Henry followed to besiege them.[1406] The troops which he employed were, as we have already seen, mercenaries paid out of the proceeds of a scutage levied in England; and if the chancellor’s share in the matter amounted to nothing more than the suggestion of this contrivance, its perfect success in every way would be enough to justify the statement of a contemporary, that Henry “profited greatly by his assistance.”[1407] Loudun and Mirebeau were successively besieged and taken;[1408] and in July the fall of Geoffrey’s last and mightiest fortress, Chinon, brought him to complete surrender of all his claims, for which he accepted a compensation in money from his brother.[1409] Next month Queen Eleanor came over to share her husband’s triumph;[1410] she doubtless accompanied him in a progress through Aquitaine, where he received homage from the vassals of the duchy, took hostages for their fidelity,[1411] and kept Christmas at Bordeaux.[1412] Every part of his continental dominions was thus thoroughly secured before he returned to England in the spring of 1157.[1413]

[1403] He was at Rouen on Candlemas day. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1404] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215. Between the two
meetings with Louis came one with the count and countess of
Flanders at Rouen. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1405] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 112, 113).

[1406] Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1407] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162, says that Henry
won his success “Thomæ cancellarii sui magno fretus auxilio.”
It is not quite clear whether Thomas was with him in person; he
was certainly in England part of this year, witness the Pipe
Roll.

[1408] Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1409] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 114).
Rob. Torigni, a. 1156. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1156 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 38). The first states the compensation as “terram
planam ex quo fructuum utilitas proveniret”; the second as a
thousand pounds sterling and two thousand Angevin _per annum_.
All say Geoffrey lost his castles, except Loudun, which Henry
restored to him (Chron. S. Albin. as above). The date is from
Rob. Torigni.

[1410] She and Richard de Lucy were both with Henry at Saumur
on August 29. Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 76.

[1411] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215.

[1412] Anon. Chron., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 121.

[1413] Eleanor went back independently before Easter. “In
corredio reginæ quando venit de Normanniâ” appears among the
accounts “de veteri firmâ” of Hampshire, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II.
(Hunter), p. 107.

Henry and Eleanor had now two children living. The eldest, born in London on February 28, 1155,[1414] and baptized by his father’s name, had already been recognized as his heir; the second was a girl, born in 1156,[1415] and named after her grandmother the Empress Matilda. A third, Richard, was born at Oxford[1416] on September 8, 1157.[1417] Eleanor had moreover by her former marriage with Louis of France two daughters, Mary and Adela, betrothed to the brother-counts of Champagne and Blois;[1418] while the second marriage of Louis with Constance of Castille had given him one child, the infant princess Margaret.[1419] Early in 1158 Henry resolved to secure the hand of this little girl for his eldest son, and he sent his chancellor over sea to make the proposal to Louis.[1420]

[1414] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1155
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 38).

[1415] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302.

[1416] _Ibid._

[1417] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1157 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 39).

[1418] _Gesta Ludov._, c. 29 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 411). _Hist. Ludov._ (_ibid._) p. 415.
Mary had once been proposed as wife for Henry Fitz-Empress,
but S. Bernard put a stop to the scheme on the ground of
consanguinity (see above, p. 393, note 2{1161})--an objection
which, however, applied still more strongly to Henry’s marriage
with her mother. Mary was betrothed to Henry of Champagne before
the Crusade (_Gesta Ludov._, c. 18, as above, pp. 403, 404).
Adela was born in 1149 or 1150, and apparently betrothed to
Theobald of Blois in 1152 or soon after (_ib._ cc. 27, 29, as
above, pp. 410, 411; _Hist. Ludov._, _ib._ pp. 414, 415).
Neither couple was married till 1164.

[1419] _Gesta Ludov._, c. 29 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. iv.), p. 411. _Hist. Ludov._ (_ibid._), p. 415.

[1420] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
29. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302.

Never, since Haroun-al-Raschid sent his envoys to Charles the Great, had such an embassy been seen in western Europe. Thomas made up his mind to display before the eyes of astonished France all the luxury and splendour which the wealth of the island-realm could procure, that King Henry might be glorified in his representative.[1421] The six ships with which he habitually crossed the Channel[1422]--the king himself had but one for this purpose, till his chancellor presented him with three more[1423]--can hardly have sufficed for the enormous train which he took with him on this occasion. It comprized, in the first place, some two hundred members of his household, knights, clerks, stewards, servants, squires, and young pages of noble blood, all provided with horses and fitted out with new and gay attire as beseemed their several degrees. Thomas himself had twenty-four changes of raiment, most of which he gave away in the course of his journey; besides a quantity of rich silks, rare furs, and costly cloths and carpets, “fit to adorn the sleeping-chamber of a bishop.” He had a right royal train of coursing-dogs and hawks of all kinds. Above all, he had eight mighty chariots, each drawn by five horses equal to war-chargers in beauty and strength; beside each horse ran a stalwart and gaily-clad youth, and each chariot had its special conductor. Two of these vehicles were laden with casks of ale, to be given to the French, who marvelled at the beverage, strange to them, which the English thought superior to wine. The other chariots bore the furniture of the chancellor’s chapel, of his private chamber, and of his kitchen; others again contained treasure, provisions for the journey, necessaries of the toilet, trappings and baggage of all kinds. Next, there were twelve sumpter-horses, of which eight were loaded with coffers containing the gold and silver vessels of the chancellor’s household, vases, ewers, goblets, bowls, cups, flagons, basins, salt-cellars, spoons, plates and dishes. Other chests and packages held the money for daily expenses and gifts, the chancellor’s own clothes, and his books. One pack-horse, which always went first, bore the sacred vessels, altar-ornaments and books belonging to the chapel. To each horse there was a well-trained groom; to each chariot was fastened a dog, large, strong and “terrible as a lion or a bear”; and on the top of every chariot sat a monkey. The procession travelled along the road in regular order; first came the foot-pages, to the number of about two hundred and fifty, in groups of six, ten or more, “singing together in their native tongue, after the manner of their country.” They were followed at a little distance by the coursing-dogs and hounds coupled and in leashes under the charge of their respective keepers. Next, the great chariots covered with hides came heavily rolling and rattling along; after them trotted the pack-horses, each with a groom; these again were followed by the squires, bearing the shields and leading the chargers of the knights; then came a crowd of other attendants, pages, and those who had charge of the hawks; then the sewers and other servants of the chancellor’s household; then his knights and his clerks, all riding two and two; and lastly, amid a select group of friends, the chancellor himself. In every town and village along the road the French rushed out to inquire the meaning of such a startling procession, and when told that it was the chancellor of the king of England coming on a mission to the king of France, exclaimed: “If this is the chancellor, what must his master be?”

[1421] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

[1422] Partly, it seems, for the sake of giving a free passage
to any one who wanted to go. _Ib._ p. 23.

[1423] _Ibid._ p. 26.

Immediately after landing Thomas notified his arrival to Louis; at Meulan he received an answer, fixing a day for an audience in Paris. It was the custom of the French kings to provide at their own expense for every man who came to their court during his sojourn there; Louis therefore issued a proclamation in Paris forbidding the sale of any article whatsoever to the chancellor or his attendants. Thomas however was resolved to decline the royal hospitality; he sent his caterers in disguise and under feigned names to all the fairs round about--Lagny, Corbeil, Pontoise, S. Denys--where they bought up such an abundance of bread, meat, fish and wine that when he reached his lodging at the Temple he found it stocked with three days’ provisions for a thousand men. One dish of eels, which had cost a hundred shillings sterling, was long remembered as an instance of the English chancellor’s prodigality. Every possible courtesy was interchanged between him and the French king. Every member of the court, were he count, baron, knight or serving-man, received some token of insular wealth and generosity; Thomas gave away all his gold and silver plate, all his costly raiment; to one a cloak, to another a fur cape, to another a pelisse, to another a palfrey or a destrier.[1424] The masters and scholars of the university came in for their share; the chancellor’s gracious reception of them, and of the citizens with whom the English scholars lodged,[1425] was a marked feature in his visit to Paris.[1426] The embassy was successful; Louis promised his daughter’s hand to the heir of England, and Thomas went home in triumph, having finished up his expedition by capturing and casting into prison at Neufmarché a certain Guy of Laval whose lawless depredations were a continual insult to King Henry and a continual terror to his subjects.[1427] Henry himself soon afterwards went over sea, partly, no doubt, to confirm the family alliance thus concluded with Louis. But there was also another reason which urgently required his presence in Gaul.

[1424] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
29–33.

[1425] “Cives scholarium Angligenarum creditores”(_ib._ p. 32)
must mean something like this.

[1426] _Ibid._

[1427] _Ibid._ p. 33.

A fresh opening had presented itself to the ambition of the Angevin house in a quarter where they seem to have had no dealings since the time of Geoffrey Martel, but which was intimately associated with their earliest traditions and with the very foundations of their power. The long rivalry between the counts of Nantes and of Rennes had ended, like that between the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou, in a marriage, and for eighty-two years all Britanny had been united beneath the immediate and undisputed sway of the one ducal house, when in 1148 Duke Conan III. on his death-bed disavowed the young Hoel who had hitherto passed as his son and heir.[1428] The duchy split up into factions once again; the greater part accepted the rule of Count Eudo of Porhoët, who was married to Conan’s only daughter Bertha; the people of Nantes alone, fired with their old spirit of independence and opposition, opened their gates to Hoel and acknowledged him as their count. Hoel however proved unable to cope with the superior forces of his rival; at the end of eight years his people grew hopeless of maintaining their independence under him. Rather than give it up once more to those whom they looked upon as representatives of the hated supremacy of Rennes, they fell back upon their old traditional alliance with Anjou, and having driven out the unfortunate Hoel, offered themselves and their country to young Geoffrey Plantagenet.[1429] Geoffrey, smarting under the defeat which he had just sustained at his brother’s hands in Anjou, was naturally delighted with this new acquisition, and all the more as he had a fair prospect of enjoying it in peace; for Eudo at that very moment was suddenly confronted by another rival. Earl Conan of Richmond, Bertha’s son by a former marriage, being now grown to manhood, came over from England in this same summer of 1156 to claim the heritage which his stepfather had usurped;[1430] and during the struggle which ensued between them neither party had time or energy to spare for dislodging the Angevin intruder from Nantes, where he remained undisputed master for nearly two years.

[1428] Chron. Britann. _ad ann._ (Morice, _Hist. Bret.,
preuves_, vol. i. col. 103).

[1429] _Ib._ a. 1148, 1156, 1157 (as above). Chron. Brioc.
(_ibid._), col. 37.

[1430] Chron. Brioc. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

On July 26, 1158, Geoffrey died.[1431] The county of Nantes was at once seized by Conan and claimed by the king of England as heir to his childless brother;[1432] and on the eve of the Assumption Henry landed in Normandy to enforce his claim. Before resorting to arms, however, he deemed it prudent to secure the assent of the lord paramount of Britanny, King Louis of France, to his intended proceedings. The negotiations were again intrusted to the chancellor, and again with marked success. At a conference held on the last day of August[1433] Louis did far more than sanction Henry’s claim upon Nantes; he granted him a formal commission to arbitrate between the competitors for the dukedom of Britanny and settle the whole question in dispute as he might think good, in virtue of his office as grand seneschal of France.[1434] This office was now little more than honorary, and was held throughout the greater part of the reign of Louis VII. by the count of Blois; but the rival house of Anjou seems to have also put forth a claim to it, which Louis admitted for a moment, as on the present occasion, whenever it suited his own purposes.[1435] From Argentan, on September 8, Henry issued a summons to the whole feudal host of Normandy to assemble at Avranches on Michaelmas-day for an expedition into Britanny. He himself spent the interval in a visit to Paris, where he was entertained by Louis with the highest honours; the betrothal of little Henry and Margaret was ratified, and the baby-bride was handed over to the care of her future father-in-law, who intrusted her for education to a faithful Norman baron, Robert of Neubourg.[1436] The host gathered at Avranches on the appointed day, but only to witness Conan’s submission. He knew that he was no match for the king of England with the king of France at his back; so he put himself into Henry’s hands, and received his confirmation in the dukedom of Britanny in return for the surrender of Nantes.[1437] Henry, after a visit to the Mont-S.-Michel and a brief halt at Pontorson to restore the castle, proceeded to take formal possession of Nantes; he then went to besiege Thouars,[1438] whose lord was in rebellion against him. In November he met Louis at Le Mans,[1439] and thence conducted him on a triumphal progress through Normandy. After going through Pacy and Evreux to Neubourg, that the French king might see his little daughter, they were received with a solemn procession at Bec; they then visited the abbey of Mont-S.-Michel, where Louis had a vow to pay, and from Avranches Henry escorted his guest by way of Bayeux, Caen and Rouen safely and honourably back to his own dominions.[1440]

[1431] Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
p. 166). Chron. S. Albin. a. 1158 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 39).

[1432] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. Chron. Brioc. (Morice, _Hist.
Bret., preuves_, vol. i.), col. 37. Chron. Britann. a. 1158
(_ib._ col. 103).

[1433] Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
p. 167).

[1434] “Eo tempore, per industriam Thomæ cancellarii a
Lundoniâ, rex Angliæ a rege Francorum Christianissimo, viro
tamen nimis simplici, optinuit ut quasi senescallus regis
Francorum intraret Britanniam, et quosdam ibidem inter se
inquietos et funebre bellum exercentes coram se convocaret et
pacificaret, et quem inveniret rebellum violenter coherceret.”
Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

[1435] On the office of seneschal of France see A. Luchaire,
_Hist. des Institutions Monarchiques sous les premiers
Capétiens_, vol. i. pp. 173–181. The treatise of Hugh of
Clères “De senescalciâ et majoratu regni Franciæ” (printed in
Marchegay, _Comtes d’Anjou_, pp. 387–394), which sets forth
the Angevin claim in detail, is shown by M. Mabille to be a
forgery (Introd., pp. xlix–li); and so too, it seems, is the
only charter in which Henry appears as seneschal (_ib._ p. li,
note). The treatise was, however, written between 1150 and
1168 (_ib._ p. li), and must therefore have been intended to
support a claim made at that time. M. d’Arbois de Jubainville
(_Comtes de Champagne_, vol. ii. pp. 270–274; vol. iii. pp. 96,
97) gives from charters a list of the seneschals of France from
A.D. 1091 to A.D. 1163. No count of Anjou appears; and from
1154 to 1163 (inclusive) the seneschal each year is Theobald of
Blois. That the Angevin claim was, however, not only made but
occasionally admitted--doubtless for some special purpose--is
shewn by the passage of Gerv. Cant. quoted above (note 3
{1434}), and also by two passages in Robert of Torigni, none of
which are noticed by M. Luchaire. In A.D. 1169 Robert tells us
that the younger Henry did homage to Louis at Montmirail for the
county of Anjou, “et concessit ei rex Francorum ut esset
senescallus Franciæ, quod pertinet ad feudum Andegavense;” and
he adds that at Candlemas young Henry officiated as seneschal to
the king in Paris; after which he proceeds to abridge from the
pseudo-Hugh de Clères the story of the origin of the dignity. In
A.D. 1164 he says: “Comes Carnotensis Tedbaudus despondit filiam
Ludovici regis Franciæ, et ideo rex ei concessit dapiferatum
Franciæ, quem comes Andegavensis antiquitus habebat.” M. de
Jubainville’s list shews that Theobald had been seneschal long
before this; but the words shew that the Angevin claim was well
known, at any rate in the Angevin dominions.

[1436] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158.

[1437] _Ibid._ Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_,
vol. ii. p. 169). Chron. Britann. (Morice, _Hist. Bret.,
preuves_, vol. i.), col. 104. This last dates the surrender
“circa festivitatem S. Dionysii” [Oct. 9]; the two former make
it Michaelmas. According to Rob. Torigni the actual cession
comprised the city of Nantes and the northern half of the
county, said to be worth sixty thousand shillings Angevin.

[1438] Rob. Torigni and Contin. Becc. as above. Chron. S.
Albin. a. 1158 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 39). Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

[1439] Gerv. Cant. as above.

[1440] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle,
_Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii. pp. 169, 170). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 166.

The county of Nantes was in itself a very trifling addition to the vast possessions of Henry Fitz-Empress; yet its acquisition was a more important matter than appears at first sight. Nantes, by its geographical position, commanded the mouth of the Loire; its political destinies were therefore of the highest consequence to the princes whose dominions lay along the course of that river. The carefully planned series of advances whereby Geoffrey Greygown and Fulk the Black had gradually turned the whole navigable extent of the Loire into a high-way through their own territories would have been almost useless had they not begun by securing the entrance-gate. To Henry, who as count of Poitou had command of the opposite shore of the estuary, there might have been less danger in the chance of hostility at Nantes; but the place was, for another reason, of greater value to him than it could ever have been to his ancestors. From the English Channel to the Pyrenees he was master of the entire western half--by far the larger half--of Gaul, with one exception: between his Norman and his Aquitanian duchy there jutted out the Breton peninsula. Britanny must have been in Henry’s eyes something like what Tours had been in those of Geoffrey Martel:--a perpetual temptation to his ambition, a fragment of alien ground which must have seemed to him destined almost by the fitness of things to become absorbed sooner or later into the surrounding mass from which it stood out in a sort of unnatural isolation. By his acquisition of Nantes he had gained a footing in the Breton duchy, somewhat as his forefathers had gained one in the city of Tours by their canonry at S. Martin’s; and as a grant of investiture from the French king had served as the final stepping-stone to Martel’s great conquest, so the privilege of arbitration conferred by Louis upon Henry might pave the way for more direct intervention in Britanny. The meaning of this autumn’s work is well summed up by Gervase of Canterbury: “This was Henry’s first step towards subduing the Bretons.”[1441] A week before the assembly at Avranches his fourth son had been born;[1442] the infant was baptized by the name of Geoffrey. It would indeed have been strange if the name made famous by Henry’s own father, as well as by so many of the earlier members of the family, had been allowed to drop out of use in the next generation. Yet by the light of after-events one may suspect that its revival at this particular moment had a special reference to the memory of the lately deceased Count Geoffrey of Nantes, and that the new-born child’s future destiny as duke of Britanny was already foreshadowed, however vaguely, in his father’s dreams.

[1441] “Hic fuit primus ingressus ejus super Britones
edomandos.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

[1442] On September 23; Rob. Torigni, a. 1158.

The year closed amid general tranquillity. So cordial was, or seemed to be, the alliance of the two kings, that they planned a joint crusade against the Moors in Spain, and wrote to ask the Pope’s blessing upon their undertaking;[1443] and a long-standing dispute between Henry and Theobald of Blois was settled before Christmas by the mediation of Louis.[1444] In England the year is marked by nothing more important than a new issue of coinage.[1445] The administration of the country was directed by the two justiciars, assisted, formally at least, by the queen,[1446] until shortly before Christmas, when she went over sea to keep the feast with her husband at Cherbourg.[1447] Unhappily, the beginnings of strife followed in her train.

[1443] Letter of Adrian IV.--date, February 19 [1159]--in
Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. pp. 590, 591.

[1444] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. The quarrel had originated in
Henry’s refusal, when he succeeded his father as count of
Anjou, to do homage for Touraine. To this was added a dispute
about Fréteval and Amboise. See details in _Gesta Ambaz.
Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 216, 222, 223.

[1445] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302. There are some
references to this new coinage in the Pipe Roll of the year (4
Hen. II., Hunter, pp. 114, 181). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i.
p. 215, misdates it 1156.

[1446] Richard de Lucy and Eleanor seem to share the regency
during her stay in England; see Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp.
42, 43, and Palgrave, _Eng. Commonwealth_, vol. ii. pp. v, vi.
After her departure her place seems to be taken by Robert of
Leicester.

[1447] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

The duchy of Aquitaine, or Guyenne, as held by Eleanor’s predecessors, consisted, roughly speaking, of the territory between the Loire and the Garonne. More exactly, it was bounded on the north by Anjou and Touraine, on the east by Berry and Auvergne, on the south-east by the Quercy or county of Cahors, and on the south-west by Gascony, which had been united with it for the last hundred years. The old Karolingian kingdom of Aquitania had been of far greater extent; it had in fact included the whole country between the Loire, the Pyrenees, the Rhône and the ocean. Over all this vast territory the counts of Poitou asserted a theoretical claim of overlordship by virtue of their ducal title; they had, however, a formidable rival in the house of the counts of Toulouse. These represented an earlier line of dukes of Aquitaine, successors of the dukes of Gothia or Septimania, under whom the capital of southern Gaul had been not Poitiers but Toulouse, Poitou itself counting as a mere underfief. In the latter half of the tenth century these dukes of Gothia or _Aquitania Prima_, as the Latin chroniclers sometimes called them from the old Roman name of their country, had seen their ducal title transferred to the Poitevin lords of _Aquitania Secunda_--the dukes of Aquitaine with whom we have had to deal. But the Poitevin overlordship was never fully acknowledged by the house of Toulouse; and this latter in the course of the following century again rose to great importance and distinction, which reached its height in the person of Count Raymond IV., better known as Raymond of St. Gilles, from the name of the little county which had been his earliest possession. From that small centre his rule gradually spread over the whole territory of the ancient dukes of Septimania. In the year of the Norman conquest of England Rouergue, which was held by a younger branch of the house of Toulouse, lapsed to the elder line; in the year after the Conqueror’s death Raymond came into possession of Toulouse itself; in 1094 he became, in right of his wife, owner of half the Burgundian county of Provence. His territorial influence was doubled by that of his personal fame; he was one of the chief heroes of the first Crusade; and when he died in 1105 he left to his son Bertrand, over and above his Aquitanian heritage, the Syrian county of Tripoli. On Bertrand’s death in 1112 these possessions were divided, his son Pontius succeeding him as count of Tripoli, and surrendering his claims upon Toulouse to his uncle Alfonso Jordan, a younger son of Raymond of St. Gilles.[1448] Those claims, however, were disputed. Raymond’s elder brother, Count William IV., had left an only daughter who, after a childless marriage with King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon,[1449] became the wife of Count William VIII. of Poitou.[1450] From that time forth it became a moot point whether the lord of St. Gilles or the lord of Poitiers was the rightful count of Toulouse. Raymond unquestionably bore the title and exercised its functions for some six years before his brother’s death and his niece’s second marriage,[1451] and one historian asserts that he had acquired the county by purchase from his brother.[1452] Another story relates that William of Poitou having married the heiress of Toulouse after her father’s death,[1453] immediately entered upon her inheritance, but afterwards pledged it to Raymond in order to raise money for the Crusade.[1454] The reckless, spendthrift duke, whose whole energies were given up to verse-making, discreditable adventures, and either defying or eluding the ecclesiastical authorities who vainly strove to check the scandals of his life, never found means to redeem his pledge; neither did his son William IX.,[1455] although it appears that he did at some time or other contrive to obtain possession of Toulouse.[1456] On his death, however, it immediately passed back into the hands of Alfonso Jordan.

[1448] On the counts of Toulouse and St. Gilles see Vic and
Vaissète, _Hist. du Languedoc_ (new ed., 1872), vol. iii.

[1449] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 48 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 304).

[1450] _Ibid._ Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. This second marriage took
place in 1094: MS. Chron. quoted by Besly, _Comtes de Poitou,
preuves_, p. 408.

[1451] Vic and Vaissète, _Hist. du Languedoc_, vol. iii. pp.
452, 453.

[1452] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 388 (Hardy, p. 603).

[1453] William IV. of Toulouse died in 1093. Vic and Vaissète,
_Hist. du Languedoc_, vol. iii. p. 465.

[1454] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10
(Howlett, vol. i. pp. 121, 122). It will be remembered that
Duke William sought to pledge his own Poitou to the Red King
for the same purpose.

[1455] Will. Newb. as above (p. 122).

[1456] Geoff. Vigeois, as above, describes Eleanor’s father as
“Guillelmus dux Aquitaniæ filius Guillermi et filiæ comitis
Tholosani, qui jure avi sui urbem Tholosanam possedit.” Besly
(_Comtes de Poitou_, p. 132) has an account of the matter, but
I cannot find his authorities.

With all these shiftings and changes of ownership the kings of France had never tried to interfere. Southern Gaul--“Aquitaine” in the wider sense--was a land whose internal concerns they found it wise to leave as far as possible untouched. It was, even yet, a land wholly distinct from the northern realm whose sovereign was its nominal overlord. The geographical barrier formed by the river Loire had indeed been long ago passed over, if not exactly by the French kings, at least by the Angevin counts. But a wider and deeper gulf than the blue stream of Loire stood fixed between France and Aquitaine. They were peopled by different races, they belonged to different worlds. There was little community of blood, there was less community of speech, thought and temper, of social habits or political traditions, between the Teutonized Celt of the north and the southern Celt who had been moulded by the influences of the Roman, the Goth and the Saracen. Steeped in memories of the Roman Empire in its palmiest days, and of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse which had inherited so large a share of its power, its culture and its glory, Aquitania had never amalgamated either with the Teutonic empire of the Karolings or with the French kingdom of their Parisian supplanters. Her princes were nominal feudataries of both; but, save in a few exceptional cases, the personal and political relations between the northern lord paramount and his southern vassals began and ended with the formal ceremonies of investiture and homage. In the struggle of Anjou and Blois for command over the policy of the Crown, in the struggle of the Crown itself to maintain its independence and to hold the balance between Anjou and Normandy, the Aquitanian princes took no part; the balance of powers in northern Gaul was nothing to them; neither party ever seriously attempted to enroll them as allies; both seem to have considered them, as they considered themselves, totally unconcerned in the matter. Whatever external connexions and alliances they cultivated were in quite another direction--in the Burgundian provinces which lay around the mouth of the Rhône and the western foot of the Alps, and on the debateable ground of the Spanish March, the county of Barcelona, which formed a link between Gascony and Aragon. The marriage of Louis and Eleanor, however, altered the political position of Aquitaine with respect not only to the French Crown but to the world at large. She was suddenly dragged out of her isolation and brought into contact with the general political system of northern Europe, somewhat as England had been by its association with Normandy. The union of the king and the duchess was indeed dissolved before its full consequences had time to work themselves out. Its first and most obvious result was a change in the attitude of the Crown towards the internal concerns of Aquitaine. Whether the count of Toulouse paid homage to the count of Poitou, or both alike paid it immediately to the Crown--whether Toulouse and Poitiers were in the same or in different hands--mattered little or nothing to the earlier kings whose practical power over either fief was all bound up in the mere formal grant of investiture. But to Eleanor’s husband such questions wore a very different aspect. To him who was in his own person duke of Aquitaine as well as its overlord, they were matters of direct personal concern; the interests of the house of Poitou were identified with those of the house of France. For his own sake and for the sake of his posterity which he naturally hoped would succeed him in both kingdom and duchy, it was of the utmost importance that Louis should strive to make good every jot and tittle of the Poitevin claims throughout southern Gaul.

Four years after his marriage, therefore, Louis summoned his host for an expedition against the count of Toulouse.[1457] It tells very strongly against the justice of the Poitevin claims in that quarter that one of his best advisers--Theobald of Blois--so greatly disapproved of the enterprize that he refused to take any part in it at all;[1458] and it may be that his refusal led to its abandonment, for we have no record of its issue, beyond the fact that Alfonso Jordan kept Toulouse for the rest of his life, and dying in 1148 was succeeded without disturbance by his son Raymond V.[1459] Four years later the duchy of Aquitaine passed with Eleanor’s hand from Louis VII. to Henry Fitz-Empress. Once again the king of France became its overlord and nothing more:--his chance of enforcing his supremacy fainter than ever, yet his need to enforce it greater than ever, since Aquitaine, far from sinking back into her old isolation, was now linked together with Anjou and Normandy in a chain which encircled his own royal domain as with a girdle of iron. In these circumstances the obvious policy of France and Toulouse was a mutual alliance which might enable them both to stand against the power of Henry. It was cemented in 1154 by the marriage of Raymond V. with Constance, widow of Eustace of Blois and sister of Louis VII.[1460] Four more years passed away; Henry’s energies were still tasked to the uttermost by more important work than the prosecution of a doubtful claim of his wife against the brother-in-law of her overlord and former husband. Whether the suggestion at last came from Eleanor herself, during the Christmas-tide of 1158, we cannot tell; we only know that early in 1159 Henry determined to undertake the recovery of Toulouse.

[1457] At Midsummer 1141. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
Scriptt._), p. 923.

[1458] _Alterius Roberti App. ad Sigebertum_, _Rer. Gall.
Scriptt._, vol. xiii. p. 331.

[1459] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1460] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 122).

A summons to Raymond to give back the county to its heiress was of course met with a refusal.[1461] It was a mere formal preliminary, and so was also a conference between Henry and Louis at Tours, where they discussed the matter and failed to agree upon it,[1462] but parted, it seems, without coming to any actual breach; Henry indeed was evidently left under the impression that his undertaking would meet with no opposition on the part of France.[1463] Early in Lent he went to Poitiers and there held council with the barons of Aquitaine. The upshot of their deliberations was an order for his forces to meet him at Poitiers on Midsummer-day, ready to march against the count of Toulouse.[1464]

[1461] _Ib._ (p. 123).

[1462] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
p. 171).

[1463] “Inde graves inimicitiæ inter ipsum” [sc. Ludovicum]
“et regem Anglorum ortæ sunt, cum videret sibi regem Francorum
nocere, de cujus auxilio plurimum confidebat” remarks Rob.
Torigni on Louis’s arrival at Toulouse (a. 1159).

[1464] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
pp. 171, 172).

A question now arose of what those forces were to consist. The feudal levies of Eleanor’s duchy might fairly be called upon to fight for the supposed rights of their mistress; those of Anjou and Maine might perhaps be expected to do as much for the aggrandizement of their count; but to demand the services of the Norman knighthood for an obscure dynastic quarrel in southern Gaul--still more, to drag the English tenants-in-chivalry across sea and land for such a purpose--would have been both unjust and impolitic, if not absolutely impracticable. On the other hand, the knights of Aquitaine were of all Henry’s feudal troops those on whom he could least depend; and they would be moreover, even with the addition of those whom he could muster in his paternal dominions, quite insufficient for an expedition which was certain to require a large and powerful host, and whose duration it was impossible to calculate. In these circumstances the expedient which had been tentatively and in part adopted three years before was repeated, and its application this time was sweeping and universal. The king gave out that in consideration of the length and hardship of the way which lay before him, and desiring to spare the country-knights, citizens and yeomen, he would receive instead of their personal services a certain sum to be levied as he saw fit upon every knight’s fee in Normandy and his other territories.[1465] This impost, which afterwards came to be known in English history as the “Great Scutage,” was, as regards England, the most important matter connected with the war of Toulouse. It marks a turning-point in the history of military tenure. It broke down the old exemption of “fiefs of the hauberk” from pecuniary taxation, in such a way as to make the encroachment upon their privilege assume the shape of a favour. To the bulk of the English knighthood the boon was a real one; military service beyond sea was a burthen from which they would be only too glad to purchase their release; the experiment, so far as it concerned them, succeeded perfectly, and made a precedent which was steadily followed in after-years. From that time forth the word “scutage” acquired its recognized meaning of a sum paid to the Crown in commutation of personal attendance in the host; and the specially cherished privilege of the tenants-in-chivalry came to be not as formerly exemption from money-payment on their demesne lands, but, by virtue of their payment, exemption from service beyond sea.

[1465] “Rex igitur Henricus ... considerans longitudinem
et difficultatem viæ, nolens vexare agrarios milites nec
burgensium nec rusticorum multitudinem, sumptis LX. solidis
Andegavensium in Normanniâ de feudo uniuscujusque loricæ et de
reliquis omnibus tam in Normanniâ quam in Angliâ, sive etiam
aliis terris suis, secundum hoc quod ei visum fuit,” etc. Rob.
Torigni, a. 1159.

The sums thus raised in 1159 are however entered in the Pipe Roll of the year not as scutage but under the vaguer and more comprehensive title of _donum_. The reason doubtless is that they were assessed, as the historians tell us and as the roll itself shews, not only upon those estates from which services of the shield were explicitly due, but also upon all lands held in chief of the Crown, and all Church lands without distinction of tenure:[1466]--the basis of assessment in all cases being the knight’s fee, in its secondary sense of a parcel of land worth twenty pounds a year. Whatever the laity might think of this arrangement, the indignation of the clergy was bitter and deep. The wrong inflicted on them by the scutage of 1156 was as nothing compared with this, which set at naught all ancient precedents of ecclesiastical immunity, and actually wrung from the Church lands even more than from the lay fiefs.[1467] Their wrath however was not directed solely or even chiefly against the king. A large share of the blame was laid at the chancellor’s door; for the scheme had his active support, if it was not actually of his contriving. Its effects on English constitutional developement were for later generations to trace; the men of the time saw, or thought they saw, its disastrous consequences in the after-lives of its originators. In the hour of Thomas’s agony Gilbert Foliot raked up as one of the heaviest charges against him the story of the “sword which his hand had plunged into the bosom of his mother the Church, when he spoiled her of so many thousand marks for the army of Toulouse”;[1468] and his own best and wisest friend, John of Salisbury, who had excused the scutage of 1156, sorrowfully avowed his belief that the scutage of 1159 was the beginning of all Henry’s misdoings against the Church, and that the chancellor’s share in it was the fatal sin which the primate had to expiate so bitterly.[1469]

[1466] “Secundum ejus scutagium assisum pro eodem exercitu
Walliæ” [this writer assigns a like object to the scutage of
1156, but in both cases he is contradicted by chronology and
contemporary evidence] “reperies in rotulo anni quinti regis
ejusdem inferius. Fuitque assisum ad duas marcas pro quolibet
feodo, non solum super prælatos, verum tam super ipsos quam
super milites suos, secundum numerum feodorum, qui tenuerunt
de rege in capite; necnon et super residuos milites singulorum
comitatuum in communi.” [Cf. Rob. Torigni as quoted above, p.
459, note 2.] “Intitulaturque illud scutagium, _De Dono_. Eâ
quidem, ut credo, ratione, quod non solum prælati qui tenentur
ad servicia militaria sed etiam alii, abbates utpote de Bello
et de Salopesbirie et alii, tunc temporis dederunt auxilium.”
Alex. Swereford (_Liber Ruber Scacc._) quoted in Madox, _Hist.
Exchequer_, vol. i. p. 626. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
167, calls it a scutage: “Scotagium sive scuagium de Angliâ
accepit.” The references to it are in almost every page of
the Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.); the most important
are collected by Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp. 626, 627.
There are also a few notices in the next year; Pipe Roll 6
Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.), pp. 3, 6, 24, 29, 30, 32, 51. There
are a few entries of “scutage” by that name--from the abbot
of Westminster (Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II., pp. 6, 24, 27; 6 Hen.
II., pp. 11, 24, 28), the bishop of Worcester (5 Hen. II.,
p. 24), William of Cardiff (_ibid._), the abbot of Evesham
(_ib._ p. 25), and the earl of Warwick (_ib._ p. 26). Some of
these pay “donum” as well. In reference to this matter some
of the Northumbrian tenants-in-chivalry are designated by a
title which is somewhat startling in the middle of the twelfth
century: the sheriff of Northumberland renders an account “de
dono militum et _tainorum_” (Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II., p. 14). What
was the distinction between them?