Chapter XXIII: Conclusion (6)

Robertus Stephanides ... Inter cæteros _Herveius de
Montemaurisco_ ROBERTI PATRUUS, _nepoti suo se_ comitem
præbuit (p. 77).

Unfortunately for him, he had gone, not to Giraldus, but to 'Stonyhurst de rebus Hibernicis i. 69-70, _d'après Giraldus Cambrensis'_. Stonyhurst had carelessly made Giraldus speak of Hervey as uncle, not to Earl Richard, but to Robert fitz Stephen, and the pedigree was accordingly constructed to fit this error. When the error is corrected, the pedigree collapses; and the very passage which is quoted to confirm it at once unmasks the concoction.

And now having made it clear that both sides were in error, I shall set forth the true explanation of the words of Giraldus. The clue is given us by those Deeping charters which, oddly enough, Col. Morres duly quoted and appealed to. The first is found in the _Monasticon_, ii. 601:

Adeliz, uxor Gilberti filii Ricardi et Gillebertus, et
Baldewinus, et Rohaisia pueri Gilberti episcopo Lincolniensi
... salutem.... Hiis testibus, Gilberto filio Gilberti,
Galterio, _Hervæo_, Baldwino fratribus ejus et Rohaisia sorore
eorum, etc., etc.

The next is the confirmation of this grant by Robert Bishop of Lincoln (ob. 1123) as 'donum Adelidæ _de Montemoraci_' (p. 602). The third is a charter of 'Adeliz, mater comitis Gilberti' (p. 603), who is also styled in the Thorney Register 'Adelitia de Claromonte'. Col. Morres also relied much on a grant to Castleacre by 'Adalicia de Claromonte', to which the first witness is 'Her. de Montemorentino',[5] but the relationship of the witness to the grantor is not stated.

Gilbert (1) Adeliz (2) [? Bouchard]
fitzRichard = of Clermont = de Montmorenci
of Clare |
__________|__________________________ |_____
| | | | |
Richard Gilbert Walter | Hervey
fitzGilbert, fitzGilbert, fitzGilbert | de Montmorenci,
slain 1136 Earl of of Clare | Constable
Pembroke | of Ireland
| __|________________
| | |
Richard Baldwin Rohaisia
fitzGilbert, fitzGilbert
Earl of Pembroke, of Clare
'Strongbow'
Hervey de Montmorency is also mentioned in the Bilegh Abbey
confirmation charter of Richard I, but it gives us no information.

We have now, however, sufficient evidence to recover the true genealogy, which is interesting enough. This shows us how Hervey was 'paternal uncle' to Strongbow,[6] and why he witnessed his mother's charter (_ut supra_) with his brothers and sister, but did not join in their grant. We see, also, how Duchesne's error arose from his making the widow not of Gilbert, but of his son and namesake the first Earl of Pembroke, marry a Montmorenci. The error is not surprising in the case of such a family as the Clares, whose alliances and ramifications are made specially puzzling by the repetition of their Christian names.

On the other hand, the 'dimidiation' of Hervey in the pedigree put forward by the Morres family was merely the fruit of the resolve to make him at all costs uncle to Robert fitz Stephen, as the words of Giraldus were supposed to require, in their misquoted form.

Poor Hervey has, indeed, been the sport of genealogists and historians. Mr Dimock, in his Rolls edition of Giraldus, renders his name as 'Mont-Maurice', Miss Norgate as 'Mountmorris',[7] Mrs Green as Mount Moriss,[8] Mr Hunt, who has written his life in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ as Mount-Maurice, and even Mr Orpen, in his admirable edition of the Anglo-Norman poem on the Conquest, as 'Montmaurice' (p. 335). This last is the strangest case, because the forms found in the poem are 'Mumoreci' and 'Momorci', while, as Mr Orpen duly points out, it is 'Munmoreci' in the Register of St Thomas's, and 'Mundmorici' in the Cartulary of St Mary's (p. 266). Hervey was constable to his nephew Earl Richard's troops in Ireland, and described himself as 'Marescallus Domini Regis de Hibernia, et senescallus de tota terra Ricardi Comitis'.

Having now shown that the alleged descent can be absolutely disproved so far as concerns the only Montmorenci whose name occurs in connection with Ireland, I proceed to glance at his supposed relatives, none of whom, it is important to remember, even bore the name of Montmorency.

The chart pedigree printed above (p. 357) will show how Robert fitz Stephen was converted into a Montmorenci, though the parentage of his father Stephen, constable of Cardigan, is wholly unknown. It need scarcely be said that no proof is, or can be, given for this filiation; but the following passage on Stephen is an excellent illustration of the sort of evidence which is vouched for this wholly imaginary pedigree:

Ce seigneur, très-jeune encore, en 1087, confirma
conjointement avec son père et son aïeul Hervé, fils de
Bouchard, la donation faite par Turillus le Gros à l'abbaye de
St. Florent de Saumur de certaines bénéfices.

Sig. Hervei filii Burchardi, Sig. Roberti filii ejus, Sig.
Stephani militis ejus.

All that is needed, we are told, is to read grandson ('petit fils') instead of _filius_ for Robert, and great-grandson for _miles_--on the ground that _miles_ sometimes meant 'un jeune homme'! Such is a type of the 'proofs' on which this pedigree rests. But its absurdities and inconsistencies go even further than this. The dates work out as follows:

Hervey de Montmorency
|
Geoffrey 'le Riche'
|
Robert fitzGeoffrey
tenant-in-chief 1166
|
-------------------------------------------
| | |
Stephen, Hervey, Geoffrey,
born. _circ._ 1080, d. 1205 d. 1211
died 1136, having
witnessed above
charter in 1087
|
Robert fitz Stephen

Thus Stephen, who was born about 1080, and was a witness in 1087, would be _son_ to a man who flourished in 1166, and _brother_ to men who died in 1205 and 1211.[9]

But what are we to say when we learn further that this Stephen, who died in '1136', is the 'Stephanus de Marisco' who appears in the _Liber Niger_ as a tenant of the Bishop of Ely in 1166! The probable, and indeed only, explanation is that Col. Morres did not even know when the returns in the _Liber Niger_ were compiled. Their real date again destroys this cock-and-bull pedigree, or genealogical nightmare, which, for sheer topsy-turveydom, has, I venture to assert, never been surpassed.

I strongly suspect that the whole story arose from the occurrence in Ireland, in the thirteenth century, of the latinized name 'De Marisco' or 'De Mariscis', which represents of course, neither Montmorenci nor Morres, but simply Marsh. Genealogists, no doubt, were attracted by the form 'De Monte Maurisco' into tracing a connection; but, so far as can be understood, Col. Morres discarded this resemblance, and represented his alleged ancestors as 'seigneurs de Mariscis ou des marches' in England, connecting them with the fen district in Cambridgeshire. It would be easy to show that the early pedigree positively teems with absurdities similar to those I have already exposed, but it would be sheer waste of time to devote any more attention to proofs, which Col. Morres proudly boasted were 'vérifiés avec la plus scrupuleuse attention par l'autorité competente et sanctionnés désormais par l'autorisation du prince qui gouverne aujourd'hui l'empire britannique' (p. 25).

I do not hesitate to say that a more impudent claim was never successfully foisted on the authorities and the public. The chief sinner in the matter was, of course, Sir W. Betham, who certified (June 29, 1815) that this audacious concoction was 'established on evidence of the most unquestionable authority, chiefly from the ancient public records' (p. 203). The Crown naturally could only accept the statement of its own officer of arms, and accordingly described the alleged descent as being duly proved and recorded.[10] As for the French expert, the Chevalier de la Rue, of whose investigation and favourable verdict (April 17, 1818) so much has been made, it will scarcely be believed that he actually, with the sole exception of the _Monasticon_, did not attempt to verify the 'proofs' set before him! It will be seen from his own words that his decision was subject to their genuineness:

Toutes les citations puisées par monsieur de Morrès dans les
monuments, registres, et terriers publics d'Angleterre
étant, _comme je n'en doute pas_, aussi exactes que celles du
Monasticon (p. 37).

The value of his loudly-trumpeted verdict may be estimated from this admission.

It is only right that MM. de Montmorency and all those in France who are interested in historical genealogy should understand that no one among ourselves, whose opinion is worth having, would dream of defending this gross usurpation. We may hope and believe that in the present day no officer of arms would behave like Sir W. Betham, and certify, as 'established on evidence of the most unquestionable authority' a descent which is not merely 'not proven', but can be absolutely disproved. It cannot be stated too emphatically, or known too widely, that the house of Morres has no more right, by hereditary descent, to the name and arms of 'De Montmorency' than any of the numerous families of Morris, or indeed, for the matter of that, the family of Smith.[11]

[Footnote 1: See, for instance, the _Complete Peerage_ of G.
E. C. _sub_ 'Frankfort de Montmorency'.]

[Footnote 2: _Les Montmorency de France et les Montmorency
d'Irlande, ou Précis historique des démarches faites à
l'occasion de la reprise du nom de ses ancêtres par la branche
de Montmorency-marisco-morres._ Paris, 1828.]

[Footnote 3: _Histoire de la maison de Montmorency_. Paris,
1624.]

[Footnote 4: Vol. x., p. 6.]

[Footnote 5: Blomefield's _Norfolk_, ix. 5.]

[Footnote 6: Since this article was written, Mr Hunt's life of
Hervey has appeared in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ He has arrived
at precisely the same conclusions as myself.]

[Footnote 7: _England under the Angevin Kings_, ii. 101, 112.]

[Footnote 8: _Henry the Second_, p. 159.]

[Footnote 9: 'Etienne de Mariscis [_sic_] ... fut tué en 1136
par les Gallois lorsqu'il gouvernait ce pays' (p. 74). 'Il
n'était agé lors de sa mort que de cinquante six ou cinquante
sept ans' (p. 75).]

[Footnote 10: _London Gazette_, September 9, 1815; _Dublin
Gazette_, August 12, 1815.]

[Footnote 11: For an even more illustrious foreign descent,
see my paper, 'Our English Hapsburgs: a great delusion'
(_Genealogist_, N.S., x. 193).]

THE OXFORD DEBATE ON FOREIGN SERVICE (1197)

Great importance is rightly assigned to the first instances of 'a constitutional opposition to a royal demand for money',[1] of which the two alleged earliest cases are 'the opposition of St Thomas to the king's manipulation of the danegeld [1163], and the refusal by St Hugh of Lincoln to furnish money for Richard's war in France [1197]'.[2] These two precedents are always classed together: Dr Stubbs writes of St Hugh's action:

The only formal resistance to the king in the national
council proceeds from St Hugh of Lincoln and Bishop Herbert
of Salisbury, who refuse to consent to grant him an aid in
knights and money for his foreign warfare ... an act which
stands out prominently by the side of St Thomas's protest
against Henry's proposal to appropriate the sheriff's share of
danegeld.[3]

And Mr Freeman repeats the parallel:

Thomas ... withstands, and withstands successfully, the
levying of a danegeld.... As Thomas of London had withstood
the demands of the father, Hugh of Avalon withstood the
demands of the son. In a great council ... [he] spoke up for
the laws and rights of Englishmen ... no men or money were
they bound to contribute for undertakings beyond the sea.[4]

Having already discussed the earlier instance,[5] and advanced the view that the Woodstock debate [1163] did not relate to danegeld at all, but to an attempt of the king to seize for himself the _auxilium vicecomitis_ (a local levy) I now approach the later instance.

'This occasion,' we read, 'is a memorable one':[6] it is that of an 'event of great importance',[7] of 'a landmark in constitutional history'.[8] No apology, therefore, is needed for endeavouring to throw some further light on an event of such cardinal importance. But, to clear the ground, let us first define what we mean by 'opposition to a royal demand for money'. However autocratic the king may have been--and on this point there is not only a difference of opinion but a difference in fact corresponding with his strength at any given period--there were limits set by law or custom (or, should we rather say, limits, both written and unwritten?) beyond which he could not pass. 'Domesday', for instance, was a written limit: if the king claimed from a Manor assessed at ten hides the danegeld due from twenty, the tenant need only appeal to 'Domesday' (_poneret se super rotulum Winton'_). Or, again, if from a feudal tenant owing the forty days' service the king were to claim eighty days, he would be transgressing unwritten custom as binding as a written record. But outside these limits there lay a debatable ground where that elastic term _auxilium_ proved conveniently expansive. It was here that the crown could increase its demands, and here that a conflict would arise as to where the limit should be placed, a conflict to be determined not by law, but by a trial of strength between the crown and its opponents. We have, then, to decide to which of these spheres the action of St Hugh should be assigned, whether to that of the lawyer appealing to the letter of the bond, or to that of the popular leader opposing the demands of the king, though they did not contravene the law. If one may use the terms, for convenience sake, it was a question of law or a question of politics; and only if it was the latter had it a true constitutional importance.

The two chief accounts of the Oxford debate are found in _Roger Hoveden_ and the _Magna Vita St Hugonis_. As they are both printed in _Select Charters_, I need not repeat them here. There is, however, an independent version in the _Vita_ of Giraldus Cambrensis, which it may be desirable to add:

In Anglicanam coepit [rex] ecclesiam duris exactionibus
debacchari. Unde collecto in unum regni clero, habitoque
contra insolitum et tam urgens incommodum districtiore
consilio, verbum ad importunas pariter et importabiles
impositiones contradictionis et cleri totius pro ecclesiastica
libertate responsionis, in ore Lincolnensis tanquam personae
prae ceteris approbatae religionis authenticae magis communi
omnium desiderio est assignatum (vii. 103-4).

Gerald's editor impugns the correctness of these statements, on the grounds that the assembly was not clerical merely and that the bishop did not speak on behalf of the whole church. But the passage seems to me to refer to a meeting of the clergy in which it was decided that St Hugh should be their spokesman at the council. Of the other objection I shall treat below.

According to Hoveden, Richard asked for either (1) three hundred knights who would serve him, at their own costs, for a year, or (2) a sum sufficient to enable him to hire three hundred knights for a year at the rate of three shillings a day. The _Magna Vita_, however, implies that the former alternative alone was laid before the council. The grounds on which St Hugh protested are thus given by our two authorities:

Respondit pro se, quod ipse in hoc voluntati regis nequaquam
adquiesceret, tum quia processu temporis in ecclesiae suae
detrimentum redundaret, tum quia successores sui dicerent,
'Patres nostri comederunt uvam acerbam, et dentes filiorum
obstupescunt' (Hoveden).

Scio equidem ad militare servitium domino regi, sed in hac
terra solummodo exhibendum, Lincolniensem ecclesiam teneri;
extra metas vero Angliae nil tale ab ea deberi. Unde mihi
consultius arbitror ad natale solum repedare ... quam hic
pontificatum gerere et ecclesiam mihi commissam, antiquas
immunitates perdendo, insolitis angariis subjugare (_Magna
Vita_).

Two points stand out clearly--one that St Hugh took his stand on the prescriptive rights of his church, rights infringed by the king's demand; the other, that he spoke for himself alone, not for the church, still less for the barons, and least of all for the nation. Our authorities, however, are so vague that they leave in doubt the precise point 'taken' by the saintly prelate. Mr Freeman, we have seen, confidently assumes that he 'spoke up for the laws and rights of Englishmen'; Miss Norgate holds that he took up the position of Thomas and Anselm as 'a champion of constitutional liberty',[9] whatever that may mean; even Dr Stubbs claims that he 'acted on behalf of the nation to which he had joined himself'.[10]

I venture to think that the clue to the enigma is to be found in quite another quarter. In the chronicle of Jocelin de Brakelond we find a most instructive passage, which refers, it cannot be doubted, to the same episode. The story is told somewhat differently, but the point raised is the same. King Richard, we are told, demanded that knights should be sent him from England, in the proportion of one from every ten due by the church 'baronies'. The _servitium debitum_ of St Edmund's being forty, the abbot was called upon to send four.[11] That the principle of joint equipment, which had been adopted under Henry II in 1157,[12] and again I think by Longchamp in 1191,[13] was resorted to on this occasion is the more probable because a few years later (1205) we find King John similarly demanding 'quod novem milites per totam Angliam invenirent decimum militem, bene paratum equis et armis, ad defensionem regni nostri'. I admit, however, that it is not mentioned in the other versions of our episode, and Jocelin speaks only of the demand upon the church fiefs. But the point is that when the abbot consulted his tenants as to sending the four knights required, they protested that they were liable to pay scutage, but not to serve out of England.[14] Now this is a _locus classicus_ on the institution of scutage. Its bearing I shall examine below, after finishing the story. The abbot, we read, finding himself in a strait, crossed the sea in search of the king, who told him that a fine would not avail; he wanted men, not money.[15]

Surely we have here the key to the position taken by St Hugh. When he claimed that his fief was not bound 'ad servitium militare ... extra metas Angliae' he cannot have referred to the payment of scutage, for that had been paid by his predecessors and himself without infringing the liberties of their church.[16] He must, therefore, have referred not to 'money', but to _personal_ service outside the realm. But was this exemption peculiar to the church of Lincoln? If we find the same privilege existing at St Edmund's and at Salisbury, may we not infer that the church contingents were only bound to serve in person for 'defence, not defiance',[17] and that we have here the perfect explanation of the fact that scutage, as commutation for service, is an institution, when it first appears, peculiar to church fiefs? The mediaeval dread of creating a precedent preyed on the abbot as on the saint. From the council of Lillebonne to the Bedford _auxilium_ (1224) it was always the same cry:

Creiment k'il seit en feu tornez
Et en costume seit tenu
Et par costume seit rendu.

It was in this spirit that Hugh of Avalon, I take it, made his stand: other prelates might waive the point, in consideration of the king's necessities, but he, at least, would never allow a standing exemption to be broken through and thus impaired for all time.

His attitude, we are told, proved fatal to the scheme, compelling the king and his ministers to abandon it in impotent wrath. But perhaps his biographer exaggerates the defeat, for the Bishop of Salisbury, we know, had to purchase the king's pardon for his action by a heavy fine, while the Abbot of St Edmund's had to compromise the matter by the payment of a large sum.[18] It seems probable that similar compromises would be arranged in other cases where the request was not complied with.

If, then, I am right in the solution I offer, St Hugh must have taken the narrowest ground, and have acted on behalf of ecclesiastical privilege, and only incidentally even for that, his protest being limited to his own church.[19] And, further, it follows that, like St Thomas, he was acting strictly on the defensive. To say that his action affords 'the first clear case of the refusal of a money grant demanded directly by the crown, and a most valuable precedent, for later times',[20] is, I submit with all respect, to set it in a quite erroneous light. In 1197, as in 1163, the crown was trying to infringe on well-established rights, and St Hugh like St Thomas, resisted that infringement, so far as his own rights were concerned, just as he would have resisted an attempt of the crown to deprive his see of a Manor, of feudal services, or of goods. The crown might take its pound of flesh, but more than that it should not have; never, through any action of his, should his church be deprived of its prescriptive rights.[21]

Here this article originally closed; but I am tempted to refer to one touching on the same subject which appeared a year later in the pages of the same review.[22] Alluding to 'the question of foreign service' as a prominent grievance under John,[23] I wrote:

Ralf of Coggeshall, and Walter of Coventry, assert that the
northern barons denied their liability to foreign service
in respect of lands held in England. John retorted that the
principle had been admitted in the days of his father and
his brother, and therefore claimed it _tanquam debitum_. This
justifies the fears expressed sixteen years before by St
Hugh of Lincoln, and explains what I termed, in examining his
action, the mediaeval dread of creating a precedent.[24]

The final loss of Normandy had, of course, altered the case, but even while it still formed part of an English King's possessions, there must always have been scope for argument as to feudal obligations. To quote once more from the same article:

The question must have been complicated by the growth of the
king's dominions. Did the feudatories owe service to the king,
as their lord, in whatever war he was engaged? Or were they
only bound to follow him as King of England? Or were they, as
holding _a conquestu_, only bound to serve in the dominions
of the Conqueror who enfeoffed them, i.e. in England and
Normandy?[25]

On the death of the Conqueror, the question would arise for the King of the English and the Duke of the Normans were no longer one and the same. It comes to the front accordingly in a gathering of the barons at Winchester, which Mr Freeman assigns to Easter, 1090.[26] Orderic, here his authority, places it under 1089, and although his chronology is not to be always blindly followed, there is no ground for supposing here that the date is wrong. When he is following out a story or carried on by allusion, Orderic, like other chroniclers, anticipates or wanders in his dates; but this gathering has no connection with what precedes or follows; there is, therefore, nothing to account for his placing it under 1089, if it really belonged to 1090.

But the point to which I would call attention is the nature and intention of this gathering. Orderic writes:

Confirmatus itaque in regno, turmas optimatum ascivit, et
Guentoniæ congregatis, quæ intrinsecus ruminabat sic ore
deprompsit.

Mr Freeman attaches to the speech that follows no small importance. Holding that the king 'was now ready to take the decisive step of crossing the sea himself or sending others to cross it', he pointed out that:

even William Rufus, in all his pride and self-confidence, knew
that it did not depend wholly on himself to send either native
or adopted Englishmen on such an errand. He had learned enough
of English constitutional law not to think of venturing on
a foreign war without the constitutional sanction of his
kingdom. In a Gemot [_sic_] at Winchester, seemingly the
Easter Gemot of the third year of his reign, he laid his
schemes before the assembled Witan [_sic_], and obtained their
consent to a war with the Duke of the Normans.[27]

Of course, in reading Mr Freeman's works we must reconcile ourselves to 'Gemot' and 'Witan' being thrust upon us at every turn, however radically false a conception these words may convey. At the close of his dealing with this episode, he refers us, as a parallel, to the 'full Gemot' of 1047, in which 'the popular character of the assembly still', we learn, 'impresses itself on the language of history'. Now Orderic describes those who were summoned to our Winchester gathering as 'turmas optimatum'; he makes William begin his speech 'nostri egregii barones'; and he places in his mouth language essentially feudal and Norman:

Nunc igitur commoneo vos omnes, qui patris mei homines
fuistis, et feudos vestros in Normannia et Anglia de illo
tenuistis[28] ... c[oe]nobia quæ patres nostri construxerunt
in Neustria ... Decet ergo ut, sicut nomen ejus [_i.e._
Willelmi] et diadema gero, sic ad defensionem patriæ inhæream
ejus [_i.e._ Normanniæ] studio.

Mr Freeman expressed astonishment and delight at William's 'constitutional language', and declared that though, in its actual wording, the speech, of course, was Orderic's:

the constitutional doctrines which he has worked into his
speech cannot fail to set forth the ordinary constitutional
usage of the time. Even in the darkest hour in which England
had any settled government at all, etc., etc.[29]

And then follows the usual lament for 'the days of King Eadward', when it was not a 'cabinet', but a crowd, that dealt with the delicate question of peace or war.

Now even the late Professor's most ardent followers cannot represent my criticism here as 'trifling', or unimportant. Mr Freeman, I hold, had misconceived the matter altogether. The whole thing is sheer delusion. William's appeal, as set before us, was not the fruit of studies in English 'constitutional law': it was the appeal of a feudal lord to 'barons' holding by feudal tenure. Should there be any one who feels the slightest doubt upon the question, let him turn to Mr Freeman's own account of the great 'Assembly of Lillebonne'. He could not himself avoid a passing glance at the parallel, when he wrote that 'William the Red had as good reasons to give for an invasion of Normandy as his father had once had to give for an invasion of England'.[30] Contrasting that Assembly (1066) with an English Gemot, he wrote that 'in William's Assembly we hear of none but barons'.[31] Precisely. But that remark is equally true of his son's Assembly at Winchester.[32] And when we learn, a few years later, the composition of his Assembly, we find it admittedly restricted to tenants-in-chief.[33] Of the two Assemblies, that of Lillebonne revealed a more active opposition, showed more 'parliamentary boldness', than that of Winchester.[34] The latter merely applauded, we read, the King's appeal. Like his father, he appealed to his barons to follow him on foreign service; like him also, he pleaded his wrongs and the justice of his righteous cause.

Of the two, the father seems, as I have said, to have met with more opposition than the son. One might therefore produce an argument _ad absurdum_, and contend that, on Mr Freeman's showing, an English King was not less, but more, absolute than a Norman Duke. In any case we have now seen that the ideas about 'constitutional usage', and so forth, imported here by Mr Freeman, were nothing but a figment of his brain. The Assembly of Winchester no more resulted from 'English constitutional law' than did the Assembly of Lillebonne, convened for a similar purpose. William Rufus had to deal with barons who could not be anxious to invade Normandy merely to make him Duke of the Normans. If they had any preference in the matter, it would be rather for Robert than for William, for a weak rather than a strong ruler; but, apart from preference, the barons would be loth to engage in internecine warfare merely for the personal advantage of one brother or the other. This was seen in the peaceful close of the invasion by Duke Robert, as with that of Duke Henry half a century later. The question, in short, that arose in 1066, when a Duke of the Normans asked his barons to make him King of the English, arose once more in the days of his son, when a King of the English asked his barons to make him Duke of the Normans.

It was here no question of 'the laws and rights of Englishmen':[35] it was to no folkmoot that William Rufus spoke. When we read of the King in his court, composed of his tenants-in-chief,[36] as surrounded by 'no small part of the nation',[37] when we hear of the mass of 'the Assembly ... crying Yea, yea';[38] when we learn that 'a great numerical proportion, most likely a numerical majority, were natives',[39] we are fairly prepared for the astounding statement that:

The wide fields which had seen the great review and the great
homage in the days of the elder William, could alone hold the
crowd which came together to share in the great court of doom
which was holden by the younger.[40]

For we see that in all these fantasies of a brain viewing plain facts through a mist of moots and 'witan', we have what can only be termed history in masquerade.

[Footnote 1: Stubbs' _Const. Hist._ (1874), i. 510.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 577.]

[Footnote 3: _Select Charters_ (1870), pp. 28-9. So too,
preface to _Rog. Hoveden_ (1871): 'It may be placed on a par
with St Thomas's opposition to Henry II in 1163' (iv., pp.
xci-xcii). So also _Early Plantagenets_ (1876), p. 126, and
_Const. Hist._, i. 510.]

[Footnote 4: _Norm. Conq._, v. 675, 695.]

[Footnote 5: See above, p. 377.]

[Footnote 6: _Early Plantagenets_, p. 126.]

[Footnote 7: _Const. Hist._, i. 509.]

[Footnote 8: _Ibid._, p. 510, and pref. to _Rog. Hoveden_,
iv., pp. xci-xcii.]

[Footnote 9: _England under the Angevin Kings_, ii. 350.]

[Footnote 10: _Early Plantagenets_, p. 126.]

[Footnote 11: 'Precepit rex Ricardus omnibus episcopis et
abbatibus Angliae ut de suis baroniis novem milites facerent
decimum, et sine dilacione venirent ad eum in Normanniam,
cum equis et armis in auxilium contra Regem Franciae. Unde et
abbatem oportuit respondere de iiii. militibus mittendis' (ed.
Camden Soc, p. 63).]

[Footnote 12: 'Præparavit maximam expeditionem ita ut duo
milites de tota Anglia tertium pararent ad opprimendum
Gualenses.' _Robert de Torigni_.]

[Footnote 13: 'Tertium cum omnibus armis totius Angliae
militem die nominato mandavit venire Wintoniam.' Ric. Devizes
(Rolls Series), p. 409.]

[Footnote 14: 'Cumque summoneri fecisset omnes milites suos,
et eos inde convenisset, responderunt feudos suos, quos de
Sancto Ædmundo tenuerunt, hoc non debere, nec se nec patres
eorum unquam Angliam exisse, set scutagium aliquando ad
praeceptum regis dedisse' (_ibid._).]

[Footnote 15: 'Abbas vero in arcto posito, hinc videns
libertatem suorum militum periclitari, illinc timens ne
amitteret saisinam baronie sue pro defectu servicii regis,
sicut contigerat Episcopo Lundonensi [? Lincolnensi] et multis
baronibus Angliæ, statim transfretavit, et ... in primis
nullum potuit facere finem cum rege per denarios. Dicenti
ergo se non indigere auro nec argento, sed quatuor milites
instanter exigenti', etc. (_ibid._).]

[Footnote 16: 'In quibis conservandis sive exhibendis hactenus
fere per tredecim annos a rectis praedecessorum meorum
vestigiis non recessi' (_Magna Vita_).]

[Footnote 17: 'Ad publicam rem tuendam' (_Abingdon Cart._, ii.
3).]

[Footnote 18: 'Quatuor milites stipendiarios optulit abbas.
Quos cum rex recepisset, apud castellum de Hou misit. Abbas
autem in instanti eis xxxvi. marcas dedit ad expensas xl.
dierum. In crastino autem venerunt quidam familiares regis,
consulentes abbati ut sibi caute provideret, dicentes werram
posse durare per annum integrum vel amplius, et expensas
militum excrescere et multiplicari in perpetuum dampnum ei et
ecclesiae suae. Et ideo consulebant ut, antequam recederet
de curia, finem faceret cum rege, unde posset quietus esse
de militibus predictis post xl. dies. Abbas autem, sano
usus consilio, centum libras regi dedit pro tali quietantia'
(_Jocelin_, p. 63). It is noteworthy that thirty-six marcs
would represent just three shillings a day (for forty days)
for each knight, the very sum named by Hoveden. In 1205
the pay named in John's writ was two shillings a day (home
service), but both these sums are largely in excess of the
eight pence a day paid, as we have seen, under Henry II, the
discrepancy being incomprehensible, unless the higher wage
implied a larger following.]

[Footnote 19: Dr Stubbs held [1870] that he acted 'not
on ecclesiastical but on constitutional grounds' (_Select
Charters_, p. 28), though he subsequently [1871] doubted
whether 'the grounds of the opposition' were 'ecclesiastical
or constitutional' (Pref. to _Hoveden_, iv., p. xci), and even
admitted that 'the opposition of St Hugh was based not on
his right as a member of the national council, but on the
immunities of the church' (_Const. Hist._, i. 578).]

[Footnote 20: _Hoveden_, iv., xcii.]

[Footnote 21: 'Antiquas immunitates perdendo.']

[Footnote 22: 'An Unknown Charter of Liberties.' _English
Historical Review_, viii. 288 _et seq._]

[Footnote 23: See Dr Stubbs' Pref. to _W. Coventry_, p. lxiv.]

[Footnote 24: _English Historical Review_, viii. 293.]

[Footnote 25: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 26: _Will. Rufus_, i. 222.]

[Footnote 27: _Ibid._, i 222.]

[Footnote 28: Mr Freeman quotes this passage and duly renders
it in his text (i. 232).]

[Footnote 29: _Ibid._, i. 22.]

[Footnote 30: _Ibid._, i. 222.]

[Footnote 31: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 290.]

[Footnote 32: 'Turmas optimatum'--'barones'. Cf. _supra_, pp.
247, 262.]

[Footnote 33: _Will. Rufus_, ii. 56-7.]

[Footnote 34: _Norm. Conq._, iii. 294-6, 298.]

[Footnote 35: _Supra_, p. 398.]

[Footnote 36: At Salisbury, January 13, 1096.]

[Footnote 37: _Will. Rufus_, ii. 57.]

[Footnote 38: _Ibid._, 59.]

[Footnote 39: _Ibid._, 57.]

[Footnote 40: _Ibid._, 56.]

RICHARD THE FIRST'S CHANGE OF SEAL (1198)

With the superficial student and the empiric politician, it
is too common to relegate the investigation of such changes
to the domain of archæology. I shall not attempt to rebut
the imputation; only, if such things are archæology, then
archæology is history.--STUBBS, Preface to _R. Hoveden_, IV,
lxxx.

Historical research is about to pass, if indeed it is not already passing, into a new sphere--the sphere of Archæology. The central idea of that great advance which the present generation has witnessed in the domain of history has been the rebuilding of the historical fabric on the relatively sure foundation of original and contemporary authorities, studied in the purest texts. Chronicles, however, are not inexhaustible: for many periods they are all too few. The reaper has almost done his work; the turn of the gleaner has come. The smaller _quellen_ of history have now to be diligently examined and made to yield those fragments of information which will supplement, often where most needed, our existing stock of knowledge.

But this is not our only gain as we leave the broad highways trodden by so many before us. Those precious fragments which are to form our spoils will enable us to do more than supplement the statements of our standard chroniclers: they will afford the means of checking, of testing, by independent evidence, these statements, of submitting our witnesses to a cross-examination which may shake their testimony and their credit in a most unexpected manner.

As an instance of the results to be attained by archæological research, I have selected Richard the First's celebrated change of seal. Interesting as being the occasion on which the three lions first appear as the Royal arms of England--arms unchanged to the present day--it possesses exceptional historical importance from the circumstances by which it was accompanied, and which led, admittedly, to its adoption.

Historians have agreed, without the least hesitation, to refer this event to the year 1194, and to place it subsequent to the truce of Tillières or about the beginning of August. 'That Richard I,' writes a veteran student,[1] 'adopted a new seal upon his return from the Holy Land is a matter of notoriety.' Speed, in fact, had shown the way. We are told by him that 'the king caused [1194] a new broad seale to be made, requiring that all charters granted under his former seale should be confirmed under this, whereby he drew a great masse of money to his treasurie'.[2] The Bishop of Oxford, with his wonted accuracy, faithfully reproduces the statement of Hoveden (the original and sole authority we shall find for the story), telling us that 'Amongst other oppressive acts he [Richard] took the seal from his unscrupulous but faithful chancellor, and, having ordered a new one to be made, proclaimed the nullity of all charters which had been sealed with the old one.'[3] Mr Freeman similarly places the episode just before 'the licenses for the tournaments' (August 20, 1194), and consistently refers to Dr Stubbs's history.[4] Miss Norgate, in her valuable work, our latest authority on the period, assigns the event to the same date, and tells us that 'Rog. Hoveden's very confused account of the seals is made clear by Bishop Stubbs'.[5] Mr Maitland, in his noble edition of 'Bracton's Note-book', gives a case (ii. 69) in which a charter sealed 'secundo sigillo Regis Ricardi' was actually produced in court (1219), and explains that 'Richard had a new seal made in 1194', referring to Hoveden for his authority.[6]

It should be observed that all these writers rely merely on Hoveden, none of them throwing any light on the process of confirmation, or telling us how it was effected, and whether any traces of it remain. An independent writer, M. Boivin-Champeaux, in his monograph on William Longchamp, discusses the episode at some length, and asserts that the repudiated documents were 'assujettis, pour leur revalidation, à une nouvelle et coûteuse scellure'. Like the others, however, he relies on the authority of Hoveden, and consequently repeats the same date.

In the course of examining some ancient charters, I recognized one of them as nothing less than an actual instance of a confirmation consequent on this change of seal. But its incomprehensible feature was that the charter was confirmed on August 22, 1198, having originally been granted, 'sub primo sigillo', so recently as January 7th preceding. How could this be possible if the great seal had been changed so early as August 1194, and if the first seal, as stated by Dr Stubbs, was 'broken' on that occasion? Careful and prolonged research among the charters of the period (both in the original and in transcripts) has enabled me to answer the question, and to prove that (as, of course, the above charter implies) the change of seal did not take place in 1194, but 1198, and between January and May of that year.

Original charters under the second seal, confirming grants under the first, are distinctly rare. I have found, as yet, but one in the Public Record Office, and only two at the British Museum. But of originals and transcripts together I have noted twenty-eight. The dates of the original grants range from September 5, 1189, to January 7, 1198 (1197-8), and of the confirmations from May 27, 1198, to April 5, 1199.[7]

In a single instance there is fortunately preserved not only the text of the confirmation charter, but also that of the original grant.[8] From this we learn that the charter of confirmation did not necessarily give the wording, but only the gist ('tenor') of the original grant. We are thus brought to the instructive formula invariably used in these charters:

Is erat tenor carte nostre in primo sigillo nostro. Quod quia
aliquando perditum fuit, et, dum capti essemus in alem[anniâ],
in aliena potestate constitutum, mutatum est. Huius autem
innovationis testes sunt Hii, etc., etc.

We may here turn to the passage in Hoveden [ed. Stubbs, iii. 267] on which historians have relied, and see how far the reasons for the change given in the charters themselves correspond with those alleged by the chronicler.

Fecit sibi novum sigillum fieri, et mandavit, per singulas
terras suas, quod nihil ratum foret quod fuerat per vetus
sigillum suum; tum quia cancellarius ille operatus fuerat inde
minus discrete quam esset necesse, tum quia sigillum illud
perditum erat, quando Rogerus Malus Catulus, vicecancellarius
suus, submersus erat in mari ante insulam de Cipro, et
præcepit rex quod omnes qui cartas habebant venirent ad novum
sigillum ad cartas suas renovandas.

In both cases we find there are two reasons given; but while one of these is the same in both, namely the temporary loss of the seal when Roger Malchael was drowned, the other is wholly and essentially different. The whole aspect of the transaction is thus altered. To illustrate this I shall now place side by side the independent glosses of the Bishop of Oxford and of M. Boivin-Champeaux:

Richard's first seal was lost Sur deux exemplaires usuels du
when the vice-chancellor was grand sceau, le premier, que
drowned between Rhodes and Cyprus portait le vice-chancelier
in 1190; but it was recovered Mauchien, avait été perdu lors
with his dead body. The seal that de l'ouragan qui, en vue de
was now broken must have been the Chypre avait assailli la flotte
one which the chancellor had used Anglo-Normande, le second était
during the king's absence. resté en Angleterre; mais il
Richard, however, when he was at avait subi, par suite de la
Messina, had allowed his seal to revolution du 10 octobre, de
be set to various grants for nombreuses vicissitudes.
which he took money, but which Richard se prévalut de ces
he never intended to confirm. circonstances jointes au
Therefore probably he found it désaveu de la trève de Tillières
convenient now to have a new pour publier un édit aux termes
seal in lieu of both the former duquels tous les actes publics
ones, although he threw the blame passés sous son règne, qui
of the transactions annulled upon avaient été légalisés avec les
the chancellor. The importance of anciens sceaux étaient frappés
the seal is already very great. de nullité et assujettis, pour
(_Const. Hist._, i. 506, note.) leur revalidation â une nouvelle
et coûteuse scellure. Cette
ordonnance aurait pu, à la
rigueur, se colorer, si elle
n'avait concerné que les actes
accomplis pendant l'expédition
et la captivité du roi; mais le
comble de l'impudence et de
l'iniquité était de l'appliquer
même à ceux qui avaient précéde
son départ ou suivi son retour
(p. 223).

Thus both writers assume that there were two seals, one which remained in England with the chancellor, and one which accompanied the king to the east. They further (though Dr Stubbs is somewhat obscure) hold that the two excuses given refer respectively to the two seals, thus discrediting both. But when we turn to the charters themselves, we find but one seal mentioned, and to that one seal alone both the excuses refer. The king explains that on two occasions it was, so to speak, 'out on the loose'--(1) when his vice-chancellor was drowned; (2) when he himself was captured in Germany. This was, of course, the seal which accompanied him to the east.[9] The king makes no allusion to any other or to the chancellor. Such charters and grants as are known to us all proceed from the king himself, either before he left Messina or after he had reached Germany on his return. No charter or grant of Longchamp, as representing him, is known. In short, the whole of our record evidence points one way: the charters which the king proclaimed must be confirmed, and which we find brought to him for that purpose were those which he had himself granted, and no other. Lastly, even had we nothing before us but the passage in Hoveden which all have followed, I contend that it may, and indeed ought to be, read as referring to a single seal. But it is, as Miss Norgate justly observes, 'very confused', from its allusion to the chancellor's use of the seal. That allusion, however, would most naturally refer to the truce of Tillières, and not to the use of a separate seal in England. Therefore even if we accepted, which I do not, Hoveden's statement, it would not warrant the inference that has been drawn.

Again, when Miss Norgate writes of the 'withdrawal of the seal from William', and when Dr Stubbs tells us that the king 'took the seal from' him, these statements may have two meanings. But M. Boivin-Champeaux is more precise: 'L'emploi de ces procédés emportait le mépris et la violation non seulement de tous les actes étrangers au chancelier, mais encore de tous ceux où il avait mis la main. Il ne pouvait décemment conserver les sceaux. Le roi les lui enleva.' This is a distinct assertion that Longchamp was deprived of his office. Yet all our evidence points to the conclusion that he remained chancellor to the day of his death.

Dismissing Hoveden for the time, and returning to the testimony of the charters, we have seen that they point to the event we are discussing having taken place in 1198, between January 7, at which date the first seal was still in use, and May 27, when charters were already being brought for confirmation under the second seal. Passing now from the charters to the seals still in existence, we learn from Mr Wyon's magnificent work[10] (which has appeared since I completed my own investigation) that the first seal was still in use on April 1, 1198,[11] while an impression of the second is found as early as May 22, 1198.[12] Thus our limit of time for the change is narrowed to April 1-May 22, 1198.[13] The evidence of the charters and of the seals being thus in perfect harmony, let us see whether this limit of date corresponds with a time of financial difficulty. For, so desperate a device as that of the king's repudiation of his charters would only have been resorted to at a time of extreme pressure. What do we find? We find that the time of this change of seal corresponds with the great financial crisis of Richard's reign. The Church had at length lost patience, and had actually in the Council at Oxford (December 1197) raised a protest. The 'want of money', in Miss Norgate's words, was 'a difficulty which ... must have seemed well-nigh insurmountable'. Preparations were being made for a huge levy at five shillings on every ploughland. It was at this moment that the desperate king repudiated all the charters he had granted throughout his reign, and proclaimed that they must be 'brought to him for confirmation; in other words ... paid for a second time'.[14]

Let us now look at the other chroniclers. R. Coggeshall is independent and precise:

Accessit autem ad totius mali cumulum, juxta vitæ ejus
terminum, prioris sigilli sui renovatio, quo exiit edictum
per totum ejus regnum ut omnes cartæ, confirmationes, ac
privilegiatæ libertates quæ prioris sigilli impressione
roboraverat, irrita forent nec alicujus libertatis vigorem
obtinerent, nisi posteriori sigillo roborarentur. In quibus
renovandis et iterum comparandis innumerabilis pecunia
congesta est (p. 93).

This is in complete accordance with the now ascertained fact that Richard changed his seal, and regranted the old charters, within the last year of his life. Similarly independent and precise evidence is afforded by the Annals of Waverley:

MCXCVIII. Anno X. regis Ricardi præcepit idem rex omnes cartas
in regno suo emptas reformari, et novo sigilli sui impressione
roborari, vel omnes cassari, cujuscunque dignitatis aut
ordinis essent, qui vellent sua protectione defensari, vel
universa bona sua confiscari.[15]

Further, we read in the Annals of Worcester[16] and in the _Historia Major_ of M. Paris (ii. 450-451)[17] that in 1198, 'circaque festum sancti Michaelis, mutatæ sunt carte quas prius fecerat rex Ricardus, novo sigillo suo'. Now this Michaelmas fell just in the heart of the period within which the process of confirmation is proved to have been going on.

We see, then, that the evidence (1) of the seals, (2) of the charters, (3) of the circumstances of the time, (4) of other chroniclers, all concur in pointing to the spring of 1198. And now we will lastly appeal to Hoveden against himself. After telling us of the king's proclamation on the refusal of the religious to contribute to the carucage in the spring of 1198, he adds:

Præterea præcepit idem rex ut omnes, tam clerici quam laici,
qui cartas sive confirmationes habebant de sigillo suo veteri
deferrent eas ad sigillum suum novum renovandas, et nisi
fecerint, nihil quod actum fuerat per sigillum suum vetus
ratum haberetur (iv. 66).

This passage, which ought to be compared with Coggeshall, is merely ignored by Dr Stubbs. Miss Norgate, however, boldly explains it as 'a renewal of the decree requiring all charters granted under the king's old seal to be brought up for confirmation under the new one' (ii. 356). But the passage stands by itself, as describing a new measure.[18]

The only conclusion to be drawn from this cumulative evidence is that the earlier passage in Hoveden (1194) which has been so universally accepted, must be rejected altogether. Against the facts I have adduced it cannot stand.

Incredible though it may seem that a court official, a chronicler so able and well informed, indeed, in the words of his editor, 'our primary authority for the period',[19] should have misstated so grossly an event, as it were, under his own eyes, we must remember that 'Hoveden's personality is to a certain degree vindicated by a sort of carelessness about exact dates'.[20] Yet even so, 'few are the points', our supreme authority assures us, 'in which a very close examination and collation with contemporary authors can detect chronological error in Hoveden'.[21] Nor, of the eight anachronisms laboriously established by Dr Stubbs, does any one approach in magnitude the error I have here exposed. The importance of every anachronism in its bearing on the authorship of the chronicle is by him clearly explained.

How far does the rejection of this statement on the change of seal affect the statement which precedes it as to the Truce of Tillières? Hoveden places the latter and the former in the relation of cause and effect:

Deinde veniens in Normanniam moleste tulit quicquid factum
fuerat de supradictis treugis, et imputans cancellario suo hoc
per eum fuisse factum, abstulit ab eo sigillum suum, et fecit,
etc. (iii. 267).

This is rendered by Dr Stubbs in the margin: 'He annuls the truce and all the acts of the chancellor passed under the old seal.' The passage has also been so read by M. Boivin-Champeaux (p. 221); but if that is the meaning, which I think is by no means certain, Hoveden contradicts himself. For he speaks five months later of the truce ('Treuga quæ inter eos statuta fuerat duratura usque ad festum omnium sanctorum') as not having stopped private raids on either side.[22] R. de Diceto, mentioning the truce (ii. 120), says nothing of it being annulled, nor does R. Newburgh in his careful account. On the contrary, he implies that it held good, though the terms were thought dishonourable to Richard (ii. 420). I should, therefore, read Hoveden as stating simply that Richard was much annoyed at ('moleste tulit') its terms, and was wroth with the chancellor for accepting them.

In addition to correcting the received date for Richard the First's change of seal, the evidence I have collected enables us, for the first time, to learn how and to what extent the confirmation of the charters was effected. We find that it was no sweeping process, carried out on a single occasion, but that it was gradually and slowly proceeding during the last eleven months of the king's life. Here, then, is the explanation of another fact (also hitherto overlooked), namely that only a minority of the charters were ever confirmed under the second seal.[23] For the king's death abruptly stopped the operation of that oppressive decree which was being so reluctantly obeyed.

It should be superfluous for me to add that, in thus correcting previous statements, I have not impeached the accuracy of our greatest living historian, who could only form his judgment from the evidence before him. The result of my researches has been to show that the evidence itself breaks down when submitted to the test of fact.

_Granted_ _at_ _Confirmed_

1. 16 April, 1194[24] Winchester 27 May, 1198 2. 2 December, 1189 Canterbury 15 June, 1198 3. 10 October, 1189 Westminster 1 July, 1198 4. 28 November, 1189 Canterbury 1 July, 1198 5. 1 July, 1190 Dangu 3 July, 1198 6. 5 September, 1189 Westminster 30 July, 1198 7. 17 September, 1189 Geddington 30 July, 1198 8. 25 April, 1194 22 August, 1198 9. 12 December, 1194 Chinon 22 August, 1198 10. 7 January, 1198 Vaudreuil 22 August, 1198 11. 8 December, 1189 Dover 10 September [1198] 12. 6 December, 1189 Dover 15 September [1198] 13. 14 March, 1190 Nonancourt 18 September, 1198 14. 23 March, 1190 Rouen 19 September, 1198 15. 29 November, 1189 Canterbury 9 October, 1198 16. 6 October, 1189 Westminster 20 October, 1198 17. 7 December, 1189 Dover 24 October, 1198 18. 23 March, 1190 Rouen 5 November, 1198 19. 7 December, 1189 Dover 10 November, 1198 20. 17 September, 1189 Geddington 12 November [1198] 21. 28 November,[25] 1189 Canterbury 13 November, 1198 22. 27 July, 1197 Isle d'Andely 14 November, 1198 23. 10 November, 1189 Westminster 30 November, 1198 24. 5 August, 1190 Marseilles 7 December, 1198 25. September, 1197 Rouen 17 December, 1198 26. 1189 [No place] 24 January, 1199 27. 15 April, 1190 Evreux 3 March, 1199 28. 22 June, 1190 Chinon 11 March, 1199 29. 25 April, 1194 Portsmouth 5 April, 1199

_at_ _Grantee_ _Authority_