Chapter CXXVIII: Appendix: F (6)

"The Norman army … remained concentrated around London [in
the winter of 1067], and upon the southern and eastern coasts
nearest Gaul. The partition of the wealth of the invaded
territory now almost solely occupied them. Commissioners went
over the whole extent of country in which the army had left
garrisons; they took an exact inventory of property of every
kind, public and private, carefully registering every
particular. … A close inquiry was made into the names of all
the English partisans of Harold, who had either died in
battle, or survived the defeat, or by involuntary delays had
been prevented from joining the royal standard. All the
property of these three classes of men, lands, revenues,
furniture, houses, were confiscated; the children of the first
class were declared forever disinherited; the second class,
were, in like manner, wholly dispossessed of their estates
and property of every kind, and, says one of the Norman
writers, were only too grateful for being allowed to retain
their lives. Lastly, those who had not taken up arms were also
despoiled of all they possessed, for having had the intention
of taking up arms; but, by special grace, they were allowed to
entertain the hope that after many long years of obedience and
devotion to the foreign power, not they, indeed, but their
sons, might perhaps obtain from their new masters some portion
of their paternal heritage. Such was the law of the conquest,
according to the unsuspected testimony of a man nearly
contemporary with and of the race of the conquerors [Richard
Lenoir or Noirot, bishop of Ely in the 12th century]. The
immense product of this universal spoliation became the pay of
those adventurers of every nation who had enrolled under the
banner of the duke of Normandy. … Some received their pay in
money, others had stipulated that they should have a Saxon
wife, and William, says the Norman chronicle, gave them in
marriage noble dames, great heiresses, whose husbands had
fallen in the battle. One, only, among the knights who had
accompanied the conqueror, claimed neither lands, gold, nor
wife, and would accept none of the spoils of the conquered.
His name was Guilbert Fitz-Richard: he said that he had
accompanied his lord to England because such was his duty, but
that stolen goods had no attraction for him."

_A. Thierry,
History of the Conquest of England by the Normans,
book 4._

"Though many confiscations took place, in order to gratify the
Norman army, yet the mass of property was left in the hands of
its former possessors. Offices of high trust were bestowed
upon Englishmen, even upon those whose family renown might
have raised the most aspiring thoughts. But, partly through
the insolence and injustice of William's Norman vassals,
partly through the suspiciousness natural to a man conscious
of having overturned the national government, his yoke soon
became more heavy. The English were oppressed; they rebelled,
were subdued, and oppressed again. … An extensive spoliation
of property accompanied these revolutions. It appears by the
great national survey of Domesday Book, completed near the
close of the Conqueror's reign, that the tenants in capite of
the crown were generally foreigners. … But inferior
freeholders were much less disturbed in their estates than the
higher. … The valuable labours of Sir Henry Ellis, in
presenting us with a complete analysis of Domesday Book,
afford an opportunity, by his list of mesne tenants at the
time of the survey, to form some approximation to the relative
numbers of English and foreigners holding manors under the
immediate vassals of the crown. … Though I will not now
affirm or deny that they were a majority, they [the English]
form a large proportion of nearly 8,000 mesne tenants, who are
summed up by the diligence of Sir Henry Ellis. …
{794}
This might induce us to suspect that, great as the spoliation
must appear in modern times, and almost completely as the
nation was excluded from civil power in the commonwealth,
there is some exaggeration in the language of those writers
who represent them as universal reduced to a state of penury
and servitude. And this suspicion may be in some degree just.
Yet those writers, and especial the most English in feeling of
them all, M. Thierry, are warranted by the language of
contemporary authorities."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages.
chapter 8, part 2._

"By right of conquest William claimed nothing. He had come to
take his crown, and he had unluckily met with some opposition
in taking it. The crown-lands of King Edward passed of course
to his successor. As for the lands of other men, in William's
theory all was forfeited to the crown. The lawful heir had
been driven to seek his kingdom in arms; no Englishman had
helped him; many Englishmen had fought against him. All then
were directly or indirectly traitors. The King might lawfully
deal with the lands of all as his own. … After the general
redemption of lands, gradually carried out as William's power
advanced, no general blow was dealt at Englishmen as such. …
Though the land had never seen so great a confiscation, or one
so largely for the behoof of foreigners, yet there was nothing
new in the thing itself. … Confiscation of land was the
every-day punishment for various public and private crimes.
… Once granting the original wrong of his coming at all and
bringing a host of strangers with him, there is singularly
little to blame in the acts of the Conqueror."

_E. A. Freeman,
William the Conqueror,
pages 102-104, 126._

"After each effort [of revolt] the royal hand was laid on more
heavily: more and more land changed owners, and with the
change of owners the title changed. The complicated and
unintelligible irregularities of the Anglo-Saxon tenures were
exchanged for the simple and uniform feudal theory. … It was
not the change from alodial to feudal so much as from
confusion to order. The actual amount of dispossession was no
doubt greatest in the higher ranks."

_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 9, section. 95._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1069-1071.
The Camp of Refuge in the Fens.

"In the northern part of Cambridgeshire there is a vast extent
of low and marshy land, intersected in every direction by
rivers. All the waters from the centre of England which do not
flow into the Thames or the Trent, empty themselves into these
marshes, which in the latter end of autumn overflow, cover the
land, and are charged with fogs and vapours. A portion of this
damp and swampy country was then, as now, called the Isle of
Ely; another the Isle of Thorney, a third the Isle of
Croyland. This district, almost a moving bog, impracticable
for cavalry and for soldiers heavily armed, had more than once
served as a refuge for the Saxons in the time of the Danish
conquest; towards the close of the year 1069 it became the
rendezvous of several bands of patriots from various quarters,
assembling against the Normans. Former chieftains, now
dispossessed of their lands, successively repaired hither with
their clients, some by land, others by water, by the mouths of
the rivers. They here constructed entrenchments of earth and
wood, and established an extensive armed station, which took
the name of the Camp of Refuge. The foreigners at first
hesitated to attack them amidst their rushes and willows, and
thus gave them time to transmit messages in every direction,
at home and abroad, to the friends of old England. Become
powerful, they undertook a partisan war by land and by sea,
or, as the conquerors called it, robbery and piracy."

_A. Thierry,
History of the Conquest of England by the Normans,
book 4._

"Against the new tyranny the free men of the Danelagh and of
Northumbria rose. If Edward the descendant of Cerdic had been
little to them, William the descendant of Rollo was still
less. … So they rose, and fought; too late, it may be, and
without unity or purpose; and they were worsted by an enemy
who had both unity and purpose; whom superstition, greed, and
feudal discipline kept together, at least in England, in one
compact body of unscrupulous and terrible confederates. And
theirs was a land worth fighting for—a good land and large:
from Humber mouth inland to the Trent and merry Sherwood,
across to Chester and the Dee, round by Leicester and the five
burghs of the Danes; eastward again to Huntingdon and
Cambridge (then a poor village on the site of an old Roman
town); and then northward again into the wide fens, the land
of the Girvii, where the great central plateau of England
slides into the sea, to form, from the rain and river washings
of eight shires, lowlands of a fertility inexhaustible,
because ever-growing to this day. Into those fens, as into a
natural fortress, the Anglo-Danish noblemen crowded down
instinctively from the inland to make their last stand against
the French. … Most gallant of them all, and their leader in
the fatal struggle against William, was Hereward the Wake,
Lord of Bourne and ancestor of that family of Wake, the arms
of whom appear on the cover of this book."

_C. Kingsley,
Hereward the Wake,
Prelude._

The defence of the Camp of Refuge was maintained until
October, 1071, when the stronghold is said to have been
betrayed by the monks of Ely, who grew tired of the
disturbance of their peace. But Hereward did not submit. He
made his escape and various accounts are given of his
subsequent career and his fate.

_E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 20, section 1._

ALSO IN:
_C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
first series, chapter 8._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1085-1086.
The Domesday Survey and Domesday Book.

"The distinctive characteristic of the Norman kings [of
England] was their exceeding greed, and the administrative
system was so directed as to insure the exaction of the
highest possible imposts. From this bent originated the great
registration that William [the Conqueror] caused to be taken
of all lands, whether holden in fee or at rent; as well as the
census of the entire population. The respective registers were
preserved in the Cathedral of Winchester, and by the Norman
were designated 'Ie grand rôle,' 'Ie rôle royal,' 'Ie rôle de
Winchester'; but by the Saxons were termed 'the Book of the
Last Judgment,' 'Doomesdaege Boc,' 'Doomsday Book.'"

_E. Fischel,
The English Constitution,
chapter 1._

For a different statement see the following: "The recently
attempted invasion from Denmark seems to have impressed the
king with the desirability of· an accurate knowledge of his
resources, military and fiscal, both of which were based upon
the land. The survey was completed in the remarkably short
space of a single year [1085-1086]. In each shire the
commissioners made their inquiries by the oaths of the
sheriffs, the barons and their Norman retainers, the parish
priests, the reeves and six ceorls of each township.
{795}
The result of their labours was a minute description of all
the lands of the kingdom, with the exception of the four
northern counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland
and Durham, and part of what is now Lancashire. It enumerates
the tenants-in-chief, under tenants, freeholders, villeins,
and serfs, describes the nature and obligations of the
tenures, the value in the time of King Eadward, at the
conquest, and at the date of the survey, and, which gives the
key to the whole inquiry, informs the king whether any advance
in the valuation could be made. … The returns were
transmitted to Winchester, digested, and recorded in two
volumes which have descended to posterity under the name of
Domesday Book. The name itself is probably derived from Domus
Dei, the appellation of a chapel or vault of the cathedral at
Winchester in which the survey was at first deposited."

_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 2._

"Of the motives which induced the Conqueror and his council to
undertake the Survey we have very little reliable information,
and much that has been written on the subject savours more of
a deduction from the result than of a knowledge of the
immediate facts. We have the statement from the Chartulary of
St. Mary's, Worcester, of the appointment of the Commissioners
by the king himself to make the Survey. We have also the
heading of the 'Inquisitio Eliensis' which purports to give,
and probably does truly give, the items of the articles of
inquiry, which sets forth as follows:

I. What is the manor called?
II. Who held it in the time of King Edward?
III. Who now holds it?
IV. How many hides?
V. What teams are there in demesne?
VI. What teams of the men?
VII. What villans?
VIII. What cottagers?
IX. What bondmen?
X. What freemen and what sokemen?
XI. What woods?
XII. What meadow?
XIII. What pastures?
XIV. What mills?
XV. What fisheries?
XVI. What is added or taken away?
XVII. What the whole was worth together, and what now?
XVIII. How much each freeman or sokeman had or has?

All this to be estimated three times, viz. in the time of King
Edward, and when King William gave it, and how it is now, and
if more can be had for it than has been had. This document is,
I think, the best evidence we have of the form of the inquiry,
and it tallies strictly with the form of the various returns
as we now have them. … An external evidence failing, we are
driven back to the Record itself for evidence of the
Conqueror's intention in framing it, and anyone who carefully
studies it will be driven to the inevitable conclusion that it
was framed and designed in the spirit of perfect equity. Long
before the Conquest, in the period between the death of Alfred
and that of Edward the Confessor, the kingdom had been rapidly
declining into a state of disorganisation and decay. The
defence of the kingdom and the administration of justice and
keeping of the peace could not be maintained by the king's
revenues. The tax of Danegeld, instituted by Ethelred at first
to buy peace of the Danes, and afterwards to maintain the
defence of the kingdom, had more and more come to be levied
unequally and unfairly. The Church had obtained enormous
remissions of its liability, and its possessions were
constantly increasing. Powerful subjects had obtained further
remission, and the tax had come to be irregularly collected
and was burdensome upon the smaller holders and their poor
tenants, while the nobility and the Church escaped with a
small share in the burden. In short the tax had come to be
collected upon an old and uncorrected assessment. It had
probably dwindled in amount, and at last had been ultimately
remitted by Edward the Confessor. Anarchy and confusion
appears to have reigned throughout the realm. The Conqueror
was threatened with foreign invasion, and pressed on all sides
by complaints of unfair taxation on the part of his subjects.
Estates had been divided and subdivided, and the incidence of
the tax was unequal and unjust. He had to face the
difficulties before him and to count the resources of his
kingdom for its defence, and the means of doing so were not at
hand. In this situation his masterly and order-loving Norman
mind instituted this great inquiry, but ordered it to be taken
(as I maintain the study of the Book will show) in the most
public and open manner, and with the utmost impartiality, with
the view of levying the taxes of the kingdom equally and
fairly upon all. The articles of his inquiry show that he was
prepared to study the resources of his kingdom and consider
the liability of his subjects from every possible point of
view."

_Stuart Moore,
On the Study of Domesday Book
(Domesday Studies, volume 1)._

"Domesday Book is a vast mine of materials for the social and
economical history of our country, a mine almost
inexhaustible, and to a great extent as yet unworked. Among
national documents it is unique. There is nothing that
approaches it in interest and value except the Landnámabók,
which records the names of the original settlers in Iceland
and the designations they bestowed upon the places where they
settled, and tells us how the island was taken up and
apportioned among them. Such a document for England,
describing the way in which our forefathers divided the
territory they conquered, and how 'they called the lands after
their own names,' would indeed be priceless. But the Domesday
Book does, indirectly, supply materials for the history of the
English as well as of the Norman Conquest, for it records not
only how the lands of England were divided among the Norman
host which conquered at Senlac, but it gives us also the names
of the Saxon and Danish holders who possessed the lands before
the great battle which changed all the future history of
England, and enables us to trace the extent of the transfer of
the land from Englishmen to Normans; it shows how far the
earlier owners were reduced to tenants, and by its enumeration
of the classes of population—freemen, sokemen, villans,
cottiers, and slaves—it indicates the nature and extent of
the earlier conquests. Thus we learn that in the West of
England slaves were numerous, while in the East they were
almost unknown, and hence we gather that in the districts
first subdued the British population was exterminated or
driven off, while in the West it was reduced to servitude."

_I. Taylor,
Domesday Survivals
(Domesday Studies, volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest,
chapters 21-22 and appendix A in volume 5._

_W. de Gray Birch,
Domesday Book._

_F. W. Maitland,
Domesday Book (Dict. Pol. Econ.)._

{796}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1087-1135.
The sons of the Conqueror and their reigns.

William the Conqueror, when he died, left Normandy and Maine
to his elder son Robert, the English crown to his stronger
son, William, called Rufus, or the Red, and only a legacy of
£5,000 to his third son, Henry, called Beauclerc, or The
Scholar. The Conqueror's half-brother, Odo, soon began to
persuade the Norman barons in England to displace William
Rufus and plant Robert on the English throne. "The claim of
Robert to succeed his father in England, was supported by the
respected rights of primogeniture. But the Anglo-Saxon crown
had always been elective. … Primogeniture … gave at that
time no right to the crown of England, independent of the
election of its parliamentary assembly. Having secured this
title, the power of Rufus rested on the foundation most
congenial with the feelings and institutions of the nation,
and from their partiality received a popular support, which
was soon experienced to be impregnable. The danger compelled
the king to court his people by promises to diminish their
grievances; which drew 30,000 knights spontaneously to his
banners, happy to have got a sovereign distinct from hated
Normandy. The invasion of Robert, thus resisted by the English
people, effected nothing but some temporary devastations. …
The state of Normandy, under Robert's administration, for some
time furnished an ample field for his ambitious uncle's
activity. It continued to exhibit a negligent government in
its most vicious form. … Odo's politics only facilitated the
Reannexation of Normandy to England. But this event was not
completed in William's reign. When he retorted the attempt of
Robert, by an invasion of Normandy, the great barons of both
countries found themselves endangered by the conflict, and
combined their interest to persuade their respective
sovereigns to a fraternal pacification. The most important
article of their reconciliation provided, that if either
should die without issue, the survivor should inherit his
dominions. Hostilities were then abandoned; mutual courtesies
ensued; and Robert visited England as his brother's guest. The
mind of William the Red King, was cast in no common mould. It
had all the greatness and the defects of the chivalric
character, in its strong but rudest state. Impetuous, daring,
original, magnanimous, and munificent; it was also harsh,
tyrannical, and selfish; conceited of its own powers, loose in
its moral principles, and disdaining consequences. … While
Lanfranc lived, William had a counsellor whom he respected,
and whose good opinion he was careful to preserve. … The
death of Lanfranc removed the only man whose wisdom and
influence could have meliorated the king's ardent, but
undisciplined temper. It was his misfortune, on this event, to
choose for his favourite minister, an able, but an
unprincipled man. … The minister advised the king, on the
death of every prelate, to seize all his temporal possessions.
… The great revenues obtained from this violent innovation,
tempted both the king and his minister to increase its
productiveness, by deferring the nomination of every new
prelate for an indefinite period. Thus he kept many
bishoprics, and among them the see of Canterbury, vacant for
some years; till a severe illness alarming his conscience, he
suddenly appointed Anselm to the dignity; … His disagreement
with Anselm soon began. The prelate injudiciously began the
battle by asking the king to restore, not only the possessions
of his see, which were enjoyed by Lanfranc—a fair
request—but also the lands which had before that time
belonged to it; a demand that, after so many years alteration
of property, could not be complied with without great
disturbance of other persons. Anselm also exacted of the king
that in all things which concerned the church, his counsels
should be taken in preference to every other. … Though
Anselm, as a literary man, was an honour and a benefit to his
age, yet his monastic and studious habits prevented him from
having that social wisdom, that knowledge of human nature,
that discreet use of his own virtuous firmness, and that mild
management of turbulent power, which might have enabled him to
have exerted much of the influence of Lanfranc over the mind
of his sovereign. … Anselm, seeing the churches and abbeys
oppressed in their property, by the royal orders, resolved to
visit Rome, and to concert with the pope the measures most
adapted to overawe the king. … William threatened, that if
he did go to Rome, he would seize all the possessions of the
archbishopric. Anselm declared, that he would rather travel
naked and on foot, than desist from his resolution; and he
went to Dover with his pilgrim's staff and wallet. He was
searched before his departure, that he might carry away no
money, and was at last allowed to sail. But the king
immediately executed his threat, and sequestered all his lands
and property. This was about three years before the end of the
reign. … Anselm continued in Italy till William's death. The
possession of Normandy was a leading object of William's
ambition, and he gradually attained a preponderance in it. His
first invasion compelled Robert to make some cessions; these were
increased on his next attack: and when Robert determined to
join the Crusaders, he mortgaged the whole of Normandy to
William for three years, for 10,000 marks. He obtained the
usual success of a powerful invasion in Wales. The natives
were overpowered on the plains, but annoyed the invaders in
their mountains. He marched an army against Malcolm, king of
Scotland, to punish his incursions. Robert advised the
Scottish king to conciliate William; Malcolm yielded to his
counsel and accompanied Robert to the English court, but on
his return, was treacherously attacked by Mowbray, the earl of
Northumbria, and killed. William regretted the perfidious
cruelty of the action. … The government of William appears
to have been beneficial, both to England and Normandy. To the
church it was oppressive. … He had scarcely reigned twelve
years, when he fell by a violent death." He was hunting with a
few attendants in the New Forest. "It happened that, his friends
dispersing in pursuit of game, he was left alone, as some
authorities intimate, with Walter Tyrrel, a noble knight, whom
he had brought out of France, and admitted to his table, and
to whom he was much attached. As the sun was about to set, a
stag passed before the king, who discharged an arrow at it.
… At the same moment, another stag crossing, Walter Tyrrel
discharged an arrow at it. At this precise juncture, a shaft
struck the king, and buried itself in his breast. He fell,
without a word, upon the arrow, and expired on the spot. …
It seems to be a questionable point, whether Walter Tyrrel
actually shot the king. That opinion was certainly the most
prevalent at the time, both here and in France. …
{797}
None of the authorities intimate a belief of a purposed
assassination; and, therefore, it would be unjust now to
impute it to anyone. … Henry was hunting in a different part
of the New Forest when Rufus fell. … He left the body to the
casual charity of the passing rustic, and rode precipitately
to Winchester, to seize the royal treasure. … He obtained
the treasure, and proceeding hastily to London, was on the
following Sunday, the third day after William's death, elected
king, and crowned. … He began his reign by removing the
unpopular agents of his unfortunate brother. He recalled
Anselm, and conciliated the clergy. He gratified the nation,
by abolishing the oppressive exactions of the previous reign.
He assured many benefits to the barons, and by a charter,
signed on the day of his coronation, restored to the people
their Anglo-Saxon laws and privileges, as amended by his
father; a measure which ended the pecuniary oppressions of his
brother, and which favoured the growing liberties of the
nation. The Conqueror had noticed Henry's expanding intellect
very early; had given him the best education which the age
could supply. … He became the most learned monarch of his
day, and acquired and deserved the surname of Beauclerc, or
fine scholar. No wars, no cares of state, could afterwards
deprive him of his love of literature. The nation soon felt
the impulse and the benefit of their sovereign's intellectual
taste. He acceded at the age of 32, and gratified the nation
by marrying and crowning Mathilda, daughter of the sister of
Edgar Etheling by Malcolm the king of Scotland, who had been
waylaid and killed."

_S. Turner,
History of England during the Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapters 5-6._

The Norman lords, hating the "English ways" of Henry, were
soon in rebellion, undertaking to put Robert of Normandy (who
had returned from the Crusade) in his place. The quarrel went
on till the battle of Tenchebray, 1106, in which Robert was
defeated and taken prisoner. He was imprisoned for life. The
duchy and the kingdom were again united. The war in Normandy
led to a war with Louis king of France, who had espoused
Robert's cause. It was ended by the battle of Brêmule, 1119,
where the French suffered a bad defeat. In Henry's reign all
south Wales was conquered; but the north Welsh princes held
out. Another expedition against them was preparing, when, in
1135, Henry fell ill at the Castle of Lions in Normandy, and
died.

_E. A. Freeman,
The Reign of William Rufus and accession of Henry I._

ALSO IN:
_Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volume 4._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1135-1154.
The miserable reign of Stephen.
Civil war, anarchy and wretchedness in England.
The transition to hereditary monarchy.

After the death of William the Conqueror, the English throne
was occupied in succession by two of his sons, William II., or
William Rufus (1087-1100), and Henry I., or Henry Beauclerk
(1100-1135). The latter outlived his one legitimate son, and
bequeathed the crown at his death to his daughter, Matilda,
widow of the Emperor Henry V. of Germany and now wife of
Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. This latter marriage had been very
unpopular, both in England and Normandy, and a strong party
refused to recognize the Empress Matilda, as she was commonly
called. This party maintained the superior claims of the
family of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, who had
married the Earl of Blois. Naturally their choice would have
fallen upon Theobald of Blois, the eldest of Adela's sons; but
his more enterprising younger brother Stephen supplanted him.
Hastening to England, and winning the favour of the citizens
of London, Stephen secured the royal treasure and persuaded a
council of peers to elect him king. A most grievous civil war
ensued, which lasted for nineteen terrible years, during which
long period there was anarchy and great wretchedness in
England. "The land was filled with castles, and the castles
with armed banditti, who seem to have carried on their
extortions under colour of the military commands bestowed by
Stephen on every petty castellan. Often the very belfries of
churches were fortified. On the poor lay the burden of
building these strongholds; the rich suffered in their
donjeons. Many were starved to death, and these were the
happiest. Others were flung into cellars filled with reptiles,
or hung up by the thumbs till they told where their treasures
were concealed, or crippled in frames which did not suffer
them to move, or held just resting on the ground by sharp iron
collars round the neck. The Earl of Essex used to send out
spies who begged from door to door, and then reported in what
houses wealth was still left; the alms-givers were presently
seized and imprisoned. The towns that could no longer pay the
blackmail demanded from them were burned. … Sometimes the
peasants, maddened by misery, crowded to the roads that led
from a field of battle, and smote down the fugitives without
any distinction of sides. The bishops cursed vainly, when the
very churches were burned and monks robbed. 'To till the
ground was to plough the sea; the earth bare no corn, for the
land was all laid waste by such deeds, and men said openly
that Christ slept, and his saints. Such things, and more than
we can say, suffered we nineteen winters for our sins' (A. S.
Chronicle). … Many soldiers, sickened with the unnatural
war, put on the white cross and sailed for a nobler
battle-field in the East." As Matilda's son Henry—afterwards
Henry II.—grew to manhood, the feeling in his favor gained
strength and his party made head against the weak and
incompetent Stephen. Finally, in 1153, peace was brought about
under an agreement "that Stephen should wear the crown till
his death, and Henry receive the homage of the lords and towns
of the realm as heir apparent." Stephen died the next year and
Henry came to the throne with little further dispute.

_C. H. Pearson,
History of England During the Early and Middle Ages,
chapter 28._

"Stephen, as a king, was an admitted failure. I cannot,
however, but view with suspicion the causes assigned to his
failure by often unfriendly chroniclers. That their criticisms
had some foundation it would not be possible to deny. But in
the first place, had he enjoyed better fortune, we should have
heard less of his incapacity, and in the second, these writers,
not enjoying the same stand-point as ourselves, were, I think,
somewhat inclined to mistake effects for causes. … His
weakness throughout his reign … was due to two causes, each
supplementing the other.
{798}
These were—(1) the essentially unsatisfactory character of
his position, as resting, virtually, on a compact that he
should be king so long only as he gave satisfaction to those
who had placed him on the throne; (2) the existence of a rival
claim, hanging over him from the first, like the sword of
Damocles, and affording a lever by which the malcontents could
compel him to adhere to the original understanding, or even to
submit to further demands. … The position of his opponents
throughout his reign would seem to have rested on two
assumptions. The first, that a breach, on his part, of the
'contract' justified ipso facto revolt on theirs; the second,
that their allegiance to the king was a purely feudal
relation, and, as such, could be thrown off at any moment by
performing the famous diffidatio. This essential feature of
continental feudalism had been rigidly excluded by the
Conqueror. He had taken advantage, as is well known, of his
position as an English king, to extort an allegiance from his
Norman followers more absolute than he could have claimed as
their feudal lord. It was to Stephen's peculiar position that
was due the introduction for a time of this pernicious
principle into England. … Passing now to the other point,
the existence of a rival claim, we approach a subject of great
interest, the theory of the succession to the English Crown at
what may be termed the crisis of transition from the principle
of election (within the royal house) to that of hereditary
right according to feudal rules. For the right view on this
subject, we turn, as ever, to Dr. Stubbs, who, with his usual
sound judgment, writes thus of the Norman period:—'The crown
then continued to be elective. … But whilst the elective
principle was maintained in its fulness where it was necessary
or possible to maintain it, it is quite certain that the right
of inheritance, and inheritance as primogeniture, was
recognized as coordinate. … The measures taken by Henry I.
for securing the crown to his own children, whilst they prove
the acceptance of the hereditary principle, prove also the
importance of strengthening it by the recognition of the
elective theory.' Mr. Freeman, though writing with a strong
bias in favour of the elective theory, is fully justified in
his main argument, namely, that Stephen 'was no usurper in the
sense in which the word is vulgarly used.' He urges,
apparently with perfect truth, that Stephen's offence, in the
eyes of his contemporaries, lay in his breaking his solemn
oath, and not in his supplanting a rightful heir. And he aptly
suggests that the wretchedness of his reign may have hastened
the growth of that new belief in the divine right of the heir
to the throne, which first appears under Henry II., and in the
pages of William of Newburgh. So far as Stephen is concerned the
case is clear enough. But we have also to consider the
Empress. On what did she base her claim? I think that, as
implied in Dr. Stubbs' words, she based it on a double, not a
single, ground. She claimed the kingdom as King Henry's
daughter ('regis Henrici filia '), but she claimed it further
because the succession had been assured to her by oath ('sibi
juratum') as such. It is important to observe that the oath in
question can in no way be regarded in the light of an
election. … The Empress and her partisans must have largely,
to say the least, based their claim on her right to the throne
as her father's heir, and … she and they appealed to the
oath as the admission and recognition of that right, rather
than as partaking in any way whatever of the character of a
free election. … The sex of the Empress was the drawback to
her claim. Had her brother lived, there can be little question
that he would, as a matter of course, have succeeded his
father at his death. Or again, had Henry II. been old enough
to succeed his grandfather, he would, we may be sure, have
done so. … Broadly speaking, to sum up the evidence here
collected, it tends to the belief that the obsolescence of the
right of election to the English crown presents considerable
analogy to that of canonical election in the case of English
bishoprics. In both cases a free election degenerated into a
mere assent to a choice already made. We see the process of
change already in full operation when Henry I. endeavours to
extort beforehand from the magnates their assent to his
daughter's succession, and when they subsequently complain of
this attempt to dictate to them on the subject. We catch sight
of it again when his daughter bases her claim to the crown,
not on any free election, but on her rights as her father's
heir, confirmed by the above assent. We see it, lastly, when
Stephen, though owing his crown to election, claims to rule by
Divine right ('Dei gratia'), and attempts to reduce that
election to nothing more than a national 'assent' to his
succession. Obviously, the whole question turned on whether
the election was to be held first, or was to be a mere
ratification of a choice already made. … In comparing
Stephen with his successor the difference between their
circumstances has been insufficiently allowed for. At
Stephen's accession, thirty years of legal and financial
oppression had rendered unpopular the power of the Crown, and
had led to an impatience of official restraint which opened
the path to a feudal reaction: at the accession of Henry, on
the contrary, the evils of an enfeebled administration and of
feudalism run mad had made all men eager for the advent of a
strong king, and had prepared them to welcome the introduction
of his centralizing administrative reforms. He anticipated the
position of the house of Tudor at the close of the Wars of the
Roses, and combined with it the advantages which Charles II.
derived from the Puritan tyranny. Again, Stephen was hampered
from the first by his weak position as a king on sufferance,
whereas Henry came to his work unhampered by compact or
concession. Lastly, Stephen was confronted throughout by a
rival claimant, who formed a splendid rallying-point for all
the discontent in his realm: but Henry reigned for as long as
Stephen without a rival to trouble him; and when he found at
length a rival in his own son, a claim far weaker than that
which had threatened his predecessor seemed likely for a time
to break his power as effectually as the followers of the
Empress had broken that of Stephen. He may only, indeed, have
owed his escape to that efficient administration which years
of strength and safety had given him the time to construct. It
in no way follows from these considerations that Henry was not
superior to Stephen; but it does, surely, suggest itself that
Stephen's disadvantages were great, and that had he enjoyed
better fortune, we might have heard less of his defects."

_J. H. Round,
Geoffrey de Mandeville,
chapter. 1._

ALSO IN:
_Mrs. J. R. Green,
Henry the Second,
chapter 1._

See, also,
STANDARD, BATTLE OF THE (A. D. 1137).

{799}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189.
Henry II., the first of the Angevin kings (Plantagenets)
and his empire.

Henry II., who came to the English throne on Stephen's death,
was already, by the death of his father, Geoffrey, Count of
Anjou, the head of the great house of Anjou, in France. From
his father he inherited Anjou, Touraine and Maine; through his
mother, Matilda, daughter of Henry I., he received the dukedom
of Normandy as well as the kingdom of England; by marriage
with Eleanor, of Aquitaine, or Guienne, he added to his empire
the princely domain which included Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge,
Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, with claims of suzerainty over
Auvergne and Toulouse. "Henry found himself at twenty-one
ruler of dominions such as no king before him had ever dreamed
of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English
Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of
Flanders, he had command of the French coast from the Scheldt
to the Pyrenees, while his claims on Toulouse would carry him
to the shores of the Mediterranean. His subjects told with
pride how 'his empire reached from the Arctic Ocean to the
Pyrenees'; there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who
ruled over such vast domains. … His aim [a few years Inter]
seems to have been to rival in some sort the Empire of the
West, and to reign as an over-king, with sub-kings of his
various provinces, and England as one of them, around him. He
was connected with all the great ruling houses. … England
was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in the world
without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the
foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned
travellers, scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing
abroad.' The influence of English learning and English
statecraft made itself felt all over Europe. Never, perhaps,
in all the history of England was there a time when Englishmen
played so great a part abroad." The king who gathered this
wide, incongruous empire under his sceptre, by mere
circumstances of birth and marriage, proved strangely equal,
in many respects, to its greatness. "He was a foreign king who
never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the
most part in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of
Brabançons and hirelings. … It was under the rule of a
foreigner such as this, however, that the races of conquerors
and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were
one. It was by his power that England, Scotland and Ireland
were brought to some vague acknowledgement of a common
suzerain lord, and the foundations laid of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland. It was he who abolished
feudalism as a system of government, and left it little more
than a system of land tenure. It was he who defined the
relations established between Church and State, and decreed
that in England churchman as well as baron was to be held
under the Common Law. … His reforms established the judicial
system whose main outlines have been preserved to our own day.
It was through his 'Constitutions' and his 'Assizes' that it
came to pass that over all the world the English-speaking
races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It was by
his genius for government that the servants of the royal
household became transformed into Ministers of State. It was
he who gave England a foreign policy which decided our
continental relations for seven hundred years. The impress
which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time meets us
wherever we turn."

_Mrs. J. R. Green,
Henry the Second,
chapters 1-2._

Henry II. and his two sons, Richard I. (Cœur de Lion), and
John, are distinguished, sometimes, as the Angevin kings, or
kings of the House of Anjou, and sometimes as the
Plantagenets, the latter name being derived from a boyish
habit ascribed to Henry's father, Count Geoffrey, of "adorning
his cap with a sprig of 'plantagenista,' the broom which in
early summer makes the open country of Anjou and Maine a blaze
of living gold." Richard retained and ruled the great realm of
his father; but John lost most of his foreign inheritance,
including Normandy, and became the unwilling benefactor of
England by stripping her kings of alien interests and alien
powers and bending their necks to Magna Charta.

_K. Norgate,
England under the Angevin Kings._

ALSO IN:
_W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets._

See, also,
AQUITAINE (GUIENNE): A. D. 1137-1152;
IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170.
Conflict of King and Church.
The Constitutions of Clarendon.
Murder of Archbishop Becket.

"Archbishop Theobald was at first the King's chief favourite
and adviser, but his health and his influence declining,
Becket [the Archdeacon of Canterbury] was found apt for
business as well as amusement, and gradually became intrusted
with the exercise of all the powers of the crown. … The
exact time of his appointment as Chancellor has not been
ascertained, the records of the transfer of the Great Seal not
beginning till a subsequent reign, and old biographers being
always quite careless about dates. But he certainly had this
dignity soon after Henry's accession. … Becket continued
Chancellor till the year 1162, without any abatement in his
favour with the King, or in the power which he possessed, or
in the energy he displayed, or in the splendour of his career.
… In April, 1161, Archbishop Theobald died. Henry declared
that Becket should succeed,—no doubt counting upon his
co-operation in carrying on the policy hitherto pursued in
checking the encroachments of the clergy and of the see of
Rome. … The same opinion of Becket's probable conduct was
generally entertained, and a cry was raised that 'the Church
was in danger.' The English bishops sent a representation to
Henry against the appointment, and the electors long refused
to obey his mandate, saying that 'it was indecent that a man
who was rather a soldier than a priest, and who had devoted
himself to hunting and falconry instead of the study of the
Holy Scriptures, should be placed in the chair of St.
Augustine.' … The universal expectation was, that Becket
would now attempt the part so successfully played by Cardinal
Wolsey in a succeeding age; that, Chancellor and Archbishop,
he would continue the minister and personal friend of the
King; that he would study to support and extend all the
prerogatives of the Crown, which he himself was to exercise;
and that in the palaces of which he was now master he would
live with increased magnificence and luxury. … Never was
there so wonderful a transformation. Whether from a
predetermined purpose, or from a sudden change of inclination,
he immediately became in every respect an altered man.
{800}
Instead of the stately and fastidious courtier, was seen the
humble and squalid penitent. Next [to] his skin he wore
hair-cloth, populous with vermin; he lived upon roots, and his
drink was water, rendered nauseous by an infusion of fennel.
By way of further penance and mortification, he frequently
inflicted stripes on his naked back. … He sent the Great
Seal to Henry, in Normandy, with this short message, 'I desire
that you will provide yourself with another Chancellor, as I
find myself hardly sufficient for the duties of one office,
and much less of two.' The fond patron, who had been so eager
for his elevation, was now grievously disappointed and
alarmed. … He at once saw that he had been deceived in his
choice. … The grand struggle which the Church was then
making was, that all churchmen should be entirely exempted
from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, whatever crime
they might have committed. … Henry, thinking that he had a
favourable opportunity for bringing the dispute to a crisis,
summoned an assembly of all the prelates at Westminster, and
himself put to them this plain question: 'Whether they were
willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the
kingdom?' Their reply, framed by Becket, was: 'We are willing,
saving our own order.' … The King, seeing what was
comprehended in the reservation, retired with evident marks of
displeasure, deprived Becket of the government of Eye and
Berkhamstead, and all the appointments which he held at the
pleasure of the Crown, and uttered threats as to seizing the
temporalities of all the bishops, since they would not
acknowledge their allegiance to him as the head of the state.
The legate of Pope Alexander, dreading a breach with so
powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, advised
Becket to submit for the moment; and he with his brethren,
retracting the saving clause, absolutely promised 'to observe
the laws and customs of the kingdom.' To avoid all future
dispute, Henry resolved to follow up his victory by having
these laws and customs, as far as the Church was concerned,
reduced into a code, to be sanctioned by the legislature, and
to be specifically acknowledged by all the bishops. This was
the origin of the famous 'Constitutions of Clarendon.'''
Becket left the kingdom (1164). Several years later he made
peace with Henry and returned to Canterbury; but soon he again
displeased the King, who cried in a rage, 'Who will rid me of
this turbulent priest?' Four knights who were present
immediately went to Canterbury, where they slew the Archbishop
in the cathedral (December 29, 1170). "The government tried to
justify or palliate the murder. The Archbishop of York likened
Thomas à Becket to Pharaoh, who died by the Divine vengeance,
as a punishment for his hardness of heart; and a proclamation
was issued, forbidding anyone to speak of Thomas of Canterbury
as a martyr: but the feelings of men were too strong to be
checked by authority; pieces of linen which had been dipped in
his blood were preserved as relics; from the time of his death
it was believed that miracles were worked at his tomb; thither
flocked hundreds of thousands, in spite of the most violent
threats of punishment; at the end of two years he was
canonised at Rome; and, till the breaking out of the
Reformation, St. Thomas of Canterbury, for pilgrimages and
prayers, was the most distinguished Saint in England."

_Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapter 3._

"What did Henry II. propose to do with a clerk who was accused
of a crime? … Without doing much violence to the text, it is
possible to put two different interpretations upon that famous
clause in the Constitutions of Clarendon which deals with
criminous clerks. … According to what seems to be the
commonest opinion, we might comment upon this clause in some
such words as these:—Offences of which a clerk may be accused
are of two kinds. They are temporal or they are
ecclesiastical. Under the former head fall murder, robbery,
larceny, rape, and the like; under the latter, incontinence,
heresy, disobedience to superiors, breach of rules relating to
the conduct of divine service, and so forth. If charged with
an offence of the temporal kind, the clerk must stand his
trial in the king's court; his trial, his sentence, will be
like that of a layman. For an ecclesiastical offence, on the
other hand, he will be tried in the court Christian. The king
reserves to his court the right to decide what offences are
temporal, what ecclesiastical; also he asserts the right to
send delegates to supervise the proceedings of the spiritual
tribunals. … Let us attempt a rival commentary. The author
of this clause is not thinking of two different classes of
offences. The purely ecclesiastical offences are not in
debate. No one doubts that for these a man will be tried in
and punished by the spiritual court. He is thinking of the
grave crimes, of murder and the like. Now every such crime is
a breach of temporal law, and it is also a breach of canon
law. The clerk who commits murder breaks the king's peace, but
he also infringes the divine law, and—no canonist will doubt
this—ought to be degraded. Very well. A clerk is accused of
such a crime. He is summoned before the king's court, and he
is to answer there—let us mark this word respondere—for what
he ought to answer for there. What ought he to answer for
there? The breach of the king's peace and the felony. When he
has answered, … then, without any trial, he is to be sent to
the ecclesiastical court. In that court he will have to answer
as an ordained clerk accused of homicide, and in that court
there will be a trial (res ibi tractabitur). If the spiritual
court convicts him it will degrade him, and thenceforth the
church must no longer protect him. He will be brought back
into the king's court, … and having been brought back, no
longer a clerk but a mere layman, he will be sentenced
(probably without any further trial) to the layman's
punishment, death or mutilation. The scheme is this:
accusation and plea in the temporal court; trial, conviction,
degradation, in the ecclesiastical court; sentence in the
temporal court to the layman's punishment. This I believe to
be the meaning of the clause."

_F. W. Maitland,
Henry II. and the Criminous Clerks
(English Historical Review, April, 1892),
pages 224-226._

The Assize of Clarendon, sometimes confused with the
Constitutions of Clarendon, was an important decree approved
two years later. It laid down the principles on which the
administration of justice was to be carried out, in twenty-two
articles drawn up for the use of the judges.

_Mrs. J. R Green,
Henry the Second,
chapters 5-6._

{801}

"It may not be without instruction to remember that the
Constitutions of Clarendon, which Becket spent his life in
opposing, and of which his death procured the suspension, are
now incorporated in the English law, and are regarded, without
a dissentient voice, as among the wisest and most necessary of
English institutions; that the especial point for which he
surrendered his life was not the independence of the clergy
from the encroachments of the Crown, but the personal and now
forgotten question of the superiority of the see of Canterbury
to the see of York."

_A. P. Stanley,
Historical Memorials of Canterbury,
page 124._

ALSO IN:
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, sections 139-141._

_W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 4._

_J. C. Robertson,
Becket._

_J. A. Giles,
Life and Letters of Thomas à Becket._

_R. H. Froude,
History of the Contest between Archbishop
Thomas à Becket and Henry II.
(Remains, part 2, volume 2)._

_J. A. Froude,
Life and Times of Thomas Becket._

_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 29._

See, also,
BENEFIT OF CLERGY,
and JURY, TRIAL BY.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1189.
Accession of King Richard I. (called Cœur de Lion).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1189-1199.
Reign of Richard Cœur de Lion.
His Crusade and campaigns in France.